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Contents
- 1 Request for comment: Identification of train or railway stations in the lead
- 2 Disputing a major BOLDSYN change
- 3 Lead sentences for aircraft incidents (crashes, hijackings, etc.)
- 4 Lead length
- 5 Discussion of BLP leads
- 6 Bold text for major sub-subjects also covered by the article?
- 7 Non use of the title at the beginning of the lead section.
- 8 Bolding of "title" text in redirected sections of articles
Request for comment: Identification of train or railway stations in the lead
(non-admin closure)Responding to the request for closure at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. Majority of respondents prefer option 1, that the word station follow the name (15 to 4 by my count). One argument for is that it is clearer to our readers, which is a strong argument. The "station is a station" wording should be solvable with some rewording of the lead sentence. What is slightly less clearer is the bolding (and case) of station as it is not addressed in the opening question and only by a few of the participants. However, reading the arguments I see consensus amoung thse who do discuss this issue to only bold and capitilse station if it is part of the proper name of the station. This would seem to address many of the concerns of the editors who prefer option 2 as well. There was discussion at the request for closure noticeboard as to where the result of this RFC should be recorded. There was no indication in the rfc as to what changes this would necessitate at this page and it is probably too specific to fit in here anyway. WP:STATIONS was mentioned there and that seems the most logical place. AIRcorn (talk) 11:06, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In what way should the WP:Lead sentence of articles dealing with railway stations or train stations be fashioned? Choose one or both of the paragraphs below, or fashion one of your own and post it in an appropriate place). Tell why you prefer your choice and work for a WP:Consensus if at all possible. (Note: The word station or its equivalent is normally already included in the WP:Title of the article.)
1. Name of station followed by word station in the lead
- The Abada railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serves Abada, India, in Howrah district. It is on the Howrah-Kharagpur line. It is 18 km (11 mi) from Howrah Station.
- Aosta railway station (Italian: Stazione di Aosta; French: Gare d'Aoste) is the main station serving the city and comune of Aosta, in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley, northwestern Italy.
- Culver City station of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system is on the northeast edge of Culver City, California.
2. Name of station only in the lead
- Abada is a railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serving Abada, India, in Howrah district. It is on the Howrah-Kharagpur line. It is 18 km (11 mi) from Howrah Station.
- Aosta is the main station serving the city and comune of Aosta, in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley, northwestern Italy.
- Culver City is an elevated light rail station in the Los Angeles Metro system located at the northeast edge of Culver City, California.
BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Comments, opinions and suggestions
- The problem with Number 2, above, is that Abada, Aosta and Culver City are not really train stations at all: They are villages or cities. Therefore, we should use the word train station or railway station in the first paragraph to distinguish the station from the city (the first choice, above). This also follows the normal style of repeating the title of the article in the lead if at all possible. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
- Definitely go with number 1. I would prefer the use of "the" as well (i.e. "The Aosta railway station" and "The Culver City station"). Eman235/talk 23:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
- Many of them are not actually named with "the" at all, though. Depends on the system and even the specific station. Forcibly adding "the" to all of them would be like adding it to all band names or all organization names. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 01:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- #1. The overwhelming majority of stations are named after something -- a square, town, geographical feature, whatever -- usually right nearby. Adding "station" clarifies. Herostratus (talk) 00:51, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1, obviously (with or without the bolding, depending on if it's part of the proper name or is a disambigator. The stations' names are "Foo Station" (or some other word than "Station", depending on the system and the language), or sometimes "Foo [disambiguated by lowercase] station"; the "Foo" part of the name is some other placename, of something (city, town, village, neighborhood, street, intersection, stadium, convention center, etc., etc., etc.) for which the station is named. Direct analogues: If I write a book called The Badass Guide to Oakland, the name of my book is "The Badass Guide to Oakland", not just "Oakland". If a neo-pagan group builds the Temple of Ovinnik, devoted to the Polish cat god Ovinnik, its name is the "Temple of Ovinnik" [or, more likely, the Polish-language equivalent], not just "Ovinnik". This isn't even just basic English usage, it's basic reasoning about proper names generally. A lead beginning "Culver City is an elevated light rail station" is factually incorrect in any register and context of usage other than a light-rail specialist publication, and even there it would be questionable; using it here is willfully confusing readers for no reason other than insider jargon-wankery. WP does not use confusing, jargonistic shorthand lingo or other stylization just so specialists/aficionados can wink and grin to each other. See WP:Specialized style fallacy for a detailed explanation why this is a terrible idea on Wikipedia. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 01:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
PS: As Dicklyon points out below, cases where the lead would be redundant can be rewritten to avoid this, and we should not add "Station" capitalized where it does not belong that way (there are some cases where a station is given a name that is not ambiguous with anything nearby, e.g. "Metro Center"). Lowercase "station" can be used as as disambiguator when it's not part of the formal name. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Clarified. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
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- I don't understand what the word disambiguator means in this parrticular context. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- @BeenAroundAWhile:: "That which disambiguates", i.e. the part of the title that is present to disambiguate between one name and another. It's the "(singer}" in Pink (singer) (parenthetical disambiguation), the "cat" in Siamese cat (natural disambiguation), etc. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 01:37, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- I don't understand what the word disambiguator means in this parrticular context. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1 otherwise its too difficult in unfamiliar areas to tell them from the name of towns, DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1 would seem the obvious answer, but where's the counter-argument? - why are we being asked? Did this RfC come out of the blue, or does it refer back to some discussion elsewhere?: Noyster (talk), 10:27, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, check these links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palms_station&type=revision&diff=705527904&oldid=705517756 / https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Culver_City_station&type=revision&diff=705393708&oldid=705390404 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Palms_station#Palms_station BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 15:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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- Among many others. This has been a perennial WP:SSF issue with train stations, bus stops, etc. It's similar to the long-running one with animal breeds, e.g. "The Himalayan is a breed of...", being used when "Himalayan" can refer to breeds of more than one species or even to human populations, and the sensible approach is "The Himalayan rabbit is...", "The Himalayan cat is...", etc. Specialists, i.e. breeders and aficionados, demand the short usage because rabbit, or cat, or cavy/guinea pig, or whatever pet magazines use it, since their context is already limited to a particular species (just as "19th St" on list of stops on the transit map is already clear, in context, that it's a name for a stop). The fans of the short form mistake it for a formal proper name instead of a jargonistic shorthand, and seem unable or unwilling to see that it's problematic in an all-topics, all-audiences encyclopedia. Exact same issue with train station names, and various other cases. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:03, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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- No. 1 per all the above. Use or omission of "the" should not be mandated, but the proper name of the station should be used. (I think most stations don't have "The" in their name, but we don't need to exclude any that do, if there are any.) --Stfg (talk) 10:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1 per all the above. I agree entirely with Stfg regarding "The". Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- #1 Google Maps is the world's best funded project in this space and it uses option #2. I hesitate to oppose Google, because it makes thoughtful decisions. However, I think that Google Maps and other maps use #2 because it is the real name for the place, and because there is no need to do disambiguation about all sorts of places and concepts that would not appear on a map. On Wikipedia railway stations often share a name with lots of other concepts, and since this is an encyclopedia, we have to list them all. Saying "railway station" as part of the name is preferable to a third option, using parentheses like "Abada (railway station)" because it is more comprehensible and helpful for our audience. I acknowledge that #2 is the correct name, but for Wikipedia's audience, we ought to use #1. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- True, but Google Maps places the station name right next to the station symbol, so there is no ambiguity there. Often, the name of the town and the name of the station are both present, in different typefaces. Maps have different requirements from us regarding the use of space. --Stfg (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Actually, Google Maps regularly disambiguates with "Station" [1]. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Right you are. But in fact it's even more complicated. The pinpoint on this one shows London's Waterloo Station (with the "Station" capitalized, anyone who says it's not part of the proper name please note). Just to the left of it is the attached Waterloo underground station. At one magnification, this is just shown as "Waterloo" printed next to the underground station symbol (the red circle with the blue line through it). Zoom in on it enough, though, and it becomes Waterloo Station as well. Off to the right, London Waterloo East never seems to get "Station" at any zoom, and so on. Explore around this area and you'll find a variety of approaches. I think we have to conclude that Google Maps isn't applying a fixed standard at all, but is pragmatically managing screen space, and that it should not be used as a source for a naming standard. --Stfg (talk) 10:02, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- Sure. I am not implying that "Station" always is or never is part of the proper name of a station; that much is a definitely case-by-case, which is why some will have "Station" and some will have "station" in their titles. The same thing applies, e.g., to animal breeds; in a few cases the species name is a formal part of the breed name (when it is intolerably ambiguous, even to specialists, without it, e.g. the American Quarter Horse and the Norwegian Forest Cat; in about 98% of cases, it is not, thus Argentine Criollo cattle and the Siamese cat. So, no new ground is being covered here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Right you are. But in fact it's even more complicated. The pinpoint on this one shows London's Waterloo Station (with the "Station" capitalized, anyone who says it's not part of the proper name please note). Just to the left of it is the attached Waterloo underground station. At one magnification, this is just shown as "Waterloo" printed next to the underground station symbol (the red circle with the blue line through it). Zoom in on it enough, though, and it becomes Waterloo Station as well. Off to the right, London Waterloo East never seems to get "Station" at any zoom, and so on. Explore around this area and you'll find a variety of approaches. I think we have to conclude that Google Maps isn't applying a fixed standard at all, but is pragmatically managing screen space, and that it should not be used as a source for a naming standard. --Stfg (talk) 10:02, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- Actually, Google Maps regularly disambiguates with "Station" [1]. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- True, but Google Maps places the station name right next to the station symbol, so there is no ambiguity there. Often, the name of the town and the name of the station are both present, in different typefaces. Maps have different requirements from us regarding the use of space. --Stfg (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- #1 seems less ambiguous, yeah, but the first sentence about the Culver city station provides more info in style #2 than in #1. I guess you could say it's easier to convey more information in one opening sentence the #2 way, but I'm not sure if that's enough merit to use it, especially seeing as everybody seems to agree on this one. Themidget17 (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- #1 In my opinion this one is the most informative and proper. I would go with this. Sainsf <^>Talk all words 15:46, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah, #1 should be standard practice, though I can't dismiss the possibility that #2 might actually be correct in a few rare cases. Note also that, in almost all cases, the word "station" should have a lowercase "s" (I bring this up because this has been an issue – lowercase "s" vs. capital "S" – for the naming of station articles...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:50, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Both are OK, depending on things. I don't know if it's coincidental, or if my edits yesterday (like this one) provoked this, but I've been taking the "station" out in some cases, essentially moving #1 to #2, where the station name does not include station, and the infobox uses the bare station name as title. I agree that station usually needs to be in the article title, but maybe not in the bolded part of the lead. You can say "Culver City is a station on the ..." rather than "Culver City station is a station on the ...", with no loss of clarity (that's not the best example, but that repeated "station" form is what I was fixing, choosing #2 in some cases). There are other ways to form the lead, not necessarily bolding the title, as in Hinton, Alberta, railway station: "The Hinton railway station is on the Canadian National Railway mainline in Hinton, Alberta." Dicklyon (talk) 16:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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- But "Culver City" isn't a "station" – it's a neighborhood, and the article isn't talking about the neighborhood but about the station. Stating "Culver City station is..." (or "Culver City station is...") is the clearest way to get that point across. (Also, many of us feel that there is value in consistency...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Also, you don't have to phrase it ""Culver City station is a station on the Expo Line of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system". Instead, you can do something similar to what BAAW did here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palms_station&type=revision&diff=705527904&oldid=705517756 . --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Like I said, maybe not the best example. See if Oakridge–41st Avenue station is acceptable to you as a good example of #2 being OK. Many US stations are done this way, e.g. Greenbelt station. Dicklyon (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- My $0.02? – I'd rephrase both those ledes to open with "Oakridge–41st Avenue station is..." and "Greenbelt station is..." --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:47, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- @Dicklyon: You should be aware that one editor changed many of them to read that way, and is now the main objecting voice. Check the article edits. Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- My $0.02? – I'd rephrase both those ledes to open with "Oakridge–41st Avenue station is..." and "Greenbelt station is..." --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:47, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Like I said, maybe not the best example. See if Oakridge–41st Avenue station is acceptable to you as a good example of #2 being OK. Many US stations are done this way, e.g. Greenbelt station. Dicklyon (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- 1. There are some cases where it may really be more common to leave out station, but in the vast majority of cases "xxx station" makes it much clearer what the article is about. It comes off as very odd to say things like "Culver City is a station..."--Cúchullain t/c 17:18, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Number 1. It makes more sense as surely the name of Aosta Railway Station is that and not Aosta, as that is the name of the location? Number one has the best wording and makes more sense, logically. --Ches (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Number 1. It just reads better, and matches the article title. oknazevad (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Number 1, but let's ban the phrase "train station" from Wikipedia. We are supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a depository for yoofspeak. Mjroots (talk) 18:39, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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- @Mjroots: FYI "train station" is normal American usage, even though it's not what you and I say. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- @Secondarywaltz: it's UK yoofspeak too.
