Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 19

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RfC regarding bolding of sponsored names

As a threshold issue, all editors agreed that where the sponsor's name is actually in the article title, it should be in bold (e.g., AT&T Park). Discussion focused on cases where the sponsor's name is not in the title. The consensus was that no consistent policy should be adopted across English Wikipedia in such cases. In other words, bolding such names is neither universally mandatory nor universally prohibited. Rather, the decision should be made on a case-by-case basis, consistent with MOS:BOLDSYN (which advises editors to put "significant alternative titles" in boldface type). What is "significant" depends on context/use. Where disputes arise, they should be decided on the relevant article talk page (or WikiProject talk page. Neutralitytalk 01:03, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

From above:

There seems to be inconsistency in the way that sponsored names are handled in the lead section of articles. On some articles (including Dean Court and Queen's Club Championships) the sponsored name is written in bold. On some other articles (including London Eye and The Boat Race) the sponsored name is not in bold.

Should a consistent policy be adopted across English Wikipedia, either:

  1. making the sponsored name bold on all articles, or
  2. requiring that the sponsored name is not written in bold?

(NA) Relisted Yashovardhan (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2017 (UTC); originally initiated by pasta3049 (talk) 13:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Personally, I think the sponsored name should be in bold as it is a significant alternative title for the subject of the article pasta3049 (talk) 13:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Option 2 since sponsors are transient, sometimes changing on an annual basis. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:10, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
  • It depends. If it's a permanent part of the name of the subject, to the point where we include it in our article title, we should boldface it (example: my employer, the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, which has held that name since its formation some 15 years ago). If it's interim, temporary, or contingent, as in the examples given in the RFC wording, we should not boldface it. So we should avoid making a rule that locks us into one way or the other for all articles. Or, to put it another way: see WP:NOTTEMPORARY and WP:RECENTISM. Our articles should be as timeless as we can make them rather than only being valid if we read them in the same year as that version was created. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:08, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Depends What David Eppstein said. EEng 05:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Option 2 per Redrose64. We create BLPs using (and bolding) the name they're known by, while their birth name is not bolded (example: Matlock Rose). Since you can't create the article using the sponsored name for the reasons Redrose64 stated, they should not be bolded in the lead.
  • Oppose: itDepends per David Epstein. So I support neither of the options and must oppose the proposal as a whole, as the depends option is not offered. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:37, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Option 1' - as option 2 prohibits s bolding the sponsored name and the WP:COMMONNAME is often the sponsored name, and in any case it is the official and legal name while sponsored. Bolding multiple names is done and seems acceptable, and always bold the sponsored name as the official one. Markbassett (talk) 00:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • No (aka Oppose and Depends). This falls neatly under MOS:BOLDSYN, which tells us to bold significant alternative titles, with such significance usually meaning it merits a redirect, and nothing else. Per David Eppstein, sometimes a sponsored title is significant and sometimes it is not. Maybe a consistent policy on what makes a sponsored name a significant alternative title would be called for, but a consistent policy that it is always bolded or not bolded is not.Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Depends, as MOS:BOLDSYN is and always was enough to determine this. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:05, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
  • No, it depends on how significant the use of the sponsorship title is. For example, AT&T Park should be bolded, but not Coca-Cola London Eye. Kaldari (talk) 00:04, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment, Looking at these responses, it appears that there is general consensus that the sponsored names (including the 4 articles that I linked to) should not be written in bold (contrary to my personal preference). The exceptions given in responses (Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and AT&T Park) need to have the sponsored name in bold anyway because it is the article title. pasta3049 (talk) 18:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Relisted

  • Relisting comment : This is a matter which affects various different parts of Wikipedia and hence, it is necessary to have a more through consensus. Relevant wikiprojects should be informed of this Rfc. Presently, there's been little discussion and not many editors have participated. A fresh relist will ensure more participation. Yashovardhan (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Depends. On Kentucky Derby, we have (paraphrased) "the Kentucky Derby, aka the Kentucky Derby sponsored by Yum Brands." That's a neat way of putting it because it was the Derby a long time before Yum Brands got created or began sponsorship. If the event has been sponsored by a company since it was created then I'd definitely bold. If the sponsor varies from year to year I wouldn't. I think this is one of those things that varies from article to article and should do so. White Arabian Filly Neigh 21:56, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Option 1 so long as the sponsored name is current. The sponsored name can change over time, and one that's been ditched is less significant than the current one. Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:26, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Depends per MOS:BOLDSYN. If the alternative title using the sponsors name is well known or the primary name uses the sponsor's title than it should be bolded otherwise it should not. I support Giraffedata's suggestion that guidelines on when might be helpful. PaleAqua (talk) 01:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alternative names

Some argue that names like William "Billy" Bragg should not be used in the lead of articles with the part in quotations. I think this is pedantic removal of a useful feature, and would like to see this changed. Am I alone? Britmax (talk) 15:59, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

In essence you are wanting to revisit this discussion from last November, when it was decided to recommend not having insertions like "Billy" in your example if it is regarded as a "common hypocorism". For what it's worth I share your doubts – for one thing, a reader who didn't grow up in an English-speaking country may well not know or guess that "Billy" is a diminutive for "William", and may think "I was looking for Billy! Whozis William bloke?" – but it may be too soon to attempt to reverse the RfC: Noyster (talk), 12:49, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

PERMASTUBs formally recognized/authorized in an MOS page?

Although Wikipedia encourages expanding stubs, this may be impossible if reliably sourced information is not available.

WP:PERMASTUB may just be an essay, but from what I've seen its Where possible, they should be merged to larger articles and redirected there. When there is no possibility for any expansion, nor any topic that they could be merged into, it is possible that a permastub should be deleted. is more widely accepted than the alternative.

Should this page mention that in cases where expansion is impossible, the articles are frequently merged or deleted?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I tend toward "no" for several reasons. MoS is (mostly) not a content guideline, and has nothing to do with deletion policy at all, nor is deletion of any relevance to writing leads, or vice versa (even the "must make a claim of notability" thing doesn't have anything to do with leads; the claim to avoid speedy deletion need only be in the article, somewhere). Second, leads and merge possibilities doesn't really relate, either; that's a general relevance matter and is handled by content and editing guidelines, and the WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE policy; the closest MoS seems to get to this is avoidance of "trivia" sections, especially in list format, which I think is found in MOS:LAYOUT. Third, the essay is making a statement about probabilities, which may or may not be accurate; someone would actually have to study this, and I predict the conclusions would not support the premise. We have thousands upon thousands of permastubs, and they are regularly kept when they pass GNG (only requires non-trivial coverage in multiple, reliable, independent sources). Forced merging only happens when we don't think it is likely to ever be possible to expand the topic, e.g. when a person is not really notable in their own right but only incidentally as the participant in (victim of, etc.) some other notable event or person, and suchlike. MoS is not about probability assessment, but about offering style advice, broadly speaking. MoS no longer covers article length at all, that I can recall; it's all been moved to editing guidelines, like WP:Article length, WP:Stub, WP:Summary style, etc. It's definitely not the subject of this MoS page. If we got into this "probable stub outcomes" stuff, with actual evidence from CSD, Prod, and AfD analysis, narrowed to articles with stub tags/categories on them, and with a length-of-time-without-improvement filter, etc., it would likely be at Wikipedia:Stub. But it seems like a lot of work for no real benefit. We already encourage the expansion of stubs, and have editing policies that empower their expansion any time someone has additional sources (or even revisits the existing ones more throughly; covered this in another essay, WP:MINE).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:27, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Negative information in lede

Is there a policy or guideline on disparaging information in the lede of an article? Shouldn't critical information (about an organization or person for example) go in a "Criticism" or "Controversy" section? Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:23, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

For example: "John Smith was the mayor of Anytown from 1970 to 1980. He was arrested for drunken driving in 1979 and was defeated in the following election." Or see this recent edit (to remove negative info from lede that is already covered in "Criticism" section) at National Lawyers Guild https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Lawyers_Guild&diff=793544924&oldid=793459930 Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • which "Criticism" section? – No, criticism is preferably not sectioned off (see WP:CRITICISM), and the amount of criticism in the lead section should be proportionate to the amount of criticism in the body of the article (so, if there's a lot of criticism in the article as a whole, you can't leave it unmentioned in the lede). Also, criticism should be about the organisation (NLG) in the article about NLG, not about whether or not individual members of that organisation did something or not: none of the sources of the Lynne Stewart case seem to have "criticised" NLG for having her as a member, nor even for supporting her during or after the process that led to her conviction. So there was no criticism of "NLG" in that subsection, so these paragraphs have no place in the article on NLG (at least not in a "Criticism" section, and only elsewhere in the article inasmuch as there are enough reliable secondary sources commenting on NLG actions, and then only if the article content on the matter is confined to describing actions of the NLG as an organisation, not actions of its individual members – in other words: avoid WP:COATRACKing). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
  • So I reintroduced the "McCarthy era" info in the lead section: that material is covered extensively enough in the body of the article (four paragraphs) to be at least mentioned in a short sentence in the lead section.
The article seems, however, lead section as well as body, fairly unbalanced: for instance, the material in the lead section is nearly exclusively sourced to the organisation's website... that is not a balanced account (for instance, one shouldn't be seeing subjective qualifiers like "progressive" and "activist" if they can only be referenced to self-declarations of the organisation). The New Deal connection is mentioned only in passing, and not even in the lead section (seems completely unbalanced with the four paragraphs (!!!) on the McCarthy era), etc. So, work enough ahead to turn this into a somewhat acceptable article afaics. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:20, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
*Summary:--No consensus for implementation of any changes/addition/prohibition has been found.
  • Details--As many participants have rightfully opined, the RFC was too blunt and broad-scoped to avoid a train-wreck.But in all it's essentiality, this has generated an excellent discussion among numerous editors bringing certain underlying problems to the limelight.Also, the overall opinion of the community on the set of the issues could be thoroughly judged.
  • Summary--The summarised observation(s) go as follows:--
    • Many editors view IPA as the most non-necessary parenthetical addition to lead.An RFC could be developed and launched as to seek the community opinion and tackle this issue specifically.
    • D.O.B. and D.O.D. are viewed by many editors as non-alienable parts of the lead.
    • Many editors are sympathetic to the proposal of limiting the number of foreign names in the lead.
    • There has been an in-general viewpoint, amongst supporters and opposers alike:---The lead needs shortening. Not-withstanding this, many editors are firmly opposed to any concept of micro-management and are of the view that this may be comfortably tackled on a per-se basis.

Signed by Winged Blades Godric at 08:12, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

The opinion piece in the latest Signpost criticised the trend toward more information included in parentheses in the first sentence of an article. Piotrus suggested an RfC on the matter, so I have opened one, as I don't believe one has been opened yet. Apologies if wrong.

  • Should Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section discourage metadata included parenthetically in the first sentence?
  • What kinds of information should be included?
  • How many variants of each kind? Eg, how many languages should the name be listed in the first sentence?
  • birth and death dates
  • names in other languages
  • maiden and other previous names
  • pronunciation written in systems like jyutping and pinyin
  • scientific names
  • inline audio files of pronunciation

Current relevant policy:

Foreign language If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can be included in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses.

Pronunciation If the name of the article has a pronunciation that's not apparent from its spelling, include its pronunciation in parentheses after the first occurrence of the name. Most such terms are foreign words or phrases (mate, coup d'état), proper nouns (Ralph Fiennes, Tuolumne River, Tao Te Ching), or very unusual English words (synecdoche, atlatl). Do not include pronunciations for names of foreign countries whose pronunciations are well known in English (France, Poland). Do not include them for common English words with pronunciations that might be counterintuitive for learners (laughter, sword). If the name of the article is more than one word, include pronunciation only for the words that need it unless all are foreign (all of Jean van Heijenoort but only Cholmondeley in Thomas P. G. Cholmondeley). A fuller discussion of pronunciation can come later in the article.

Biographies The opening paragraph should usually have dates of birth and death. Birth and death dates are important information about the person being described, but if they are also mentioned in the body, the vital year range (in brackets after the person's full name) may be sufficient to provide context. Birth and death places, if known, should be mentioned in the body of the article, and can be in the lead if relevant to the person's notability, but they should not be mentioned in the opening brackets of the lead sentence alongside the birth and death dates. In some cases, subjects have legally changed their names at some point after birth. In these cases the birth name should be given as well. In the case of transgender and non-binary people, birth names should be included in the lead sentence only when the person was notable prior to coming out. It is common to give the maiden name (birth name) of a woman better known under her married name.

Organisms When a common (vernacular) name is used as the article title, the boldfaced common name is followed by the italic un-boldfaced scientific name in round parentheses in the opening sentence of the lead.

