Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting/Archive 8: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:29, 18 December 2022

Revision as of 03:34, 21 February 2023

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:::So someone sees an edit they think is useless and... makes another equally useless edit in response? How does that make sense? ―[[User:Jochem van Hees|Jochem van Hees]] ([[User talk:Jochem van Hees|talk]]) 01:44, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

::::Thanks all. I also added a couple of Alan Bennett works in the same edit and those didn't get reverted. So it goes - wanted to be sure I hadn't missed some style guide element I wasn't aware of! I'd agree that adding to MOS might be useful - although this is such a big page I wasn't absolutely sure this wasn't covered already! Cheers, [[User:HornetMike|HornetMike]] ([[User talk:HornetMike|talk]]) 09:55, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

== Beauty pageants and special formatting?==

An editor has commented in a revert of my edit [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Puteri_Indonesia_2022&oldid=prev&diff=1092717687 here] that beauty pageants normally use boldface in a way that I believe is contrary to MOS. Comments from readers of this are welcome. [[Miss Philippines Earth 2019]] may be a good example of what I'm talking about also. ☆ <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family: Papyrus">[[User:Bri|Bri]]</span> ([[User talk:Bri|talk]]) 21:32, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

:Hello! I'm sure you've done your editing in good faith. From what i've seen during my edit tenure, all beauty pageant articles use boldface in one way or another, examples include [[Miss South Africa 2019]], [[Miss South Africa 2020]]. or for articles which necessitates the use of flags, [[Miss France 2022]]. Then again, i feel like the use of boldface is done solely for aesthetic purposes. (Articles look very barren without them, doesn't it?) [[User:Call me PI.|Call me PI.]] ([[User talk:Call me PI.|talk]]) 04:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

: The use of bold in those pageant articles is very definitely contrary to [[MOS:BOLD]]. The fact that there are many of them does not justify the excessive formatting. This seems to be a common thing for some types of articles (I've noticed it in articles about sports competition or people), that a project just collectively decides to ignore MOS - despite the fact that [[WP:CONLEVEL]] specifically says they ought not.

:{{U|Call me PI.}} says {{tqq|boldface is done solely for aesthetic purposes. (Articles look very barren without them...)}}, but aesthetics if very much in the eye of the beholder - to me excessive bold is much harder to read. The reason we have MOS is so that we don't have to debate our personal preferences - we have a consensus on style that so that we all follow the same general style, as agreed by most editors. [[User:Mitch Ames|Mitch Ames]] ([[User talk:Mitch Ames|talk]]) 11:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

::Apologies. Though in my opinion, it'll take time for editors that routinely edits beauty pageant articles to be aware of the MOS rules. [[User:Call me PI.|Call me PI.]] ([[User talk:Call me PI.|talk]]) 13:06, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

:::{{ping|Call me PI.}} If you agree with Mitch Ames, could you please [[WP:Self-revert|self revert]] the reintroduction of boldface you made at [[Puteri Indonesia 2022]]? I don't want to leave the appearance of editwarring. ☆ <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family: Papyrus">[[User:Bri|Bri]]</span> ([[User talk:Bri|talk]]) 17:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

:Good day! I don't think that the usage of boldface is solely for aesthetic purposes only. Maybe the usage of boldface in beauty pageant articles is due to navigation. Well, for me, it is easier to navigate articles about pageants the way boldface is currently used since there is emphasis. For the Miss Universe articles, maybe the countries/territories are in boldface to act as keywords, so that the reader wouldn't get lost easily, same for Binibining Pilipinas articles which is a lot more harder since there are no flags beside the provinces/cities. For me, lack of emphasis (an example of which is [[Binibining Pilipinas 2022]]) can easily result to confusion, and it is actually harder to focus since there are no keywords and no emphasis. [[User:Allyriana000|Allyriana000]] ([[User talk:Allyriana000|talk]]) 03:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

::Agreed that boldface is not used on pageant articles for solely aesthetic purposes. It is used to convey the difference between Part and Whole. The '''Whole''' is boldfaced and depicts the country/state/region/etc. that the contestant is representing, while the non boldfaced words are the Parts that make up the whole – the name of the contestant, hometown, vital statistics, etc., and that is a helpful disambiguation. [[User:Jjj1238|<b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b>]] [[User talk:Jjj1238|<b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b>]] 11:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

:::[[MOS:BOLD]] says "Boldface ... is considered appropriate only for certain usages", which are then listed. Which of the "certain usages" applies in the case of beauty pageants? [[User:Mitch Ames|Mitch Ames]] ([[User talk:Mitch Ames|talk]]) 13:31, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

::::{{Ping|Mitch Ames}} [[MOS:BOLD]] has a list of "When not to use boldface", and the situation described here is not in the section of when boldface cannot be used. In this specific case, I strongly believe that boldface helps readers distinguish between information. The bold is the primary information: ie, the country/state/region/etc. that is being represented, while the non-bold is the secondary information: ie, the name of the woman chosen to represent the entity and her vital statistics. The primary information does not change year by year, there will be a [[Miss Alabama USA|Alabama]] at every [[Miss USA]], but this secondary information is used to describe the differences between each Alabama year by year, and is simply a description of each Alabama rather than of equal importance to "Alabama" itself. The bolded text makes that distinction known to the reader. Because of that, I believe that the bolded text is efficient in helping differentiate this information and there is no logical need to remove it. [[User:Jjj1238|<b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b>]] [[User talk:Jjj1238|<b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b>]] 15:04, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

:::::I refer you to the word "only" in "Boldface ... is considered appropriate only for certain usages". [[User:Mitch Ames|Mitch Ames]] ([[User talk:Mitch Ames|talk]]) 23:47, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

::::::MOS/Bold says boldface "is considered appropriate only for certain usages." It does ''not'' say boldface "is considered appropriate only for the following certain usages." Beauty pageant usage of boldface does not violate the "when to note use boldface" guidelines so I do not believe there should be an issue. [[User:Jjj1238|<b style="color: #AB2B2B;">{ [ ( jjj</b>]] [[User talk:Jjj1238|<b style="color: #000000;">1238 ) ] }</b>]] 11:38, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

:::::::So which "certain usages" do you think [[MOS:B]] means? Also [[MOS:BOLD#OTHER]] says "Use boldface ... only in a few special cases:" - again the word "only", and this time the sentence ends in a [[Colon (punctuation)|colon]], clearly denoting that what follows is the list of "special cases". So again, I ask which "certain usages" or "special cases" do you think the beauty pageants formatting is covered by? [[User:Mitch Ames|Mitch Ames]] ([[User talk:Mitch Ames|talk]]) 03:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

== RfC about boldfacing of the scientific names of organisms ==

I have opened an [[WP:RfC|RfC]] at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms]]. The discussion should take place there, not here, in order to keep the discussion centralized. The result may affect [[MOS:BOLD]]. —&#8288;&#8202;&#8288;[[User:BarrelProof|BarrelProof]] ([[User talk:BarrelProof|talk]]) 01:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)