Mjroots (talk) 19:26, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't get how "train station" is slang. It's not an idiom where you can't get the meaning from the dictionary definition of the individual words. It just means "train" + "station"... Herostratus (talk) 16:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- @Secondarywaltz: it's UK yoofspeak too.
- @Mjroots: FYI "train station" is normal American usage, even though it's not what you and I say. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1 - reads better and distinguishes from the city/town/village. Tom29739 [talk] 18:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC).
- Number 1. Agree with the comments above supporting inherent clarity by using Foo station in lede sentance. Specific to the example article, Culver City is an incorporated city, and quite distinct from Culver City station, a small unenclosed transportation structure located within it. The current edit (6:22) appears aborted, or simplistically lifted from an Expo Line transit map, that can retain clarity while only using placenames because only stations are indicated. — Look2See1 t a l k → 19:37, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Number 2. I apologize to be going against consensus on this, but the recent WP:USSTATION moves are creating unnecessary redundancy in the leads, because editors are thus changing the lead "per the article title." For instance, when the article Culver City station was located at the title Culver City (Los Angeles Metro station), the article did not start with "'Culver City station is a station...". The recent changes to these stations should not affect the already-correct leads, but unfortunately, they do. We don't say "The One World Trade Center building is a building" or "Broadway street is a street", either, unless "building" is part of the proper name; the same goes with stations. For example, look at the Amtrak map. Amtrak definitely doesn't suffix its stations with "station," yet the recent USSTATION edits are appending "station" to the article lead and the infobox (!). Metrolink, LIRR, and SEPTA, to name a few US railway agencies, do not suffix the vast majority of their stations with "station," because "station" is just a disambiguator. Though I agree it can be confusing sometimes, in most cases it is clear what's being referred to. epicgenius (talk) 21:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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- The Amtrak map shows destinations, not station names. When a railroad is talking about their stations, it would be redundant to say "station" every time. Articles here must make it clear whether it is the destination community or the station that is the subject. Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Doesn't having "station" in the title and in the lead sentence make that clear enough, without styling it to look like "station" is part of the actual name of the station? Dicklyon (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Lower-casing the station part would probably fix that, and avoiding silly repetition like "Foobar station is a station", as you suggested. I think what we're trying to get at here is the misleading cases like "Culver City is a station ..." when Culver City is actually a place name for which the station is named. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:12, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
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- And I have no problem with that for Culver City station. I don't think it's important to have a general rule such that we'd have to do the same for Oakridge–41st Avenue station. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- I had thought of that, and at first leaned in that direction, but it looks like an intersection name, and many such station names are of intersections (i.e. places which could be or become notable). My present theory is that this sort of name is a disambiguate-because-it's-naturally-ambiguous case, like the British White one; we need not have an actual article on an intersection, at Oakridge–41st Avenue, in order to use natural/descriptive disambiguation to clarify with a title like Oakridge–41st Avenue station. I would agree that it can be approached on a case-by-case basis as we did with animal breed names, as at Talk:Algerian Arab sheep#Requested move 11 August 2015, etc. SmokeyJoe's comment at that RM sums it up well; to paraphrase it for this sort of case: The short form has recognizability problems unless already firmly in the context of rail transit (true for the sources but not true for a WP article title), so it is ambiguous and imprecise. The title should describe the topic, and the most important thing about this topic is that it is a station, which the short title doesn't imply.
This relates a bit to the userspacing last year of a pair of "concision is the master of all title discussions" essays: We actually don't seek the shortest possible title at the expense of the other criteria. One of them is consistency, so I would expect that Metro Center would be at Metro Center station eventually on that basis, anyway, even if it's not likely to be mistaken for something other than the station. D'oh; I wrote too soon; I checked and Metro Center goes to a disambiguation page, with a bunch of shopping malls and convention centers and multiple stations. There's probably an example somewhere of a station not named for anything but something intrinsic to the rail system. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- The lowercase "station" is a disambiguator. Only use it in the article when you need it, if at all. Otherwise don't use it. It's simple. epicgenius (talk) 21:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I had thought of that, and at first leaned in that direction, but it looks like an intersection name, and many such station names are of intersections (i.e. places which could be or become notable). My present theory is that this sort of name is a disambiguate-because-it's-naturally-ambiguous case, like the British White one; we need not have an actual article on an intersection, at Oakridge–41st Avenue, in order to use natural/descriptive disambiguation to clarify with a title like Oakridge–41st Avenue station. I would agree that it can be approached on a case-by-case basis as we did with animal breed names, as at Talk:Algerian Arab sheep#Requested move 11 August 2015, etc. SmokeyJoe's comment at that RM sums it up well; to paraphrase it for this sort of case: The short form has recognizability problems unless already firmly in the context of rail transit (true for the sources but not true for a WP article title), so it is ambiguous and imprecise. The title should describe the topic, and the most important thing about this topic is that it is a station, which the short title doesn't imply.