—A L T E R C A R I  ✍ 06:06, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Discourage any parenthetical information in first sentence Info is usually already duplicated in infobox or body. Expand {{Chinese}} so it works with non-Asian languages and even audio files, and can be used as a general language/pronunciation box. Rename it to {{langbox}} or some such. —A L T E R C A R I  ✍ 06:06, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I support limiting () to (for bios) one foreign name and dates of birth and death. Location of birth and death should be moved to infobox, I can see it allowed in () only if there is no infobox yet (with no alt names for placenames). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:11, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • On biographies, I would include only one alternative name (if significantly different from the main one or written in a different script) and the years of birth and death. The full dates and places can go later in the article text, but a nationality incorporated into the actual prose of the lead sentence is usually ok. If a pronounciation is needed, it should go in a footnote or infobox as otherwise we clutter the first lines of our articles with what looks like line noise to most people. The current guidance on species names looks ok to me; again, though, the pronounciation should be elsewhere. As for metadata (such as ISSNs for periodicals), I think we're better off keeping it out, or it could grow past all bounds. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Do not change MOS. No need for micromanagement. This is pure guideline creep; if an article's lead offends thee, SOFIXIT applies. Carrite (talk) 13:14, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Carrite, I was quite surprised that there was nothing on this in the MoS already. These are the first words that readers see. You suggest individual editors make changes as they see fit, but often such changes get reverted (at least, that's what makes me hesitate), because as this discussion shows, there's a lot of disagreement. Hence the RfC – so we can form a consensus on what is reasonable. I have quite an extreme view and I expect to compromise. That consensus needs to be recorded somewhere. The MoS is style guidance. What better place? —A L T E R C A R I  ✍ 01:09, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
In my opinion, this is a solution in search of a problem — I do not believe that parentheses are overused in the leads of articles, generally speaking, and if somebody goes over the line in that direction, it is a simple matter to carve that back if carving it back seems necessary. Carrite (talk) 01:41, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Remove all metadata This is what WikiData does. We need not continue a paper-encyclopedia tradition by putting data there that can be better found elsewhere. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Encourage I generally support "minimal" parentheticals in the lead. Much of that information should be moved to the infobox. Power~enwiki (talk) 22:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Whether or not information should be included in parenthesis within the first sentence is very situational. Guidance on certain commonly occurring cases is due, but a blanket rule would be inappropriate. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 00:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. As most of you know, there's a bit of a split among Wikipedians; most rely on so-called "normal editing", but many participate heavily in various article reviewing processes. At GAN and FAC, people are generally on board with cutting back on anything in the lead sentence that won't be of interest to most readers. If detail is needed, I can run a survey. - Dank (push to talk) 00:48, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Start small – limit bios to birth and death years. As an initial change, I would suggest returning to the traditional encyclopaedic convention and replacing full birth and death dates in biographies with birth and death years. The exact date is generally trivial information and in no way warrants being in the lead (and on the rare occasion that one or both dates are of particular significance, they will be in the prose of the lead anyway). After that change has been made, discussions could be had about further changes, such as relegating pronunciation information and translations into foreign languages to the footnotes. 142.160.131.202 (talk) 01:38, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
To clarify, that is not, however, to say I would be opposed to immediately moving pronunciation information and translations into foreign languages to the footnotes. 142.160.131.202 (talk) 05:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose anything prescriptive. It's a manual of style, not a writing guide. What information to include in the lead sentence, and how to present it, should be left to editorial discretion on individual articles. However, a more general guideline that advises editors to keep it as brief of possible might be helpful. – Joe (talk) 15:32, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  • The most crucial information is the birth and death dates. Most biographical encyclopedias have gone much further than just putting them in the first sentence--they put them in the title. The rationale for this is that the approximate dates are usually something the enquirer is aware of, and will confirm that the right person is in question, and if necessary, almost always give unambiguous disambiguation. Frankly, I wish we did that, but that's for another discussion. But we should never have information in the infobox which is not in the article. The infobox is intended to separate out for convenience the key metadata, both for ready-reference and for use by wikidata. It is not intended to replace the article text. DGG ( talk ) 01:48, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Remove all pronunciations from lead sentences. Encyclopedias don't have pronunciations. That's what dictionaries are for. Besides, most people can't read IPA anyway so it's a huge waste of the most valuable real estate in the article. If you absolutely must discuss the pronunciation, do so in a note, a separate section, or the infobox. Also, support more specific RfC. Kaldari (talk) 03:09, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
  • What Kaldari said. Please dear god can we kill the stupid IPA pronunciations? FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 02:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support some limitation. Information that helps confirm the reader is on the right article (e.g. birth years) belongs in the first sentence; other information doesn't. A name in a foreign script may help readers with more obscure topics; it certainly doesn't do that for Christopher Columbus or Genghis Khan. If we can't agree on content-based restrictions, then at least say something about length: just as WP:LEADLENGTH recommends avoiding lead sections more than four paragraphs, a parenthetical following the article title should not take up a whole line before we get to the actual definition. quant18 (talk) 03:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Do not discourage foreign language For any subject whose name is not naturally rendered in the Latin script, exactly one name rendered natively should be provided in the lead sentence. The article title for many subjects is already "pronunciation written in systems like jyutping and pinyin": their actual name is the "foreign" one, and belongs at the very top of the article. I would argue, contra DGG, that this information is more crucial than vital dates. Template:Chinese, mentioned above by the proposer, is not an ideal placement for this information: it's more useful for when the traditional and simplified characters of the subjects name differ greatly, or the Wade–Giles transliteration is more common than the pinyin one. I would support an expanded version of the template for arbitrary scripts and pronunciation systems, but not as a replacement of the info being in the first sentence. Snuge purveyor (talk) 16:00, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
    • And oppose major changes to guidelines. Given all the different concerns people are bringing here, I don't feel certain any guidance stronger than an essay on best practices is going to be helpful for the encyclopaedia overall. There are too many edge cases. Furthermore, not every article even has an infobox to move "non-prose" information into, and I hope we all remember what a bad idea it is to try to force an infobox onto an article. On the topic of pronunciation guides, yes IPA's massive glyph set is confusing, but it is the standard, and considerably more useful to certain classes of user than an audio file could be. I won't comment on whether it belongs in the lead sentence because I think that will vary based on the article, like all the rest of this stuff. Common sense is paramount. Snuge purveyor (talk) 18:49, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • We shouldn't discourage all use of parentheticals in the first sentence, but removing IPA pronounciations and keeping dates to years only both sound like good ideas. I also think a guideline like Quant18's should be used, such as a maximum of 5 words. Enterprisey (talk!) 18:32, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support guidance/standards of some sort that reduce parenthetical information. I agree with others that IPA pronunciations should be removed, along with exact dates in favor of years. Foreign-language titles may be important in certain articles so it could be hard to come to a guideline applicable in all circumstances on that topic. I certainly find them very helpful on occasion. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:48, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support especially removal of pronunciations and long lists of alternate names. Support removal of birth and death places in lead. Support removal of names in other languages. Lean towards just years but can see situations where full dates may be good, so would prefer that the date/year be couched as "generally/most cases" thing. Would willingly support any measure to burn with fire IPA pronunciations in the first sentence. (Hell, can we burn with fire IPA in general?) Ealdgyth - Talk 13:08, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Do not change existing guidelines. Of course an essay would be welcome describing some best practices in the application of basic common sense in avoiding clutter. But this application of common sense is dependent on the context, and so is not easily subjectable to canonisation as hard rules. As for the specific categories discussed above: birth and death years as well as major alternative names are necessary so that readers know they're on the right page, though exact birth dates really don't need to be even in the lede. Pronunciations for foreign or counterintuitive terms have a place in the first sentence as well – it doesn't make sense to force a reader to browse through the rest of the article before they're able to pronounce the name of the subject. – Uanfala 22:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose mandatory removal of IPA. I understand that, given how far English spelling is divorced from pronunciation, native English speakers are going to have a hard time learning it, but it is an invaluable tool (and otherwise hard to find information) to those who understand it. Daß Wölf 01:27, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
To clarify, I also oppose mandatory removal of IPA from the parentheses at the start of the article. I cannot imagine another natural, let alone more suitable place for this information, apart from an "Etymology" or similar section which the vast majority of articles lack. As such, people who look for this information likely won't be able to find it if it's moved. As for clutter in general, I agree that this is a problem but I oppose dealing with it by strongly-worded rules such as "only birth/death year in the parentheses", as these will rid of information hundreds of thousands of articles whose lead sentences never had a problem to begin with. Daß Wölf 00:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Do not change existing guidelines to require any change While I agreed whole-heartedly with the op-ed in the Signpost and reviewed the opening sentences of the FAs and GAs I've worked on, proposing simplifying changes where I consider them to be improvements, I don't think this is an area where more rules are required. A suggestion within the current guideline or recommendations in the form of an essay would seem to me to be the right way to go. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:13, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Pronunciations should generally go in the infobox, not the first sentence. If they are from a foreign country than one foreign spelling in the lead, not necessarily the first sentence. The rest should go in the infobox. The common name and main scientific name should go in the first part of the first sentence. Other scientific and common names can go in the infobox. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:22, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Not every article has an infobox. There appears to be a contentious history with this. Now the next diversion will be that all articles must have an infobox for somewhere to park this data. Please leave IPA, if needed and added, in opening sentence of article. We should not be straying off the established MOS because of a Signpost editorial. Fylbecatulous talk 12:56, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support major changes to the guidelines: foreign language names are often excessive. I think they should be limited to two (though just one should be encouraged), with only one name per foreign language (see Katyn massacre for an example where these are far too long). I also think that transliterations are unnecessary in the lead sentence (they belong in infoboxes or notes); two-word terms with translations are already fairly long. As for dates, I think that full dates (day-month-year) are fine if they are known for certain, else years should be used with {{circa}} (more detailed discussions belong in the body). Finally, I honestly would be happy to scrap all IPA in lead sentences. It's not at all useful to the average reader; I would prefer {{respell}} or audio files. Generally, I believe that it should be recommended that lead sentences be as short as possible (I would be happy with one line that gives key information, rather than listing four or five terms that describe a person or thing). N Oneemuss (talk) 15:10, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support changes, make Wikipedia leads readable Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and the leads of articles should only have encyclopedic information. There are norms that encyclopedias follow and Wikipedia has gone astray from these norms. The leads of Wikipedia articles should be in text which humans can read. Information like pronunciation guides, alternative names, numbers, information which should exist as structured data in Wikidata or Wikipedia infoboxes, non-English words, audio files in the text, and other things which are not text for humans to read should not be in the lead. Even though Wikipedia has been including these things, this has been a creep away from the norm. Some other people are saying that preventing this information is a policy creep and I do not agree with that. The policy creep is all the rules allowing this unusual information. To serve readers using mobile devices, and to serve typical readers without specialized needs, and to be an encyclopedia rather than a dictionary, guide for related data, or catalog for cross-references, the leads of Wikipedia articles should prioritize text over all else. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:44, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose anything prescriptive. Should be a case-by-case basis. Significant alternative names should usually be in the lead sentence or otherwise early on in the lead, unless excessive. In fact, WP:Alternative name is a policy (not merely a guideline). It's also common to include a person's birth date (and death date) in the lead, and I don't see this changing. I do understand keeping pronunciations out of the lead, though. Since this discussion is very important to Wikipedia article formatting, I will advertise it on policy pages, guideline pages, and WikiProjects. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
    • @Flyer22 Reborn: do you have an actual reason for your opposition? Because to me what you wrote above reads like "the rules should be this way because the rules are this way". —David Eppstein (talk) 01:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, you sometimes interpret my opposition to changes that way. It's true that I believe in "if ain't broke, don't fix it." Not always, but I believe in it. I object to anything prescriptive because I believe that this should be handled on a case-by-case matter for reasons others have given above. Sometimes it is best to have a pronunciation in the lead. Birth dates and death dates in the lead are undoubtedly helpful; we have readers who do not pay attention to the infobox, except for a picture that might be there, and we have articles that do not have an infobox. Not all biography articles have one, especially regarding ancient people. WP:Alternative name is significantly helpful in making sure that the reader knows they have arrived at the right page. A redirect alone does not always suffice. An alternative name in the lead can also be important because the person or topic is known by the two names (or the three names); by including them, we are letting readers know that these names are valid and are common for the topic. And, like I stated, WP:Alternative name is policy. This guideline cannot trump/contradict policy. If we want to reduce or eliminate alternative names in the lead, this discussion should be had at that policy page. It is not like the WP:Alternative name policy states that all alternative names should be in the lead; it focuses on significant ones, and notes that more than three should be given its own section...if a section on the matter is warranted. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:27, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. I've often thought our lead sentences are so convoluted that readers won't be able to make sense of them. Experienced editors get so used to deciphering the information in this format that I think we develop a blindness to the complexity.--Trystan (talk) 05:23, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • No change except for IPA thingos I'm happy with the status quo, leaving inclusions up to the editors of the article along as they are within the guidelines. I will say the IPA thingos are basically useless clutter, as even where the article title pronunciation isn't obvious, virtually no-one knows how to read the IPA thingos anyway. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:28, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is unnecessary WP:CREEP that would make WP more difficult for new editors and readers. Many articles don't have infoboxes (you are welcome to add them). Many readers are unaware of Wikidata, and we can't expect them to visit two sites. Reading sentences with parentheses is simpler. If you want to move parenthetical information, just move it, don't expect a special rule enforcing your style preference. Jack N. Stock (talk) 05:34, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • oppose any change. Each of the guidelines above makes sense to me, none is too prescriptive, each suggests such parenthetical inclusions should be limited, to one foreign name/IPA/date range/scientific name, so not excessive. As always editorial common sense should prevail in any particular article, but the guidelines describe common practice now.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 05:41, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • No change except for maybe losing IPA'. I agree with User:Godsy that much of is situational and we should be rather careful with general unspecific encouragement or discouragement of parentheses. Having said that, I'd also argue that we probably could do without the pronunciation stuff. Also a comment on the infobox versus lead or first sentence, afaik the original idea for infoboxes was or is to provide a redundant table style summary of information for a quick overview, meaning all its information should normally be found in article as well. In addition as already pointed out, various articles may have no infobox to begin with.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:45, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support making lead sentences more readable to discouraging parenthetical info there. IPA and foreign names may rarely be OK, but usually not, and the MOS should say so, allowing exceptions where the info can remain concise and is of special value. Dicklyon (talk) 05:48, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose, including the IPA. As a user of Wikipedia (in the sense that I use it to gain information), I have found the metadata in parentheses, especially the IPA pronunciations, immensely helpful. Several times I was looking for information on a person whose name I cannot pronounce, and thanks to the lead section, I could pronounce it right away, without looking up a dedicated pronuncing dictionary. The Chinese names are similarly helpful, especially when it's not immediately obvious from the pinyin who the person is. Perhaps a gadget or script can be created that removes the parentheses, but I would not support removing the information altogether.. Kayau (talk · contribs) 06:35, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support short and simple lead sentence - it's what's seen in search results or as a hover-over from a link, so needs to convey birth and date years (which give context and can disambiguate from others of different centuries), a single original-language name form, and then the "is a ..." identifying characteristic. Pronunciation, birth and death days, place of birth and death, where known, should be in the text of the article and referenced to reliable sources, whether or not also duplicated in an infobox. PamD 06:37, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I support anything that makes the opening sentence less cluttered. A more recent issue to emerge is that more than half of reader visits are on mobile devices with very small screens. This means that often readers don't persist beyond the opening few sentences. Where there's an infobox, pronunciation and transliterations into other scripts/languages should be there, not in our noses at the beginning of the main text. Tony (talk) 07:26, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • You can include information in a footnote as I've done at Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The Japanese name is still there for pedantics, but it's hidden away so that the main users of the WIkipedia here, in this case English users, don't need to read a huge chunk of unrelated text in the first sentence. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 07:43, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
That could apply for titles that are fairly obvious transliterations like with Sonic the Hedgehog. Other Japanese titles would most likely be preserved and displayed in the lead as with Fullmetal Alchemist and Attack on Titan. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 07:52, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Darkwarriorblake: the title of that article is in English, not Japanese. Such a thing is far from "pedantic" when the title is untranslated (as with names) and has a non-obvious pronunciation, as at Kanae Yamamoto (artist). Putting the pronunciation away into a footnote just makes work for readers, virtually all of whom will need to make use of that information just to be able to read the article. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:07, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
It's an English article on the English Wikipedia, a japanese translation of the name is of no use to anyone reading the article, in this context it is known widely as Metal Gear Solid to people reading the article, not Metaru Gia Soriddo. So it is pedantic to put it in the lead sentence of an article in parentheses when it services at best a niche audience. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:21, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Darkwarriorblake: You missed my point as badly as you possibly could. Please reread what I wrote. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:24, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
No. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 09:28, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
"No" what? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:52, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
I couldn't agree with Darkwarriorblake more strongly. Obstructing the opening with foreign scripts right at the top of the main text is a disservice to everyone who doesn't read Japanese script (or cyrillic, or arabic scripts). A footnote is just fine for any native-speaker/reader of those scripts, if they need to identify it. If they want more in that script, why not consult the proper language-Wikipedia? Why should we try to draw readers of those languages away from their WP? Tony (talk) 10:08, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Tony1: You're assuming other-language Wikipedias have articles on these topics. I've created piles of articles on Japanese topics that have no Japanese-language article (including FAs). And as I've pointed out below, what hypersensitive soul is "obstructed" by the four characters in the lead to Tokugawa Ieyasu? Who is "disserviced" by the pronunciation guide in the lead to Kanae Yamamoto (artist)? It would drive me nuts not to know how to pronounce the name of the article topic. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:21, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Strongly disagree with User:Darkwarriorblake and User:Tony1, who have clearly never felt the pain and frustration of reading a journal article about a CJK subject with all the native logographs locked away in endnotes. (Imagine reading an article where every single proper name is replaced with a nondescript variable attached to a footnote and you may approximate the feeling.) The idea that the native CJK name of the article subject is useful only to native speakers is ill-considered. Our articles are used by English-speaking students of foreign topic areas, many of whom will know some of the foreign language, but will be better served by an English-language article, both in terms of reading speed and clarity of information. It should be repeated that CJK logographs cannot be reverse-engineered from their transliterations, including the article title, and anyone with any knowledge of the target language will need this information and want it to be in the first sentence. Characterising this audience as niche at best is incorrect, and asking them to click a footnote to retrieve critical information about the subject so your eyes don't have to spend an additional decisecond scanning past a script you don't recognise is uncharitable and selfish. Removing CJK would be a disservice; retaining it is not. Snuge purveyor (talk) 20:22, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Preserve existing guidelines which suggest removing IPAs where not necessary. For instance, IPAs should not have to apply to Japanese romanizations, otherwise the romanization isn't doing its job. Birth dates are okay if they contain years, but if the only available dates are for birth month and day, then exclude. The infobox can also absorb the Chinese language variants and IPAs as with Chiang Kai-shek which even has detailed IPAs, but the most common language names can be placed in the lead as with Lee Seung-gi. Minor spelling variants don't need to be listed in the lead either. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 07:52, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
As an example, Ronald Reagan has his full name IPAed. Is that really necessary? Only his last name would be a candidate for that. AKB48 used to have romanization and IPA as well, but it was rather silly since it's pronounced like it would be in English. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 08:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Birthplaces should be discouraged as well from the lead, as it would lead to immediate redundancy, like "(born in U.S.) is an American actor". AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 08:06, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Good point about topics like Attack on Titan. I knew that, while being on a mission to alert a number of WikiProjects to this discussion, it was important to alert WP:Manga as well. As an aside, I wish there were more shows like Attack on Titan. I recently finished watching its second season, and have to read the manga to find out more (just like with season 1). I think most people, regardless of whether or not they watch anime, could get into this show. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:34, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose: what information to include should always be left at the discretion of the article authors since what is needed will vary by subject. Parenthesis creep can be corrected on a case-by-case basis. I also strongly oppose omitting pronunciations, as that is presuming an audience already familiar with English, when in actuality Wikipedia is used as a resource by ESL readers and those looking to make sure they have the correction pronunciation. Most of this metadata for a subject is important enough to belong in the first sentence parenthetical. At worse, it should instead be factored out into full sentences but again, that can be done on the offending articles without needing a MOS change. Opencooper (talk) 07:56, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Preserve existing guidelines per AngusWOOF and others above. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. MOS is fine re the introduction. In fact, my only problem with it is the use of the word "lead" because it does confuse some Americans – which is why Led Zeppelin were not called Lead Zeppelin (from "lead balloon") – introduction is the better word Jack | talk page 08:32, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of IPA. It's one of the more common things I look to in the lead, and I know I'm not alone. IPA is in wide use around the world, and the majority of English speakers (and thus Wikipedia readers) are speakers of English as a second language (David Crystal estimates at a ratio of three to one).
    Shunting pronunciations into an infobox, a footnote, or a pronunciation dicitonary off-wiki ignores how people actually use Wikipedia. We shouldn't be stopping readers in their tracks in the opening sentence as they hunt around the page or the internet to figure out how to read that first sentence before continuing with the article. Way to disrupt the reading experience!
    Oppose removal of CJK. This is hard for those who don't know these languages to understand, but CJK spellings cannot be reverse-engineered from their romanizations—especially in the case of Japanese. Shoving this information into a box just makes work for those of us who check Wikipedia frequently (even daily) to find this information, with dubious "gains" for anybody else—what is seriously gained by bumping the four characters 徳川 家康 out of the lead for Tokugawa Ieyasu?
    Encourage keeping parentheticals concise (limiting hairsplitting details and alternate pronunciations).
    Wikipedia is a reference work—please allow it to continue to serve such a rôle. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:58, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Remove all metadata — Does not belong in the lede, move it to the infobox or somewhere else in the article. The first sentence needs to be legible, and can not be a bunch of pronunciation and metadata. Carl Fredrik talk 09:51, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Thinking outside the box - As a possible solution to this "parenthetical overload" we could set a limit on the number of parentheticals appearing in the lead sentence... but not restrict the type of information appearing within each parenthetical. Blueboar (talk) 10:41, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
    Which sounds almost exactly like the current guidelines—don't allow it to get excessive, and otherwise leave it to editorial discretion. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:55, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support removal of IPA (very few people have any idea how to use it) and possibly limit the number of foreign names to one. Am a bit surprised to see people saying that birth/death places should be removed as they are already prohibited per MOS:OPENPARA. Number 57 10:50, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Comment Certainly some standardization is in order, because the guideline clearly isn't being followed for bios in all cases. I've run across any number of cosmonauts & others where full dates of birth & death, & place, are in the lead, only to be reproduced later, both in infobox & in text in some cases. I'd agree with removing the IPA as next to useless, but that leaves the issue of how foreign words & names should be pronounced; I disagree with the "that's for dictionaries" proposition & with removing pronunciaton(s) entirely. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 11:06, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • support Support making lead sentences more readable --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:55, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • support removal of IPA and limiting the birth/death info to years in bios. Remove all metadata. Alternate names (including "nee's") likewise can appear elsewhere in the article, even in the lead paragraph if they are of enough importance. Onel5969 TT me 13:04, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support the general concept. For biographical articles, I mostly support PamD's statement (i.e., only years of birth and death, not the full dates and no place names and a simple clear statement of how the person is notable). For other types of articles, I'm reluctant to place overly specific limitations about what does or does not belong, but I strongly endorse guidance to focus the lead sentence as being an extremely condensed precis for the article -- something that functions as the most prominent part of the article in search results. In most cases this would not include pronunciation or alternate names that are not commonly used in English (other than the native name). older ≠ wiser 13:56, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
    • And to be clear, I do not support removing relevant information from article, only that the first sentence should be highly focused on providing the greatest value for general readership. older ≠ wiser 15:44, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Do not change existing guidelines. The naming of articles that e.g. have a relevant foreign name or two is already difficult enough without the alternatives being eliminated from the opening sentence. I would support keeping the wording in parentheses short, however. Bermicourt (talk) 16:20, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Retain existing guidelines. Any problems or exceptions can be argued through individual article talk pages.Smerus (talk) 16:31, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Do not change existing guidelines (Oppose removal of CJK) It does not help if the English names are different from their native counterpart. However, I do support in keeping the text in parentheses short, as stated by Bermicourt. TheInfernoX (talk) 17:14, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose; any changes to existing policies and guidelines or normally allowed practice concerning this RFC. If ANY editor wishes to push a point, for inclusion or exclusion of any content in the lead, that can be addressed on that article's talk page and consensus. We do not have to try to micro-manage every single point and continually add "rule" upon "rule" to the supposedly uncomplicated "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". I personally like the fact that some articles have parenthetical foreign languages sometimes, or other information not restricted by some silly "rule", and is governed case-by-case as deemed important to the contributing editors and consensus. I also think year of birth/death is important on historical articles that at the very least provides disambiguation even though it might not "add to nobility". Otr500 (talk) 20:05, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose any change It's not the place of general MOS-junkies to creative normative rules for Wikipedians in specialized topic areas based on what the former think/assume is useful or important information. Leave it to the WikiProjects. With articles on Chinese, Japanese and Korean topics, native names are about the most important thing the vast majority of frequent readers of those articles would want to know, and confining them to later in the article (where exactly?) would make the articles worse, not better. I get the feeling some of the commenters in favour of the change are not actually interested in improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics in these areas, but are !voting based on general principles that don't actually work. I like Infobox-Chinese, and it does take some of the weight off longer lead sections, but mandating its use in all China-related articles (even two-sentence stubs!) instead of the lead sentence style is not a good idea, and renaming and/or massively expanding it to allow it to cover all foreign languages is asinine. The question is also confused, which seems to have caused several commenters to "support" without explaining exactly which parts of the proposal they support (their comments only mentioned IPA). And while I'm a little iffier on the IPA point, I do think it is wrong to say that only dictionaries and not encyclopedias give IPA for obscure/difficult terms (source?) and that most of our readers can't read IPA (which seems to actually mean "most of my friends can't read IPA"). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:52, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support reasonable changes. Keep birth and death years (but not days and not locations). Non-Latin alphabet names and IPA should be moved to the infobox if an infobox is present (but kept in lead if no infobox). Don't add long lists of alternate names if they aren't in wide use (I'm thinking here of plant articles that begin with multiple "common" names that are actually rarely used.) Tdslk (talk) 01:02, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Tread lightly in changing the guidelines In particular, maintain "a single foreign language equivalent name can be included in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses," along with reasonable flexibility around cases where the subject has two equally valid foreign language sources. The current MOS encourages brevity and not overloading the lead sentence; we could do more to implement that. More generally, the lead sentence is a distinguishing mark for Wikipedia that is as important as the graphic design of the page and the hierarchical structure of articles. We should be having this conversation, but we must do so with an awareness that we are an unrepresentative subset of editors, who are a small subset of current readers, who may not represent the increasingly mobile and increasingly global readership Wikipedia will have in 5 years. Accordingly, we should be drawing on WMF research and requesting new research on what we don't know, especially their ability to study reader behavior (as they previously did here) and ability to test features, as well their ongoing research on "new readers" ("potential Wikimedia readers in countries where access to the internet is quickly growing"—people like these). For example, in 60% of mobile views, the reader never opens a single section below the lead. In the discussion above, there are a lot of cavalier assertions of what matters and doesn't matter to people; we should make major changes when we have actual data. In the longer term, I think more customization of this kind of data is ideal: horizontally expandable bits of inline text that can reveal pronunciation and full dates, user preferences that show or hide IPA and CJK data, and parenthetical information that collapses away on smaller screens, but the technical implementation of that seems a way off at the moment.--Carwil (talk) 06:28, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose changing - current guideline seems quite adequate; rather restrictive, but accepting eminently useful elements. −Woodstone (talk) 06:54, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose There's obviously some horrible examples out there, but there are so many edge cases that the MOS shouldn't be anymore prescriptive than it is at the moment. Top down 'discouragement' would probably create more problems than it solves. More detailed examples of best practice (e.g. if there's already an infobox, considering placing some of the information in there) can be added to project guidelines or WP:BLPLEAD etc if and when appropriate. Scribolt (talk) 07:34, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support simple text in lead sentence...no need for date clutter.....move data to info box. Just need those reluctant to have info boxs that this would help there wonderful proposed text be more readable, while at the same time date will automatically be calculated for our readers (lIke age).--Moxy (talk) 07:45, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose complete removal of the IPA. To say that other encyclopedias don't use it (I'm sure there are exceptions) is not a valid argument. It's not our goal to be a carbon copy of other encyclopedias, we can "fix" what they're doing "wrong". Also, don't forget that articles on Wikipedia can have limitless length, which isn't really the case with other encyclopedias. To say that hardly anyone can read the IPA shows that you either don't know what you're talking about or you're just being dishonest. Thousands if not millions of people (e.g. many ESL speakers or a decent portion of L2 speakers of French and German) can read the IPA and it can be learned in a few weeks. You don't have to be able to read it, and if you're choosing not learn it that's entirely your business, not ours. We can put IPA in footnotes and delete duplicate transcriptions whenever they appear. Completely removing them is something I consider absolutely unacceptable and detrimental to the quality of the WP (actually I have a name for that - legalized vandalism). Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:12, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • strongly support - more and more of a readers use mobile (up to 60% now) - clutter in the first sentences mean absurd amounts of scrolling to get to anything meaningful. As a result the WMF started inserting the description field from Wikidata (unsourced, mostly unpatrolled) at the start of articles, to give readers a sense of what the article is about with reasonable efficiency. Vandalism that appeared in an article via the description field led to this ANI thread, which led to this RfC to ask WMF to stop using WIkidata this way (succeeded and done), which led User:Dank to open this thread at WT:FAC to make tight lead sentences part of FAC. This is important - we should not have clutter in the first 2.5 paragraphs - we have a responsibility to keep these sentences focused on content that summarizes the article. We have infoboxes and sections below for the details like etymology, pronunciation, alt names, etc.Jytdog (talk) 14:47, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose yet more micro-management,as per Joe and Jack N. Stock etc. We have too many ever-shifting guidelines as it is. It is getting difficult to keep track when writing an article. Anything problematic can be resolved on an article-by-article basis. Simon Burchell (talk) 15:05, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support The first sentence should be uncluttered. All this matter should if possible be farmed out to the infobox or a footnote.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:38, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Address on a case-by-case basis rather than by a blanket rule. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:34, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of IPA: Please don't remove IPA transcriptions (except perhaps in rare cases where they add no information to English spelling). They are of great value to many users and would be extremely difficult to replace if they were removed. RoachPeter (talk) 10:15, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of IPA: Please don't remove the IPA transcriptions. They are a very valuable resource for many people, and it is understood by many more people than you think (many are introduced to the IPA through learning a second language). To overcome this concern further, soundfiles can be used. And the argument that pronunciations belong in dictionaries and not encyclopaedias is a little short sighted - isn't wikipedia a new kind of resource that shouldn't be shackled to previous standards? (SelinaJSutton (talk) 10:42, 4 July 2017 (UTC))
  • The first sentence should give people confirmation that this is the subject they are looking for or ideally a jolly big hint that it isn't. Years of birth and death, main reason why someone is famous and various names they are known by are all good things to include in that very first line. Many other details are indeed useful and welcome in the article or infobox, but not so high priority that we need them in the first line of the lede. ϢereSpielChequers 11:33, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Include metadata/No change Having to scroll to an infobox for basic information is time-consuming and annoying particularly on mobile devices, tablets, small displays, etc. Dates of birth and death (and of reign for monarchs) are fundamental information. Anything that readily confirms this is the article you are looking for should also be as near the start as possible. Foreign names are of more use to people for whom English isn't a first language, or for looking up foreign people, and therefore to be inclusive and combat pro-US/Canada/UK bias they are important. Providing pronunciation information is more valuable to non-English speakers and for people with non-English names, and therefore should be kept for similar reasons, although we can debate how best to do that. Do we want Wikipedia to cater to speedy access to only a subset of people with big screens and excellent English? --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:26, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of IPA: As it has been said before by RoachPeter and SelinaSutton, an IPA transcription is a valuable element. Here we are maybe confounding two issues: (1) whether to keep such information at all (for which IMHO my answer is yes, we should keep it), (2) where to put it (for which I don't have a particular opinion so far). --SynConlanger (talk) 15:41, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose any changes based on this pseudo-RfC, which does not address a specific issue but is some kind of "change is good" and "dumbing down is good" handwaving exercise in response to one person's generalized anti-details editorial. If a specific problem with a specific type of information in the lead can be identified for a specific context, then propose a narrow change relating to that set of circumstances, not a senseless "screw all parentheses in the lead" thing. I also agree that a) the anti-IPA bent of this would be anti-encyclopedic, b) that the putsch to denude lead sections is based on exaggeration of edge cases (which are already subject to cleanup per this guideline and other style and content guidelines), and c) that this is basically just an exercise in micromanagement (see WP:CREEP and WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY). PS: The fact that we have a lot of mobile users is a non sequitur; being on a mobile device does make it any less or more relevant to have pronunciation information, alternative names, etc. If someone wants to do a controlled usability study and it demonstrates that mobile users mostly do not want these features in the lead, the solution would be to use CSS that hides them in the mobile view of the site – not to eliminate the information for all users.

