Manual of Style | ||||||||||
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Restore previous name
This editing guide was renamed as a MoS guide last year on an understanding that an agreement had been made during a discussion on this page. As this has always been an editing guide, and the advice here is still about making an editing decision rather than a style or formatting one, I feel it should be returned to an editing guide, and the previous name of WP:Summary style restored. The discussion linked above referenced this guideline in order to make editing decisions during the MoS consolidation drive, but there was no discussion regarding bringing the guideline itself into the MoS. I have informed the editor who made the move. Views are encouraged. SilkTork *YES! 12:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Contentless sections
A problem I note with a lot of articles (for example, Milton Keynes Dons F.C.) is that when articles are split, people just cut-and-paste sections into new articles and leave the parent articles devoid of information. Obviously, this fails the spirit of WP:SUMMARY, as "summary style" means that a main article should give a summary and give links to "main articles" if it makes an article too unwieldy to combine all the information, but it seems not to be an important part of the policy. Should this be rectified or not? Sceptre (talk) 23:44, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
- There is never any reason to have a section with no content at all. or a section other than the EL section at the end that has nothing but links. So I would say yes, it should be rectified. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:41, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Notability
Notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list. As a longtime fan of the summary guideline, I have read this N quote as affirming that a breakout is "part of" its main article for N purposes. That is, we recognize that List of minor planets: 200001-201000, Later life of Isaac Newton, and List of centenarians (educators, school administrators, social scientists and linguists) are not notable in themselves, and yet they are clearly not deletable at AFD for N reasons, since their main topics (List of minor planets, Isaac Newton, Lists of centenarians) are notable. This N exception seems to be a natural corollary of the COMMONNAMES exception that breakouts enjoy.
In a content dispute, it has been raised by some that this might count as a backdoor to inherent notability, because it does "the same thing" as inherence. It makes all consensus breakouts "inherently article-worthy" (which sounds a lot like "inherently notable"). Clearly someone who did not understand the summary structure might easily raise a good-faith AFD, rightly arguing the topic is nonnotable but is being treated as if it were inherently notable solely because its notable main topic is sufficiently long. This happens particularly with lists. It would seem there would be a standardized method of communicating the structure to notability checkers. (Incidentally, I guarantee that if you look up the particular content dispute in my history, you will face a topic maelstrom largely irrelevant to these present sitewide questions; but feel free.)
Q1: Since WP:LISTs are articles, does this guideline apply equally to lists as it does to other articles, though lists are not mentioned herein? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q2: What is the best way to handle the tension between the rightness of breakout articles vs. the objection, frequently met, that the breakout's title is nonnotable as a topic? (I see that N failures are not "encouraged" per AVOIDSPLIT, but this is accommodating language because the above demonstrates that sometimes there is no notable split and yet split is still indicated due to size.) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q3: In particular, in a comprehensive list combining notable and nonnotable topics, I have observed the tendency for the notable ones to be broken out with short summaries and the nonnotable ones to accumulate long entries (especially if primary sources are involved), which seems to lean against guidance here for main-page balance. Is this guideline leaning more toward balanced breakouts, or is it toward imbalance (so as to indicate varying notability), or is this a local question? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q4: Since breakout method itself should be decided locally, should choice of breakout method include consideration of whether individual breakout candidates "look notable" or "look nonnotable" if they are considered without reference to being broken out? (My answer is it doesn't seem that this should be a consideration.) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q5: Should local method determination rely primarily on anticipation of the detail levels that various user cases would typically look for? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q6: Since the guideline affirms breakouts must be able to stand alone, but only contextualizes this for V purposes, should we conclude that breakouts must stand alone for N (which would fail many articles like the above), or that they need not (which would indicate a clarification to the guideline)? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q7: What are the best style methods of communicating in-article that an article is a breakout, to transcend argumentation over N? (Obviously I start with the "Main article:" link at top, the navtemplate(s) indicating a place in a series, and sufficient sourcing and weighting; "Previous article:" and "Next article:" come to mind; anything else?) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Notability requirements apply to sub-articles. There are no special rules and there need not be any special rules that I can see. Dmcq (talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- There is evidence N does not consistently apply to subarticles, for instance WP:NCLL, plus the above sample subarticles. I am looking for substantive discussion on this evidence. Logically, either all such subarticles need to be deleted or merged for N failure, or some subarticles need not be deleted for N failure. Substantive point-by-point answers from anyone would be appreciated. JJB 16:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Yes we say lists are articles but they don't follow quite a lot of a normal article's rules. Have you a real problem in mind? Dmcq (talk) 17:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, per the second OP graf, but these queries have long applied to many topic areas besides the presenting one. The challenge is to balance list-style or multiple-subtopic articles with spinoff articles that may be nonnotable. My understanding is that sometimes it's OK for a main article to have short summaries of notable topics interspersed with details sections of nonnotable topics that may be longer than the short summaries ("imbalanced"); and that sometimes it's OK to count all topics as not necessarily notable spinoffs of a list that would be too long if not spun out ("balanced"). The former is more common if the notable and nonnotable subtopics have a varying amount of sourceable data, as with the supercentenarians in various "list of" articles; the