- And I have no problem with that for Culver City station. I don't think it's important to have a general rule such that we'd have to do the same for Oakridge–41st Avenue station. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
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- Lower-casing the station part would probably fix that, and avoiding silly repetition like "Foobar station is a station", as you suggested. I think what we're trying to get at here is the misleading cases like "Culver City is a station ..." when Culver City is actually a place name for which the station is named. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:12, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Doesn't having "station" in the title and in the lead sentence make that clear enough, without styling it to look like "station" is part of the actual name of the station? Dicklyon (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- The Amtrak map shows destinations, not station names. When a railroad is talking about their stations, it would be redundant to say "station" every time. Articles here must make it clear whether it is the destination community or the station that is the subject. Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- "[Foo] station is a station..." is just bad lede writing. That is really a separate issue from this proposal. Once it's agreed that train station articles should begin with "[Foo] station is..." we can "fix" the articles with the "[Foo] station is a station..." nonsense intro by rewording the first one or two sentences of the ledes of those station articles. But I don't find this a compelling reason not to adopt Proposal #1 as consensus... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- If we're going to add "station" twice, at least say "the Foobar station is a station..." But that is still redundant. epicgenius (talk) 03:17, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- I understand the points above, but removing "station" makes the intros even more awkward than including the word "station" twice. Most readers likely find it odd to hear that "Culver City is a station". While this is primarily a problem with stations named after the location they're in, it also applies to things like "Central is a station...", let alone "Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. is a station". FWIW, there are other ways to fix the wording, for instance, "Culver City station" is an Amtrak train station in..." isn't nearly so awkward.--Cúchullain t/c 18:00, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- If the station's name is not a proper noun, "station" is not part of the name, so it is fine to call X station "X is a station..." epicgenius (talk) 04:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- That is not preferable. Again, the "Foo station is a station..." nonsense can be handled with better lede writing (my preference for handling it is to generally go with "Foo station is located... It is a station on..." format). But "Foo station is..." at the very beginning of the lede is a vastly preferable (and clearer) way to handle this than "Foo is a station..." – the latter in many cases is somewhere between not preferable to downright confusing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Just use common sense and write like we know how to. "Foobar station is a stop on the Bazquuz City municipal railway line. The station was built in 2016, and ...". This is not hard. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah, except the name of the station is not "Foobar station," it's "Foobar." Last time I checked, I did not see "station" being applied to the proper name of the article. Hey, let's uppercase the "street" in the names of streets because it's part of a proper noun! Oh, it already is a proper noun? Never mind, I guess common and proper nouns are different. (Do you see the point I am trying to make?) epicgenius (talk) 21:33, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- It seems to be the same one I am. If the name of the street is Jackson Street, it would be capitalized, and our lead might begin Jackson Street is a residential and business thoroughfare in ..."; it would not begin "Jackson is a street", "Jackson Street is", "Jackson street is", "Jackson street is", or Jackson Street is a street". If it were "Jackson Road" we still might identify it as a street, without capitalizing that word: "Jackson Road is a street in ...". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- SMcC's comment above makes so much sense that I can add nothing more to it. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- It seems to be the same one I am. If the name of the street is Jackson Street, it would be capitalized, and our lead might begin Jackson Street is a residential and business thoroughfare in ..."; it would not begin "Jackson is a street", "Jackson Street is", "Jackson street is", "Jackson street is", or Jackson Street is a street". If it were "Jackson Road" we still might identify it as a street, without capitalizing that word: "Jackson Road is a street in ...". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah, except the name of the station is not "Foobar station," it's "Foobar." Last time I checked, I did not see "station" being applied to the proper name of the article. Hey, let's uppercase the "street" in the names of streets because it's part of a proper noun! Oh, it already is a proper noun? Never mind, I guess common and proper nouns are different. (Do you see the point I am trying to make?) epicgenius (talk) 21:33, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Just use common sense and write like we know how to. "Foobar station is a stop on the Bazquuz City municipal railway line. The station was built in 2016, and ...". This is not hard. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- That is not preferable. Again, the "Foo station is a station..." nonsense can be handled with better lede writing (my preference for handling it is to generally go with "Foo station is located... It is a station on..." format). But "Foo station is..." at the very beginning of the lede is a vastly preferable (and clearer) way to handle this than "Foo is a station..." – the latter in many cases is somewhere between not preferable to downright confusing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- If the station's name is not a proper noun, "station" is not part of the name, so it is fine to call X station "X is a station..." epicgenius (talk) 04:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I understand the points above, but removing "station" makes the intros even more awkward than including the word "station" twice. Most readers likely find it odd to hear that "Culver City is a station". While this is primarily a problem with stations named after the location they're in, it also applies to things like "Central is a station...", let alone "Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. is a station". FWIW, there are other ways to fix the wording, for instance, "Culver City station" is an Amtrak train station in..." isn't nearly so awkward.--Cúchullain t/c 18:00, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- If we're going to add "station" twice, at least say "the Foobar station is a station..." But that is still redundant. epicgenius (talk) 03:17, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
-
- No. 2. because we typically don't bold or include disambiguators in the lead paragraph. Per the convention, that's what this is: a disambiguator word, 'station' is not part of the name unless it is capitalized. Per the WP guide it is only a Wikipedia convention and used only as a disambiguator in the title of Wikipedia articles about US train stations. Whether or where the disambiguator appears within the article is wholly irrelevant. Prior to this change would you insist a disambiguator such as (Los Angeles Metro) appear in the lead or be bolded? I have never seen disambiguators in leads, if in the article at all. Required inclusion would be redundant and should be left to the style of editor. Lexlex (talk) 01:01, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- But it would really only be bolded when part of the name; the RfC question isn't clear on this (i.e. some #1 examples are wrong, a bit): Foobar Staton is a MetroTrans stop in ..." vs. Bazquux station is a TransMetro stop and transfer hub located ...", or whatever. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- Number 1 for certain. Number 2 is far too vague in my opinion. Joel.Miles925 (talk) 15:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1 It's best to make certain that the reader knows that those are train stations and not cities. -The Great iShuffle (talk) 17:56, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- Comment XYZ railway station is a station in ABC town/city/village of the Indian state of YYY (state name). This is for Indian railways and for other countries the state or counties may be added.--Vin09 (talk) 05:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- No. 1 - identified as a train station to avoid confusion. Atsme📞📧 04:31, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- No. 2 per the arguments provided by Lexlex. "Station" as part of a title (except in cases where the station's name includes the word station) is pure disambiguation. Lost on Belmont 3200N1000W (talk) 22:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
No. 3. Compromise: No rule
Why not no-rule-at-all? Let's reach a WP:Consensus that each lead should be treated on its own. When confusion might arouse, then we use the word depot or station in bold-face type. If no confusion would arise, then we use just the shorthand version, like "East Weirdness Junction is on the Doofus Short Line"? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 15:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
- Support. I agree with this,
