Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting
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Presenting translations of proper names
editI'm reviewing Paulina Luisi for GAN. The nominator, using a local convention apparently specified at WP:UY, is rendering translated proper names like this:
Alianza de Mujeres para los Derechos Femeninos (transl. 'Women's Alliance for Women's Rights')
This seems to me, at least, to break the italic rules we have. Is this an acceptable convention or conflicting with MOS? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:51, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- If I understand the MoS correctly, the name should be in roman type but with the language tagged: Alianza de Mujeres para los Derechos Femeninos ({{langr|es|Alianza de Mujeres para los Derechos Femeninos}}. Indefatigable (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
- Italics in this case seem to comply with MOS:NONENGITALIC. fgnievinski (talk) 19:20, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
Confusion regarding italics for introduction of terms
editMathglot (talk) comments at User talk:Stephan Leeds#Italics for first introduction of term, objecting to my overuse of italics for terms introduced in an article (e.g. this edit), interpreting MOS:TERM, though my interpretation of the same passage is that is specifically calls for the italics as added (or, alternatively, quoting). Is this use of italics excessive or in accordance with the MOS? Stephan Leeds (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
- Slight clarification: I don't see that edit as an example of "overuse", but rather misuse of italics. I have no objection to keeping all of them, if valid; but in my reading of MOS:TERM none are valid, because in the linked sentence, they are used in running text for their normal English meaning, not mentioned as words. Mathglot (talk) 07:35, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
- Actually, it should be boldface, per MOS:BOLDREDIRECT. MOS:ITALICTERM would only apply for terms defined redirecting to other articles. fgnievinski (talk) 19:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at MOS talk:ETY § Purpose.
— W.andrea (talk) 21:21, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Category discussion related to WAW
editThere's an ongoing discussion related to MOS:WORDSASWORDS at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2025_April_7#Category:Concepts_by_language. fgnievinski (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
Italics for awards
editSome advice for the use of italics for awards? I tried with italics and without italics while editing The Kyiv Independent, and both look equally acceptable to me. I'm left wondering whether awards qualify as titles. (ChatGPT said no. I think I agree. I suppose I'll do likewise, pending further guidance.) SelfDestructible (talk) 08:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
- They aren't MOS:MAJORWORKS. Gonnym (talk) 15:10, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'm guessing the awards ceremonies themselves aren't, either. SelfDestructible (talk) 18:30, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
HTML "strong"
editIn Oct 2022 the following paragraph was included in MOS:BOLD:
For semanthical emphasis (to denote importance, seriousness, or urgency), you can also use the HTML element
<strong>...</strong>, or the template{{strong}}. This is desirable because the words can standout for text to speech and other software, important due to accesibility issues.
The edit summary stated: "added guidance to update guideline per Template:Strong and WP:ACCESS" [1]
However, the authoritative source of guidance on matters of style is the MOS, not any Template:Strong documentation. Furthermore, MOS:ACCESS (it its current version or back in 2022) doesn't say anything about the use of HTML strong or the corresponding template. Finally, between 2021 and 2022, there was a related discussion at Template_talk:Strong#Use_in_lead_sections_of_articles which toned down the wording in Template:Strong.
So, I've removed the paragraph above. To reinstate it, one would have to: (a) demonstrate the semantic markup is beneficial for accessibility (mainly text to speech); (b) clarify what use cases constitute valid instances of semanthical emphasis ("importance, seriousness, or urgency") without conflicting with existing guidance, such as:
- MOS:EMPHASIS recommending the use of italics instead of boldface.
- MOS:BOLDTITLE recommending the use of regular bold, not "strong", for titles.
- MOS:BOLDREDIRECT recommending the use of regular bold, not "strong", for redirected titles.
In fact, of all Template:Strong/doc#Use_cases, only the third one, in the use of quotes, seems nonconflicting with other parts of MOS. fgnievinski (talk) 04:06, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- fgnievinski, I don't think it's necessary to "demonstrate the semantic markup is beneficial for accessibility (mainly text to speech)". I imagine that audio browsers, or the audio modules of mainstream browsers, allow the "end user" to apply CSS to differentiate between B and STRONG (or among I, EM, and CITE); or, if they don't, could do so in the future. -- Hoary (talk) 03:25, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
Two-level highlighting
editLet's suppose that an article is treating some grammatical matter, and that for each of several examples its editors want (editor wants) to indicate (A) sentences as a whole ("That's the office to which she was sent"), (B) certain parts ("to which she was sent") within these, and (C) certain parts ("which") within those "certain parts".
Three among the more obvious possibilities -- which of course could extend to yellow highlighting, exotic brackets【】〘〙and gods know what -- are:
That's the office ''to '''which''' she was sent''.That's the office {{Em|1=to {{Strong|1=which}} she was sent}}.That's the office ''to {{Smallcaps|1=which}} she was sent''.
