Wikibooks talk:Manual of Style

title category vs subject category

See also the earlier page casing discussion at Wikibooks talk:Manual of Style#title casing. --DavidCary (talk) 13:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

See also the earlier title casing discussion at Wikibooks talk:Naming policy#Page casing. --DavidCary (talk) 13:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

See also the earlier title casing discussion at Talk:Using Wikibooks/Subjects, Categories, and Classifications#Title Case vs Sentence Case. --DavidCary (talk) 02:11, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

See also the earlier title casing discussion at Subject talk:Books by subject#Title or sentence case. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Is the "title category" mentioned in this manual of style the same as what Wikibooks:Categories calls a "book category"?

This manual of style briefly mentions "the potential conflict between title- and subject-categories." and seems to actively encourage creating a title category and a subject category that differ only in their capitalization.

However, many people -- even people that recommend capitalizing different kinds of things differently -- strongly discourage creating two names that differ only in their capitalization.

For example: "don't use the same word for a namespace name and a classname and don't choose variable names which differ from each other only by capitalization" -- "GLAST Ground Software Standards: A Start". "No two file names that differ only in capitalization". -- "Squid 3 coding style guidelines". "it's very easy to mis-read, or indeed mis-type words that differ only by case." -- Stack Overflow. "Splint reports identifiers that differ only in alphabetic case. ... useful to check that internal names are more distinct then required by the compiler to minimize the likelihood that identifiers are confused in the program." -- "Secure Programming Lint" manual.

Is there a way to adjust this manual of style so it discourages (or at least does not encourage) creating a title category and a subject category that differ only in their capitalization? Preferably a way that avoids instruction creep ?

--DavidCary (talk) 05:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I can see how it might be confused this way. What is meant is that since the book name and the book category are suppose to use the same casing, the book should use title casing in order to avoid conflicts with subject categories. I don't think anyone is suggesting the names should differ only in capitalization. --darklama 11:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the book category should differ in *more* than just capitalization from any subject category. As far as I know, that is currently true at Wikibooks. As long as that is true, it is impossible for a book category to "conflict" with any subject category, no matter how either one of them is capitalized.

A special style rule whose only reason for existing is to prevent such impossible "conflicts" seems like instruction creep to me.

Alas, I have seen someone suggest (Talk:Computer_Programming#book_name) a subject category and a book category that differ in only one letter's capitalization. --DavidCary (talk) 19:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Conflicts are possible and they do happen. There is currently no requirements in place to prevent or address conflicts when they happen. I don't think adding requirements to prevent conflicts is instruction creep. I would prefer to go even further by adding a lot of requirements, because I think not having anything to say on the matter is a source of some problems. Some of the things I'd like to see include:

1. Book names must use title case. No lowercase, uppercase or mixed case titles.
2. Book names must be more descriptive then just the name of the subject because multiple books on a subject are allowed. Be precise.
3. Parentheses words, punctuations, abbreviations and acronyms must not be used in book or page names.
4. Disambiguous pages are not allowed because Wikibooks has subject pages and categories.
5. Page names must be chronological order neutral. In other words No "Chapter 1", "Lesson 5", "Page 20".
6. Page names must be kept simple and not overly descriptive. Don't use "Introduction to Mathematics" as a page in a Math book when "Introduction" will do.
7. Don't start book or page names with words like "The", "A" or "An". Maybe even require that adverbs be avoided altogether.
8. Book and page names must use singular nouns unless that noun is always in plural form in English.
9. Book and page names must be in English.
10. Book and page names must not be sentences.
11. Page names must be proper nouns. Maybe even require the same for book names or at least must end with a proper noun.

--darklama 12:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• reset

I doubt that there would be any objections to items 2, 4 and 9.
I don't like the items 1 and 7 mostly because of esthetic's and can't see a good enough reason for them in Wikibooks (a software solution could be requested and applied were problems may ariser).
Item 3 is problematic and can be addressed without a rule in a case by case or in a more watered down version "must not be used" is to hard for this issue, or create a list of exceptions. I will address this point in one of the books I'm editing as it seems reasonable to simplify the title.
The same on item 8 "must use", "should use" since it depends on items 10 and 11, I can't remember an existing issue with this items and ruling on them would reduce creativity/freedom on naming the books.
As I understand item 5 I'm strongly opposed this has a negative impact on the structure of bigger books, I would agree that it can be annoying to have unnecessary sub-sectioning in smaller projects but any project is just that a project not a finished work so I don't see how to fix it without creating a barrier to the projects development.
I don't fully understand item 6 to comment on it but looking to the simplification I strongly object to it, one must remember that books are stand alone projects that will exist outside of the Wikibooks context...
In any case if at the end of the discussion no one objects to item 2, 4 and 9 we should get a proposal, those items will already create a lot of cleanup work. --Panic (talk) 19:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I support : Book names must be more descriptive then just the name of the subject because multiple books on a subject are allowed. Be precise. However, I hear that Thenub314 says single word titles are often appropriate.

