Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 79

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See also
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
Wikipedia talk:Article titles
Wikipedia talk:Quotations
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

Proposed copy-edit of two more sections

Your feedback will be appreciated. The "how to" element has been removed, since there are links for that purpose. Reference to the Chicago removed—why is an external reference necessary? Wikipedia not confident enough?

User:Tony1/MOS comparison: Italics and Quotations

Tony 04:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Its so much simpler, easier to comprehend, and better looking when its broken up into distinct points like that. You're missing a bracket here though:"Adjacent quote marks, as at the end of this example, are separated by a non-breaking space  )." Quadzilla99 05:15, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I took to liberty to make the comparison like this and then like this (after reordering sections & seealso template).
All in all I'd say this is an improvement. I have no problem with its being added. I agree that we don't need references to Chicago nor (as I've mentioned) the "how to" bits.
The current ordering is as follows.
  1. Italics
    1. Effect on nearby punctuation and links
    2. Emphasis
    3. Titles
    4. Words as words
    5. Foreign terms
    6. Quotations in italics
    7. Italics within quotations
  2. Acronyms & abbreviations
  3. Quotations
  4. Punctuation
You've reordered sections thus.
  1. Italics
    1. Emphasis
    2. Titles
    3. Words as words
    4. Quotations in italics
    5. Italics within quotations
    6. Effect on nearby punctuation and links
  2. Foreign terms
  3. Quotations
  4. Punctuation
Would the following reorganisation work?
  1. Italics
    1. Emphasis
    2. Titles
    3. Words as words
    4. Effect on nearby punctuation and links
    5. Quotations in italics
    6. Italics within quotations
  2. Quotations
  3. Punctuation
  4. Foreign terms
This would put the (sub)sections dealing with quotes closer together.
The spelling italicisation occurs in this section: we might want to harmonise this with the rest of the page. We've not yet addressed the point about [sic]'s not meaning that there has been a change to the quote (but rather that there has been none). Also, how about removing the full stops from these boldfaced bulleted points (they're not sentences but more like titles) and starting the text on a new line. Here's a revised version with the changes mentioned Jɪmp 07:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Quad, thanks, fixed. Jimp, I like your headings better. Pity WP's asterisked bullets don't align perfectly with the colon indentation, though. On the order, yes, it's nice to have quotations together, but I think more important to keep Foreign terms adjacent to Italics, since much of FT is about italics (currently FT is part of Italics, of course). Probably prematurely, I'm going to implement the changes from your sandbox. Wow, nice to have the fluff cleaned out; these two sections are much more economical now. Tony 10:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Further note: Hmmm, in implementing the changes, the huge subtitles followed by insubstantial text irritated me, so I took the subtitles down one step in the hierarchy. Is this going to cause problems? I do think it looks much better. Tony 11:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Image V InfoBox