What with such factors as (i) Wikipedia's general aversion to boldface, to (non-linking) underlining, and (I think) to less common markup practice, (ii) the widespread lack of genuine small caps (and use of ugly, smaller-point-size full caps in their place), (iii) the absurdity of a demand for "boldface", "italic" or "small caps" voice qualities for audio browsers, (iv) the preference (tho' not requirement) for standardization across articles, et cetera ... what's the current thinking on best practice(s) (or if that's too optimistic then least bad practice(s)) for this purpose? -- Hoary (talk) 01:04, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- Just to comment that the characters 【】〘〙 are not compatible with Roman-letter typography, and should not normally appear in a document purporting to be in English, except in foreign language quotations. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:46, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- They're not part of Roman-letter typography, Imaginatorium, and they would look uncomfortable as well as unfamiliar. But I'd say that their unfamiliarity would be a reason for preferring them over [ ] ( ): They'd draw attention to themselves, thus highlighting their content. But no, I'm not advocating their use, if only because they're likely to be rendered as identical "character unavailable" glyphs (perhaps question marks seemingly incised in black splodges). -- Hoary (talk) 05:04, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry, but I think this is just an error. They do not belong in Roman typography, because they are not designed to fit a system with a baseline, an x-height, and space for ascenders and descenders. In the reverse direction, using them would be as horrible as the bulldog. They might look surprising or all sorts of things, but so might "emojis", and I don't think those belong either. And it does seem unnecessarily confusing to use these as jazzed-up versions of []() with (presumably) their Japanese meaning, which is more or less the opposite (emphasis as opposed to parenthesis) meaning to the original. (But I think this is all a sidetrack to your original point, concerning the need sometimes for more distinctions than the simplistic ideas of the "semantics" lobby.) Imaginatorium (talk) 09:33, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, Imaginatorium, I warmly agree that "this is all a sidetrack to [my] original point". Any opinion on the indication of two-level highlighting? -- Hoary (talk) 09:16, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- I think it has to be left to the judgement of editors. The important thing is to squash the "semantics" lobby, by which I mean people who think that choosing how to indicate something must involve selection from an (inadequate) set of "semantic primitives" - things may be more complicated than that. In the example above you might italicise the part of the sentence and underline the most important word. I don't think that generally things like highlighting are appropriate, but on the other hand flexibility means being open to the possibility; in an article full of linguistic examples, for example. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:25, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yes, Imaginatorium, I warmly agree that "this is all a sidetrack to [my] original point". Any opinion on the indication of two-level highlighting? -- Hoary (talk) 09:16, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry, but I think this is just an error. They do not belong in Roman typography, because they are not designed to fit a system with a baseline, an x-height, and space for ascenders and descenders. In the reverse direction, using them would be as horrible as the bulldog. They might look surprising or all sorts of things, but so might "emojis", and I don't think those belong either. And it does seem unnecessarily confusing to use these as jazzed-up versions of []() with (presumably) their Japanese meaning, which is more or less the opposite (emphasis as opposed to parenthesis) meaning to the original. (But I think this is all a sidetrack to your original point, concerning the need sometimes for more distinctions than the simplistic ideas of the "semantics" lobby.) Imaginatorium (talk) 09:33, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- They're not part of Roman-letter typography, Imaginatorium, and they would look uncomfortable as well as unfamiliar. But I'd say that their unfamiliarity would be a reason for preferring them over [ ] ( ): They'd draw attention to themselves, thus highlighting their content. But no, I'm not advocating their use, if only because they're likely to be rendered as identical "character unavailable" glyphs (perhaps question marks seemingly incised in black splodges). -- Hoary (talk) 05:04, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't exist in a vacuum, so: how do the relevant reliable sources handle such cases? Gawaon (talk) 10:03, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- I've seen italics used for normal highlighting, and either underlining of or small-capitalizing of the italics used for the next level. But that has been in printed books, or PDFs. -- Hoary (talk) 11:58, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- That could work in Wikipedia too. And it makes sense to stay close to what other sources do. Though small-caps for the second level are probably better than underlining, otherwise people will think it's a link. Gawaon (talk) 17:30, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- Gawaon or Imaginatorium or anyone, I'll assume (perhaps very wrongly) that you're using a a new, mainstream browser in a standard sort of way. Putting aside the (important) matter of "accessibility" (and the minor one of blueness), how do (A) That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent and (B) That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent look to you? (To me, (A) is good enough, but (B) shows up the inconsistency of stem width (because the "small caps" are merely the full caps of a smaller font). I suppose I could have set up Firefox to use a "font family" that includes genuine small caps, but there are only so many free hours in the week.) -- Hoary (talk) 21:53, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
- They look both OK to me. Gawaon (talk) 21:59, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was spurred into action by the sidetrack. I'll try to help. First it really would help to see the actual article and examples; that's what I meant by leaving it to editors. Perhaps there should be a section in the MOS about "grammatical examples", but it could come after deciding on how to handle some specific examples.
