HRWiki talk:Manual of Style

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Revision as of 01:51, 16 February 2007

Overlap with Standards

Well, I've gotten the ball rolling. Some of the information from HRWiki:Standards should be copied or moved to this page. — It's dot com 23:45, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

West Is Ellipsis

Actually, according to the Chicago Manual of Style (see halfway down the page), ellipses should have spaces before as well as after. Ellipsis does concede that "some write ellipses without spaces," though. I was just wondering, is there a particular standard we base the wiki's on? I know journalists play by a slightly different set of rules on a lot of issues; is that what we're using, since a wiki is somewhat a journalistic entity? —: AbdiViklas 03:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this, and as far... as I know... we write ellipses... without spaces before them... in most cases... --Jay (Talk) 03:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

When I did stuff with journalism way back in the day ... ellipses ... were like ... this. As opposed . . . to a more English-papery . . . way of doing them, or...this. Just..............my two cents.Spell4yr 05:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Ellipses... with spaces? I've never... heard of such a thing. And try reading... this conversation with... the implied pauses. It's... hilarious. --Dorian... Gray

If you were publishing a book . . . this . . . with spaces everywhere . . . is how you would make . . . an ellipsis. But that isn't necessary here, and it could cause bad line breaks. If we're using the ellipsis to actually indicate omitted words, then ... this ... with the space before and after but not internally ... would be fine. If we're indicating a pause... or trailing off... then it looks better... without the space before. No spaces at all...just looks...silly. It's... Dot com 16:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Dot Dot Dot — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 17:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

On a side note, following up the journalistic idea, the bad line break reason is why most journalistic stylebooks wage against the usage of . . . (in favor of ... and it was fun proving my English teacher/newspaper advisor wrong on that; he thought it was . . . for newspapers too). It's how I've become accustomed to using my ellipses, no matter the reason for it. But I can see the argument for... but not...at all.Spell4yr 17:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Newspapers get so many things wrong when it comes to style that I can hardly stand to read them. They try to squeeze as much as they can into as small space as they can, and they will therefore sacrifice accuracy for brevity. So don't get me started on that. I happen to be in the publishing business, and A Dictionary of Modern American Usage and The Chicago Manual of Style are two of my best working companions as I edit the magazine that we print each month. To solve the problem of bad line breaks caused by the internal spaces, I use nonbreaking spaces. I suppose we could do that, too (like this: ". . ."), but that seems overly pedantic. — It's dot com 17:45, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I see. Understood. (The indentation on my previous reply was correct, by the way -- I'm not reverting the formatting back, but it was more of a reply to you than to Under Construction, though that is quite possibly the best. Usage of ellipses. EVER. Spell4yr 17:49, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

So it sounds like we're agreed on.... However, do we also maintain that full sentences should end with four, as I just did (period plus ellipsis)? —AbdiViklas 19:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The thing is... we almost never use literal ellipsis points. By that I mean, relatively speaking, we rarely have the need to quote something and leave out part of it. In those cases, I still think that the space before is appropriate: "Do you take your wrestling mask ... off before you go to bed?" The period-plus-ellipsis-points variety (typographically identical to four periods and used when the previous sentence is complete) would be even rarer. We just don't quote that much stuff. Most often we use them as a suspension... to indicate a pause. I personally think the subtlety of the four version versus the three version would be lost on most people and not worth the effort to fix them. By the way, this discussion has taken on a life of its own, and seems to be a bona fide standards conversation. Should it be moved to HRWiki talk:Standards? — It's dot com 19:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps those who feel most passionate about these style issues would like to collaborate on an official HRWiki Style Guide defining what to do in these types of arbitrary grammar/spelling situations. I'd love to see something like that come into existence alongside our Standards. — Joey (talk·edits) 22:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Quotation marks

As long as we're hashing out these things, I've noticed some disparity or just plain uncertainty about when to put punctuation inside "quotation marks," and when to put it "outside". I've gotten pretty confused on this myself. I used think I had a handle on the situation, and it was just (Brian Regan impression) "punctuation inside the quotation marks... always." But obviously there are situations that would make that impossible or nonsensical; if I'm writing an exclamatory sentence and quote a line that doesn't end with an exclamation mark, you'd better believe it would be "Do you use them for good or for awesome?"! I don't have any manuals of style, except for MLA in a box in a closet, which I find unhelpful for these sorts of things anyway. Perhaps you could fill us in, It's dot com?