latter if the nonnotable subtopics have a relatively constant (usually programmed) amount of sourceable data, as with the thousand-count minor-planet sublists in list of minor planets. In other words I would like to make explicit a number of practices that have been implicitly accepted but not spelled out in guidelines. What would you say to a person who argued that House and Senate career of John McCain, until 2000 is wholly nonnotable as a topic and should be merged? JJB 20:30, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- I would say that his life prior to the presidential campaign was a notable topic. The title of the article isn't ideal but that's the topic of the article. It is not an arbitrary point. Dmcq (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- You have responded to the rhetorical question and nothing else, and you changed 1981-2000 to 1936-2000 making your response off-point. Accordingly I will be changing this page in attempts to clarify the ambiguities and answer Q1-Q7 in a consensus manner. JJB 12:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- The question you asked as a test case was " What would you say to a person who argued that House and Senate career of John McCain, until 2000 is wholly nonnotable as a topic and should be merged?" and I said I believed the article was notable in its own right. I fail to see how you then think a reasonable course is to assume the complete opposite and stick it into the guideline. Your opinions do not count more than that of other editors and a conservative approach is far better if problems are pointed out in changes to policies and guidelines. New ideas are not automatically and intrinsically better than old ones which have been looked at longer. There is no requirement for another editor to produce rebuttals about every single thing you say with an automatic assumption that if there is a single thing left out then you are okay to stick something completely opposite to what another editor says in. Dmcq (talk) 14:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- Excuse me, I called it a rhetorical question, not a test case, and your response to this one did not account for the other nonnotable items mentioned above, and your response also made a scope error that you have not corrected. Nor did I insert into this guideline the complete opposite, but I sourced my insertions in edit summaries, or explained their reasonable implications. The fact that we sometimes split arbitrarily indicates that some splits are technically nonnotable as such. The remainder of your generic observations about editing methods do not directly relate to improving this page. However, I don't mind interacting with your edits, such as by correcting grammar, as we seem to be converging on the same point; but please keep discussion to the merits of how current policy and practice should be described. JJB 15:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- You called it a rhetorical question after I answered and I don't see what was rhetorical about it. It was a good straightforward example as far as I can see of you thinking an article was split arbitrarily. It wasn't. There is no reason for you to say articles can be split arbitrarily. It isn't true. articles split off must be notable in themselves. This is the third time I've said that here, please take a bit of care with basic policy. I will leave it to somebody else to revert the change so they can complain too and then perhaps you might take account of WP:Consensus even if you think your one voice is worth more than any other one voice and go changing things like that against WP:PGCHANGE. Dmcq (talk) 16:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- The example subtopics of McCain, planets, Newton, and centenarians are arbitrarily split according to seminatural divisions that do not have inherent notability. There are essentially no sources that discuss any of these subtopics independently from their main topics. The fact that these and many other articles exist indicates that often consensus favors a nonnotable split because its main topic is notable, not the subtopic; I am simply attempting to explain why this practice has arisen, on an appropriate page. JJB 17:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- It would probably be best if at least some of the fairly straightforward questions above can be pondered by those other voices. Investigations are best made rationally and not via repeating concluded opinions. Agent00f (talk) 22:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Main versus details
I think the main template is better for linking to detail articles. The point about te summary is to be a summary, not details. Saying more details is just wrong and it also encourages unnecessary details in the summary. Dmcq (talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- The article World War 2 uses the main template, not details. Dmcq (talk) 00:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Clear from Template talk:Main that main should be used so changing details back to main and changing to main in the example. Dmcq (talk) 10:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Before I changed it, this page inconsistently used both templates, "main" and "details", for the same purpose, so I chose the one that was unambiguous. If the other is used ("main"), other pages will need to be changed per Template talk:Main to resolve the contradiction and ambiguity. JJB 16:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- You should have checked first. Dmcq (talk) 17:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- Before I changed it, this page inconsistently used both templates, "main" and "details", for the same purpose, so I chose the one that was unambiguous. If the other is used ("main"), other pages will need to be changed per Template talk:Main to resolve the contradiction and ambiguity. JJB 16:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Problem with sticking in links
Links to world war 2 were stuck in where the context was as a title of an article or section. This is one of the problem when people do large trivial edits, they just stick in errors without helping. They should be confined to articles. It would also be better if one is really desperate to mess around to be very careful and separate the substantive edits out. Dmcq (talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
- Before I changed it, the link (not links) was in the example lead. I moved it to the example title, which was an improvement. Obviously in the real article the link appears in neither place, but here a link to the article is appropriate. Accordingly will try an alternate. Please do not charge me with sticking in errors when I am fixing an error with a compromise that is not necessarily an error. I affirm separating substantive edits out, but sometimes one doesn't anticipate what is substantive. JJB 16:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Section 'Lead section'
I didn't understand WP:SS#Lead section
- Lead section
- Further information: Wikipedia:Lead section
- For planned paper Wikipedia 1.0, one recommendation is that the paper version of articles will be the lead section of the web version. Summary style and news style can help make a concise intro that works as a standalone.