    PPS: To analyze one of the examples in the editorial: The Christopher Columbus article should not have a pronunciation guide in it (we don't add those for things that are already familiar to most of our readers), and should only provide alternative names in the lead for Spanish and Italian, not every language of any possible relevance to the life of the subject, because readers are unlikely to encounter references to Columbus except by his Anglicized, Spanish, or Italian names. And our extant guidelines already cover all of this. No changes of any kind to them are necessary to go make a cleanup edit there already; all you need is the patience to deal with any WP:OWN behavior that pops up there by people who wrongly feel they are vested editors in that article because they got there before you did (and it may not actually happen there, it's just fairly likely at a major and sometimes controversial article like his).
    — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 19:37, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Support and oppose and everything in-between: I think we need a clearer RfC with detailed sub-!votes on each type of data including in these parentheticals. I think there is an important issue here that needs to be dealt with, but this RfC isn't going to establish consensus. My opinion (at the moment) is that: birth and death dates should be mandatory if known (either year or date on case-by-case basis; estimated dates for historical figures would be optional); foreign/alternate names should be mentioned only if they are nearly as significant as the main name (mentioned in subordinate clauses outside parentheses in most cases; use footnotes if there are several names / obscure names; keep scientific name rule the same); maiden names are only needed if the person was well-known before they married, but birth names should always be mentioned; pronunciation and audio should be moved to a footnote (I think this in particular would be a change that could be carried out effectively by a bot). And there should be a maximum length of parenthetical data (either in characters or in number of facts). If someone had a well-thought out proposal to include data transcluded from Wikidata (in parentheses, footnotes or infoboxes) rather than requiring parenthetical information to be manually added by en-Wikipedia editors, I would be very interested in it; it would be an easy way to automate the process, abstract formatting considerations and maintain consistency. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 22:58, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep it the way it is, until I am persuaded otherwise. I find the discussion useless without examples. As an example of examples that could be discussed, David Ben-Gurion has a lot of parenthetical info, all of which I am OK with, but I'm open to discussions on this. —Anomalocaris (talk) 01:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal or relocation of things such as IPA, CJK, and DOB and location information from the first sentence of the lead. For those articles that have infoboxes, that information may also be located there, but (as someone else pointed out) the majority of users of Wikipedia are on mobile devices, and the infobox is minimized on mobile devices. Therefore, this important information is not immediately visible. I think the Signpost opinion piece was ill-informed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Keep as is, since information like native names, pronunciation and birth/death dates are crucial for a first sentence. Debresser (talk) 17:45, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose any changes – I believe that for CJK articles the inclusion of relevant characters (one set only) and IPA if necessary are important parts of a professional encyclopedia-quality article. There are currently many articles that have far too much information in their opening parentheticals, but we must at least have something.  White Whirlwind  咨  22:53, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of IPA. The International Phonetic Alphabet is the international standard, like it or not. Respelling, in comparison, is just dumbing down. Removing IPA symbols on the grounds that 'most people' (i.e. most Americans?) can't read them would be like stripping out all the mathematical articles in Wikipedia on the grounds that most people on Facebook think that apple + orange + 4 x bananas = 17 (or whatever). C0pernicus (talk) 15:38, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose the removal of foreign language renderings (for any subject closely related to a foreign language) and pronunciation guides. Pushing that information into an infobox will make Wikipedia harder to use because it would reduce the prominence of critical information, especially for non-expert users. You shouldn't have to know to look in an infobox, then dig around in one, to find out how someone actually spells their name. - GretLomborg (talk) 16:24, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support moving most stuff out of the 1st sentence, but often alternative names need to be kept there. Sometimes a sentence/para at the end of the lead can hold it. Johnbod (talk) 12:48, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment To begin with, I believe that question #1 isn't too broad and should have been the only question asked, after which separate RfCs should be used to narrow down parenthetical info to be in the lead sentence. In my opinion, this discussion should be closed as either against any changes or as no consensus and that if there is some support for removal of any particular element from the lead sentence (eg. IPA, foreign language, birth/death), then (a) separate RfC(s) should be opened for the removal of the specific element(s). The reason being that, because the RfC is broad, there is a lot of broad comments for/against and more specific RfCs should be used to better gauge the consensus for removal of particular elements. That said, I think that all parenthetical elements should be moved to the infobox of an article, if there is an appropriate infobox for the article. Appropriate exceptions would be common acronyms (a must if the acronym is used throughout the article; also should explain if a common name acronym is based on a foreign language or other reason, eg. for MONUSCO which is used in English and as the WP article title: "The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO (an acronym based on its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo)..."), alternate names, English translation if the article title is a foreign name/term (eg. from coup de grâce: "A coup de grâce (French for "blow of mercy")..."; from Ibid.: Ibid. (Latin, short for ibidem, meaning "in the same place")..."). There may be a couple more meritorious exceptions. If there is no infobox for the article, then appropriate parenthetical information should remain in the lead sentence, so long as it isn't too long. An effort should be made to ensure that all article infoboxes contain the appropriate elements (eg. IPA, IPA for foreign languages, non-Roman script). AHeneen (talk) 04:04, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose the proposal as framed; it's too broad and an extremely blunt weapon. Depending on the article, some of the information to be proscribed from the intro is vital to a clear understanding of the topic. In particular, birth and death dates, IPA pronunciations and foreign language names are important reasons why I use Wikipedia (n.b. WP:NOTPAPER). Moving such info to an infobox is not a solution for articles that don't have such boxes (n.b. a de facto prohibition on infoboxes in certain prominent articles, especially in the arts [e.g., Noël Coward, discussed here]). Forcing such info into to later sections of the article amounts to deletion if those sections don't exist. I agree with the general concern that there is too much unnecessary clutter in some article intros (e.g., American Frank Sinatra does not need the Italian pronunciation of his name in the first sentence). However, this should be dealt with on a more micro or piecemeal basis. —  AjaxSmack  03:27, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I Support moving all the items mentioned in the opening of the RFC—Foreign language, pronunciation, dates of birth and death, Scientific names of organisms—from the parentheses to the infobox. Yes, even dates of birth and death—these, too, can grow longer than they should for some people, and it's better to be consistent and move them all to the infobox. And by "pronunciation", I refer to all kinds thereof: audio, IPA, BCN/PCGN, pinyin, other transliterations, and respelling. Thanks to Kaldari for bringing this up. Important notes, however:
    1. I do not support removing any of these things entirely! All of them are useful to readers; the question is only where to put them, and the infobox is a better place. In fact, moving them all to the infobox may help add more of them, and this is a good thing.
    2. I would also like to acknowledge that these parentheses exist because of more than a hundred years of history and tradition of putting foreign names and dates of birth and death in printed encyclopedias. It's a good and beautiful tradition, but times change. Past printed encyclopedias rarely bothered to add alphabets other than Greek and Cyrillic, and today we are able to add almost any language thanks to Unicode. Past printed encyclopedias couldn't add audio players, but we can. So let's provide the information, but make it nicer. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 05:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose deleting anything; support moving to infobox if one is present. Double sharp (talk) 03:26, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