Infoboxes have a wide consensus as being useful as the best of them provide a snapshot of stable information and statistics that give a quick feel for the topic. Because of this popularity they are frequently placed top right in an article, rather than an image. However, the MoS suggests placing an image in the top right [1] unless there is a compelling reason not to. Is an infobox a compelling reason not to have an image? As part of the intention with the lead section is to present a welcoming and attractive introduction which soothes, invites and excites the reader, an image is commonly seen as being the best means of doing this. Books have attractive images on the cover, rather than a list of contents. So my question is - is there a guideline for when to use an infobox in place of an image in the top right? I have had a look and I can't find a guideline - nor can I find any discussion on this topic, though I am sure there must be. SilkTork 07:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Count me out of that "consensus". Too often, infoboxes distort the information in banging it into a one-size-fits-all system of categories. Infoboxes can be visually ugly. But that's only my opinion. I agree that the MoS appears to say not to use an infobox at top right unless there are compelling reasons to do so. I'd love to use that to get rid of a few infoboxes, frankly. Tony 09:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not part of that consensus either. However, usage appears to be widespread and popular. I'm accepting of what appears to be a handy and popular device, though it would be useful to have some guidelines on usage and placement. SilkTork 11:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Infoboxes can contain images (eg here and here) in fact it should be mandatory that they do, as they are (I agree) an ugly and even off-putting element at the top of a page. All that's needed is |image= and |image_caption= tags in the template. Being ca.300px wide, the image can be quite large - much bigger than the current 180px default thumb size. For this reason I'm actually in favour of infoboxes, as it's (currently) the only "legitimate" way of getting a decent-sized image at the top right.
mikaultalk 12:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that putting an image at the top of an InfoBox is one way of making them look more attractive. However, that must be measured against the possibility that an image inside an already lengthy InfoBox would create a monster InfoBox. Is there a guideline on the maximum length or size of an InfoBox? I have seen some rather hefty ones. SilkTork 15:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Attractive as the InfoBox in Penedes is, when the image alone is placed in top right, and the info box is moved down to the start of the main article, as here:[2], then a less heavy, and more attractive and inviting layout is created. SilkTork 15:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that looks ok, although the image is too small. I'd be just as happy to see infoboxes appear way down the page, possibly even at the bottom of shorter pages, to encourage reading the article rather than a bunch of facts and figures. Size-wise, the convention appears to be 300px wide by however long it gets, which I do think is quite an intrusive size; I'd favour a 230px or 250px width, matched by a revised default thumb size for images (the only real issue I had with your example is the differing size of image and box)
The WP:INFOBOX project page specifically avoids discussion of such standards, although I'm fairly sure I've seen some guidelines somewhere.
mikaultalk 22:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Way down the page, or not at all—in that example, the graphics should probably be rearranged for a less cluttered appearance, though. In the Penedes examples, the infobox is uncomfortably jammed up against the right-hand margin of the text, the background colour is distracting, on a small monitor I imagine that parts of the text are squashed into very short columns (particularly at the start of History), and to top it off, most or all of the information is in the main text already!. In [7] there's an awkward gap between the pic and the box. I'm suspicious that the infobox functions merely to make the article look chunkier; perhaps more useful and interesting information should be included in place of the useless elephant. Tony 23:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
"Not at all" looks much more inviting and professional to my eye. The infoboxes to my eye look rather amateurish. The information contained within them is often trivial and contentious, and very difficult for some people to edit. However - it would take a big push to eliminate them as they are very popular. Better, perhaps, to concentrate on guidelines for best use. Or are you up for proposing them for deletion? That could be an interesting debate. I wonder how many people feel the same way as us, but have kept quiet as there appears to be a majority consensus in favour of the boxes? SilkTork 07:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Infobox templates#Design and usage Point 2: ( For consistency the following rules apply:) "Insert at the top of articles and right-align." The people who create and use InfoBoxes would take their guidance from this rather than from the overall MoS. So there is a conflict. SilkTork 07:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see guidelines about use, and to change the culture that simply accepts them as the norm. Tony 07:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
The MoS guidelines predate the InfoBox guidelines. The guideline to use a picture or image in the top right was present several months before the InfoBox guideline. It is unfortunate it wasn't challenged at the time. SilkTork 17:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm posting a note on that infobox design page declaring that there's a conflict. Tony 22:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Except that Point 2 says: "Insert in the main body of articles - either after the intro or in the most appropriate section. Consider putting in the top right only in the most compelling of cases." Doesn't that win the day for us? Infoboxes at top-right can be challenged on the basis that there's no "compelling" reason. We could even produce a template to that effect. Tony 22:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd take it further, and say there should be a compelling reason to use an infobox in the first place. Where there is, it should be afforded no more prominence than the template groupings common at the bottom of national pages like France and Spain. Infobox info is generally summary info and should logically appear at the end, not be in your face at the start. Or is this a bit harsh?
