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[edit] Preliminary discussion

Originally on the Village Pump

I would like to start to develop a consistent style on marking up technical terms and defined terms in articles (especially technical or scientific articles) to be put somewhere in the Style Manual. I've looked and I see only a few pointers and how to's — no style definitions. Should I just go ahead and add where appropriate in the Manual(s), or has something like this been done before and 1) I missed it or 2) it proved too controversial ? I was thinking of an intro paragraph, a list of options (bold, obique, underline), then perhaps a bulleted list that others could alter or add to until the details are solidified. Any suggestions? - Marshman 18:09, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

With term definition lists, wouldn't there be many overlaps in the same sub-field then? --Menchi 18:14, Aug 23, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question, but what I have in mind is a guide (in the Style Manual) as to when to put words in oblique, bold, link, or other mark up such as underline. I have my own style and I can see others doing the same sorts of markup in technical articles, but without (at least I have not) a consistent style (One consistency that seems to exist is foreign words). - Marshman

No underline, please, that interferes with possible underlining of links. - Patrick 19:04, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Good point, and that could be part of the "article" I'm envisioning - Marshman

[edit] Latin-italics & textbook bolding

Are you talking about the style of the technical terms? Like those Latin species names? Because most chemistry, physics and other biological technical terms are not italicized, in the first or third mentioning. Or are you thinking of textbook keyword bolding style? If it's really important, it deserves its own article. --Menchi 19:14, Aug 23, 2003 (UTC)

Judging from your example, you mean both. (A simple yes would've suffice for that time being! :-)

Latin species names are italicized everywhere on this planet. So, of course! (I think this is like teaching people how to use comma or question mark. But go ahead and state the obvious. Perhaps we need a English writing manual at http://textbook.wikipedia.org )

And textbook bolding, well, no argument from me. Currently, we only use it for bolding the article subject and maybe redirects -- which are quite obviously anymore. So, use them for key terms looks fine too. In textbook, only the 1st appearance of a new term is bolded, perhaps something we should follow too. -- But then, wouldn't WP be like http://textbook.wikipedia.org ? Perhaps such a system is better suited at http://textbook.wikipedia.org ?

--Menchi 19:55, Aug 24, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Discuss on its own page

Yes, this all makes sense. Add it to wikipedia:manual of style or create a subpage. Martin 22:49, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I can see there are people ready to comment, although I think their questions can be best answered by doing it and putting it out there (then the questions can be real specific). I'll work on it this weekend and provide a link. - Marshman 01:57, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have created a Style Manual page for what I am proposing at Technical terms and definitions. The discussion can move to the talk page for that article - Marshman 18:09, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

done.

[edit] Unit Disagreement, MiB vs MB

I am not sure where this should be discussed, but we have an computer technical issue that needs to be resolved as it is generating confusion. In particular the use of the terms of KB and MB, or kilobyte and megabyte which currently most manufacturers use inaccurately to define the memory capacity of devices. The technically correct term to use is KiB and MiB for memory as it is described using base 2 instead of base 10. The whole debate centers around whether to use the technically correct term that few people use or to use the technically incorrect term that ~~few~~ more people use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PlayStation_3#Memory_prefixes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Xbox_360#Mib_v._MB

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

http://www.iec.ch/zone/si/si_bytes.htm

It isn't feasible to have related pages intermix these terms. --Thax 5 July 2005 18:26 (UTC)

Do we want to move this to Village Pump (Policy)? Also, I think that we should use the terms that the company itself uses. For example, Microsoft released the specs in MB and GB, so I think it should be that way in the page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 5 July 2005 21:19 (UTC)

Yes, lets move it there, since you seem to have a better idea of where things should go could you find a spot for it?--Thax 5 July 2005 22:44 (UTC)

"The whole debate centers around whether to use the technically correct term that few people use or to use the technically incorrect term that more people use." -- Corrected. -- uberpenguin July 6, 2005 00:30 (UTC)

What I wrote was much funnier though.--Thax 6 July 2005 03:06 (UTC)

Okay, I moved this to the village pump as I was not getting any activity in it's current location. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#Unit_Disagreement.2C_MiB_vs._MB --Thax 8 July 2005 03:02 (UTC)

See here for the discussion. — Omegatron 16:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] <tt>

This page seems to be implying that the <tt> HTML element stands for technical term. I'm pretty certain it stands for teletype, and that is why text that occurs in <tt> elements appears in a monospaced font—because it is supposed to look like it came from a teletype. I may be wrong (I haven't checked the W3.org specs) but I'm pretty sure this is the case. Was the author confused or is there something else going on with <tt> that I'm not understanding? Nohat 07:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What you say makes sense, although I've never seen it called "teletype". If you are pretty sure, then make the change. The article does not put any stock in using <tt> for anything. - Marshman 17:03, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs vs. redirects

There needs to be some sort of policy on whether or not it is appropriate to have technical terms redirect to related but distinct technical terms. It's certainly very easy to do, and it allows the discussion of any particular topic to be consoldiated in one place, but it leads people to believe that the two terms are synonymous. --Smack (talk) 02:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I think this should be merged with Wikipedia:Explain jargon and Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 00:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the merge suggestion. This is very confusing. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Rare technical term" test?

It's not at all clear what is meant by this. And the example that is given doesn't seem to illustrate this guideline. If it refers to the way conventional current is formatted, it is in italics, not bold as suggested by the guideline. --Itub 11:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign words

Is this true?

"Higher taxonomic levels are not italicized."

In school, I was taught that Latin was italicized, so "ungulate" ought not to be, and "Ungulata" should. This is in agreement with what I find in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (The Unabridged Edition) ^[1], which italicizes (and capitalizes) "Ungulata," but not "ungulate."

Also, is the word "title" used properly in the following sentence?

"When both the classification term and its name form a unified title, they are both first-letter capitalized: 'Family Poaceae'; when they do not form a title, only the name is capitalized: 'the family Poaceae.'"

If so, the rule for titles ought to apply.

Also, I don't understand what the "name" of a term means in this context. Evidently, the "classification term" is meant to be "family," and the "name" is "Poaceae," but "Poaceae" isn't the classification term's name.

Except for the convention about capitalizing a genus, but not a species, I don't consider these rules necessary. They are already covered by broader rules, namely, those about foreign words and titles. Unfree (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Burials

This is a brief suggestion for a style change regarding the language used to describe the internment of people's bodies. Comments are appreciated. (Crossposted at WT:EJ, WT:MOSB, WT:TTD, WT:EJ, and WT:WTA) -Ste vertigo 21:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

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