  • This RfC is badly framed, and unfortunately several !votes are making this a mandate about deleting or keeping content like IPA. This is about moving things out of the first sentences to elsewhere - the infobox, further down in the lead, or perhaps the body of the article. The opening statement was faulty and self-defeating by not making clear that this is just about de-cluttering the lead sentences, not about deleting content altogether. Decluttering the lead is important - as I noted above, lead sentences are so unreadable that the WMF unilaterally took action to deal with it for mobile readers, which was good for no one. We need to take responsibility for making our articles readable. Please focus on the issue of decluttering the initial part of the lead by moving content elsewhere. This RfC is not about deleting IPA from articles. User:Daß Wölf, User:Hijiri88, User:Mr KEBAB, User:RoachPeter, User:SelinaJSutton, User:SynConlanger , User:SMcCandlish, would you please reconsider your !votes? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 20:45, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Thankyou Jytdog for the clarification. However, this does not change my vote. Being able to effectively communicate about a topic outside of writing is essential and thus providing info about an appropriate pronunciation is very important. The importance of this should be acknowledged by retaining an IPA transcription in the first lines of the article. If the purpose of the first lines are to clearly define the topic / concept then the IPA pronunciation should be present as the sound of the word is inherently linked to the definition. If you really want to save space on the first line, another appropriate place for the IPA could be in the title.(SelinaJSutton (talk) 21:05, 4 July 2017 (UTC))
    • User:SelinaJSutton you are not dealing with the core issue. Please read this. Please read that. Nobody is saying pronunciation isn't important. It is only a question of where to put it. Especially in light of the fact that something like 60% of our readers access WP on mobile, and there are articles where there is so much clutter that you have to scroll just to find out what the article is even about. Jytdog (talk) 22:27, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Not reconsidering I was quite clear in my comment that I was aware this was about "moving" content out of the lead sentence and into the footnotes or infoboxes, and I was quite clear that this was what I was opposed to. That stuff should be left up to editorial discretion, and a lot of the other commenters seem to be motivated by a desire to impose their own standards onto articles in topics they never read about and don't know anyone else who reads about them. I know a lot of people who use Wikipedia as a reference work on various (for example) east Asian topics, and I have never heard them complain about the native names being included in the lead sentence because it "hurts readability". Whether or not imposing dubious "rules" about "readability" was the intention of the original question, it is clear that this is how the proposed change would be implemented in practice by the majority of the support !voters. If there was a concrete proposal that explicitly stated that it was not meant to steam-roll long-accepted standards for the lead sentences of articles in various topic area, then maybe I would support that. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:25, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
By the way, Jytdog, I think you misread both the question and my comment, as well as (probably -- I haven't checked) the comments of several of the other users you pinged. The question is less concerned wih wikidata vandalism (which was what your comment was directed at) than about imposing MOS:CHINA on all other similarly "foreign" topics, and my comment was more directed at that than at removal of IP to a footnote or infobox. If you want to wait a bit and start a new RFC about the topic you want addressed, then you should do that, but if anyone should be reconsidering their !vote this time round it would be you. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:35, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
@Hijiri88: "left to editorial discretion" is not what we have now. For instance, MOS:BIO and MOS:DOB clearly demand full dates of birth and death in the lead, and can easily be read as encouraging their placement in the parenthetical clause of the first sentence. So, you would like to change the MOS to remove this guidance? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: So ... the guidelines demand that highly relevant and important information appear somewhere in the lead, and editors can choose at their own discretion to interpret that as meaning the parenthetical clause of the lead sentence? isn't that editorial discretion regarding the lead sentence? If the proposal is to remove birth and death dates completely from the leads of biographical articles (which I don't think it is) then I would oppose that on its merits anyway. Also, you seem to be taking one part of one sentence of my reply to Jytdog out of context: I am not talking about dates in biographical articles (I haven't mentioned them anywhere), that is not what Jytdog was talking about, and that is not what most of the comments in the above section are talking about. The ones that just speak generally of clutter can much more easily be read as referring to the former state of our Genghis Khan article, which had nothing to do with dates and everything to do with multilingual information. Dates do not take up much space, and if they hurt readability then the vast majority of print encyclopedias would not include them in their lead sentences. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:14, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
No, actually MOS:BIO specifically talks about not putting places in the "opening brackets of the lead sentence alongside the birth and death dates". So there is no editorial discretion: under the current MOS, the full dates must be included in the opening brackets. I would like to change that. I would interpret your position (of leaving things to editorial discretion) as also wanting to change that, but instead you seem to be using this as an excuse to avoid changing anything. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:06, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
David Eppstein: quoting from MOS:BIO:
Birth date and place
The opening paragraph should usually have dates of birth and death. Birth and death dates are important information about the person being described, but if they are also mentioned in the body, the vital year range (in brackets after the person's full name) may be sufficient to provide context. For living persons, privacy should be considered (see WP:BLPPRIVACY, which takes precedence). ...
There's no demand they be in brackets there—that's merely common practice (and for good reason). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:32, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
There's no such demand in the part you quoted but there is such a demand in the part I quoted. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Only if taken out of context. However, I agree that the phrase "alongside the birth and death dates" could be removed from the end of the paragraph in question. The final sentence regarding birth and death places would read fine without it. Jack N. Stock (talk) 05:00, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
David Eppstein: I don't see where on this page you've quoted such a thing, and I see nothing that says that in MOS:BIO. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:20, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (edit conflict) @David Eppstein: Stop it. I came here on invitation, to express my opinion on an issue that affects me as a Wikipedia, as expressed in the RFC question. My opinion was focused primarily on those aspects of the issue with which I have personal experience and knowledge. You have now started pinging me and/or posting "responses" demanding my attention on various issues that I am not interested in commenting on. (You are actually not the worst offender here; Jytdog has pinged me twice.) If you don't like how this RFC did not address the issues (or focus on the particular aspects of the issues) you would have liked it to, that is not my fault.
That said, I don't see how giving dates in the opening sentence of biographies is problematic. That is how most paper encyclopedias I have seen do it. And, with the possible exceptions of a few currently living people whose names aren't frequently Googled to find out if they are dead (don't want to name names, but you can probably guess a few) or how old they are (Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, for example), this is some of the most important information we can provide in the lead sentence. This is true for most biographical articles I have worked on (early medieval Chinese and Japanese poets, largely) and it's true for most of your most-edited biographical articles. I checked: 12 of your top 100 articles are biographies, and virtually all of them I would be interested in knowing at least roughly when they lived. The only one to which the majority of the RFC relates is Y. H. Ku, whose lead sentence (indeed, lead paragraph) is a bit of a mess, but that's because it already looks nothing like most of the other Chinese biographies of its length, doesn't follow MOS:CHINA and doesn't explain what it means by "polymath" until the second paragraph. If you want to put in an Infobox-Chinese to remove both the Chinese text, the alternate romanization, and the precise dates from the lead sentence, no one is stopping you. Again, Li He doesn't have this problem, even though with that topic the subject himself did not have a romanization preference, and so while most English-language sources prefer to call him Li Ho we are bound to use pinyin throughout: there is actually no good reason for Y. H. Ku to include pinyin in its lead sentence.
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:24, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Don't tell me not to reply to other people on policy discussions. I pinged you only once, early in this thread. Any other pings you are getting are from other people.—David Eppstein (talk) 05:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
So your above comment timestamped 00:06, 5 July 2017 (the latest one I read before penning the above response) was not addressing me? It's placement right below mine, indentation, and wording (particularly its opening) all strongly implied it was addressed to me. The fact that my sockpuppet chose to step in and respond before I did doesn't change that. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
@Hijiri88: you are still not responding to the core issue of the RfC. The RfC is about simplifying the first sentences of the lead. That's all it is about and that is the only thing I wrote about. Jytdog (talk) 22:19, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
No, I'm still not responding to the core issue of your comment, because your comment is not what's under discussion. I am not going to support a proposal that virtually everyone on both sides of the isle interprets as being about native English speakers from certain English-speaking countries who have never spent much time outside those countries and probably never read the Wikipedia articles under discussion anyway vs. the rest of the world. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:50, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree, this discussion has gone off topic. @David Eppstein: MOS:BIO refers to "The opening paragraph" whereas this discussion is about the opening sentence (not plural "sentences"). Also, MOS:BIO already states that "the vital year range (in brackets after the person's full name) may be sufficient to provide context" if the full dates are mentioned elsewhere. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:24, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
So, what you are saying is I am right? I don't get it -- why are the three of you trying to force me to address something that is not only peripheral to my main concern with the proposal, but is also peripheral to the proposal itself? I have not read MOS:BIO in full, or even in part in a very long time. Most of its guidelines seem to be completely peripheral to the biographical articles I normally write, where -- for example -- the exact dates are not known. If you can find anything in the article I wrote on Li He that egregiously violates MOS, I apologize and would request guidance in addressing it. I don't, though, see how any of this has anything to do with a small group of Wikipedia editors making sweeping, unsourced claims about Wikipedia's massive reader-base. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:50, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm saying that this RfC is specifically about "information included in parentheses in the first sentence of an article." Jack N. Stock (talk) 23:24, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Also not reconsidering (though I clarified one sentence in my original comments). I fully understood that it was about moving the material out of the lead (we already have policies that would prevent stripping it entirely from articles, since it's encyclopedic and verifiable). It never occurred to me that anyone would even think this RfC was about removal from the article entirely. I meant everything I said, with all of it being about encyclopedic relevance in the lead section. PS: The answer to a hopelessly malformed RfC is to shut it down and post one that is clearer and more focused. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 06:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Kill the editor who started this RfC. What we sure didn't need is another off-the-cuff, ill-focused RfC resulting in a complete free-for-all. EEng 09:17, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
👌🏼—A L T E R C A R I  ✍ 15:51, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
You know I'm just kidding, right? If I'd really wanted you dead it would have happened by now. EEng 20:08, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Killing Altercari is against guidelines. I couldn't actually find the guideline, but I'm pretty sure. While I was looking, I found this: WP:MIAB. Jack N. Stock (talk) 21:19, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Wouldn't killing other editors fall under WP:NPA? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
That's the one. Jack N. Stock (talk) 21:44, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Well, according to various commentators here, WP's guidelines and policies should be ignored at personal whim and are just moot anyway, so there ya go. I call dibs on the thigh meat. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 22:20, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
SMcCandlish has a point. WP:IAR. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:38, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Jytdog, thanks for the ping, I have clarified my position in the !vote section. This is an issue that affects a small minority of articles, and using a blanket rule to fix it is going to create more problems than it fixes. To illustrate: I had to click the random page button 38 times before I came up with one that could be described as problematic. Daß Wölf 00:16, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support limiting bios to birth and death years The full dates are unimportant, and just add clutter. LK (talk) 02:05, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment a point I have been meaning to raise for ages is the habit of removing the full date DOB and DOD from the body of the text and only including in in the bracketed information in the first sentence. This is particularly noticeable if the body of the text originates from DNB source on Wikisource, where dates of birth and death are usually included in sentences in the body of the text. The problem with doing this is it breaks the assumption that the lead is a summary of the body of the article and means that an in-line citation ought to be given to cover the full dates in the lead as the information is no longer covered by the in-line citations in the body of the text. It seems to me more sensible to include only years in the lead as a summary and full sentences in the body. I know this approach causes problems for people interested in farming the lead for data bases, so I am interested to hear what others think on this issue. -- PBS (talk) 13:24, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Who to close the discussion?