mikaultalk 23:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
But does WP:IBT actually have any status? It doesn't seem to be tagged as either policy or guideline, and is clearly at odds with widespread procedure.... ah, I see that it has been altered by User:SilkTork in the last couple of days to advise against the placing of infoboxes in the top right, on the basis that it conflicts with the Manual of Style on images. I have to say I find this weak. The Manual of Style makes no mention of infoboxes; as has been mentioned, most infoboxes have the effect of placing an image in the top right of the article; and the presence of an infobox could be considered a 'compelling reason' for the purposes of the image guideline, rather than the image guideline's requirement for a compelling reason to not place an image in the top right necessarily requiring that an infobox not be placed there. I think we need a better justification than this to start warning against what is currently the predominant practice. TSP 23:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I have to say that if the Manual of Style were descriptive, instead of prescriptive, it would state that images should be added to a page only where there is no adequate infobox to add. That is the current way of thinking, at least. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, part of the awareness here is the current widespread practice of placing infoboxes in the top right of the lead section. There is no disputing the practice is widespread. Nor, that featured articles have infoboxes in the lead section. The question is more about which method is better - image or infobox. An established guideline, and the one that people here appear to agree with, is that images should be used in the lead section. Comments here reveal that people find infoboxes in the lead section intrusive and aesthetically unpleasant.
Given that, so far, nobody has put forward a compelling reason to have an infobox in the lead section (other than that they are already there), are we all agreed that the people involved in this discussion would prefer to see an image in the lead section rather than an infobox? If that part is agreed, then discussion could go on to the best way of formulating guidelines and putting them into practice. I'm hesitant of changing such a widespread practice - however I have noticed on some articles I have edited that there may have been an incorrect statement in an article for several years, and despite hundreds of edits, people have not removed that statement. And the longer the statement remains, the less likely it is that people dare to remove it. Are we all assuming that the infobox is more popular than it actually is? I'd like to canvass as wide an opinion as possible and draw more people into this.
I made an edit [3] on Wikipedia:Lead section and invited people to come here and discuss the issue Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Image_or_Infobox_in_Lead_section. My intentions have not been well read by User:SlimVirgin who has reverted the edit and, despite requests, prefers not to come here to talk. I would welcome her involvement as she clearly has an interest in the lead section, however she has made a decision to only discuss this matter on the lead section talk page.
How can we get more people involved - especially those involved in creating infoboxes? I have left a message [4] on Wikipedia talk:Infobox templates after making a bold edit [5] on the infobox page. I hope that will bring more people in. SilkTork 07:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"are we all agreed that the people involved in this discussion would prefer to see an image in the lead section rather than an infobox?" - no. I for one don't. The reason infoboxes are prevalent is that they include details that may be menial, and don't need to be expanded further in the topic; that they allow for standardization across a series of articles; that infoboxes usually allow images, making the distinction irrelevant. The reason a lot of people want an image is that they don't want the top-right corner of the article to be empty. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't agree either. As a reader I find infoboxes tremendously useful to get a quick overview, often more useful than spending time reading the intro section and mining it for the facts I want to know. This is applicable in many topics with repetitive information, such as anime, automotives, countries, people, companies, plants and animals, bands, etc. There is also no reason why the infobox can't include an image, as pointed out by others, and in fact images generally enhance the infobox significantly.
As for editing the infobox when something is wrong - there simply is no excuse. The syntax is so ridiculously simple, anyone who has made even a single edit to Wikipedia should be able to pick it up in less than five minutes - provided they try to look at it and do not throw up their hands and walk away. And the infobox is often the first thing people see when they press "edit", so it should become familiar quickly. It's only adding missing fields to an infobox that can be tricky, since you actually have to open up the template and look at what fields are available - but this is not a task that is necessary to fix factual errors in an infobox. --Darkbane talk 16:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
  • My thinking is that whether an infobox is used in the lead, or elsewhere, or at all, shouldn't be legislated. But I'd like to see more detailed guidelines as to their design, and recommendations as to when to use and not to use one. We removed one from JS Bach a while ago because it was pretty useless. The country infoboxes often disjoint information that would be better in the body of the text. Tony 02:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia:Lead section