- I don't think either of your (blue) examples is very clear. You are trying to use italics and small caps, when neither is available: I take your word for it that most browsers will not display small caps properly, and italics are not available in a sans-serif font. (If you want to write an encyclopedia, do not choose a sans-serif font. Oh, look what I chanced on: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting/Archive 2#Petition To Change Wikipedia's Fonts To Avoid Homograph Ambiguity - a lone voice cogently pointing out a serious problem, and no-one takes any notice.)
- Again, you say "WP has an aversion to boldface"; what is the purpose of "WP's opinion"? Perhaps you could use a serif font for grammatical examples, then it might be effective to use italics and Roman bold (with your version for comparison):
That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent
That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent
- I don't understand what you mean by "stem width", and I can't see anything like that, but to me the use of sans-serif, sloped sans-serif, and "smaller" sans-serif is totally ineffective. If it helps, here's a picture of how these appear to me, on a fairly standard browser (Firefox): [2] Imaginatorium (talk) 07:37, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
- I have to agree that bold looks nicer and (especially) much more clearer and easier to distinguish in such a case. It should indeed be used sparingly, but in such cases, where two different types of emphasis are needed, "use italics for one, bold for the other (rarer) one" may indeed be the best advice. Gawaon (talk) 08:09, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
- Adding just for the record - in case of lengthy sentences could just go the route of nested
\emphcommands in LaTeX (at least for my distribution/setup), which just swaps back and forth between roman/non-italic and italic text. Imo works just fine logically/visually :), but dunno if {{em}}/html support nesting - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 15:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
- Adding just for the record - in case of lengthy sentences could just go the route of nested
- Imaginatorium, my guess is that boldface tends to be used by the immature in order to stand out, to express intransigence, or whatever. The more there is of it, the more juvenile it looks and the less impressive it gets. "Stem" as explained in Typeface anatomy. I hadn't thought of distinguishing between serif and sans-serif; and now that I do think of it, I don't like it at all, and for several reasons. Gawaon, yes, I now tend to think that italics for the first level, italics+bold for the second is the best solution. Thank you both for your input. -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
- I have to agree that bold looks nicer and (especially) much more clearer and easier to distinguish in such a case. It should indeed be used sparingly, but in such cases, where two different types of emphasis are needed, "use italics for one, bold for the other (rarer) one" may indeed be the best advice. Gawaon (talk) 08:09, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
- Gawaon or Imaginatorium or anyone, I'll assume (perhaps very wrongly) that you're using a a new, mainstream browser in a standard sort of way. Putting aside the (important) matter of "accessibility" (and the minor one of blueness), how do (A) That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent and (B) That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent look to you? (To me, (A) is good enough, but (B) shows up the inconsistency of stem width (because the "small caps" are merely the full caps of a smaller font). I suppose I could have set up Firefox to use a "font family" that includes genuine small caps, but there are only so many free hours in the week.) -- Hoary (talk) 21:53, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
- That could work in Wikipedia too. And it makes sense to stay close to what other sources do. Though small-caps for the second level are probably better than underlining, otherwise people will think it's a link. Gawaon (talk) 17:30, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- I've seen italics used for normal highlighting, and either underlining of or small-capitalizing of the italics used for the next level. But that has been in printed books, or PDFs. -- Hoary (talk) 11:58, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
![[2]](https://imaginatorium.org/private/dolores.png){kind=link}
Incorrect usage of boldface in “this page in a nutshell”
editBoldface is used here but italics should be used for emphasis. Kikkerpoes (talk) 16:29, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
- The MOS does not have to comply with rules that are meant for the article namespace. Gawaon (talk) 17:51, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
- To editor Kikkerpoes: Eh those little hatnotes always use bold/strong for emphasis (at least that I've seen), so would be more consistent to keep them. Plus, as above comment :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 14:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)
Non-English music festival names
editHello. Should the names of non-English music festivals be italicised? The title of the article, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, is not italicised, but "Rock am Ring" and "Rock im Park" in the lead are italicised. Is a music festival considered an organisation? And in this case, if I follow MOS:BADITALICS, the German music festival Heute die! Morgen Du! is not italicised. I am not sure. Oroborvs (talk) 19:31, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
Discussion at Talk:2025 New York City shooting § be bold?
edit You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2025 New York City shooting § be bold?. There is currently an ongoing edit war on the article over the bolding of redirected terms despite a seeming consensus on the talk page in support. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:34, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
Discussion at Talk:2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting § Bolding
edit You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting § Bolding. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:46, 21 August 2025 (UTC)