MEpedia talk:Manual of style

Questions about the Manual of Style? Add them here!

Citations Guideline?
I notice that under "Learn more" there is "Citations Guideline to come". Is someone still planning on writing a Citations Guideline or is this something that can be removed? Thanks. Pyrrhus (talk) 21:21, 14 March 2019 (EDT)
 * I have removed that line. If anyone writes a “Citations guideline”, please put it back.  Thanks.
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 18:03, 15 April 2019 (EDT)

Dates
I am a bit confused about the “Dates” section. Are we supposed to use the three-letter abbreviation for months, or can we spell out the full month? Pyrrhus (talk) 18:03, 15 April 2019 (EDT)
 * One consideration is refs: I think some templates will spit out an error message if you only use the first three leters? So that might be a reason to go with the full name, if we'd like to standardize this. Canele (talk) 18:13, 15 April 2019 (EDT)
 * Three letter months eg Jun is what I've been doing, I think that may already be the standard. Templates give errors for DD MMM YYY and YYYY-MM but not MMM DD, YYYY - or MMM YYYY - which is our standard. I tried to improve the help information that comes up with date errors a while ago. I don't know why but the citation generator comes up with the wrong date styles. notjusttired (talk) 19:34, 15 April 2019 (EDT)
 * This is all new to me. I’ve seen User:Kmdenmark fixing “CS1” errors but I don’t know exactly what these errors are.  Do we know which templates tend to spit out errors?  Thanks.
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 20:16, 15 April 2019 (EDT)


 * Here is a helpful Wikipedia link to CS1 errors for dates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#ExamplesOfUnacceptableDates
 * The most frequent error that our citation generator makes is "Ambiguous date range or year and month." E.g., it will generate a date as such: |date=2002-03. The computer doesn't know if you mean Mar 2002 or the years 2002-2003. The easiest correction is to change it to Mar 2002 or March 2002. You don't need to abbreviate the month, but if you do, the program wants a 3-letter abbreviation.
 * The second most common date error is when the contributor uses the wrong punctuation. E.g., February 28 1900 will read as an error bec it has no comma; it must be changed to February 28, 1900 or 28 February 1900 or Feb 28, 1900 or 1900-02-28. Use of slashes also elicits an error message. E.g., 12/6/87 must be changed to December 6, 1987 or Dec 6, 1987 or 1987-12-06.
 * I hope that helps. Kmdenmark (talk) 12:03, 16 April 2019 (EDT)
 * That’s very helpful, Karen! Thanks! Now we need to incorporate this into the documentation somewhere.  (And clarify how dates are to be formatted in the body of the text, too.)
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 12:58, 16 April 2019 (EDT)
 * Existing help info on dates when you click the ? icon brings up Help:CS1_errors, see Help:CS1_errors and MEpedia:Manual_of_style for some documentation. I've requested that developers look into if the American date setting is on, I am not sure but it's possible that this might fix the date generation formatting issues. notjusttired (talk) 13:26, 16 April 2019 (EDT)
 * That’s very helpful too, Njt! Thanks! It would certainly be nice if we could solve some of the problems just by fixing a date setting!
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 13:49, 16 April 2019 (EDT)
 * I don't know if that date setting will help - it seems odd that there aren't any mentions of this problem for others. Something else I would like to sort is the automatic PMCc references that sometimes put "PMCPMC" or just "PMC" before the number, which breaks the links. It may need Lua changes to the Module though. Do you know about Lua? notjusttired (talk) 16:25, 26 April 2019 (EDT)

Referencing chapters and referencing different pages
Discussion moved from Canadian Consensus Criteria talk page  by User:Notjusttired Is an alternative way of referencing many chapters or may pages from the same source needed, maybe a new template? Options seem to be using Template:Sfn or Template:Rp (not installed yet). I don't see anything in the Manual of style to say if we have a standard for this at the moment. I prefer using  or since it displays in the article as [2]:13-19 for pages, or [2]:Ch6 (or whatever you choose for chapters). Thoughts? Tagging others to ask. User:JaimeS User:MEandCFS User:Canele User:Pyrrhus User:DxCFS User:Hip User:Brettz9 User:Kmdenmark notjusttired (talk) 13:11, 19 April 2019 (EDT)
 * This solution seems perfect and actually is something I had looked for and failed to find on WP! So thank you! It's much cleaner and more amenable to editor re-use than other options I'm aware of. Canele (talk) 16:09, 19 April 2019 (EDT)
 * Which solution? The Rp template? If so, this needs adding to the Manual of style and MEpedia or Help documentation. I have been going through the Wanted Pages - many of which come from links in the Citation templates - to work out which are worth covering here, and which can just straight links to Wikipedia explanations. Going to move this discussion to MEpedia_talk:Manual_of_style MOS talk page notjusttired (talk) 17:02, 26 April 2019 (EDT)

Where to attach citations?
Suppose several consecutive sentences have facts pulled from a single source. Should each sentence have the citation/footnote attached at the end, just the first, or just the last? I assume we're using a citation style that's consistent with wikipedia, or some other external resource. Maybe we should link to that for the details? -- EscapeTheFog (talk) 02:05, June 13, 2019 (EDT)
 * Wikipedia doesn't have a set citation style. We just use the references how they are automatically generated. Perhaps linking to well-referenced pages would be helpful? I would normally refer to the source in the first sentence and stick the citation at the end, especially because it needs highlighting that it's a single source. So it would read something like this: notjusttired (talk) 14:13, June 13, 2019 (EDT) Esfandyarpour et al (2019) reported that WBCs... (more about same study). [3]
 * Paging User:JaimeS... :)
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 20:27, June 14, 2019 (EDT)

Re: Where to attach citations? -- JaimeS (talk) 14:21, June 26, 2019 (EDT)

 * Generally speaking, you don't cite after every sentence, but after a block of facts that are from the same source. A rule of thumb I learned is to make sure that all the facts from that citation are in the same paragraph -- and that *no other references are used in that paragraph*. Then, cite at the end of the paragraph.