if it is agreed that it's irrelevant whether "station" or "depot" is boldfaced.You know what, let the individual countries' trains' wikiprojects deal with it. I refuse to impose my preference on others, so they should similarly refuse to enforce their own personal rules on me. epicgenius (talk) 16:15, 24 February 2016 (UTC) - No rule. Let's remember that rules like this are supposed to enhance clarity. I am rather underwhelmed at the examples provided thus far. For example, the above "Abada is a railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serving Abada, India, in the Howrah district. It is on the Howrah-Kharagpur line. It is 18 km (11 mi) from Howrah Station." reads better than than the current article text, which reads "The Abada railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serves Abada, India in Howrah district." When we make rules like this, there is a tendency to change from a more natural phrasing to a less natural one, just for the sake of adherence to the rules. That is completely backwards, and if we find ourselves doing that out of a slavish deference to rules, it's time to abandon those rules. Sławomir
Biały 16:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC) - Oppose. There doesn't have to be a hard-and-fast rule for there to be a consensus on what to do.--Cúchullain t/c 18:00, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- @Cuchullain: This section is for "no rule," which you seem to agree with. Without a rule, consensus could still be reached. epicgenius (talk) 04:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
-
-
- My comment may have been confusing. I'd rather "station" generally be bolded. I don't think it's a matter of laying down a hard and fast rule but so far there's clear consensus for it.--Cúchullain t/c 12:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- So you want a rule? now I'm confused. epicgenius (talk) 15:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't care if there's a hardline rule or not, but we should follow the consensus that's emerging here.--Cúchullain t/c 22:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- So you want a rule? now I'm confused. epicgenius (talk) 15:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- My comment may have been confusing. I'd rather "station" generally be bolded. I don't think it's a matter of laying down a hard and fast rule but so far there's clear consensus for it.--Cúchullain t/c 12:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
-
- Oppose: "No rule" will really amount to "no compromise, keep doing stylistically poor things just because I like it and I insist on using specialized style even if it's confusing to our audience". This is a recurrent, disruptive dispute, and needs to resolve with a clear answer, not with "we refuse to decide". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 20:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Oppose - if there's a consensus, we should record it. --Stfg (talk) 22:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Request for action
Does anybody feel like making some changes to the lead now in a couple of articles I have had my eye on? They are Palms station and Culver City station. Have we had enough discussion here? Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 23:04, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
- Personally, I think this should be on an agency-to-agency basis, because the article title should be the same OFFICIAL name that the issuing agency has given it, as in this case, the LACMTA.--TJH2018 (talk) 01:16, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
- Well, the policy should differ as per the country's respective policy for railway stations, such as WP:USSTATION for the US and WP:UKSTATION for the UK. epicgenius (talk) 15:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- It should be on an agency-to-agency basis, no matter what country it is. --TJH2018 (talk) 17:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- What about with two or more different agencies with different names for the same station? Pomona station (California) comes to mind. epicgenius (talk) 19:07, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, you mean Pomona (Amtrak station) which is an Amtrak station also serving Metrolink, and Pomona North (Metrolink station) which exclusively serves Metrolink? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
- What about with two or more different agencies with different names for the same station? Pomona station (California) comes to mind. epicgenius (talk) 19:07, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
I've started using it on stations I'm working on.--Cúchullain t/c 22:16, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- Our current Pomona-named rail station articles are listed at Pomona#Train stations. None of them are named Pomona (Amtrak station) and Pomona North (Metrolink station) (which would be misnomers, since both systems use both stations). If people want to go make more such excessively parenthetical, and misleading, names, then the answer to "Have we had enough discussion here?" is clearly "no". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:18, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Disputing a major BOLDSYN change
I don't believe that this major change [2] represents a consensus in the discussion it cites (which is still ongoing and has not even preliminarily concluded in favor of the new rule this edit inserted) about a classical music article. More importantly, it does not represent a consensus on what this guideline should advise broadly, nor what is usually done on Wikipedia.
- The intro text to the addition doesn't make much sense, in multiple ways: "Exceptions include less used variant spellings, translations less frequently used in English, and abbreviations not in parentheses"; all variants are less used, that's why they're variants. All alt. titles, especially translations, are less used that the title we chose, or we would not have chosen it, per WP:COMMONNAME. This addition would seem to have us never boldface any alternative name, except in the rare case of two names with equal usage, where we picked one via another of the WP:CRITERIA. Whether abbreviations are in parentheses is out-of-band; if anything, we'd be more likely to boldface something not in parentheses, than some parenthetically provided technical designation.
- The first of the examples might be valid, but only because it's a very minor variation on the bolded name. However, there are other ways to approach such cases without awkwardly splitting the boldfaced title apart in the lead, e.g. "Antonia Fahberg (born 19 May 1928) is ... She is sometimes also referred to as Antonie Fahberg"; or "Antonia Fahberg (French: Antonie Fahberg, born 19 May 1928) is ..."; etc.).
- The second example is problematic because it implies that no non-English titles should ever be boldfaced in the lead unless they are the COMMONNAME, but this is not actual consensus (it's being non-boldfaced at The Good, the Bad and the Ugly because the Italian name of the film is thought to be uncommon in English usage and sources, but this is often not the case, and many if not most would boldface this one because it is not a foreign translation of the English title, but the original Italian version of the title of an Italian film – cf. Léon: The Professional, The Big Blue, and many other articles).
- In the third example, whether to treat the "Hob. XVI/15" catalogue number as an alternative name, or as just something like the serial number on modern album, is the very topic of the still-open VP discussion (sources seem to indicate that these cat. numbers are used as shorthand names for the works, and at WP they are redirects to the articles).
- It removed a cross-reference to MOS:LEADALT for no reason.
- It's a back-door revert of the clarification I put in yesterday to close up a bogus loophole that can be WP:LAWYERed / WP:GAMEed.
Due to frequent conflict with the editor who made this change, I have not personally reverted it at present, but believe that it should be reverted. [I waited a day or so, and the request to self-revert the disputed change was ignore, so I've reverted it pending actual consensus for a change this major.]
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 06:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC) Updated. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 02:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Alternative
I do think it is possible we could conclude to add a provision suggesting something like the following:
It is not necessary to boldface an alternative name if it is any of the following:
- Just a slight variation of one boldfaced already.
- One of a long string of alternative names (e.g. all of dozen or more regional vernacular names of certain plants), which should be moved to the end of the lead or out of the lead.
- Rare, in which case it should not appear in the lead.
- A designation, such as serial number, catalogue number, etc., if it is not used as part of the name or as an alternative name in normal prose in reliable sources; in such a case it should be given parenthetically or (if not part of the article title) not appear in the lead.
- A non-English name that is uncommon in English-language sources, or a translation of the English name. However, the original title of a non-English-language work should always be boldfaced unless in a non-Latin=based writing system; this also applies to English-language works released with non-English titles in their home markets.
However, MOS:BOLDTITLE and MOS:BOLDSYN, and MOS:LEADALT, are increasingly diverging into a WP:POVFORK despite my recent efforts to thwart this. If we do something like this, the sections need to be rearranged to work together, instead of being a breeding ground for WP:LAWYERING / WP:GAMING.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 06:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- I like your proposed list. It seems more specific and also to better reflect existing practices. Kaldari (talk) 22:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- Oppose bullet 4, doesn't account for the opening of the Goldberg Variations article: "The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a ..." which imho is a very normal, standard, opening.
- Oppose bullet 5, doesn't account for the opening of the An Alpine Symphony article: "An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64, is ..." nor of the opening of the Symphonia Domestica article: "Symphonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony), Op. 53, is ...", which imho seem both very normal, standard, openings.
- Another example, the opening of the Der Herr ist mit mir (Buxtehude) article: "Der Herr ist mit mir (The Lord is on my side), BuxWV 15, is...", which would be "wrong" both according to bullet 4 and 5, seems a normal, standard opening to me.