I had a discussion with the initiator of the discussion. The user's responses about withdrawing the RfC were unclear. Therefore, I'm thinking about requesting a solo or joint closure at WP:AN. I could do WP:ANRFC, but that implies that a solo closure is needed. Maybe I can request a joint closure at ANRFC, but can two editors possibly pick up one request at ANRFC? --George Ho (talk) 22:20, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

This discussion is a model of no consensus. I don't think you need a joint closure to determine that. Snuge purveyor (talk) 16:59, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
We could wait out the close; I don't see that we need to hurry the close, but, since the discussion does look like "no consensus," I understand the suggestion to go ahead and close it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:14, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
It would be ideal if whoever closes it would at least summarize which ideas received some level of support, so that we can follow up on them with more focused discussions and possibly more specific RfCs. Just closing it as "no consensus", with no elaboration, wouldn't be that helpful. Kaldari (talk) 02:38, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Winged Blades of Godric has left a banner saying that he's on a wikibreak and will return to normal editing on 31 May 2018, i.e ten months from now. Godric, do you still want to close the discussion? I'd like your comments please. Thanks. --George Ho (talk) 02:42, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

My next edit will be the closure of this one!Almost prepared....Winged Blades Godric 13:34, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC: Remove "adult" as a descriptor from the opening sentence of Family Guy

I've made a proposal to have "adult" removed from the opening sentence of Family Guy at Talk:Family Guy#RfC: Remove "adult" as a descriptor from the opening sentence. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:15, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should details of personnel changes be moved from lead to main body of article?

Should details of personnel changes of a TV show be moved from the lead to the main body of the article and only use a summary in the lead? Discussion at Talk:The_Great_British_Bake_Off#RfC: Should details of personnel changes be moved from lead to main body of article? Hzh (talk) 13:50, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Lede

I propose replacing the first bracketed text (also known as the lead or introduction) with (also known as the lead, lede or introduction). The usage is common in publishing and distinguishes the entity discussed from a metal or a transitive verb meaning conduct. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:43, 10 June 2017 (UTC).

Stop spelling it as "lede." You can visit Wiktionary and find that:
  1. The spelling is mostly confined to the US;
  2. Even in the US, some people consider it jargon.
It is an unnecessary "insider" term. People can understand from context what is meant by "lead." If you don't like it, you can write "introduction" or "lead paragraph" (which almost never refers to a paragraph made of metal). Jack N. Stock (talk) 05:50, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
Precisely. It's pretentious. EEng 06:10, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, well, well; three holes in the ground. -- PBS (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Yeah the perennial nature of this one is getting a bit tedious. Ironically, the lead of MOS:LEAD itself already states quite explicitly why we do not have "also known as the lead, lede, or introduction": "It is not a news-style lead or lede paragraph." We then have an entire section, at MOS:LEAD#Comparison to the news-style lead, about how WP leads differ from news-style "ledes". The term "lede" is only used in news, and almost only by a particular subset of American journalists. Its use on WP in reference to lead sections is a conceptual error, and evidentiary of failure to read and absorb WP:LEAD and WP:NOT#NEWS.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:30, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

white and red

Discussion on both pages about whether any items actually need a citation in the lead. See Talk:Red#Citations_in_lead and Talk:White#RfC Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:25, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Adding parenthetical decomposition of foreign titles that aren't easily translated

I'm seeking comments and consensus on how to handle the lead sentence description of foreign compound words like Abgeltungsteuer as titles of articles on en-wiki, and whether to add a parenthetical decomposition to explain the constituent parts of the word, in lieu of a translation when it doesn't lend itself to easy translation.

The WP:LEADALT section on alternative names mentions foreign titles, and we can add a parenthetical to translate a foreign title, but this doesn't cover the case of how to handle a title that by its nature is not easily translatable into English. Case in point: Abgeltungsteuer. (This page was previously called Flat rate withholding tax, a tax law in Germany, but that was determined to be an incorrect translation, and any correct translation would have been long and cumbersome; see talk page.) So now, the page is called "Abgeltungsteuer" and the first sentence defines it (in an oversimpliefied way), but it seems to me that for a compound word like that, we might want to have a parenthetical that at least explains what the pieces mean. So, the way this is handled now, is like this:

The Abgeltungsteuer (German, from Abgeltung (payment, compensation) + Steuer (tax) ) is a flat tax on private income from capital.

I find that this satisfactorily occupies the spot following a foreign title where I expect to see a translation, and if there isn't an easy translation (and hence the entire first sentence is effectively a descriptive translation) this then provides a decomposition in the original language, so I can at least get some kind of idea where the word is coming from.