There is a discussion on the placing of images or infoboxes in the lead section of articles. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox. The long standing guideline has been to use an image unless there is a compelling reason not to. However, the use of infoboxes in the top right has crept in. The suggestion is that an image should be used in the top right of the lead section, and that, unless there is a compelling reason otherwise, infoboxes should start below the lead section, preferably in the section to which the infobox actually relates. SilkTork 18:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't like infoboxes myself, but they're widely used, and I can't see it stopping. You'd need strong support for that change. Do you have it? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
What we have is the start of a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox. It started as a question. But there appears to be - like yourself - a number of people who feel that use of infoboxes could do with some extra guidance. Please join the discussion. SilkTork 21:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

(moved from SV talk)

I noticed that you took out the recent addition to Wikipedia:Lead section. A discussion has started at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox at which your opinion would be valued. I would value your input. SilkTork 21:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised and disappointed at your immediate revert. You have left no comment on the talk page that was indicated. I understand that you disagree with the addition to the guideline; however, as you have not joined in the discussion, I'm not aware that you are aware of the issues. Would you please join in the discussion and give us your thinking on the contradictory guidelines, and your thoughts on how best to advise people to proceed. A revert is not going to assist the debate. The addition is there to bring people into the debate. Without the addition to the guideline people will not be aware of the issue. I would like to get as many people involved as possible. Given that thought, I hope you understand a little more of the reasoning behind the edit, and you will understand why I am now going to put the edit back. I have no problem with the edit being modified after discussion - but it doesn't assist anyone to muffle discussion at the start. SilkTork 21:24, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding the intention. Look at my original edit. In the edit summary I provided a link to the discussion that is currently taking place. There is already an active discussion taking place. You need to be addressing yourself to that discussion rather than attempting to split the discussion by taking it somewhere else. Please stop reverting. Please come to the table with your thoughts. This constant reverting is not doing me, you, the current issue, or Wiki in general any good. Please be aware that you are doing the reverting. Please be aware that you are ignoring repeated requests to discuss this in the place set aside for the discussion. There is no urgent need for the edit to be removed from Wikipedia:Lead section. The edit itself, as I have pointed out, is drawing attention to an active and valid inquiry. The edit is legitimate, coming as it does from a long-standing MoS guideline. You would need to join the debate and give your reasons for objecting to its inclusion, rather than the reverse as you are suggesting. I am stepping aside from this edit war now. I would ask you to please think about what I have been saying and give me the benefit of the doubt as regard good intentions. Regards SilkTork 21:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to discuss adding this to WP:LEAD, please discuss it here, rather than on my talk page or on the MoS talk page. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Whenever this comes up, people say they don't like them but nothing is done about the box creep. For historical arts and bios I find them particularly obnoxious (Shakespeare, W. "Occupation: Playwright, poet, actor"). In other areas, such as taxa, they serve a clear purpose and are well-established. We could deprecate marginal boxes here; I'm sure we'd find support. But Silk, images and infoboxes are not an either/or. Boxes have images within them whenever possible. Marskell 15:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
It's funny that you mention Shakespeare, since that particular infobox does contain some useful information not contained in the lead section, including birthplace and a reference to "Elizabethan era". So if I wanted to find out where he was born, I'd have to either scroll down to the biography (only the birth and death dates are in the lead) or take a quick peek at the box - it's clear to me at least which I prefer. --Darkbane talk 16:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
"Scroll down..."—that's precisely what we want readers to do. Marskell 17:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
But as a reader, that's precisely what I don't want to do unless I intend to read parts of the article ^_^; If there is a way to present the most relevant facts without having to scroll down, why would you want people to go dig for it? Isn't that essentially information hiding? --Darkbane talk 17:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
If everyone agreed that Shakespeare's birthplace was among the "most relevant facts" about him, we probably wouldn't have any dispute. But I think that many people would deny that this fact is particularly important. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Good point. Well, it's improbable, but not impossible that someone comes along thinking Shakespeare was born in Venice. But I think your statement is an issue for the standardization of a specific userbox template, and not necessarily an argument against userboxes as a whole. Rather than saying "let's get rid of some userboxes because they appear to have marginal value", I'd rather follow the line of thought that tries to improve those particular userboxes. --Darkbane talk 02:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Please direct comments on infoboxes to: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox. SilkTork 07:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