In general, I am opposed to instructions that don't help. I am opposed to instructions that don't actually solve any problems.

I am opposed to "Book names must use title case", because

(a) Some authors prefer sentence case, and their wishes should not be overridden for no good reason. (b) The only reason given above and on the Wikibooks:Manual of Style for forcing those authors to use title case is to "avoid conflicts between a 'book category' and a 'subject category'". (c) As Jomegat pointed out, even if all books used title case, it still wouldn't "avoid conflicts between a 'book category' and a 'subject category'" -- in particular, in the case of one-word book titles. (d) Once any rule is adopted that prevents conflicts between one-word 'book category' and one-word 'subject category', that rule alone fixes the alleged "problem" caused by sentence-case book titles. (Two or three such rules have already been proposed [1] [2]). Once the problem is fixed, then the "Book names must use title case" rule is unnecessary. --DavidCary (talk) 23:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

In this case we seem to be in agreement, probably User:Darklama or User:Adrignola (since he has been doing work on the categories and subjects) could help clarify if this is really indispensable and so why. Or it should be made a default standard without a particular obligation. In any case I can only see the manual of style being adopted as a guideline, that in itself provides avenues for non compliance if justified.

One thing that is related to this and should be incorporated in the BeBold is that page moves and page renames, as any action on any book project that changes the book's adoption of styles (those covered on this proposal or others, as an example changes to the templates used) shouldn't fall under that guideline and should always require at least a first attempt to find consensus by posting a proposal on the book's talk page. --Panic (talk) 23:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with Panic on changes to a book's title or the templates it uses. That is a personal position on the matter and I see no exception listed for page moves or template changes. I don't care to turn Wikibooks into a bureaucracy where every change to a book has to go through a committee and be approved before it can be implemented. If someone wants to improve a book they're not going to wait six months for the three people (if that many) who might still be working on a book to come around and notice a comment posted to a talk page.

This issue is about a resolvable as bookshelves and subjects and I'm frankly tired of rehashing it. You've got my comments on all the talk pages linked above and I'll summarize by saying that I agree with the current manual of style guidelines. If a book category and subject category are both trying to use a single word, the book category must append "(book)" after it to distinguish it from the other. This complicates things by making it so the simple {{BookCat}} template cannot be used. If people would simply use a title of two words, using title case, to avoid conflicts with a subject category of two words using sentence case, there would be no problems. This is not simply a matter of personal preferences! If people put their book's pages into a subject category because the name conflicts, it screws up the corresponding subject page, listing book title pages as well as book subpages. This may not matter to those of you who like bookshelves, but it breaks the subjects for those who like them and there have to be rules in place to keep things orderly. I'm sorry if this limits flexibility for book authors but an individual book must respect the functioning of the community as a whole. -- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 14:40, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

From past discussions, I'm satisfied that if the name of a one-word book title is the same as the name of a subject category, then the book title is — in practice — guaranteed to be underdescriptive, and should be changed; if nothing else, probably it should indicate the level of the intended audience, like "Basic Algebra" or "Introduction to Algebra" instead of "Algebra".

Personally, I think title case should always be used for book titles because it looks more uniform, thus less haphazard, and more professional, and therefore reflects well on the project. (And no, I don't think this holds for chapter/section titles, except that they should be cased consistently within a single book, because chapters of different books aren't usually set next to each other for comparison.)

However, these positions ought to stand on their own, without leaning on the claim that they are needed because our technical category-naming conventions require them. And, indeed, I submit that while they could lean on it in the short run, in the long run they cannot because it doesn't have to remain so. Here is just one example (an existence proof) of an alternative book-category naming convention that would guarantee non-collision between book- and subject-categories, and that could be shifted to without discontinuity: For a book with, say, rootbookname  Wikijunior:Solar System, call its book-category  Category:Book/Wikijunior:Solar System. For the transition from one convention to the other, first augment {{ROOTBOOKNAME}} to handle book-category names of both old and new styles, then augment {{BookCat}} to check for existence of a new-style book category. After that, individual categories can be handled one at a time at our "leisure". (Refinement: {{BookCat}} ought to check for a new-style category, if found then use it, else check for an old-style category, if found then use it, else use the new-style category; and someday, when there are no more old-style book-categories, the expensive #ifexists calls can be removed from the template.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the need to exclude some tasks from the BeBold. Your argument that it adds bureaucracy is invalid, at most it would include a small delay and would provide a chance for others to oppose such radical moves. These can't be categorized as bureaucracy as it will not require administrative action, add complexity or impede effective action, just the opposite.