I might start with this question: if you are a non-German speaker, does that parenthetical help you a little bit, when reading the first sentence of the article? If not, how would you do it? Would you just take it out? Put something else in its place? (This is not about pronunciation; I'm aware of {{IPA-de}} and other templates, just haven't gotten to it yet.) Mathglot (talk) 00:46, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

That seems helpful to me in this case (and as written, though pronunciation would also be helpful to add). It wouldn't necessarily be useful in every case. Here, it helps the English reader not mis-parse this as "Abgeltungs" + "teuer" (or whatever). This would also help with other agglutinative languages like Thai, where long words and names are often built up from smaller parts without any spacing or punctuation. A case where it would be less helpful, and better relegated to a section on etymology, would be one where the compound has been borrowed whole into English, at least specialist English. Two such borrowings from German are Festschrift (an honorary volume of academic essays) and Weltanschauung (one's world-view, in a very particular philosophical sense). Here, each of these terms, as such (as a Ding an sich, if you want to get even more German-borrowing), has a meaning in English that is distinct from its etymological origin. For Abgeltungsteuer, it might be necessary to understand the meanings of the parts in order to fully grasp the meaning of the compound, which remains a foreign term, not a borrowing into English. Another case where it wouldn't help much would be explaining inflectional suffixes and other alterations (e.g. at Taco stand we don't need an explanation that taqueria is taco, with c-to-qu-before-short-vowel alteration, plus the -[er]ia suffix (a cognate of -[er]y in English as in bakery > bake[r] + -[er]y, and smithy > smith + -y). That kind of stuff belongs in an etymological dictionary.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:16, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Bracketed additions to titles are usually for disambiguation of words which have more than one use. An English-speaker is not going to type "Abgeltungsteuer" into the search box unless (1) they come across the term and have no idea what it is, or (2) they already generally know what it is, but want more detailed information. In both cases, a description short enough to be part of the title is unlikely to be satisfactory, and a proper explanation in the article is better. Also, a reader may know of the tax, but not know what it's called; in this case an English redirect, something like "German tax on private income", would help them find it.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
Just to be clear: this is not about the title, it is about the lead; have added a few words above to clarify that. Agree with SMcC re unhelpful taqueria parse, and other comments. Mathglot (talk) 05:56, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Mathematical symbols

The MOS:INTRO section should be expanded with a reference to Mass–energy equivalence. "Mathematical equations and formulas should be avoided when they conflict with the goal of making the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible, but an article about an equation or formula may need to include the subject; see Mass–energy equivalence." 208.95.51.38 (talk) 13:08, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Rule of thumb about length of article lead should be defined more

It says four well-composed paragraphs, but what would be the length of each paragraph in terms of lines? Thinker78 (talk) 02:18, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

That entirely depends on what size screen you view it on. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:25, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Good point. Then how could the paragraph length be measured? Word count comes to mind but that is maybe only for those who have a word processor that counts words. Thinker78 (talk) 03:23, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
How about: By whether it adequately summarizes the rest of the article? —David Eppstein (talk) 03:46, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Agreed with David Eppstein, though it's not hard to ferret out of teh Interwebs some general advice: There seems to be overall agreement that paragraphs should usually be 3–8 sentences, many sources on writing advising 5 on average. Sentence length advice in various sources ranges from 10 to 35 words, average around 20 for formal-ish writing (versus 15 for journalism, 25 for academic material). We actually tend to keep lead material short, paragraph-wise, for ease of readability and "digestion". However, the first sentence or two are often fairly long, due to what they are and what we typically have in them (especially for bios, with vital stats like full names, birth/death dates/places, nationality, occupation(s), "best known for", etc.; for things that need pronunciation keys and other language info; and for subjects with various alternative names). Many visitors only read the lead unless they really need additional detail, so we try to pack everything important in there, but not have it be one monolithic text-wall. Many, many of our leads need better organization, both into more, non-run-on sentences, and into multiple, shorter paragraphs. We could in theory add a compressed summary of what I just said about numbers, but people might be apt to try to over-apply averages as rules if it wasn't written very carefully.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  05:19, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Hypocorisms

Could you please add an example of an inappropriate hypocorism? I would suggest it for William Franklin "Billy" Graham as it seems once a month over the past six months someone has claimed a different reason for removing the Billy from the opening paragraph. If that's a sufficiently common hypocorism, I'll be surprised as "Will" is far more common today. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:21, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

  • It's not a particularly big deal to me either way, but for what it's worth, our article on hypocorisms lists "Billy" as being a hypocorism for "William." Lepricavark (talk) 05:02, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
  • What are you saying is inappropriate? The article title Billy Graham, or the way his name is written in the lead, or what? Dicklyon (talk) 05:06, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
  • It's normal practice to have something like "Alice Beatrice (Bea) Ceesdale" or "Alice Beatrice Ceesdale, better known as Bea Ceesdale," in leads. I'm unaware of any consensus to remove that, i.e. to give "Alice Beatrice Ceesdale" in the lead sentence at an article titled "Bea Ceesdale", and just use "Bea Ceesdale" after the lead sentence. Hypocorisms shouldn't use quotation marks (those are for nicknames and aliases). For non-native English speakers, the fact that a hypocorism is common doesn't make it immediately understandable that it's a variant of the same name and refers to the same person (e.g., a Russian might be as unfamiliar with the fact that "Billy" is a diminutive of "William" as an American or Brit probably is that "Dima" is a Russian diminutive of "Dmitri"). PS: I don't actually like the use of quotation marks for hypocorisms, diminutives, and initials, and would suggest parentheses, reserving quotation marks for actual nicknames; but a proposal in that regard several years ago didn't reach consensus.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  03:32, 23 October 2017 (UTC); rev'd. 03:06, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Shorcut changes

Shorcut changes that concern this guideline are currently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"WP:" vs. "MOS:". A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:08, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Merge bio material from MOS:LEAD to MOS:BIO

Merge bio material from MOS:LEAD to MOS:BIO

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see section merge discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#Merge bio material from MOS:LEAD to MOS:BIO.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:40, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

One-sentence paragraphs are possible

It is good idea not to prohibit short paragraphs if ideas are completely different. I can skip ending of paragraph if I understand first words.

It is difficult to read paragraph when ideas are actually different. I cannot skip anything if ideas are mixed in one paragraph. D1gggg (talk) 23:35, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@D1gggg: Nothing in this guideline prohibits short paragraphs, so it's unclear why this is posted here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  02:49, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: correct. This might be considered WP:CONSENSUS if one decides to place such note.
I saw several articles where short paragraphs were mashed in one but less readable. Breaks should be logical or consistent, not based on size.
I don't think this affect many articles. D1gggg (talk) 03:00, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with article leads in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  03:04, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Maybe about WP:LEADPARAGRAPH and WP:BEGINNING
I don't know other MOS about paragraphs. D1gggg (talk) 03:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Maybe D1gggg is referring to what MOS:Paragraphs states? Betty Logan and I are often against single-sentence paragraphs. I recently reverted an IP because of his choppy paragraphs that inhibited flow and made a section look bigger than it was. I then commented on the IP's talk page about it. One way to fix a paragraph involving different aspects is to add a topic sentence at the beginning of it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: 811928654 is a good example when exact boundaries of paragraphs aren't crystal clear - but "after" seems better.
Some real world authors are known to make 0,5-1,5 page long paragraphs. Their books are very difficult to follow: 1. use less words to tell the same 2. don't exhaust readers with many long paragraphs where they need to read from start to end D1gggg (talk) 23:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
On the MOS:Paragraphs talk page, a possible revision to the guideline was recently discussed. An editor wanted stricter wording for avoiding subheadings for short paragraphs. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:11, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
While very short paragraphs are warranted when they are used properly, more often than not they are used as a lazy option on Wikipedia so I think it is good practise to discourage them. More substantial paragraphs generally lead to superior prose when they are properly written. It encourages editors to integrate edits into an existing train of thought rather than just adding random sentences here, there and everywhere. This often involves reworking the whole paragraph to make it work as a whole idea/theme, but it ends up more encyclopedic IMO. This, for example, is basically written as a twitter feed and should be discouraged. Betty Logan (talk) 09:56, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Due weight in the lead

I'd like to see a discussion about this. My essay has a rule of thumb in it, and I'd like to see its inclusion in this guideline because we need to formally codify the requirement for inclusion based on due weight. Currently due weight is often neglected, leaving the decision up to whether people like including a topic. This decision should not be left up to feelings, hence the need for a bright line rule.

This rule of thumb will ensure the lead covers all significant subject matter in the article:

If a topic deserves a headinga subheading,

then it deserves short mention in the lead

according to its real due weight.

If a subject is worth a whole section, it deserves mention in the lead according to its real due weight. That due weight should also include careful consideration of the real weight of sections which summarize spinoff sub-articles. Those sections have much more weight than their visible size. Their weight is equal to the weight of the spinoff sub-article(s).

If we don't follow that equation, then POV warriors can successfully "hide" negative material away from many readers' notice by spinning it off and leaving a small section which is then viewed as not worthy of mention in the lead. That must not happen. It should still be mentioned in the lead according to its true due weight.

There should not be anything in the lead that does not refer to specific content in the article and is not backed up by specific references found in the article. There should not be any unnecessary elaboration or detail in the lead. Elaboration should be reserved for the body of the article. Remember to awaken the reader's interest without satisfying their hunger.

This sentence should be included:

"If a topic deserves a heading or subheading, then it deserves short mention in the lead according to its real due weight."

We need to end the currently haphazard way this happens. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:32, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Pinging some regulars here: SMcCandlish, David Eppstein, Flyer22 Reborn. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't know what change in meaning "real" is supposed to add here, compared with leaving it out. And I don't understand why "summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies" is insufficient to prevent whitewashing negative information and where this guidance would prevent the same problem. Also, I worry that for very long articles with many sub-headings, including a mention of all topics in all subheadings might overload the lead. We already have problems where people think repeating things in the lead means that they should repeat exact sentences; this new wording is likely to lead to similar problems where the lead becomes an exact copy of the article outline. In short, I agree with the general principle that important things should be mentioned in the lead, but I am not convinced enough by the motivation for this change to justify being so much more prescriptive and creepy about exactly how much space the lead should devote to different topics rather than leaving this to the discretion of the editors of individual articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I see your point and have stricken "real" and "subheadings". Those are not the main points, and I don't want them to be a distraction. Sub-sections can be too much detail. I can see that.
Can this be tweaked so as to still get the point across that content should not be ignored based on feelings, rather than making a faithful attempt to summarize the entire article? Editors shouldn't be picking and choosing what to include in the lead. We need objective criteria. The objective way to ensure that nothing important is left out of the lead is to summarize each section.
Some long and complicated/weighty sections might get two sentences, while others only a half. Sometimes several small sections can be described in one sentence. It's amazing how this method can condense a very long article down to 3-4 paragraphs. (Five should only be reserved for the longest articles). My essay describes how I do it and it works fine.
I'm not interested in instruction creep. One sentence designed to raise awareness shouldn't be that much of a deal. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:41, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

If dealing with due weight makes this too complicated, then a shortened sentence will still serve a purpose:

  • "If a topic deserves a heading, then it deserves mention in the lead."