No, please discuss proposed changes to WP:LEAD on WT:LEAD. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
As the main argument here is for the removal of infoboxes from the lead section, I think SVs request is reasonable. The debate here should concern itself with possible guidelines to standardise the size, scope and appropriateness of infoboxes, until the positional issue is resolved over at WT:LEAD.
mikaultalk 13:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out another page (orphaned?) with yet another discussion on infoboxes, at WP:IBX. I've added a pointer to these discussions on the talk page, where the possibility of a merge/rename with regard to MOS has already been floated.
mikaultalk 13:43, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted. There may be other related discussions and queries dotted about the place. I feel it is useful to direct people here. It would be awkward for editors to make a decision here, when editors somewhere else are making a conflicting decision. That is what has happened in the past, and has led to this present discussion. SilkTork 06:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Copy-editing the remainder of the punctuation section

I'd already created and worked on a draft HERE. I'm pleased for people to tamper with that rather than the actual MoS, so that we're all working on the same text. The old and new subsections are positioned adjacent to each other in sequence, and there's space at the top for notes to be written.

WRT to my paste-in of a new version of Quotation marks, I do hope I caught all of the subsequent changes that were made here. Please check. Tony 23:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

About The Identity Guideline

Just curious, but I wanted to know, is this section still applicable? If so, it strikes me as odd. For instance, doesn't it mean neo-nazis, holocaust deniers, and NAMbLA get to choose the names we use for their organization? For instance, deniers like "revisionists", NAMbLA likes to be called a boylove organization or "child rights group" rather than a pedophilic organization, and neo nazis prefer "race warrior" a lot of the time. In light of this, is it possible the section only applies to subjects we -like- (I can note other instances of reviled subjects not being referred to by the terminology they use for themselves), or where a concensus of editors exists to keep the name constant as the one not preferred by the groups? Or should something be added to the guideline, does anyone think, about how if we can find reputable sources calling them one thing, and only their group claiming the other, the reputable news organizations win out over some dude saying he's the Great and Benevolent Ruler of Mankind and Wisest Man On Earth (Seems like something Gene Ray would like, for instance). The guideline has, I guess this is my complaint, no description of the circumstances in which reputable sources override and are plentiful or well founded enough that the name the public would use or recognize, based on those sources, is the one we should use for that person or group. Otherwise it could be argued that if an article is not about the thing the person self identifies as (An article written about Neo Nazis, when our article is forced to use "revisionist"), doesn't it lead into a lot of spurious argument? (I've SEEN people go, "The name of the article isn't the same as the subject of that source! Your argument is stupid!". Most common names save time and headache, especially when they corellate with the most common name among sources). Am I crazy, or has anyone else noticed this? Raeft 08:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Err, anyone, thoughts? Raeft 20:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The guideline is absolutely still applicable. In your example, NAMBLA is the organization's name, and we call it NAMBLA. No problem. Characterizations (whether self-characterizations or not) of the group as either a 'boylove organization' or a 'pack of unapologetic child molesters' are each a POV, and not the same as self-identification. In this hypothetical, both of those opposite notable views should ideally be reflected in the article. It's not any more hard-and-fast than any other guideline, but it works when we don't take an organization's self-characterization as gospel. We instead reflect notable characterizations from all relevant opinion groups and when possible, we use notable self-identification for naming where possible. I don't see a 'rules-level' conflict if good judgment and discussion is employed. Most specifically, the guideline around transgendered individuals is indeed very applicable and I would oppose any attempt to remove it without dialogue. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 21:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

"First contributor" rule for titles.

