Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:03, 14 June 2004

This Manual of Style has the simple purpose of making things look alike - it is a style guide. The following rules don't claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, the Misplaced Pages will be easier to read and easier to use, not to mention easier to write and easier to edit.

New contributors are reminded that clear, informative and unbiased writing is always more important than presentation and formatting. Writers are NOT expected or required to follow all or any these rules: the joy of wiki editing is that perfection is not required. Copy-editing wikipedians will be referring to these pages when weeding, and pages will be gradually made to conform with this guide.

Dates

A page title that is just a number is always a year. Pages also exist for days of the year, decades, centuries and even millennia. The formats are:

• 474
  • ]
• 474 BC (note no periods)
  • ]
• 18th century (Note century is not capitalized. Note also that "1700s" is not a century, but a decade as illustrated below.)
  • ]
• 10th century BC
  • ]
• 1830s (note no apostrophe)
  • ]
• December, 1983 (note that December is not linked)
  • December, ]
• 320s BC
  • ]

Articles for the year 500 BC and earlier should be redirected to the relevant decade. Articles for the year 1700 BC and earlier should be redirected to the relevant century. Articles for the year 4000 BC and earlier should be redirected to the relevant millennium.

The best date format to use is controversial. Originally, the manual of style recommended the following format:

• February 11
  • ]
• February 11, 1958
  • ], ]

This format is still predominant on Misplaced Pages. However, many wikipedians believe this should be changed. The following format was a leading contender in discussions:

• 11 February
  • ]
• 11 February 1958
  • ] ]

No wikipedians advocated Y-M-D format dates as follows:

• February 11
  • ]
• 1958 February 11
  • ] ]

To put an end to this debate, in July 2003, a new MediaWiki feature known as "dynamic dates" was implemented. This allows users to select in their user preferences which date format they prefer to see. Dates written in any of the above three formats are automatically converted to the user's preferred format as the page is displayed. The default is to leave it as written, although it may be slightly cleaned up and standardised.

Importantly, if a date is to be recognised by the software, it must be "wikified", as shown above. An unlinked date such as "February 11, 1958" will not be converted. To create a date which is linked but not converted, use a link with alternate text: "]". This is how the above examples were created.

ISO 8601 format is an international standard for dates. YYYY-MM-DD.

• 1985-02-11
  • ]-]

In article titles dates will not be converted. It's generally preferable to use the format used by local English speakers at the location of the event. For events within Europe and Oceania, that is usually 11 February 2004 (no comma). For the United States it's usually February 11, 2004 (with comma). Redirects for the other common forms should always be created.

Incorrect formats

What not to do:

• Do not use numbers for expressing a month, except in full ISO 8601 format which always includes the year. Always express a month as a whole word (e.g. "February") to avoid ambiguity. Please note that in the ISO 8601 format a leading zero is always added to single digit months and days.
• Do not link two digits for expressing a year or decade, as in '80s, unless discussing the years from 10 to 99. An encyclopedia deals with all of history, not just the last hundred years, so always use four digits for years and decades. Using the less formal unlinked two digits for a decade within an article is acceptable when it does not create an ambiguity.
• Do not use piped links to "years in music" or analogous pages (e.g. ]). (See Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject Music standards for discussion).
• In general, avoid using multiple date formats in the same article.

But the content of direct quotations, i.e., the word-for-word material whose (written or oral) utterance is reported in the article, should not be altered to conform to the Misplaced Pages "Manual of Style". In other words, a paragraph like the (fictional) one below is fine:

• Tony Blair, responding to critics within his party, said "The world has totally changed since the 11th of September." He was echoing earlier sentiments by Lord Ronald McDonald, who said that "nine-eleven was the day that the American public woke up to the reality of terrorism."

Time format and time zones

Times should be written in a 24 hour format (HH:MM:SS). The problem with am/pm notation is that it often makes it less-trivial to convert between different time zones. For example, to convert December 25 at 4:45pm (UTC +1), to another time zone, say UTC -8, one would need either to subtract 4:45 and then 4:15, or translate it to 24 hour format (16:45) and then subtract 9. Another factor is that ante meridiem/post meridiem notation is strictly time zone-dependent, and may confuse a person living with a different sunrise/sunset periods.

