User:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes/July 2008

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Manual of Style (main page)

Article titles. The parenthetical phrase was added.

The initial letter of a title is capitalized (except in very rare cases, such as eBay).

This text:

Avoid restating or directly referring to the topic or to wording on a higher level in the hierarchy (Early life, not His early life).

was changed to:

Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer. For example, Early life is preferable to His early life when His means the subject of the article; headings can be assumed to be about the subject unless otherwise indicated.

This was added:

Section names should not normally contain links.

Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

The following text was added to Date autoformatting:

Careful consideration of the disadvantages and advantages of the [date] autoformatting mechanism should be made before applying it: the mechanism does not work for the vast majority of readers, such as unregistered users and registered users who have not made a setting, and can affect readability and appearance if there are already numerous high-value links in the text.

In the main text of an article, autoformatting should be used on either all or none of the month-day and month-day-year dates.

A number of changes were made to Numbers as figures or words, although these are still under review.

This text was added to "Conventions" (under "Unit symbols"):

• Avoid the unicode characters ² and ³. They are harder to read on small display, and are not aligned with supercript characters (see x¹x²x³x⁴ vs. x¹x²x³x⁴). Superscript ² and ³, created with , can produce irregular line spacing, but that is usually a less serious problem.
• The symbol for liter is either the lowercase l or uppercase L. However, since l can be easily confused for I (uppercase i ) or the numeral 1 (one), the uppercase L should be given preference when unprefixed (e.g., writing A 200 ml bottle and A 500 mL glass of beer are both acceptable, but write A 10 L tank instead of A 10 l tank).
• Do not use the unicode "script ell" character ℓ and its variants (㎕, ㎖, ㎗ and ㎘).
• Articles should use the lowercase l or uppercase L consistently (e.g., do not write This soft drink is available in both 250 ml and 2 L bottles, but rather This soft drink is available in both 250 mL and 2 L bottles).

In Disambiguation, this text:

Use long ton or short ton rather than just ton (the metric unit—the tonne—is also known as the metric ton).

was changed to:

Use long ton or short ton rather than just ton; these units have no symbol or abbreviation and are always spelled out. The metric unit equal to 1000 kilograms is the tonne and is officially known as the metric ton in the US. Whichever name for the metric unit is used, the symbol is "t".

Citing sources

Why sources should be cited. This was added:

The citation should state, as clearly, fully, and precisely as possible, how a reader can find the source material, such as by external link to the source website. If the material is not findable online, it should be findable in reputable libraries, archives, or collections. If a citation without an external link is challenged as unfindable, any of the following is sufficient to show the material to be reasonably findable (though not necessarily reliable): providing an ISBN or OCLC number; linking to an established Wikipedia article about the source (the work, its author, or its publisher); or directly quoting the material on the talk page, briefly and in context.

When to cite sources. The last sentence was added:

The list of featured-article criteria calls for citations where appropriate. This page clarifies that requirement. This list is not exhaustive, and the examples are suggestions only. Each case must be dealt with on its merits.

When adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. This was added:

Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors in the text.

Reference qualification in article text. This text:

A statement open to controversy, regarding which the qualified supporting references conflict with one another, may need to include some elaboration.

was changed to:

... points which are more controversial, where there are contradictory studies or different opinions, may need to include more descriptive context.

Provide full citations. The underlined words were added:

Citations for newspaper articles typically include the title of the article in quotes, the byline (author's name), the name of the newspaper in italics, date of publication, page number(s), and a comment with the date you retrieved it if it is online (invisible to the reader).

Embedded links. The second sentence was added:

A full citation is also required in a References section at the end of the article. Providing an access date for the link in a comment helps editors recover a link that has become unavailable.

Featured article candidate instructions

The instructions on capping by reviewers were amended by adding a second sentence (underlined):

"Alternately, reviewers may hide lengthy, resolved commentary in a cap template with a signature in the header. This method should be used sparingly, because it can cause the FAC archives to exceed template limits.

Featured topic criteria

The underlined wording was added to Criterion 3b:

[Articles in a topic that are not featured] due to either their limited subject matter or inherent instability must have passed an individual quality audit that included a completed peer review, with all important problems fixed.

Non-free content

WP:NFCC#8. The final clause was reinstated (after the comma), having been removed, reinstated, and removed over the past three months:

Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.

Audio and video clips are now explicitly included in the definition of "non-free content", which is "all copyrighted images,... and other media files that lack a free content license".