It seems to me the tendency here seems to heavy on putting punctuation outside; I wonder whether sometimes it actually goes too far. —AbdiViklas 01:40, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

While I don't actually know the answer, I can't help responding to this. I think the rule is punctuation inside the quotation marks on weekends and holidays, and all throughout May, and you'll always be wrong no matter what you say! I gather from what's on the page now that it only goes outside of the quotes if you're quoting a single word or phrase that you would put finger quotes around if you were speaking, but what do I know? Username-talk 01:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm in the publishing business. As part of that, I am a copyeditor of a magazine. Our policy where I work is (AbdiViklas impression) "punctuation inside the quotation marks... always." Here on the wiki... I don't know whether it's the default font, or what, but it just looks wrong sometimes. We certainly don't have a standard, and in my opinion we don't need one. That's why I left it open on the project page (which is, in turn, based on some comments I wrote on the FAQ a while ago). — It's dot com 02:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'm pretty sure I know the "official rules": In British English, you put the punctuation inside quotes if the punctuation belongs with the thing inside the quotes. E.g.: "What are you doing?" But you put it outside if the punctuation goes with something that's not entirely in the quotes. E.g.: Did you just say, "doyng"? But in academic American English, you put the punctuation inside no matter what, including when it makes no sense. For example: Did you just say "doyng?" Here, the question mark applies to the sentence, not the "doyng" in quotes, but you still put it inside. But this really makes no sense, and Americans outside academic circles are abandoning this practice and punctuating like the Brits. From what I've seen in the past, I think the Wiki has thus far also preferred to go like the Brits on this one. (Read the Chicago Manual of Style for more info.) Hope that I helped! Heimstern Läufer 02:12, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure which academics you've been cavorting with, but American style places the question mark outside quotations to which it does not belong (Chicago Manual of Style § 5.28, at 164 (14th ed.)). So here, just like in the old country, it's: Did you just say "doyng"? Where the two styles differ applies to periods and commas and whether to start with double quotes or single quotes. — It's dot com 02:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

In reply to SHSRTU: Ah, another Brian Regan fan! That guy cracks me up! Cracks! Me! Up!

In continuation of discussion: I have a vague recollection of seeing some quasi-official source validate the above concept, of putting the punctuation outside quotes when it's part of a sentiment that doesn't belong to the quote. [After edit conflict: okay, maybe the Chicago Manual] E.g. on the current More Fan Costumes: I said "S and more different S"! However, down in Fun Facts, the sentences ending in "collection" and "wing" put it inside. On the other hand, we have Strong Bad refers to his head as "husky", despite. ... That's the sort that I might have put inside. (And by the way, back to ellipses; what I just did—". ..."—is what this page currently recommends, but would "... ." make more sense in this case?) One more thing: doesn't pretty much every system put semicolons outside quotation marks? If so we should note that. —AbdiViklas 02:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

On the period-plus-ellipsis-versus-ellipsis-plus-period question, I would omit the internal space in that case. Even the style books don't insist on splitting hairs, though (Chicago Manual of Style § 10.55, at 373 (14th ed.); but see also A Dictionary of Modern American Usage "quote", at 552 (1st ed.), where it insists that the hairs should rightly be split). As for semicolons, you're right. They go outside the quotation marks in both styles if they don't belong to the quote. We could note that, but I thought that this page would illustrate our house style; it should only mention English rules when it differs from established styles. — It's dot com 02:32, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I updated the project page, but I'll bet this situation doesn't come up all that often. — It's dot com

In reply to HSRusername: That "finger quotes" bit is perfect. Not that it should be on the page that way, but it completely captures what I was thinking. — It's dot com 02:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, you're right. I forgot to think. The question mark does always go outside. So just go read what I said and make them all statements with periods at the end! (Trying too hard to come up with a funny quote.) Heimstern Läufer 06:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC) P.S.: Chicago Manual of Style p. 242-243.

I filled in my citations above. — It's dot com

Email in filmography

Some filmographies use email tags, like this:

• Email sibbie

While others don't.