Another guideline for dealing with different time zones is that when writing a certain date and time, first consider where the event happended and use the time zone there. For example, the date of the Attack on Pearl Harbor should be December 7, 1941 (Hawaii time/date). If it is difficult to judge where, consider what is significant. For example, if some cracker in Japan hacked the Pentagon, use the time zone for the Pentagon.

If you know it, include the UTC date and time of the event in the article, indicating that it's UTC.

Style for numbers, weights, and measures

Very large numbers, such as pinball scores, should be divided up by commas every three places. (Note that this is different from SI notation where a space is used every three places.) In scientific contexts, scientific notation is preferred: see below.

A dot (period) "." should be used as the Decimal point, separating the integer part from the fractional part.

The issue of whether all units should be metric (SI) or Imperial (or American style) is being debated at Misplaced Pages:Measurements Debate. In summary, metric is more widespread and regular, but some Americans don't use it. In addition, the names of American and Imperial measurements are sloppy and don't always denote the same quantities.

In any scientific context, be it physics, chemistry and other, always use SI units. Unless for any historic reference or other particular reason, it is not necessary to state imperial units in parentheses.

If using American or Imperial, give metric as a courtesy. If using metric, remember that many readers will not know what you mean and will be aided by the equivalent.

These need not be exact equivalents unless exact measurement is involved. And if the quantity is always given in one form, you need not perform any conversion at all. Here is a good site for online conversions you might find useful.

Use standard abbreviations/symbols for metric units and without 's' in the plural, m for meter, kg for kilogram, etc. (see SI for the list), and two-letter abbreviations for inch-pound units, in=inch (not "), ft=foot (not '), yd=yard (not yds), mi=mile, lb=pound (not lbs), gal=gallon, pt=pint, qt=quart, and so forth. The terms gallon, quart and pint are ambiguous units—they have several values so you need to specify US or imperial.

Measurements (both number and unit together) of dimensions with existing orders of magnitude pages should be linked to the appropriate page. If no order of magnitude page exists for it, link the unit to its full name.

Speed should be given in m/s by default, but in km/h when this is conventional (speed limits, etc.).

Areas of land should be given in km², which is entered as km&sup2;. This form is preferable to km², which adds extra line leading. Smaller areas in m² etc. Volumes in m³, cm³ etc. Note that the compact superscript style works only for 2 and 3. This means that the <sup> style has to be used when general superscripts are required, as in the examples below.

Use a space character between the value and the unit symbol e.g. 111 lb rather than 111lb.

Examples

• The highest score recorded for the Deuces High pinball game was 11,933,750.
• The hippopotamus stands 1.5 m (5 ft) at the shoulders and weighs between 2700 and 4500 kg (roughly 6000 to 10000 lb).
• The first sub-four-minute mile was run by Roger Bannister.
• The 155 mm diameter projectile offers a wide range of options for battlefield usage.
• 10 = 100
  • 10<SUP>2</SUP> = 100
• A large number such as 156,234,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 can be concisely recorded as 1.56234 × 10, and a small number such as 0.0000000000234 can be written as 2.34 × 10.
  • A large number such as 156,234,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 can be concisely recorded as 1.56234 &times; 10<SUP>29</SUP>, and a small number such as 0.0000000000234 can be written as 2.34 &times; 10^-11.

See orders of magnitude and the talk page there for ongoing, possibly resolved debate on which style of exponent notation to use for large numbers.

Number names

• In a non-scientific context, and with the exception of displaying tabulated data, the words per cent (or percent if you're using American English) should be written out in full, rather than using the % symbol.

• Whole numbers between zero and ten should be spelt out in full. Numbers higher than ten can be represented numerically, except where they appear as the first word in a sentence, in which case they should be written out in full.

• Since recently, people have disagreed whether a billion is 10 or 10, and in Spanish, French, Norwegian, Polish and German the word still stands for the latter - which was also the original English usage. So it's best to avoid it altogether or at the very least explain it at its first occurrence in an article. Same issue with other large number greater than a million. See detailed discussion in Number names.

Natural number

Natural number has two meanings:

• positive integer
• non-negative integer

Except where it does not matter which is chosen, explicitly use one of the above instead of natural numbers.

In Misplaced Pages, "natural number" unequivocally means "non-negative integer", as the natural number article explains. So if you link to the natural number article, it's clear what you mean.

Ranges

Sometimes numbers and dates are expressed in ranges, such as "4–7" for the numbers 4 through 7. Use an en dash for these when possible. See Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Dashes for more information.