In the case of a title having to stay at its original title if it is a valid title, is this always so? I ask because I am currently involved in a dispute, and one is arguing that because both titles are valid, we should stick with the original. However, I've shown that that version of the subject has been more successful, is currently relevant (in that it continues to be advertised, unlike the other version), and that it is more well-known and Nintendo has acknowledged this by releasing the sequel in the EU region first. Additionally, I've shown that the argument for "first contributor" basically says that no force in the universe can get the title changed - even when the NA title was announced, it was the only English title to use. So basically, it's suggesting that it be the NA title solely because EU editors aren't clairvoyant. I think that for many mediums, the "first contributor" rule works to the advantage of one particular side far too frequently. In video games, for instance, EU is a smaller market, so video games are most often released in the US before it. However, in the case where it is first released in EU or is more successful in EU (the latter event is a big accomplishment, since it's a smaller region beating a larger one). - A Link to the Past (talk) 04:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous sentence

In the section Big, little, long, short, the sentence "The dugong swam down the coast in a herd five kilometres long and 300 metres wide" seems ambiguous in meaning to me. Is the coast 5 km long and 30 m wide (as what I think was the intention), or is the herd that big? --Brandon Dilbeck 13:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I read it as refering to the herd (as I think was the intention), else it should be "The dugong swam down the coast five kilometres long and 300 metres wide in a herd" or better still "The dugong swam in a herd down the five-kilometre long and three-hundred-metre wide coast". Jɪmp 23:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

When mentioning an article by name, the name should be capitalized

When an article is specifically mentioned by name – unlike when the topic of an article is mentioned – the name should be capitalized, because the name of the article is a proper noun.
(I hope it's obvious I'm not talking about most links in running text.)

For example:

For surfing on boards with mast and sail, see Windsurfing.

There seems to be a need for this to be stated in a guideline.
See talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#When mentioning an article by name ...
--Fyrlander 19:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Foreign Language Translations list

Is there any policy regarding the sort order of the list of languages that an article appears in? It does not appear in this Manual of Style; Featured Articles do not appear to follow any given order or pattern. When the list gets long if becomes very easy to end up with duplicate entries. Many of the articles I have been watching have had numerious additions and deletions of these entries with the deletion reason often not given. When the list is unordered it becomes difficult to comfirm if the reason is because of a duplicate entry or some other reason. Sorting alphabetically by language name does not appear to be a viable option due to the various character sets in use. The only practical ordering would appear to be alphabetical by language code. Any guidance on this issue would be apprecated. Dbiel (Talk) 23:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point: something I've wondered about too. Could we not order alphabetically according to the name of the language in English? Jɪmp 23:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
That would only work if the display name was in English. As it is now with mutiple non-Roman character sets in use, I just do not see that working. But using the English language code, which does display in the edit view would be viable.Dbiel (Talk) 01:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Sort by language name in English, sort by ISO language code ... either would work in the sense of giving each language a unique position in the list, neither, however, would always produce an order which would make sense to readers. How about ordering by language name using standard (i.e. Wikipedia standard) romanisation of any non-roman scripts (e.g. alphabetise 日本語 as Nihongo)? This would, of course, be much more difficult to impliment than ordering by ISO language code but might make a little more sense to readers ... maybe. Jɪmp 06:55, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
It is very true that ISO language code sort order would appear very unordered in the article view mode, but would be easy to maintain in the edit view mode. Any other change would require a major revision in how things are currently done. To require romanisation of any non-roman scripts would very likely be considered unacceptable by some even if they would produce a better reading list in English. The reality of it is that the list is not meant for the English readers but rather for those who perfer a language other than English. Therefor the display name should be in a form that is most acceptable to the reader of that language. Dbiel (Talk) 07:16, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
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