- imho, this is a micromanaging proposal for things that are much better handled in WikiProject guidance, for the examples above: Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Guidelines. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:48, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
-
- The material at WP:CLASSICAL does not constitute "Guidelines" (an WP:RM needs to happen there). The actual guideline here was fine before you inserted unnecessary changes into it without consensus, when the very matter was and still is under discussion at WP:VPPOL. I'm trying to work with you in addressing what you were trying to address with that change, in a way that others can support, and which is general, and doesn't do any violence to other parts of the encyclopedia just to erect special nit-picks for one wikiproject. Slightly tweaking these example opening sentences to agree with the bullets above would not do any harm of any kind. If people actually use BWV numbers as alternative names (which we know they do), use "The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a ...". If (let's pretend) they don't, use "The Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), is a ...". If, as is sometimes the case, the actual article title is something like "The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988", then definitely give it all in bold, without parentheses. This is not rocket science, nor anything new, but standard operating procedure. The non-bolding of "Eine Alpensinfonie" in "An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64" already is against MOS:LEAD's recommendations to begin with, regardless of your proposed change or mine, so opposition to what I've proposed on the basis that it doesn't agree with your non-compliant style is not a logical objection of any kind. Whether an existing article you are shepherding is accounted for by the bullet points outlined above is irrelevant, anyway, even if it weren't already non-compliant with the existing guideline. The entire point of a style guideline line-item is to normalize inconsistent usage that people fight over so they stop fighting over it; that necessarily entails changing some cases to match others. Just inserting "oppose" comments isn't very constructive. Instead, how about identifying what you think the actual problem is and explaining why it's a real problem, then suggesting alternative wording? It's up to consensus, not one editor, how the leads at these articles should be put together. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 02:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- I certainly don't like splitting Antonia Fahberg, and I don't think I have ever seen that used here. I deal with multiple spellings of older north European artist's names all the time, and normally just put them all in parentheses after the one or two most common. The name should never be split. Johnbod (talk) 04:25, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah, I don't split, either, and we don't seem to do this generally, except for nicknames, and only when used with the surname, as in 'John Ellis "Jeb" Bush'. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 23:23, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment: talking about style, I think it would be good style to (self-)revert the changes and place them here for discussion. It's annoying to go to a diff and reply here to something we don't see. I wrote the Fahberg article, and would not even have mentioned the little difference in first name, which very few sources have (see Francis' collection on the talk). IF mentioned, I would rather not place the alternative between common first name and common last name, like Johnbod, and I would not have thought of bolding it. Possible for me:
-
- Antonia Fahberg (born ...)
- Antonia Fahberg (also: Antonie, born ...)
- In articles with translated titles, I would like to see the original title also bold, like SMcCandlish:
- An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment: The important consideration is why we would want to put titles in boldface. The answer is surely that it draws attention to those words and confirms to anyone arriving at the the article from a redirect or search term that they have indeed arrived at the right article. Caisson disease is a redirect to Decompression sickness and it is properly in boldface in the opening sentence. If Eine Alpensinfonie is a redirect to An Alpine Symphony (which it is), then we ought to make sure that "Eine Alpensinfonie" is in boldface, as it's both a redirect and a plausible search term. If BWV 988 is a redirect to Goldberg Variations (which it is), then it should appear in boldface for exactly the same reasons. And when we get to Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7 where BWV 7 is not only a redirect and a plausible search term, but is part of the article title, then there really cannot be any sensible reason to exclude it from our convention to place it in boldface (three times over). This is where Francis has has now decided to change the MOS to fit his idiosyncratic view in order to "win" a disagreement. For completeness, he wants to wikilink the BWV part, but that would be forbidden by our MOS (MOS:BOLDTITLE) if it were bold: hence all this fuss. Of course it's a simple job to add a footnote quickly explaining what BWV is, but Francis would rather change the MOS to something nonsensical than deviate from his preferred formatting. --RexxS (talk) 00:03, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
-
- "it draws attention to those words and confirms to anyone arriving at the the article from a redirect or search term that they have indeed arrived at the right article" – Right. This is why we should continue to bold them on first occurrence if that is outside the lead (though that would be covered at MOS:BOLD); in a large number of cases, these redirs go to sections, and the term in question is not in the lead (or will not be seen there by many users, who got directly to the section by a redirect). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- At root here, we have a BRD situation. The change should not have been made without discussion. Also, the "guidelines" for one project should not be used to dictate to the rest of wiki. Montanabw(talk) 10:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Procedural – for completeness, the current talk page section is somewhat of a WP:FORUMSHOP of the active discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Somewhat related discussion (see also previous section inviting to keep the discussion in one place). Just tought it best to mention this. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- It was your own changing of the guideline in mid-discussion (see WP:FAITACCOMPLI) that generated this thread in the first place. It's probably most constructive to just let the discussions play out; the VPPOL one is buried in the middle of an unrelated discussion and is unlikely to result in anything, while the present locus is a more relevant venue. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Proposal
I'd fold the current BOLDSYN section (for its obvious contradiction with things said elsewhere in the guideline); Instead, I'd replace the following (higher up in the guideline):
Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article) are placed in bold:
Mumbai, also known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. (Mumbai)
by:
Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article) are placed in bold:
Mumbai, also known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. (Mumbai)
Common abbreviations (in parentheses) are considered significant alternative names in this sense:
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye and caustic soda, is ...
Which works away the incompatibility of bolding all synonyms (as it is in the current BOLDSYN), or only the significant ones as it is in fact in the guideline and widely practiced (PS: existing anchors and shortcuts are kept operational in the proposal). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- That seems workable on its face, but would be not-boldfaced after this change that would have been before? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Re. "[What] would be not-boldfaced after this change that would have been before?" Example:
- Currently the intro of the Carbon monoxide article reads thus:
- According to current guidance that should be changed to:
-
- Carbon monoxide (CO) is a
- with the "should usually be a redirect" made applicable (which CO is not), the following would be equally acceptable:
- IMHO the last one is more helpful to the reader. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
- Re. "[What] would be not-boldfaced after this change that would have been before?" Example:
No problem to proceed with this one then? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:03, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
- Implemented: [3] --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Common abbreviation example
I find the "common abbreviation" example somewhat inadequate:
- NaOH is not the "abbreviation" of Sodium hydroxide, it is its chemical formula. So, the example is not illustrating the rule.
- H2O redirects to Properties of water, which starts as follows:
- (using the {{chem}} template to produce the chemical formula); In fact, the start of the Sodium hydroxide article would maybe be better like this:
- Maybe the example in the guideline could be replaced by (start of the International Music Score Library Project article):
-
- The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a ...