The links didn't help me at all. Dmcq (talk) 00:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
- This is historical. Please rewrite as you see fit. Perhaps it can be folded into another section about news style. JJB 16:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Policy check
Dmcq has referred to this edit as warring and "absolutely definitely wrong". The significant parts of this edit were taken from other policy and guidelines:
- WP:N: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list."
- WP:SIZE: "If necessary, split the article arbitrarily."
- WP:SS#Size (elsewhere on this page): "Judging the appropriate size depends on the topic."
- WP:LSC: "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria. These lists are created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles."
The remainder of this edit enfolded or copyedited Dmcq's text. Warring does not refer to new insertion or new enfolding of noncontroversial content, but to reversion. Accordingly, Dmcq is free to express concerns with the extant quotes here or in the respective talk pages of the quoted pages. JJB 16:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- JJB's edits relevant to this section [1]
- My revert trying to accomodate him [2]
- His 'enfolding' [3]
- I have repeatedly pointed out before this that bits split out of articles need separate notability they do not inherit notability. Splitting at an arbitrary point is simply wrong. Dmcq (talk) 17:04, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
This is not about "bits" split out, this is about what editors have always done when splitting is necessary due to very long article size and when there is no clear subdivision. JJB 17:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- Example? Dmcq (talk) 17:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Four examples are above. Many more are findable. JJB 17:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- I already explained about John McCain, Newtons later life is also notable as a separate topic, and list articles are treated specially. Why don't you just acknowledge you can be wrong and work with WP:Consensus rather than edit warring? Dmcq (talk) 17:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
We can disagree about our views of the examples, but your view does not seem to object to the policies and guidelines I imported into this article. If you have a specific text objection, please propose a change with a substantive reason. JJB 17:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- ' if necessary, split a very long article arbitrarily' I 've lisst count how many times I've pointed out about notability of articles.. Also less importantly the notability of a list has little to do with the notability of the items in the list. '(as when most of the listed items fail the notability criteria).', plus just leave the 'also' out when referring to the guideline for long lists - it is the primary source about that - not 'also' Dmcq (talk) 17:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
In re your charge that I am committing an "end run around WP:Notability", I found this interesting discussion in WT:N archives, with reference to this community RFC. At WT:N Dmcq seems to have said that objecting to List of Shakespearean characters (A–K) because it has no independent notability is not useful. That's almost exactly the point I'm trying to make: objecting that such a list does have independent notability is also not useful. These splits are arbitrary.
