Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

This refers to a somewhat decent portion of this guideline - primarily between sections [[MOS:LEAD#Format of the first sentence|]] and [[MOS:LEAD#Proper names and titles|]]. A discussion is ongoing on Talk:2021 storming of the United States Capitol which suggests that these portions of this guideline are either too broad (in that they could be construed to apply in too many situations), or that criteria that commonly encourage bolding/not bolding should be better defined. I think the simplest way to improve this would be to expand further on this sentence in the Redundancy section: The title of the article need not appear verbatim in the lead if the article title is descriptive. Specifically, I suggest changing "need not" to "usually does/should not" and including information regarding precedent for inclusion (i.e. descriptive proper nouns or colloquial/common names do, whereas descriptions of events that are editorially decided don't) with some examples being added of descriptive titles that shouldn't be forced, and of descriptive titles that should. It appears from my looking to attempt to find precedent for the aforementioned discussion that a loose general rule is that recent events (especially those still ongoing, but also those which have ended) for which there is no "colloquial" name are generally not bolded - examples being 1, 2, 3, 4, and more. There's probably a better way to word this "unwritten rule" if it is to be added into this guideline, and if I'm off-base with what I've identified as a general distinction I'm happy for something else to be identified - but I feel it should be more guidance than there is now. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:18, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant guideline is MOS:BOLDTITLE: If an article's title is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it in bold as early as possible in the first sentence. It is therefore mandatory, although Wikipedia:Superfluous bolding explained (which does no such thing) stating that this practice is not mandatory and should followed only where it lends natural structure to the sentence since the latter is only an essay. Departures from the guideline it may only occur if you have to contort the first sentence just to make it fit the article title. I don't see that occurring here. Unfortunately, there is no rationale provided for the guideline that would enable us to interpret it. Maybe one of the old hands knows the reason for it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:46, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that is relevant when there is a "formal or widely accepted name" for the subject, and I offer that implies that when there isn't such a name (or such name isn't the article title) that it can be presented/bolded, but it's not mandatory. This is what the following sections are attempting to clarify - when the title isn't a "formal or widely accepted name" or is merely a description used for editorial purposes (as articles need a concise title), when should it still be in the first sentence and bolded versus when not. It's led to situations where people use MOS:BOLDTITLE to say it's mandatory, but others argue that MOS:AVOIDBOLD overrules that, and there's no "middle ground" between simply bolding if "formal or widely accepted" and not bolding in any other case because no guidance is present on how to apply it. This isn't to mention that MOS:REDUNDANCY and AVOIDBOLD both provide instances where the "mandatory"-ness of BOLDTITLE is overridden in the interests of avoiding redundancy and avoiding unnatural sentences... which means that maybe BOLDTITLE needs rewording to clarify that it's not mandatory, just heavily preferred when it is possible to do so naturally. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, given folks here are (presumably) interested in lead sections, why not amble over to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles#MEDLEAD and chime in to whether there needs to be a separate guide on medical leads Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:02, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See discussion at Talk:Shadow_the_Hedgehog#MOS:FIRST. I'd consider just boldly making a change, but this example has been there for awhile, so best to double-check if there's any comments from the wider community. This wouldn't be a change to the guideline at all, just to the example given.

• If the article is about a fictional character or place, say so.<ref>For example: {{block indent|'''Homer Simpson''' is a fictional character in ''The Simpsons''.}}</ref>

The issue is that "fictional character" is redundant. A wikt:character is already understood as a literary device and thus not real; barring the rare scenarios where there's a risk of confusion (Stephen Colbert (character) or Grigori Rasputin (Hellboy) perhaps, both of which use different phrasings anyway), there's not really any need for the word "fictional". On the other hand, "fictional" is a good clarifier for something that could plausibly be read as real ("fictional hedgehog", "fictional soldier").