--Francis Schonken (talk) 17:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
-
-
- That also seems reasonable, except that the chemical formulas should also be boldfaced; while they are not strictly "abbreviations" they are significant alternative names (from a chemistry perspective, they're the real names). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Chemical formulas are not necessarily "synonyms", e.g. C
2O
4 (which is a disambiguation page) may refer to Oxalate, 1,2-Dioxetanedione and 1,3-Dioxetanedione. If you'd look at these three articles I think that for none of them C
2O
4 is a "significant" alternative name. So I'd leave the discrimination of what are "significant" alternative names to those more experienced in chemistry (which I'm not). - Again, I'd avoid to micromanage several specialized fields from a guideline that is applicable to all articles in Wikipedia (over five million opening sentences fall under this guideline, so the guideline should rather state general principles than micromanage opening sentences of articles on chemical compounds, which necessarily are only a small fraction of all articles on Wikipedia).
- FYI there are applicable guidelines in several fields, e.g. MOS:BIO. The opening sentence of the J. R. R. Tolkien article (giving full given names instead of initials as recommended in that guideline) reads currently:
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (/ˈtɒlkiːn/;[a] 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was...
- We should avoid pedantics from the over-arching guidance on opening sentences that would imply the opening sentence would "necessarily" need to be:
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (J. R. R. Tolkien; also Tolkien; /ˈtɒlkiːn/;[a] 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was...
- Chemical formulas are not necessarily "synonyms", e.g. C
- That also seems reasonable, except that the chemical formulas should also be boldfaced; while they are not strictly "abbreviations" they are significant alternative names (from a chemistry perspective, they're the real names). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
-
References
- ^ a b Tolkien pronounced his surname /ˈtɒlkiːn/, see his phonetic transcription published on the illustration in The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One. [Edited by] Christopher Tolkien. London: Unwin Hyman, [25 August] 1988. (The History of Middle-earth; 6) ISBN 0-04-440162-0. In General American the surname is also pronounced /ˈtoʊlkiːn/. This pronunciation no doubt arose by analogy with such words as toll and polka, or because General American speakers realise /ɒ/ as [ɑ], while often hearing British /ɒ/ as [ɔ]; thus [ɔ] or General American [oʊ] become the closest possible approximation to the Received Pronunciation for many American speakers. Wells, John. 1990. Longman pronunciation dictionary. Harlow: Longman, ISBN 0-582-05383-8
-
-
-
- --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
- If those alt names appeared in the lead they should definitely be boldfaced, or the lead just turns to mush. The bare "Tolkien" should move to end of lead with not like "...sometimes referred to mononymically as simply Tolkien." The J. R. R. Tolkien should be preserved in the first sentence (after birth/death, and prefaced with "best known as"). It's a fallacy that we can depend on the article title always being present, visible, and – above all – unmodified, in any re-uses of our content. The content, under the title, has to stand alone or we are failing. This is also the #1 problem with infoboxes.
A side point for later: We should actually have a content policy, not a guideline, that any information, aside from images and infographics, included in an infobox must either a) already appear in the main article content, or b) be supplementary information that we would not normally include, en toto and as such, in the main body [using the full taxonomic hierarchy of a species in {{Taxobox}}, and the long litany of medical database codes in {{Infobox disease}}, as examples of the latter]. That would resolve a mother shipload of problems on Wikipedia, ranging from internecine strife (which which you're plenty familiar >;-), to reader-confusing articles. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:16, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
- You can't resist the temptations of micromanagement, that much is clear. If you have a problem with the J. R. R. Tolkien opening sentence, voice your concerns at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies (or on the article's talk page). I just wanted to give an example why micromanagement from the top level guidance on lead sections down to the dedicated topic-specific MOS guidance is unwanted and counterproductive. So let's drop this here and try to get your concerns in that respect addressed at the appropriate level of guidance. (FYI, you might find support for your position in the E. T. A. Hoffmann opening sentence, which I think perfectly horrid & overdone – but I don't see a point in discussing that here, nothing of the kind will end up in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section afaics).
- Re. "The content, under the title, has to stand alone or we are failing" – finally I understand why you put "major ... change" in the title of this section: here you're proposing one for this guideline, and one to which I disagree fundamentally.
- But no problem to change the "abbreviation" example to the IMSLP example as far as I can see; The rest is discussion not related to that proposal to update the example to something that actually contains an abbreviation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
- If those alt names appeared in the lead they should definitely be boldfaced, or the lead just turns to mush. The bare "Tolkien" should move to end of lead with not like "...sometimes referred to mononymically as simply Tolkien." The J. R. R. Tolkien should be preserved in the first sentence (after birth/death, and prefaced with "best known as"). It's a fallacy that we can depend on the article title always being present, visible, and – above all – unmodified, in any re-uses of our content. The content, under the title, has to stand alone or we are failing. This is also the #1 problem with infoboxes.
- --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
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Divi Blasii, Mühlhausen
A challenging example regarding bolding in an intro may be provided by Divi Blasii, Mühlhausen, the first paragraph of which currently reads:
Divi Blasii Church in Mühlhausen, Germany, is a medieval church founded by the Teutonic Knights. With the Marienkirche, it is one of the two principal churches of the city. Originally it was a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Blaise, but as a result of the Lutheran Reformation the dedication was amended to reflect the changed status of the saint. Thus the church is now known as Divi-Blasii-Kirche (Latin divi Blasii means "of Blaise the Divine").
Other name variants for this article's topic include (see [4], [5], [6],[7], [8], [9] and a related discussion at Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach#Still further on questions not yet answered):
- St. Blasius
- St Blasius
- Blasiuskirche
- Blasius Church
- St. Blasius's
- Divi-Blasii church
and a few others. Which alternatives should be mentioned in the intro of the article, and which ones of these should be bolded? --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:33, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Lead sentences for aircraft incidents (crashes, hijackings, etc.)
This isn't a major issue that has caused major problems, but it is something which I think ought to be mentioned in this page. The guideline for page names for aviation accidents/incidents is to use 1) a common name (eg. Tenerife airport disaster)(mainly for older accidents before Wikipedia was created, as more recent articles are usually created shortly after the crash using one of the other name conventions) or 2) if the aircraft had a flight number, the article is named "[airline] Flight [number]" (eg. EgyptAir Flight 181) or 3) if the aircraft had no flight number or involved multiple aircraft, it uses a different format ("[year] [location] [airline/operator] [aircraft type] [crash/collision/etc.]").
