This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. OOM 224 18:31, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Manual of Style restructuring
Following the Layout Guide restructuring approved last month, it's time for the Manual of Style.
The Layout Guide (LG) and the Wookieepedia:Manual of Style (MoS) are easily the two most important article policies. However, the Manual of Style, which originates from the early Wookieepedia/Wikipedia era of 2005, has always been the type of policy where more stuff is added all the time and nothing is ever removed or restructured. While parts of the policy are well written, comprehensive, and updated, others are messy and outdated.
Therefore, I've attempted to restructure much of the LG, without really rewriting much at all.
- Restructuring the Manual of Style into three (plus two) distinct sections: current rules are all over the place and it's a pain to find anything in the MoS unless you know exactly where to look.
- Perspective: this part is mostly unchanged from previous revisions. It contains the rules for writing IU vs OOU articles, basically.
- Grammar and spelling: this mammoth section contains rules related to, well, grammar and spelling, and is appropriately subsectioned.
- Formatting: all things formatting (except Quotes and Linking) has been moved under this section.
- Quotes: I feel like keeping all things related to quotes in one section is a good idea; the current section contains more than just formatting rules.
- Linking: linking is such a big subject that it deserves its own section, imo. As with Quotes, the linking rules are not only related to formatting.
- New additions to codify de facto practice
- Added a tiny NPOV section under Perspective
- Added a new section on the period (full stop): i.e. image captions, references, quote attributions
- HTML vs wikitext: prefer wikitext over HTML, except in some cases (dashes, ellipses)
- Bolding in the intro: bold subject name and alternate names. Avoid bolding complete title when it comes to conjectural titles.
- Linking: when to link, when not to link. All in one place.
- Relocated some rules that seem to fit better in other policies
- The format-for-FandomDesktop rule has been moved to the main LG, because it really is about adapting the layout for Fandomdesktop.
- For whatever reason, the MoS contained a section titled "Layout Guide". Most of this was covered by the existing Layout Guides but I've relocated the rules concerning {{App}} to the OOULG.
- Rules regarding article titles in British English have been moved to the Naming policy (although the policy already covered this, I've slightly amended it anyway).
- The dash policy (WP:DASH) has been integrated into the main MoS: I don't think there's any compelling reason to have a separate page for dashes. However, if people feel strongly about this, it's not a hill I will die on.
- What I haven't done
- The Citations subsection of Formatting should be moved to Wookieepedia:Sourcing. However, as I plan on restructuring that policy as well, I feel like it can wait.
- Talking points
- MoS subpages: yes or no. Currently WP:DASH is the only subpage and in my proposal that one is being integrated into the main MoS. However, I could potentially see why people would want subpages. The Quotes and Linking sections could be candidates for subpages WP:QUOTE and WP:LINK or something.
- Nonetheless, I plan on creating redirects from WP:POV to Perspective, WP:CAPS to Capital letters, WP:DASH to Dashes, WP:QUOTE to Quotes, and WP:LINK to Linking.
As with the LG restructuring, the MoS has been thoroughly revamped but there are no changes to existing practice, really.
- Proposed Manual of Style (diff)
- Proposed Layout Guide (diff)
- Proposed OOU Layout Guide (diff)
- Proposed Naming policy (diff)
Again, given the MoS is one of our most important article policies, I hope to receive as much feedback as possible. Thanks! 1358 (Talk) 08:02, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
EDIT 14:12, 2 May 2022 (UTC): the CT is now live - Forum:CT:Manual of Style restructuring. 1358 (Talk) 14:12, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
- "The name of the article should be bolded in its first usage in an introduction, as should any alternate names mentioned in the introduction." — might I suggest changing "any" to "formal"? There's a pretty common problem with all sorts of informal alternate names being bolded in the intro, like "attack on Hoth" for the Battle of Hoth or "Separatist destroyer" for the Recusant-class light destroyer. OOM 224 22:36, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
- Looks good, regarding the capitalisation of Rebel/Imperial, shoulfnt it note that it should be capitalised only when referring to specific organizations to sccount for other groups such as the infinite rakatan empire, or should that be a subsequent tweak? Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 01:09, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, which section are you referring to? The "Rebel and Imperial" section does clarify it refers to the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. 1358 (Talk) 07:10, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
- I think that subpages could actually be a nice thing since on Fandom, unlike Wikipedia, if you search a redirect to an article section, it sends you to that article but not the specific section. A compromise could be having transcluded subpages, perhaps. JediMasterMacaroni(Talk) 02:03, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
- Ah, I missed the vote on this, and quotes too :( . Just wanted to say, well done on the global policy update ecks! I wasn't available at the time of the preliminary examination, but I can't see anything to comment on. Good job ;) . NanoLuukeCloning facility 12:30, 17 May 2022 (UTC)