Forum:CT:Quotes 2

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was No consensus due to lack of votes, no change to policy. Grunny (talk) 02:49, May 13, 2011 (UTC)

Per the Manual of Style, Wookieepedia mandates the usage of standard American English. However, one rule of standard American English is consistently broken across the Wiki, as the rule is never specifically mentioned on Wookieepedia's policies: that of quotation versus italicization.

Per standard American English, longer works like novels, magazines, anthologies, films, and soundtracks are to be italicized. Shorter works, like short stories, magazine articles, poems, television episodes, and individual songs are to be put in "quotes." Many templates, including {{Template:Ewoks}} and {{Template:TCW}}, properly follow this rule. However, as Wookieepedia never refers to the rule specifically, the rule is often broken when no template is used, and many of Wookieepedia's oldest and most respected members prefer italicizing shorter works. I propose that Wookieepedia enforce the rule as it is mandated in standard American English, essentially, to italicize longer works and quote shorter works. Since there are several different options here (including but not limited to: enforcing the standard American English rule, enforcing always italicizing, not enforcing any rule, etc), some discussion may be in order.—Axinal Convocation Chamber 17:38, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

  • Toprawa and I have had a discussion about this, and I've realized that this proposition is very broad and ambiguous, and I apologize for that, as I wrote the CT in unnecessary haste. Initially, I was referring to simply the Appearances/Sources section, but then I remembered I there was also ambiguity in how we write our article titles as well. Toprawa also reminded me of in-line text, which is also written two different ways. Because I think we should resolve all three of these issues, I ask you to bear with me while I amend my proposition. I would now like to hold a session of voting on three different issues, as I think grouping them into one will lead to too many opposing votes based on one individual clause. The amendments I am proposing, which I believe should be added to the layout guide once a consensus is reached, are as such:
  1. Short stories, magazine articles, television episodes, book chapters, individual pieces of music, and poems (henceforth referred to collectively as "short works") in Appearances and Sources sections of articles should be in either a template or, if no suitable template exists, a similar format in which the shorter work appears in quotes and the longer compendium in which the work was originally printed appears in italics (Ex: *"Chief Chirpa Kidnapped!"—Ewoks Annual)
  2. Short works in Wookieepedia article titles should be in quotes.
  3. Short works in in-line text should be in quotes.

Again, we can hold as much discussion on this as necessary, and, of course, those who have already voted will be informed of the new amendments and are encouraged to reread the propositions and change their vote if they wish. Thank you for your patience.—Axinal Convocation Chamber 17:36, April 27, 2011 (UTC)

Voting

Item 1

Support

  1. —Axinal Convocation Chamber 17:38, April 26, 2011 (UTC)
  2. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 21:45, April 26, 2011 (UTC)
  3. I support this in general, because I feel that not doing this makes us look ignorant of real-world styles used in 99.99% of American academia. However, I would be equally happy to accept Tope's compromise below, that the shorter work always be accompanied by the longer work in which it appears in these situations. ~SavageBOB sig 17:42, May 1, 2011 (UTC)
  4. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 18:27, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

"Dr.James Qail Uthan" —Unsigned comment by Dr.James Qail Uthan (talk • contribs) (Vote struck, reason: Per policy: Fewer than 50 mainspace edits -- Toprawa and Ralltiir 22:43, April 26, 2011 (UTC))
  1. As explained in the discussion section of this forum, I believe this looks disorganized and unprofessional, when used in the absence of a citation template. It may be technically "correct" according to certain real-world style manuals, but we're not losing any critical meaning by italicizing them in the Appearances/Sources lists, where we might otherwise lose that meaning significance in in-line text. I would be satisfied to accept this option if we came to some sort of agreement to always format "quote" material in some sort of template or template-like format, as mentioned below (Ex: *"Chief Chirpa Kidnapped!"—Ewoks Annual) to maintain what I consider superior presentation quality, but I must oppose this option until that agreement is reached. In short, Internet presentability and aesthetic taste wins out in the Appearances/Sources lists over any compulsive desire to follow a real-world stylistic standard here. We have the ability to create our own standard. Toprawa and Ralltiir 17:50, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
    • I should perhaps amend this comment by reiterating that I'm not at all set against considering changing my vote if said formatting agreement can be reached. When that's put on the table, then we can talk. I think it's a pretty harmless, minor compromise anyway. Toprawa and Ralltiir 17:54, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
      • I am entirely willing to discuss the template-like formatting, as I think it is a good idea. If we can agree on that, it only makes sense to go forward with proposing it. I'd like to hear your thoughts on how we should go about doing that. Should this CT be amended again, or should a new one be started? Thanks.—Axinal Convocation Chamber 18:48, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
  2. Totally per Tope. It looks neat [the unitalicized links] when included in a citation template that has an italicized part, but standalone items should be italicized, like we do now. 1358 (Talk) 18:29, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
  3. I agree with Tope. I think it all looks more organized italicized.--Darth Revanon 01:08, April 28, 2011 (UTC)
  4. Per Tope, until it's more clearly guided, including how the templates should format them. –Tm_T (Talk) 07:10, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