How's that? I'm all for making improvements, even if they are only incremental. One cannot make a perfect world all at once. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:46, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Not to sure about this.....last thing we want is a huge lead just because an article has 16 sections. Got to be a better way to word this.--Moxy (talk) 06:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
It's really not a problem. I do this all the time and can condense an article with many sections down quite a bit. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:51, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
In my view many subsection are simply full of stats that have no place in the lead. Don't see this as a good rule of thumb as each article is different.--Moxy (talk) 06:56, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I can't see the point in this. Should "Criticism and historiography" and "Collection and preservation" be in the lead of ukiyo-e? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    A rule of thumb is not binding in all situations. Articles are indeed different, and if a section is just minor details that are separated just to keep it out of other sections, then editorial discretion would likely not mention it. Articles with real content are different. Let's not let exceptions detract from the main idea. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    I'm not following ... and what do you mean by "articles with real content"? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    Curly "JFC" Turkey, I mean content that is prose, not list sections, statistics, tables, images, etc, IOW something that literally can be summarized and deserves to be mentioned. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    BullRangifer: the sections I mentioned are all prose—and quite long. They could certainly be summarized, but I think they'd be inappropriate for that article's lead (which is already quite long itself). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 16:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    I just took a quick look, and admittedly I have no knowledge of the subject, but I get the feeling that the current lead contains far too much detail already. I don't know, but I suspect there is also content that isn't even mentioned in the body, which is a common error leading to a bloated lead. It needs to be heavily pared down. That's where the problem lies. Those two sections should be mentioned, but I don't know if they only deserve one sentence each or not. If someone there wants to follow the systematic method in my essay, they'd be able to ensure that each section gets mentioned, without too much detail or verbosity. A good lead is concise, yet still touching on everything, and leaving the reader hungry and motivated to dig in for more detail. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    BullRangifer: Yeah, I don't think you can judge that without having read through the article. The lead's pared down as much as I think is reasonable, and I can't imagine anything in those two sections that's more lead-worthy than what's in the lead. I can't imagine not having a historiography section, but I also can't imagine how historiography would be lead-worthy—it's hardly "overview" material. Also, there's nothing in the lead that's not in the body—it wouldn't have gotten through FAC otherwise. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Curly "JFC" Turkey, sounds good. It's ultimately up to the editors on that article anyway. Even if there were the rule of thumb I'm proposing, there are exceptions to every rule, and common sense should prevail. That is no reason to not have rules, guidelines, and rules of thumb. We even have IAR! -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:18, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Overall, I really like this. [ahem] I mean I think we should give it due weight in the guideline. >;-) I'm not sure what wording in particular is meant to be included. If some of the prose under the boxed bit is meant as guideline wording, I would clarify and trim a lot; e.g., we're already covering what a lead should do elsewhere in the guideline. Obviously the "POV warriors" stuff isn't worded as guideline text, but a compressed version of this might be worth including. Could encapsulate it all something like this (including to address some points raised, and the list problem I was going to raise):
    If a topic deserves a heading, then it generally deserves short mention in the lead according to its due weight, often as part of a sentence. This principle does not apply to subsections, nor to arbitrary list sections like letters or countries. It does apply to sections which summarize spinoff articles; these have more weight (that of the spinoffs) than their visible size. In particular, material about controversy or criticism cannot be left out of the lead by moving it to a spinoff. The lead is not composed of copy-pastes of section headings or other material, nor should it provide undue detail from a particular section.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  09:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish, it is only the sentence that I originally considered for inclusion. The rest is just my commentary, although your suggestion does sound good and adds good thoughts for consideration. If anyone wants to include more than that sentence, then I have no objection. Talk pages are the place for us to analyze, discuss, and develop. Sometimes a proposal starts one place, and picks up improvements underway and the result is something slightly different, but far better. That would be great here. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Applaud the attempt to introduce more structure into lead composition. If a lead is confined to summarising each section, then it won't contain material not found in the article body, which is all too common. As the guideline is on the long side already, could we keep BullRangifer's latest sentence (in bold type just above) in the body of the guideline, and relegate any elaboration to a footnote?: Noyster (talk), 11:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Per my response immediately above your comment, my original proposition was only for including that one sentence. If anyone wants to add more, I have no objection. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I have no issue with footnoting; I'm a big fan of footnotes in these pages, and have been introducing more of them, to keep the main advice leaner. There are various places in this and other guidelines where various asides and clarifications in the extant text can be footnoted.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
  • SMcCandlish, I totally agree. This is one way of giving "further information and suggestions", that may not be binding, and keeping the body concise. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:22, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I oppose stating "If a subject is worth a whole section, it deserves mention in the lead according to its real due weight." This is because some articles (like Violence against women, which heading reduction has been suggested for) can have many headings and some editors add headings for a single sentence or a very small paragraph (although MOS:Paragraphs is clear that such material usually does not need its own section). I've seen enough Wikipedia articles to know that not all content in a section heading needs to be mentioned in the lead. The point of the lead is to summarize the topic's most important points. And, ideally, the lead should be no more than four paragraphs long. It should not exceed that unless necessary. We don't need editors stuffing things into the lead and making it unnecessarily long because of headings or subheadings. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    In short, I agree with David Eppstein. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
    Firstly, the material you quote was substantially revised already by the OP, so you're objecting to wording that is no longer on the table. And doesn't my further revision (in the green {{tq}} template) address all these concerns? If not, where's the failure?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm objecting to the original and revised wording. I think that the issues I cited apply to either version. I don't see that David Eppstein has changed his mind either. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Objecting to the revised wording in what way(s)? This is another way of asking the question I already asked. And D.E. hasn't posted since before I did, so he has not publicly made up his mind about what I posted at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  09:21, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
In what ways? What is not clear about what I've already stated? With the exception of GoneIn60's post below, how is what I've stated much different than what the other opposers have stated? I saw the strike through BullRangifer's original wording; I'm not blind. I do not think that we should state "If a topic deserves a heading, then it deserves a short mention in the lead according to its due weight." I do not think we should state "If a topic deserves a heading, then it generally deserves short mention in the lead according to its due weight, often as part of a sentence." either. This is because we have too many editors who unnecessarily give content its own heading and content under a heading does not automatically mean that it should be mentioned in the lead. Even adding "due weight" does not help since some editors (especially newbies) will think that having the material in the lead is due weight simply because the material has its own section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:16, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
That seems like circular reasoning to me. If someone has given undue weight to something trivial by giving it its own section when it should not have one, then this is already undue weight; the policy is triggered before the guideline, so the latter cannot be used to shoehorn trivia into the lead by inserting a section header then claiming a "lead right" for the trivia. In other words, if something should not have its own section, then we fix that, and that's something that has to be done without any regard to what the lead does or doesn't say. It's not any different from someone giving trivia undue weight by writing 97 sentences about it, but without a heading, then claiming it has to dominate the lead because it dominates the article. The solution is the same in both case: remove the trivia, both per UNDUE policy and WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  17:02, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, come on now, it's not unheard of for you to argue "circular reasoning" when someone disagrees with you. Stating "If someone has given undue weight to something trivial, then this is already undue weight" may not solve a thing...since editors, including significantly experienced editors, commonly feel justified in giving a little bit of material its own heading (or subheading) when not needed, and since a little bit of material unnecessarily having its own section does not mean that it's trivial. Often, it's not trivial; it's just that it can usually be integrated into an existing section. In these cases, however, there are always editors who feel that the content doesn't fit in an existing section or that it will be overlooked, and so they give it its own heading. This does not mean that it needs a mention in the lead. There is also the fact that some headings can be vague or purposely vague to cover general content (such as the "General" subheading). There was a recent proposal to make the MOS:Paragraphs wording advising against creating a subheading for short paragraphs and single sentences stronger. Editors opposed the change. I was one of the opposers even though I dislike such sections. And this is because of leeway and the fact that editors will set up an article the way they feel that works best for that article. Sometimes WP:Ignore all rules is applied. And although MOS:Paragraphs uses the word subheading, it's clear "no heading for a little bit of content" does not solely apply to subheadings.
I am certain that if editors read "If a topic deserves a heading, then it generally deserves short mention in the lead according to its due weight, often as part of a sentence.", many of them will think that all topics with a heading (including ones with subheadings) should be stuffed into the lead. There are already editors who apply the "no more than four paragraphs" guidance strictly despite the fact that it states "as a general rule of thumb." We have editors who think we can never have a lead that is more than four paragraphs long. I do stick by that rule and heavily supported it in the RfC about it, but I am not so stern on the matter to insist that the lead absolutely cannot be longer than four paragraphs. Similar goes for the "and/or" matter, although I was successful in getting the language for that guideline softened. Going to an article and insisting that it follow a certain setup, like getting rid of headings that editors have collaborated on and believe are helpful, is likely to get pushback. So, no, it's not simply a matter of citing WP:Undue or another rule and that being the end of it. What is an unnecessary heading to me is not always an unnecessary heading to others. Curley Turkey's arguments above touch on some of what I've stated. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I have to say I'm leaning in opposition. With the advice already outlined in WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY and the entire MOS:LEAD#Introductory text section, I fail to see the necessity of expanding even further. Experienced editors represent the population most likely to be aware of the MOS to begin with. Inadequate leads tend to exist as a product of inexperienced editors at the helm. Unless it can be shown with examples why experienced editors need the additional guidance, I'm not sure I'll be convinced the proposal is truly adding any net value to already well-established guidelines. The risk of convoluting the message probably isn't worth it. --GoneIn60 (talk) 00:04, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
    Other way around. MoS exists primarily for new editors (and for gnomes doing consistency cleanup), not experienced editors, who already understand it and refer to it much less often. When's the last time anyone in this discussion actually used MOS:LEAD as a reference work for their own writing?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  17:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
The main point is that the advice already there is sufficient. And yes, inexperienced editors are more likely to need the advice provided in the MOS, but it's the experienced editors that are more likely to be aware that it exists. While I noticed instruction creep was mentioned in the comments above, sometimes as experienced editors, we're unaware of when that line is being crossed. We need to keep the perspective that when inexperienced editors are directed to these guidelines, they aren't made to feel overwhelmed by overly-systematic processes and complicated instructions. I think from the guidelines we have now, any novice editor willing to read them will be able to form a pretty damn good lead.
BTW, one of the primary drivers behind this discussion in the first place per the OP is the concern that main article points are missing from the lead. While it's a valid concern, it's a rather minor one. WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY sums it up best:
"It's much worse for the lead to promise information that the body does not deliver than for the body to deliver information that the lead does not promise." --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Legal name vs doing business as name

There seems to be inconsistency between bolded names between articles. If you look at Starbucks, United Airlines, Microsoft, Domino's Pizza, Google and Lenovo they all start the article by giving the corporate name usually followed by what they normally go by (using different conventions to describe it). When you look at Subway (restaurant) and NBCUniversal, it doesn't list the legal name in the lead, but does for the info box. Others I don't see it in the infobox or the lead, such as T.G.I. Friday's and Burger King. The most common way I see it however, is the legal name bolder in the lead. The reason why I bring this question here is there is discussion as whether or not Impact Wrestling should have the legal name in the lead. Some users (myself included) feel it should be, as it is the legal entity name, no different than the vast majority I have seen on WP. Others disagree. I wanted to bring this here to get a wider input in order to better understand the inconsistency that I see. The two largest national professional wrestling promotions in US, do include the legal name, which are WWE and World Championship Wrestling. The current other large wrestling promotion Ring of Honor has the legal name in the lead as well. - GalatzTalk 15:04, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Can anyone offer any insight into this? - GalatzTalk 23:49, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
I'd say by analogy with biographies, such as George Orwell, Mark Twain or Skrillex, we'd have legal name first followed immediately by trading name, both in bold. Thus Verylongname Holdings Ltd, trading as WazzCo, is a .... As a side issue I'd not met this "d/b/a" before, would not "trade name" or "trading as" be more internationally familiar?: Noyster (talk), 09:41, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Names in bold are supposed to be so as targets of redirects, to help the reader understand why they've landed where they have done. I checked whether Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions LLC was a redirect and it wasn't - but then found there was a redirect from Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions, LLC (ie with a comma), which is the version of the name the firm uses on its website (WP:NCCORP specifies that the comma is used or not according to the company's own usage, so I've amended it in the Impact Wrestling article). There are now incoming redirects from Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions and Anthem Wrestling Exhibitions LLC. Whatever name is used in bold in the heading, please remember to make redirects from all likely versions of it: it helps the reader; it makes it less likely that an enthusiastic but careless editor will create a duplicate article; it quite often turns redlinks blue in long-standing articles (this especially for people, where they may have been listed as an award-winner under their full formal name). So please, don't forget to create lots of redirects.
And I second the point about "d/b/a": please stick to "trading as". Thanks. PamD 10:24, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDTITLE in tennis articles

I tried to implement MOS:BOLDTITLE MOS:BOLDAVOID here but was reverted without explanation. Am I applying it correctly? Including the title of the article (2018 Roger Federer tennis season) verbatim in the lead just sounds awkward to me. --Jameboy (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Citations in lead

There is a proposal at WP:MEDMOS to push citations into the leads of health and biomedical articles, not in accordance with this project-wide guideline.[1] I have suggested that discussion belongs here.[2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Not a contradiction as you called it in your edit note. (Your edit notes are generally way too POINTY.) That edit to the guideline just caught it up with was has become a widely used practice in articles about health. Policies and guidelines are expressions of living consensus. Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Placement of "Use" templates

The documentation for {{Use mdy dates}} and others says "Place this template near the top of articles that use the mmm dd, yyyy date format; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section for more information about the order of elements near the beginning of the article." But there's no advice here on where to place {{Use mdy dates}} and other templates such as {{Use ... English}}. Let's form a consensus and edit the project page accordingly. Or, if someone will boldly edit the project page, maybe nobody will disagree and we can skip the discussion entirely. —Anomalocaris (talk) 08:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

{{italic title}} is another template which doesn't have a specified location - again, it would be useful to have it explicitly stated in this article to avoid silly edit wars. PamD 08:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

There was inconclusive discussion in 2014: I hope we can sort something out this time round! Thanks, @Anomalocaris: for reminding me. PamD 08:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

And that discussion links to an earlier discussion in 2012-2013. PamD 08:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Seems like common sense would put title templates first, general language templates next, and more specific templates after that. So: italic title, engvar, use mdy dates. --Khajidha (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Italicize the term for an article about a term?

Cuchullain recently added that we should italicize terms for articles about a term. But I've seen different formatting and opinions on this. See, for example, this discussion from my talk page. In that discussion, I told Michipedian the following about this 2013 discussion: "I was against you using italics and quotation marks, especially quotation marks, for the boldfaced terms. But I listened to what another editor stated. As you can see, one editor stated, 'I'll grant you that many articles staring with 'X is a term' do not italicize; but they should, since any term would normally be italiicized in that context.' And yet another editor stated, 'Wikipedia articles should almost never start 'X is a term/describes/refers to'. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but an encyclopedia. Most articles are about concepts or things, not about words or phrases. [...] When in fact the article is about a word or a phrase (but not the title of a book, movie, etc.), then quotation marks are appropriate.' No consensus came from that discussion, except perhaps that you should err on the side of caution and not italicize or use quotation marks. Since then, italicizing bolded words in the introduction for articles that are specifically about the term has become more popular, which is why I reverted you. But, again, I reverted myself soon afterward. Given that we have articles doing different things on this matter, it is probably something we should discuss at the WP:Manual of Style talk page."