• If the article is about a fictional character or place, say so.<ref>For example: {{block indent|'''Donkey Kong''' is a fictional ape in the ''Donkey Kong'' and ''Mario'' video game series.}}</ref>

This wouldn't have any impact on wider Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction concerns - just this specific one case of wordcruft. Pick some other example of a "fictional (foo)", not "character". SnowFire (talk) 15:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would replace "say so" with something along the lines of "make that clear/evident". "Say so" is informal and imprecise. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:40, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to "make that clear" here. SnowFire (talk) 15:51, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support Axem's idea. enjoyer -- talk 02:08, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all for this. JOEBRO64 13:04, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. "Fictional character" is a long-standing problem. Popcornfud (talk) 14:37, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and made the change. SnowFire (talk) 04:57, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Section "Editing the lead section" of this article does not appear to be correct. I visited my preferences and discovered that the "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page" option was already checked, yet I don't see any way to edit just the lead of an article. My test article is Hydrodynamic quantum analogs. David Spector (talk) 13:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a MoS line on whether to include footnotes within the bold section of the first sentence? The Gangulphus article opens with "Saint Gangulphus^[1] of Burgundy is venerated as..." (the footnote offering other spellings of his name), which feels similar to MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD, but I can't see that it's covered here. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:56, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That seems preferable to the alternative of cluttering the first sentence by listing out all name variants in the first sentence of text. CUA 27 (talk) 19:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely. Would seem better to put the footnote after "of Burgundy", or after the next mention of "Gangulphus" in the text, to me, I was just wondering if the style guide had a take on it. --Lord Belbury (talk) 08:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to follow the standard of:

If an article's title is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it in bold as early as possible in the first sentence

I am editing mathematical articles such as S-Matrix and placing the article title before the referenced article where possible; isn’t this what I should be doing? UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 07:29, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UHT seems to take the view that the name of the article ought to be the first word of the first sentence, and that any prepositional phrase must be placed after it. See changes like this at Root for an example, there are many more such changes. I see this as an extreme reading of 'as early in the sentence as possible' and believe it makes for some awkward constructions. Girth Summit _(blether) 07:37, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Any prepositional phrase should be placed after if possible. Not must. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 07:40, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also, placing the title first makes it easier for others to expand on it in such ways as, for example, to elaborate on the root of the word.

Please see:

Mathematics (from Greek: μάθημα, máthēma, 'knowledge, study, learning') UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For example we don’t start that article as:

In language, mathematics is… UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't a need to on that case - mathematics isn't a branch of linguistics. Certainly not all first sentences need any kind of prepositional phrase, and I have no problem with someone judiciously removing them when they aren't necessary. What I object to is someone coming along and moving them en masse, so that we end up with lots of little parenthetical prepositional phrases getting in between the subject and the verb. Girth Summit _(blether) 08:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Then those prepositional phrases should probably be moved further down in the article, eventually, with the help of the wiki community, and expansions on more solid definitions of the article topic can be more easily developed. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:21, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let's give others some time to review what you have been doing, and comment on whether they feel it was an improvement. I do not, but maybe others will. Girth Summit _(blether) 08:26, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding on the root of the word is much easier if you open with the word as opposed to having it mid sentence; for example giving the Greek form of the word. This is an improvement. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:29, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For example having the root of the word available, such as Set (/sɛt/; Egyptological: Sutekh - swtẖ ~ stẖ[a] or Greek: Seth /sɛθ/) helps people understand the word and the article. It also helps things like Google find priority topics more easily. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:35, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@UniversalHumanTransendence: I agree with Girth Summit that many of your edits (maybe all) on articles' initial sentences weren't improvements. I prefer to start with a context (e.g. "In physics,"), then name the articles' subject (e.g. "an S-matrix"), and then give its definition ("... relates the ..."). this way, the flow of thought needn't go from the subject back to its context, and then forward again to the subject's details. To my experience, most mathematics articles start following this scheme, indicating that a majority of editors like it, too. More generally, typesetting the subject in boldface wasn't necessary if it always should appear at the very beginning of the lead. And if you edit sentences, you should try to keep them grammatically correct; the subject of a sentence usually requires an article (or something similar) before it. BTW: it is not a purpose of Wikipedia to help Google. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]