 * Referencing the source by name early on is also a good tactic, as Notjusttired mentions.
 * If a sentence or paragraph contains multiple items of information and a source only supports the first, place that reference right after the first piece of info (after the comma, not before). Try to avoid sentences where it is unclear if a source supports the whole sentence or only the last part of it. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:50, September 15, 2019 (EDT)

Spelling
We should add this before Dates and numbers, stating US spelling. This list of science ones might be helpful. Quote marks too, either " or ‟ ”, some languages eg German use different marks. notjusttired (talk) 17:25, August 10, 2019 (EDT)

Numbers
Add style for decimals and large numbers for Non-English speakers, eg 1,200 and 1.5 (not 1.000 and 1,5).

Currency
Do we put $5 mark unless non-US, or always mark as US? Link to Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers Wikipedia's notjusttired (talk) 17:25, August 10, 2019 (EDT) Update: I looked it up. Both Chicago and APA citation style suggest converting to US dollars, but I think it best to go with local currency with approx USD next to it. E.g. A$3m (US$1m). Euros are EUR5,000 (since we are using comma not dot, this is the UK way to write it), or €1,000.50, or 1 million euro -  in source editor will create this although it might be in the advanced options in visual editor too. For UK, £2,400 etc or GBP2,000. User:Pyrrhus notjusttired (talk) 15:08, August 16, 2019 (EDT)
 * Thanks for looking these things up! It certainly makes sense to include these. (in a concise way of course so as not to bore the reader!)
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 21:03, September 9, 2019 (EDT)

Drug names
I think we should add a small heading for this, or add a "Page names" heading covering both plurals in titles and drug names - I find it a bit hard to spot in Key Conventions. Drugs: Should the page be called after brand name or generic name? I think brand names are better known, but generic is less ambiguous and easier since some drugs have multiple brand names. Eg Lyrica or Pregabelin, Gabapentin or Neurotonin? But also Cymbalta and Yentreve both different brand names for the same drug. Do we encourage redirects for the alternative names? I think that would be a good idea, then if you do a link in the Visual editor the generic name and brand name pages are both suggested. User:JaimeS User:Pyrrhus - also see above on examples / clarification for data and numbers section. notjusttired (talk) 17:10, September 9, 2019 (EDT)
 * Personally, I always use the generic name, in both page names and in page content. But it certainly makes sense to have redirects from the brand names to the generic names!
 * Pyrrhus (talk) 21:05, September 9, 2019 (EDT)
 * User:Sisyphus User:Kmdenmark User:JaimeS User:JenB User:DxCFS User:MEandCFS - feedback would be welcome on drug names, dates (above), link policies (draft below), and topics not covered. notjusttired (talk) 20:19, September 15, 2019 (EDT)

Link policy
I believe we need to add a new heading with an external link policy, and The shortcuts MEpedia:MOSLINK and MEpedia:EL can be created to link to it. I would suggest the content below: notjusttired (talk) 17:38, September 15, 2019 (EDT)

Link policy
Editors must not link to their personal website except a single link on an article when it is the official website for that topic, or a single link on the editor's user page. Editors with multiple websites may only link to one of their website. Promotion of a website you own is not allowed.

Ref spam
References, Learn more links and other external links must follow the MEpedia:Science guidelines. Personal websites must not be linked to and sources must be notable and reliable websites. Repeatedly citing personal websites is known as ref spam, as described on [[WP:REFSPAM|Wikipedia].

Websites in foreign languages
Foreign language websites must not be referenced or linked to from English pages, unless the link or reference is the official website for the page's topic, e.g., a link to Fluge's website in Norwegian can only be used on Fluge's page.

Articles published in foreign language journals should be supported by an additional citation or Abstract in English. Audio and videos on languages that are not the same as the page's language must not be linked to or referenced.

Promotional links
Links to reviews or recommendations about items for sale, e.g., books, videos, or supplements are not allowed. This includes videos, book reviews, blog links and other links.

Affiliate links
External links that earn a commission, referral or other free are not allowed on MEpedia. These are typically used in items for sale and should be replaced by non-affilate links.

notjusttired (talk) 20:16, September 15, 2019 (EDT)
 * I think not. For instance, the MEA sells The Purple Book for a small price. However, it contains their view on ME/CFS and hence to refer to it is important. Note that most scientific publications are behind a paywall, or you need a subscription to the journal. Books have to be bought as well. We have costs, and a desire to stay alive, so we are not giving you everything for free. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:27, September 15, 2019 (EDT)
 * Wikipedia and Wikisage, meanwhile, are nobody's personal websites. We regularly link to them at 'Learn more' and will keep doing so. What language the information is written in is of no consequence. We will also link to personal websites like Hummingbirds and Sarah Myhill's wiki as often as we need to. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:37, September 15, 2019 (EDT)

Topics not covered here
I would like to add general statement that anything not covered should be assumed to follow Wikipedia's Manual of style, or Wikipedia Editorial guidelines. This should cover topics that do not have documentation yet. notjusttired (talk) 17:38, September 15, 2019 (EDT)
 * You can't just invent this on the spot without consultation. The only things that must be followed are the core principles. Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:46, September 15, 2019 (EDT)