So thoughts? I'll go ahead and refer the WP:Manual of Style talk page to this discussion section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:06, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Seems OK, but I'd like to see an example listed if we're going to include that advice. I think I've seen such, but none comes immediately to mind. Dicklyon (talk) 02:55, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi, Dicklyon. You were one of the editors in the 2013 discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:27, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Sure and I was! I don't see an example there, either, though; did I missed one? Dicklyon (talk) 23:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Dicklyon, as for an example, see the Cunt article. There are others as well. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:33, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, thanks. I agree it is correctly italicized in the lead there. Is the question then whether to also italicize the title itself? Dicklyon (talk) 23:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
No, I am wondering about using italicization instead of quotation marks. Like I stated, it's not consistent across Wikipedia. See the discussion with Michipedian on my talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Italics is definitely more standard than quotation marks for signifying the mention as opposed to use of a term. The section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Words as words seems clear on this. What articles do you find doing different things? Dicklyon (talk) 02:37, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I've put the italics back at Gay. Is there a reason not to? WP:WORDSASWORDS says "Two styles can be used at once for distinct purposes, e.g. a film title is italicized and it is also boldfaced in the lead sentence of the article on that film." Dicklyon (talk) 04:37, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Every now and again, I come across a word article that doesn't use italics or only uses bold. WP:WORDSASWORDS accepts quotation marks for words in addition to italics. The section was changed by SMcCandlish a month after my discussion with Michipedian. See, for example, here. His changes may help to combat confusion. Before his changes, the section section stated, "Use one style or the other in a given context; do not apply both styles at once to the same terms, or switch back and forth between the styles in the same material." It also stated, "If, however, a term is strictly synonymous with the subject of the article (i.e. the likely target of a redirect), then boldface should be used in place of italics or quotation marks at such a first occurrence." This has been tweaked, but I pointed Michipedian to that section for one possible source of confusion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this discussion about my change. I based the change on what it says at WP:WORDSASWORDS (which is linked), as I wanted to be clear that saying "Xxx is a term" is perfectly acceptable if the article is actually about a term, rather than the subject the term refers to. I can add an example if that would make things more clear. I have no opinion on whether italics or quotes should be used, so long as something is done to make the use-mention distinction clear.--Cúchullain t/c 15:00, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Cuchullain. And, yes, the example is fine. I only brought up this discussion because there are cases were quotation marks are used instead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • MOS:WAW is the controlling guideline here. Any construction like "Foo is term used to describe ..." or "Foo, in some_field_named_here, indicates a condition that ..." or "In some_other_field, foo means ..." should use italics, because it's a words-as-words construction. By contrast, "Foo is a town in Lincoln County, Nebraska" and "Foo are a class of bony fishes of the family Foobaridae", etc., are not words-as-words usage, but direct identifiers. Italics might be applied for another reason: "Foo is a novel by ...". PS: We only use quotation marks for words-as-words indicators when italics would be confusing because the passage is already heavy with italics for some other reason (usually a bunch of non-English terms).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:52, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the principle and the guideline. And in light of that and above discussion, the same should apply at LGBT. Mathglot (talk) 09:22, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Two alternative names in a single language

According to a fellow editor, one non-English name is sufficient in each language. However I think the second alternative name is also worth mentioning. Is there any restriction that suggests to choose a single name? 123Steller (talk) 13:37, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

It's not a rules matter, but a WP:Common sense one. Is the alternative non-English name one that is used is multiple reliable English-language sources (i.e., a name that our readers are likely to encounter?) If not, a simple redirect should be sufficient. If it does come up pretty frequently, then there's no reason not to include it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:06, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Date ranges vs. full birth–death dates in biographical leads

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#The lead date-range vs. full dates thing
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:39, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

On wholesale changes

It is not up to reviewers to vet every individual change in a mass of them. If there is a challenged group of changes, the page should be reverted to the status quo ante pending review. This is especially true in guideline pages. (Actually, I'd go farther — no substantive changes should be made to guideline pages without prior discussion.) --Trovatore (talk) 05:09, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree that we need discussion first for as much change as this. SMcCandlish and EEng, please propose the changes here so that we can work toward consensus. SarahSV (talk) 05:13, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
You two are just being ridiculous. You're obviously not even looking at the changes – this [3], for example, isn't a "substantive change", and is obviously appropriate – but then, you both openly admit you're just mass-reverting without even looking, so I guess at least you're being honest in your ridiculousness. I'm reinstalling that one change I just linked, just to see if you two are really pointy enough to remove it again as a "matter of principle" [4]. The rest SMcCandlish will have to sweat out with you. EEng 05:47, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
It isn't the point whether each individual change is substantive!!!1!! The point is that people reviewing a mass of changes — whether all in one edit, or broken into sub-edits — should not be expected to figure out in real time which ones are substantive, and of those, which ones are justified. Especially in a rules page. People are entitled to expect the rules to stay the same unless there's discussion otherwise. You can't just say, well, no one objected, so I guess the rules change is effective — not when there's a whole bunch of changes all at once.
Now, Stanton says it has been discussed. Maybe so. I agree that makes a difference. But then at least a heads-up on the talk page that he was about to implement it, and a pointer to the discussion, would have been welcome. --Trovatore (talk) 06:06, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, but this is completely stupid. If someone makes a series of careful changes, the least you can do is step through them to see which, if any, you feel should be discussed first – revert those and leave the rest. "Real time" has nothing to do with it – you can do it at your leisure. If you don't have time to even do that initially, then you certainly don't have time for a talkpage discussion on every change.
As for People are entitled to expect the rules to stay the same unless there's discussion otherwise – changing {{See also|MOS:BLPLEAD}} to {{See also|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography#Lead section}}, where both point the same place, hardly threatens the page stability of which you are so protective. There are others watching the page who can take the time to actually look at the changes, so perhaps you should leave the protecting to those less busy. EEng 06:42, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
No, it's not "completely stupid". It's completely correct. If I think the changes have issues, the best practice is to revert atomically back to the status quo ante. That minimizes the number of distinct versions, which simplifies understanding what's going on for all observers, and it prevents problematic changes from being included just because they were accompanied by a whole bunch of other changes. --Trovatore (talk) 07:11, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
No, it really is completely stupid, and I'll go farther: it's lazy, and disrespectful of the time and effort of the person or persons who made a series of careful changes, only some of which you disagree with – or would disagree with, if you would deign to invest enough of your precious time to actually look at them. "Minimizing the number of distinct versions" has no value whatsoever, and no one's suggesting that "problematic changes be included just because they were accompanied by a whole bunch of other changes" – for the last time, it's fine to revert anything you see as problematic, but to revert everything for the vacuous reasons you keep stating is not on. EEng 13:18, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
No, you're quite wrong. Everything I said is correct and I reaffirm it. --Trovatore (talk) 16:34, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
To respond to an implicit point in the above: No deference whatsoever is owed to changes simply because they took effort. None whatsoever. Changes have to be justified, and the burden is on them. They need to happen at a pace that they can comfortably be reviewed. --Trovatore (talk) 16:38, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Bullshit. It's just filibustering of the lazy sort. Either took the effort to actually review the edits or stop whining. No such user (talk) 19:02, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)<rolls eyes> They need to happen at a pace that they can comfortably be reviewed – ridiculous; you can review them at whatever pace you want, regardless of the pace at which they were made. No one questions that changes need to be justified if someone disagrees with them. But you're too lazy to even check whether you disagree with them in the first place. Please now have the last sputtering word showing you have no respect for other editors' time and effort. I won't bother to respond since everyone else here sees what's going on, but I will ping in SMcCandlish here so he'll know next time to check whether you're lurking about before wasting his efforts. EEng 19:11, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Without getting into the fray much, I want to say that WP:EDITING policy, in combination with WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY policy, the Help:Revert manual, and the fact that WP:BRD remains an essay despite a failed attempt at WP:VPPOL to promote it to a guideline, all lean in EEng's favor on this. Having a diffuse sense of personal unease about the fact that a change was made isn't a revert rationale. WP exists for material in it to change; it's a central premise of the entire exercise. Nor is being upset that one wasn't personally asked first (or didn't get to participate in the prior discussions) a revert rationale. WP:Consensus happens whether you're involved or not; it is not unanimity, and no one is a vested editor with special gate-keeping powers. While WP:P&G does want us to ensure that changes to P&G pages represent consensus, that doesn't equate to "was previously subjected to an RfC or similar discussion"; we're also instructed at the same page to ensure that our guidelines reflect actual best practices of the community rather than try to change them, and that rationale alone is often enough to make a substantive edit. But none of that's even applicable here: the change is organization/maintenance not substantive, and it was discussed, and it did reach consensus, and it's been widely advertised with merge tags for a very long time. The objection raised was simply incorrect, so there's not much point continuing to argue about how things should have been had it been correct. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:26, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
So first things first: I did indeed miss that the topic had been discussed, and I also missed that you had given notice, albeit I think not on this particular page. Maybe next time a mention in the first edit summary would be helpful. In any case I apologize for my oversight on these points.
That said, on the more general issue, I stand by my remarks.
As for BRD not being elevated to a guideline, I might have !voted that way myself. It's more a good thing to keep in mind than a strict rule.
However, for guidelines (and much more so for policy pages), in my opinion, BRD already has too much B. Discussion should happen first.
Also, the remarks about a "rationale to revert" unjustifiably invert the burden. The burden should be on the change, not on objections to it. If there are objections, we should slow down and take them point by point, starting from the status quo ante. --Trovatore (talk) 02:40, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I encourage my esteemed fellow editors to leave Trovatore's latest post unanswered as a sort of monument to WP:IDHT. EEng 03:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I have heard you, EEng. I don't agree. Obviously I disagree in extremely sharp terms. Nevertheless I have attempted to give my reasoning. By the way I see no "consensus" against my position here. Basically there's you and Stanton (with some others expressing agreement with the particular changes, but not opposition to the principle I'm explaining), and I think SV agrees with me, more or less. --Trovatore (talk) 04:26, 28 June 2018 (UTC) Amendment — I see above that there's also "No such user". Fine, three. --Trovatore (talk) 04:30, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I wrote a point-by-point response but it ended up being mostly a repeat of the points already made, so EEng's IDHT point seems correct, and I'll just move on. Trovatore's position is an "I wish WP worked differently" one, and doesn't reflect WP:EDITING policy reality, even in light of WP:P&G's cautions about editing P&G pages. To the extent this wikiphilosophy discussion could be or become interesting, it's just off-topic for MOS:LEAD.
PS: The simple test of the Trovatore (and SV?) position is obvious: Go to WP:VPPOL and open an RfC asking whether WP:P&G's consensus-related cautions about editing P&G pages carve out an exception to EDITING policy and can be interpreted as a requirement to have a consensus discussion thread before making any substantive change to a P&G page. I'd bet every dollar I own that the result would be a WP:SNOW no.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:00, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree that it's off-topic for this page. If I hadn't gotten angry at EEng's edit summaries, which in my opinion make incorrect assertions about how edits should be done, I would have probably saved it for another venue. --Trovatore (talk) 06:12, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I didn't even look at the edit summaries, and I've been skipping ahead every time I see a hostile word, so if I seem like I'm giving short shrift to why tempers are hot about it, that's the reason. :-) PS: I think this could actually be a potential interesting discussion somewhere, like maybe WT:POLICY or WT:EDITING or WT:CONSENSUS, just not here and not in the middle of a "Why wasn't this discussed?", "It was discussed" abortive thread. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:26, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Watchers of this page would likely have seen [5] this, and been aware of the previous discussion, and of the looong time the merge tags have just been sitting there not acted upon (presumably out of sheer terror, LOL; I've been at this long enough I generally can do MoS-related merges without too much alarm). Anyway, I was basically prompted to boldly get on with it or not have the merge tags, and everyone seems to want MOS:BIO consolidated, so, there we have it. Job done (other that the one to-do item left at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Consolidation of MOS:BIO; and yes, that forthcoming merger has already been subject to a consensus discussion; too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:27, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Don't panic; this was discussed, and the material's been marked for merging for a long time. Every single time MoS bio-related material has been suggested for merger into the actual MOS:BIO – in about the the last two years – the response has been uniformly positive. So, I finally got it done, because no one else will bother. It was requested by someone that WP:SUMMARY material be left behind, so I've done that, though personally I'd prefer to just leave behind one-liner cross-references for brevity. See summary of the merge work at [presently] the bottom of WT:MOSBIO).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

What part of the recent changes is objected to? Is it the MOS:BLPLEAD link changes, or something more substantive? power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:56, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. Instead of just some kind of "revert because you didn't get my permission first" knee-jerk reaction (and what's looking more and more like flat-out editwarring at this point, with a lot of testy but rather content-free WP:REVTALK), I'd like to see what sort of substantive issue someone wants to raise. It's not like we're going to actually retain a WP:POLICYFORK with huge chunks of near-duplicate material in two pages. The merges have consensus, and being late to the party and unaware of them doesn't entitle someone to undo them out of a general sense of "I'm not sure what was going on in my absence". Someone who feels "concerned" for some nebulous reasons has a responsibility to find out what's going on and be less nebulous. If you still have an objection, to something specific, then spell it out on the talk page. The idea that this is some out-of-the-blue undiscussed unilateral alteration is just false. Hardly any of the wording was changed while merging; just minor tweaks to integrate it with the material already there. The WP:SUMMARY now present is actually better, from a summarizing perspective, than what was here originally. The twiddly details are now in the longer bio page, and the bio-specific lead material in this page is now tightly focused on the key bio+lead points. That's how WP:SUMMARY works.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:04, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
I've reverted the revert based on Trovatore's comments, which suggest that the disputed addition has been discussed previously. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Would be even better if people would go look and say "Gosh, MOS:BIO really is much more complete; I can actually find stuff now. And it's nice that MOS:LEAD now has tidy summaries instead of disjointed, palimpsestuous rambling." Heh. But, I know by now this is a thankless "job". >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:30, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Summary, because the thread order above is pretty weird:

  • What prompted me to "get on with it": [6]. That also links to the previous consensus discussion for the merge from MOS:LEAD (and the request to leave behind WP:SUMMARY info).
  • Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Consolidation of MOS:BIO: Log/checklist of the merge work (all pending merges for MOS:BIO were done back-to-back, based on previously tagged and discussed sections - from MOS:LEAD, MOS:ABBR, and MOS:CAPS), except one job remains, because it involves moving stuff to multiple pages, and even I don't have enough coffee to do all this in one day).

I'm really tired now, and trust that this will settle out.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:33, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

These changes were discussed, and consensus reached, at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Merge MOS:JOBTITLES to this MoS page. A notice of that discussion was posted to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 204#MoS section merge discussion (now archived). Anyone reverting these changes now is editing against consensus. The general rule about maintaining status quo does not apply here, because of the prior discussion and consensus. If there are objections, the SMcCandlish version should stand until a new consensus has been reached. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:34, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Though, in fairness, my new WP:SUMMARY work here after the merge is "new material" in a loose sense; I have no expectation that it's perfect, and do expect people to copyedit it. Personally, I'd prefer it just be removed and replaced with a pointer to the corresponding section at MOS:BIO (as was done at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Initials), because there's always a chance of WP:POLICYFORKing when two guideline pages cover the same material, even when one is in summary style.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:22, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Boldfacing of subject in list articles?

Is there a consensus as to whether the subject of a list article should be boldfaced? For instance, there's Magical Negro, in which in the first sentence we have Magical Negro in boldface. For List of Magical Negroes, however, should there be boldfacing of Magical Negro as the focus of the article (if not the title), or is that considered inappropriate, or is there no consensus on this? Thanks! DonIago (talk) 04:59, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Seems to me that the manual of style indicates the consensus quite clearly:
You could rewrite the first sentence to include the article title, if it does not require distorted wording, but what would be the point of just putting "Magical Negro" in bold? 51.7.17.178 (talk) 06:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm not arguing what the MOS says, but it wouldn't be the first time there was a consensus that didn't make its way to the MOS either. DonIago (talk) 15:07, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
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