Item 2

Support

  1. —Axinal Convocation Chamber 17:36, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
  2. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 22:36, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
  3. Per my argument above. ~SavageBOB sig 17:44, May 1, 2011 (UTC)
  4. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 18:27, May 4, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. I take this means putting the article titles in quotes instead of italicizing, and I have to give weak oppose on that. Mainly: To me it looks rather unclear when and why this is to be done. I have to admit I'm not familiar with the american academia styles or anything, nor personally care much of it. My point is to keep Wookieepedia sane and easily understandable place. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 07:10, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

Item 3

Support

  1. —Axinal Convocation Chamber 17:36, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
  2. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 22:36, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
  3. Agreed. Corellian PremierRobotechAll along the watchtower 15:38, April 30, 2011 (UTC)
  4. Per above. ~SavageBOB sig 17:44, May 1, 2011 (UTC)
  5. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 18:27, May 4, 2011 (UTC)
  6. Weak keep per my other votes: needs a clear when and why, but this IMO doesn't affect that much the readability as the others so... (: –Tm_T (Talk) 07:10, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

  • Firstly, I think it's short-sighted to say that "many templates properly follow this rule," because our template system is arbitrarily done at best. The only template examples you've cited there are for television episodes, which we as a site have (correctly) informally universally accepted as putting in quotes, but others are only done inconsistently. You are correct in your assertion that many of the site's more senior members, and I include myself here, prefer italicizing just about everything, and I say that because that seems to be our prevailing style. Personally speaking, this is subjectively done based purely on functionality and, more significantly, what I consider a more visually appealing aesthetic presentation in light of our publication medium being the Internet. What I mean by that is, there is no argument that standard American English dictates placing certain works in italics and some in quotations. The idea being that works that can stand on their own, like novels, are italicized, while works that appear in a larger compendium, like poems and short stories, are in quotes. But I think it's important to consider on separate terms the two primary elements that will be affected by any such change per this proposal: in-line article text, and Appearances/Sources lists. To basically get right to the point, this overall discussion has popped up occasionally over the years, and there has naturally been dissent, which is what prevents us from adopting any kind of policy. But I think the departed Gonk once came up with an idea that never got off the cutting room floor that I hope to be the most reasonable suggested compromise to give everyone a slice of what they're after. The proposed system was essentially thus: A) Adopt standard American English punctuation italicization/quotation rules for in-line text; B) Keep Appearances and Sources lists largely in italics for a standardized presentation, with an emphasis being placed on the use of citation templates for shorter "quotation" works in order to avoid a list that would look like this:

Because, again personally speaking, and judging from some voiced opinions in the past, I find such an alternating approach to just look disorganized and unprofessional. Whereas when we implement a citation template, we're able to include the parent publication item that is italicized, which I feel keeps things looking uniform and polished. Example:

The loophole in this approach—and, consequently, where the compromise comes in—is for works that would fall under the quotation category that don't otherwise have citation templates to utilize. An example that comes to mind is the short story "Chief Chirpa Kidnapped!," which is from the Ewoks Annual compilation book. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that we would be unable to create a citation template for such an item, that "quotation" source would then be included in the Appearances list with italics, again for uniformity with all the other italicized works in said list, though it would still be put in quotes in any in-line text mention. If it did theoretically come up with a citation template with an italicized compendium title, then it would alternately be formatted in quotes. So, to summarize, on the one-time inspiration of Gonk, I'm hoping to give us a compromise that everyone can agree on and that gives everyone some of what they want so that we may put this discussion to bed once and for all and adopt a consensus policy to further advance site formatting standardization. I apologize for the length of this response, and I welcome further discussion on this matter. Thanks. Toprawa and Ralltiir 20:57, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

  • Thanks for the response, Tope. I did notice that some templates differ on their treatment of short works. But it doesn't really make sense to me to put television episodes in quotes and other short works in italics; as most who argue for italicizing all works do so for the sake of uniformity, I'd assume that different templates wouldn't make sense to anybody. Perhaps if we reach a consensus here, we can deal with templates like {{Template:Journal}} and {{Template:InsiderCite}} to make them more consistent.