At least mentioning on this guideline a specific exclusion of changing book's adopted styles from BeBold would be beneficial, it would provide stability to works and reduce errors. We can address it in detail latter when a proposal to include those changes on the BeBold itself is made. --Panic (talk) 20:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

PS: To be clear, I'm not making this a point as to object to the proposal. I'm only mentioning that as the inclusion would be beneficial. --Panic (talk) 20:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Many people -- even people that recommend capitalizing different kinds of things differently -- strongly discourage creating two names that differ only in their capitalization. Is there a way to adjust this manual of style and the Using Wikibooks/Subjects, Categories, and Classifications page so they discourage (or at least do not encourage) creating a title category and a subject category that differ only in their capitalization? Someone once claimed that I don't think anyone is suggesting the names should differ only in capitalization.. However, "Using Wikibooks/Subjects, Categories, and Classifications" says

"... Category:Emergency Medicine acting as the book category ... and Category:Emergency medicine acting as the subject category ..."

which seems to suggest exactly that. --DavidCary (discuss • contribs) 16:30, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Do you have anything new to add to the discussion? Otherwise this is just rehashing everything written above. As long as people choose to name books after subject names and prefer to organize books by subject this is going to be a problem. The manual of style recommends to use a descriptive name for books that includes the target audience, scope, and depth because multiple books on one subject are allowed and to name the book category after the book name. The problem only exists for books that don't follow the recommendation. The solution is to follow the recommendation. --darklama 21:31, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting in improving?

Is anyone else interested in refining this style guide to the point where it could be submitted as a proposal at some point? I couldn't go through every proposal archive, but I couldn't find any recent attempt. It's not as though I don't think this is a good start; I don't disagree with any of the major principles presented here. But I wonder if it might be worth it to more clearly define a few of the specific qualities expected in a Wikibook to a) create a more uniform experience and b) give new users a better resource to learn how to create and edit books correctly. Since the Chicago Manual of Style is often used as the go-to reference guide for book formatting, I'm willing to use that as a launching point for a few potential policies, but I'm not going to glue us to that. There is no need (at this time) to go as in-depth as the WP:MOS, but things I'd like to do include:

• Adapting a similar policy regarding variations of the English language. In other words, use a consistent version throughout. If an article has a particular connection to a region, use that regional variety.
• Change "Structure" to "Book Structure". As it is now, the Structure section contains information about the structure of a book as a whole as well as individual pages (i.e. Navigation), which makes it confusing for new users to determine exactly what goes on every page. This might best be fixed by dividing the new "Book structure" section into three sections: "Front matter", "main content", "back matter", etc. If needed, we can add a "Page structure" section.
• Establishing a consensus between title and sentence case for chapter titles...maybe.
• Changing "Bibliography" to "References" in almost all cases. The latter is a more general term that encompasses all referenced materials.
• Although I'm fine with having different ways to use references, we might want to have some clearer information on how to use them and remain consistent.
• Clarifying whether glossaries are counted as appendices, and if so, putting that section of the MOS in the correct place.
• I'd like to make many more smaller changes, and might go ahead and make a few that I'd consider noncontroversial, but this list is just sort of the beginning.

Runfellow (discuss • contribs) 18:53, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Bolding on headers?

Hi. I was going around the recent changes of Wikibooks [to review pending revisions] and I see that Introduction to model railways's sub-headers are in bold. I checked to see if there are any remarks about bolding headers in Wikibooks:Manual_of_Style#Headers, but there seems to be no mentioning about this. I also don't know if pinging the author of this page would work since he/she is a new user to Wikibooks.

Personally, I believe that bolding headers are a little unappealing for a page, but I can't remove those bolded headers without any sort of rule backing me up. Thoughts? --Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 15:40, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

@Atcovi: I would make the suggestion on the talk page, and ping the author. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:42, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I would think that making a guideline not to do this is fine. Perhaps authors incorrectly think that it's used to grab attention or used as a header. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 17:44, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I think it is better to ping the author to this talk page. So @Tracklayingninja:, your comment is needed here. Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 17:46, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

My focus for the last few days has been content. Style can come later. Personally, I would say that the current arrangement is OK, although I am open to other ways of making the sub-headings stand out. But as there is no specific style guide , I don’t plan to change this at the moment. This conversation would be better held on the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tracklayingninja (talk • contribs) 04:45, 22 December 2018 (UTC)