The lead sentence in articles which use the the "[airline] Flight [number]" format account for about half of these articles...see, eg., Template:Aviation accidents and incidents in 2015. The problem with lead sentences in these articles is that the flight number is used for a particular route and time (an airline may operate multiple flights per day between two airports, each with a different flight number), so aviation accident articles often have lead sentences that simply state that "Madeup Airway Flight 123 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Somewhere to Somewhere Else", followed by a sentence actually describing the accident. This is contrary to the lead sentence guidelines of using the lead sentence to roughly define the subject. Airlines usually retire flight numbers involved in crashes/hijackings and the flight number ("[airline] Flight [number]") becomes synonymous with the incident itself. When Air France Flight 447 is mentioned, it is almost always used in reference the flight that crashed on 1 June 2009, not the regularly scheduled flight that once operated between Rio de Janeiro and Paris.
Another issue relevant to the lead sentence is the common practice of using the IATA designator and ICAO airline designator as part of the flight number. Media and sometimes the airlines themselves will often include the IATA designator when giving the flight number, eg. "Egyptair Flight MS181" (Google News search results, EgyptAir tweet), so the IATA & ICAO flight numbers should be included as alternate names in the lead sentence.
To address these issues, I am suggesting the following addition of a subsection within this policy page between the "Contextual links" and "Biographies" subsections:
AHeneen (talk) 06:10, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
- As this is already covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide I am not sure what adding it again to a more general guide would help. MilborneOne (talk) 07:57, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
- We don't need something this specific here. A general entry on notable events with no proper names is the way to go, using one such airline incident as an example. There's nothing about this that is intrinsic to airline/airplane/airport cases in particular. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:08, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Lead length
Why does Wikipedia specify recommended lead length in paragraphs, rather than wordcount? This has created some slightly strange edits, such as the current Michael Jackson lead, which now contains two very long, dense paragraphs in order to stay within the WP:LEADLENGTH recommendation. Splitting these into smaller paragraphs would keep the lead the same length but improve readability. (I know it’s a guideline rather than a hard rule, but still.) Popcornduff (talk) 15:13, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
- This strikes me too as odd. If summarising an article like "History of ...", essentially a continuous narrative through time, it seems pretty arbitrary where you place the paragraph breaks or how many there are. I'd go for a rough proportionality of lead size with the entire article, say approx 10% of the article word count. This relies on articles being split when they become too long, as recommended in SIZESPLIT: Noyster (talk), 23:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I think a percentage of the overall article length would be a more useful guideline. Popcornduff (talk) 02:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
- Any other comments on this? I'd like to change the recommendation if we can get a consensus. Popcornduff (talk) 01:18, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I think a percentage of the overall article length would be a more useful guideline. Popcornduff (talk) 02:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
- I suspect many editors don't know how to work out the word count for subsections of the article. It would be nice if this were made easy. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:40, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- Popcornduff, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#Four-paragraph lead, and especially Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#RFC on four paragraph lead for the most recent big discussion on this matter. Per what I and others stated then, I prefer the four-paragraph standard. Tweaks were made to the guideline since then, such as the introduction stating "well-composed paragraphs" instead of "paragraphs"; this was meant to combat people stuffing a lot into a paragraph to comply with the four-paragraph standard. "As a general rule of thumb" was also added to the introduction, which matches the lower part of the guideline making it clear that the lead does not always have to stop at four paragraphs. Also see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 18#Allow fifth paragraph of lede?; it's not a big discussion, but it was the most recent on the paragraph number aspect. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:32, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for those links. Looks like this has already been much chewed over, and regardless of my own thoughts, I'm not going to be the one to stir the soup again soon. Popcornduff (talk) 13:35, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Discussion of BLP leads
In case anyone missed it, there is much discussion about the lead sections of BLPs taking place at WT:MOSBIO#RfC: Allow inclusion of former names in lead section of biographies covering transgender and non-binary people. It may affect more bios than the title would lead one to believe. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Bold text for major sub-subjects also covered by the article?
Should independently-notable sub-subjects also covered in the article be named in bold face in the lead? I'd always assumed so, but can't see anything on it in MOS.
The issue has come up at Cullinan Diamond: the original uncut diamond was split up into a number of cut diamonds, some of which are independently notable - Cullinan I is the largest cut diamond in the world, and Cullinan II the fourth-largest - but still are connected enough for it to not really make sense for them to have their own articles; their names redirect to this article. They've appeared in bold text in the lead for about 10 years, but this has recently been removed by an editor new to the article. I was hoping that the MOS might have some guidance on this, but I can't see anything.
Another example might be groupings like David and Frederick Barclay or Gilbert and George, where the names of the members and their collective title are all bolded in the lead, even though they aren't synonyms. TSP (talk) 13:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Non use of the title at the beginning of the lead section.
I have been involved in editing several articles recently (2016 attack in Nice and 2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting) where there has been a strong inclination by editors to avoid using the title of the article at the beginning of the lead section. My interpretation of the MoS is that the title of the article should be used as early as possible in the lead section, unless it is grammatically cumbersome to do so. I think this is important as it establishes a consistent style across Wikipedia. Other editors take the view that since these titles are not official titles, there is no need to use them in the lead section. Instead, there is a tendency to use a narrative format On <date>, description of the events format:
- 'On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack—also considered a hate crime—inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States.'
This feels inconsistent with the style of Wikipedia to me. I think that the MoS should more explicitly state that the preference is to use the title, unless it is not possible to do so without being cumbersome (e.g. for descriptive titles Electrical characteristics of dynamic loudspeakers or The Beatles in the United States). The title should also be used in a modified form if it is convenient (e.g. 2011 Mississippi floods --> The Mississippi floods of April-May 2011). Lastly, narrative of events should be avoided in the lead section. Thanks in advance for your opinions. Mozzie (talk) 05:52, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
- My opinion is that even though there is nothing wrong with their grammar, sentences like "The 2016 attack in Nice was a terrorist attack that took place in 2016 in Nice" are best avoided. Repeating the title in this way provides no useful information, falsely implies that there is a standardized name for the subject, and gets in the way of making the sentence actually say something. So, if you want reassurance that we should be writing that way, you're not going to get it from me. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:32, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
- Mozzie, a few years ago, when working on the 2011 Tucson shooting article (getting it ready for WP:GA status), I felt that such titles should be bolded. But these days, I agree with editors who think like David Eppstein on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:50, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
Bolding of "title" text in redirected sections of articles
Participants here may want to comment on this discussion of when it reasonable to use bolded "title" text in subsections of articles. Dragons flight (talk) 10:52, 26 July 2016 (UTC)