Talk:Brownlowia emarginata

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Starting the article[edit]

It seems common in Wikipedia to start plant articles with the name of the taxa as the first words of the first sentence of an article. However as the name of the taxa is in large letters just a cm or so above the first sentence, I feel that we can have some variety. I accept the bolding of the name. But I feel that we can start with other words rather than "taxa name". Text is not a "taxa-box", taxa are not all alike. In lieu of knowledge of any "wiki-law", I refer to another page (there is a wiki-name for this procedure), Cocos nucifera, where the taxa name is de-emphasized. An editor changed it to the common, I changed it back. Is this so wrong? Brunswicknic (talk) 13:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a format used not just for plant articles and taxa names, but practically every Wikipedia article. It's a formal recommendation of Wikipedia's Manual of Style that the article title be displayed in bold as the subject of the sentence, as near the beginning as possible (see MOS:BOLDTITLE). There are exceptions, but only for cases where the title would appear awkward if forced into that format. The Coconut article is named after the common name, so it's coconut (tree), that appears in bold as the sentence subject. While Wikipedia has no firm rules and there's no law saying what you may or may not write, your argument that the bold title would clash with the page title simply doesn't stand, as this is already the case (and is expected) for almost every other article on Wikipedia. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Its in the first line; a recommendation is not not a law; given that some articles go not by taxa but by common name, then why can't editors take whichever common name seems appropriate and rename an article and have that common name in bold? (I note that those articles that go by "common name" are in fact those that have a common name that is well-established in the USA); my argument was not that bolded words would clash with the title, but that as the title is in large letters hovering a tiny distance above the first line, is it that vital that the very first words have to repeat the title?

It's not a law, nor "vital" in the absolute sense, but there's just no good reason to deviate from the guideline here, when practically every other article has this same repetition, and your change makes the opening read awkwardly. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]