Still, the second list you provided certainly looks better than the first. An idea that just crossed my mind when you mentioned "Chief Chirpa Kidnapped!"—and bear in mind that I haven't thought this through entirely—is perhaps implementing a sort of template-like format even for those works that don't have templates, as most short works like "Chirpa" are part of larger works. We could potentially place this in the Appearances section:

Of course, typing that would require a little more work (but when did that ever stop us?). Again, that's just a thought, and one that wouldn't affect my vote either way. Anyway, this CT wasn't just for Appearances sections, which I certainly should have clarified earlier...I think I forgot about it when I was creating the CT. I'm also concerned with how the titles appear at the top of the page—which I mentioned here some time ago. Some articles for short stories look "like this", while others look like this. A second CT may be in order here; one for Appearances/Sources, one for article titles. Regardless, I think we need to reach a consensus for both, as it's as important to have consistency across articles as it is to have consistency within them. Again, thank you for your response.—Axinal Convocation Chamber 21:31, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure where the disconnect happened, but I don't think we're quite on the same page here, and I'm afraid I didn't quite elicit the type of response from you I was hoping to get. I should say firstly that I find this CT proposal extremely broad and not very well defined as to what it would ultimately affect, so I just sort of interpreted it as intending to apply to everything, hence my response attempting to suggest a sort of reformed alternative proposal. Because I don't believe this discussion is as simple as just, to quote the first voting option, "Support the enforcing of the standard American English rule." There are different formatting nuances, as noted, that need to be considered individually in attempting to discuss this issue in its totality. My alternative proposal is an attempt to more narrowly adjust how this change would be implemented, with compromise ultimately in mind, because I don't believe it's practical to just slap this proposal down on the table as a general, undefined rule. In other words, my response was my attempt to begin amendment negotiations, rather than just opposing it outright. Toprawa and Ralltiir 21:48, April 26, 2011 (UTC)
    • I believe I understand, and I apologize for missing it earlier. How would you propose such a negotiation take place? The problem with simple discussions rather than CTs is that, like the SH thread I mentioned in my above post, they tend to generate a very brief, very dull discussion that ends with no real agreement on how one should proceed; this is why I started the CT rather than another SH. However, you are correct when you say that this discussion may be a little too broad, which I'm afraid is a result of my hasty creation of this thread. Do you think I should change the first voting option to something like, say, "Support placing short works in quotes in the Appearances and Sources sections of articles"? Or do you believe such this CT should be put on hold until negotiations on the specifics have occurred?—Axinal Convocation Chamber 21:58, April 26, 2011 (UTC)

While I'm not trying to be rude here, what are our sources going to do, sew us? A.They don't know most of our real names, and B.We encourage people to by Star Wars merchandise, and C. If Wikipedia didn't have good lawyers, how did they get away with wikileaks (and make no mistake, I despise wikileaks). Yes, you could waste time making our articles shiny and politically correct, or you could make great articles with mediocre grammar.'"Dr.James Qail Uthan"

  • We at Wookieepedia strive to create and maintain articles of the highest calibur that inform and enrich others' knowledge of the Star Wars universe. This has nothing to do with politics: it is a vote to decide whether or not the Wook will make an official policy of utilizing an aspect of MLA standard English composition. The point of this decision is not that we will be punished for not adhering to this guildeline, but rather that some of us wish to be consistant in its implementation. As a point for future reference, proper spelling and grammar are requirements for great articles, and the consistant misuse of the English language is grounds for punishment as both disruption to the site and defacing it. Please read the Manual of Style before editing. NaruHina Talk Anakinsolo 23:32, April 26, 2011 (UTC)
  • Reply to Dr. James: Please get your facts straight. First, Wookieepedia is not Wikipedia. Second, Wikipedia is not affiliated in any way with Wikileaks. Third, proper grammar is important, as NaruHina pointed out. Master Jonathan — Jedi Council Chambers Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 18:08 UTC