Since you object to the wording from WP:SIZE, you might take the objection there. Your second objection seems to relate to the wording from WP:LSC, but does not give a reason for deleting the parenthesis; the stated case is a significant case of disregarding notability for subsections. I have taken out "also", which was intended to mean "beyond subtopically", not "as a nonprimary source". JJB 18:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Here's another one I neglected, which might need to be worked in:
- WP:INHERIT: "Often, a separate article is created for formatting and display purposes; however, this does not imply an 'inherited notability' per se, but is often accepted in the context of ease of formatting and navigation, such as with books and albums." JJB 19:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- I see that bit in WP:SIZE.I will raise a question about it at WP:VPP. I do not believe guidelines should override policy. Dmcq (talk) 23:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I have raised this general question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Splitting_articles_arbitrarily Dmcq (talk) 23:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
- Dmcq has refused invitations to discuss this page here, continuing to discuss specifics of this page at VPP although the particular change only affects this page. To clarify the conversation, my latest edit was responsive to this*, and my next edit will be responsive to this (Dmcq charging my just-prior edit as "pointy and disruptive" in an edit summary), and to Dmcq's removal of the WP:N guideline as "inapproproiate synthesis". I grant that I didn't think of the fact that it's in WP:N, not WP:SIZE, but since Dmcq objects I will put it in a Notability section instead. The previous section I had it in discusses notability (so I will prepend instead of include), so the relevant N material is appropriate here, and there is no evidence of objection to the sentences themselves, only an unstated inference that Dmcq has not succeeded in communicating. If Dmcq believes this is still synthesis, it is recommended to discuss it on this page. It took several days to communicate the alleged synthesis last time, and when Dmcq finally succeeded in communicating a full allegation, I made the previous prompt change, which Dmcq just cut out; so I hope it does not take long to find the alleged syn this time. I think making these charges in an edit summary on a different, widely viewed page is starting to push the limits here, as there has been zero reason stated for excluding WP:N considerations from this page. JJB 00:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC) *Since Dmcq just (at VPP) asked for fuller response to the asterisked diff than my response via mainspace edit and summary, the answer is: it doesn't "obviously say" to me what you infer it does; my belief that N is always relevant is consistent with the fact that I don't infer what you do; and the reasons for including it are above (e.g., N is discussed here and N's nonlimitation on content is relevant). JJB 00:54, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- Add: the perfected charge of syn is as follows: "'Notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list. If possible, split the content into logically separate articles' . This is obviously saying that one needn't bother about notability for spinout articles." Alleged syn can be fixed by separating the two synthesized pieces (separating the first two sentences from the third), which I did and Dmcq rejected. If, however, the first two sentences alone are "obviously saying that one needn't bother about notability for spinout articles", then they certainly are obviously saying that as they stand in WP:N (with the obvious given that WP does have size requirements), and thus the bogeyman syn that Dmcq believes I am making has been made for years by WP:N. JJB 00:59, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- And now, of course, Jclemens reverted Dmcq (reinserting) before I reinserted elsewhere, and Dmcq reverted my reinsertion but not Jclemens's, which is fine, because Jclemens's version is equally acceptable as mine. Dmcq has now charged me with vandalism in an edit summary and continued to not talk here. JJB 01:07, 27 May 2012 (UTC) And, of course, Dmcq has reverted the other reinsertion without talking, against consensus of 2, after two foul edit summaries. This could count as 3RR, but it's only 2 edit sets. Please discuss. JJB 01:14, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- I have explained about synthesis on Jclemens page and pointed them at WP:SYNTH for a fuller explanation. Dmcq (talk) 01:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- I have raised the question of this behaviour by JJB at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_edits_by_User:John_J._Bulten Dmcq (talk) 01:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I believe Jclemens didn't see the syn either. Please respond to my logic above that there is no syn. JJB 01:45, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- The matter concerned a number of guidelines which were having bits taken out and stuck together, and so a centralized place was best. The discussion is already at VPP and should not be forked to other places. Dmcq (talk) 03:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- When you start reverting and you revert the wrong revert and find yourself immediately reverting again, (a) you may have a problem with reverting, and (b) you probably should be on the talk page too. I have linked your various arguments against my text from various pages, and when I could understand them I made accommodative edits. Your latest syn argument appears to be this from an arbiter's page. Near as I can tell, you're reading the existing AVOIDSPLIT as "ambiguous about whether notability is required" and the WP:N sentences, taken with it, as saying "it expressly is not required". I repeat that your interpretation of WP:N's placement here does not follow logically, and that Jclemens implicitly affirmed the same by repeating that the sentences (also a summary of WP:NNC) belong here.
- Incidentally, the WP:N "edit battle" several of us were in was over the words, "Article and list topics must be notable"; I added them and you after consideration deleted them. If you want an implication that follows logically, the implication of your deleting the "must" statement is that you don't think topics must be notable! But that faulty conclusion suggests your deletion was mistaken, not that you are making a coach-and-six end run through or around N. (You can still self-revert safely as the last reverter.)
- So at whatever page we continue to work this out, please answer directly the real remaining reasons, if any, that you disagree with N being quoted on a guideline that mentions N. JJB 04:51, 27 May 2012 (UTC) Also, Jclemens invited you to continue at talk after you announced unwatching; so feel free to continue there too (though I prefer here). JJB 04:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC) Oh, and Jclemens while supporting one of "my" versions also strongly encourages against edit-warring. Accordingly I do need to repeat my customary notice that if I should conclude discussion is not progressing to the stating and resolving of concerns I am free to bold again at a future date. JJB 05:09, 27 May 2012 (UTC)