• sibbie

We should aim for consistency. So which one should we use? I prefer using the email tag, myself. - Joshua

Quite a few of them already use the email label in front of them. It's only natural that we keep it. The job may be quite tedious, but since GrapeNuts is on hiatus, we'll need to crack down on it ourselves. — Lapper (talk) 02:40, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I would think it could help for disambig purposes, e.g. marzipan. —AbdiViklas 02:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm in favor of the label. I don't know quite how this manual of style is going to shape up, but we could have sections on how to do this or that—how to do a filmography, for example. And like I said at the top of this page, some things from the standards page are probably going to need to be moved (or at least copied) here. — It's dot com 02:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

So this is now the proper way to do fimlographies:

• Debut: Main Page 1
• Pumpkin Carve-nival
• Email japanese cartoon
• Mr. Shmallow
• Email flashback
• Stinkoman 20X6

(Taken from The Moon) In chronological order, of course. - Joshua 03:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

More maintenance

I was wondering if it would be wise to make links between this page, HRWiki:Standards, HRWiki:List of common misspellings etc. Also, I wondered if there might be some good in making a list of commonly confused words, since this doesn't seem to be covered in the list of common misspellings. I'm talking about things like its-it's, effect-affect, descent-dissent etc. If other people think it's a good idea, I'll start work on it. Heimstern Läufer 19:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This project is currently a stub. A lot of work needs to be done on it. It does need links to/from other maintenance articles, and (like I have said above) some content should even be moved here from there. By all means, update this page as you see fit, based on your observations of what our current style is. That is, if you notice that we always do something a particular way, then it should go on the project page. This talk page is (among other things) to discuss changes to our style or to clarify it. — It's dot com 19:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I guess the reason I asked about it is that I don't feel like I've really got a grasp on what our style is for this sort of thing. I guess I'll just take as good a stab at it as I can and some of you can see if it looks right. Heimstern Läufer 19:35, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

stub?

To me, this does not seem like a stub. — _talk Bubsty _edits 21:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

It is, though. Perhaps you should read the previous thread. — It's dot com 21:20, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Italicized titles?

My New Century Handbook (a darn good little manual of style used as the text for one of my college writing courses) states the following in section 52e (p. 819):

Titles of books, magazines, digital magazines ("e-zines"), newspapers, and other creative products that are independently packaged and distributed to a public audience should be written with italics or underlining (see chapter 13).

Chapter 13 documents how one should cite one's sources, and, among other things, again mentions that titles of books, movies, or other creative works should be italicized. This has been bothering me for a while, and I feel it's time we started italicizing titles of the various toons and emails around here (I've been doing it on my userpage for some time now). Is anybody with me? — Joey (talk·edits) 03:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that would be a huge hassle. Usually the link serves the purpose. And wouldn't a smaller work be in quotation marks anyway? — It's dot com 03:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

A huge hassle for one or two people, sure, but let's not forget this is a Wiki. As for quotation marks, you may be right. Either way I think we should mark them out somehow as titles. We need to pick something and run with it, IMO. If I understand correctly, quotation marks are for chapters of a work or articles within a magazine or newspaper. Technically, the Strong Bad emails could be considered chapters. How are episodes of a TV series supposed to be written out? That would answer the question, I think. — Joey (talk·edits) 03:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I know this seems like a quick fix, but perhaps monobook.css could be edited so that all links to the offical site are italicized? This would blanket cover all toons and emails linked to. — Lapper (talk) 03:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Um, you can do that for your personal CSS, but leave mine alone, please. — It's dot com 03:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Edit conflict: That would be a quick fix, but I'm not sure it would be an accurate one. We link to other things on hr.com that aren't toons and shouldn't be italicized, like the main pages or the toons menu. In addition, I'm talking not just about links to the official site, but links to Wiki content like do over and A Folky Tale. — Joey (talk·edits) 03:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea what the bots are capable of, but could GrapeNuts or Valerie do anything? —FireBird|Talk 04:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I know it isn't official, but simply linking things counts for something. I mean, the intent of both italicizing and quote-marking titles is to set them apart visually; if I read "Strongbadia has been somewhat neglected ever since colonization" it means something quite different from "Strongbadia has been somewhat neglected ever since colonization." —AbdiViklas 02:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we even have a problem. Italicizing is an option. The other one is underlining, which links already are. — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 14:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but because of our "no double linking" rule many of the titles are not linked, and hence, not underlined. An example is in the dullard page i was just looking at:

From: Fast Forward

• This office was used again in Senor Mortgage, other days, and Biz Cas Fri 1, 2, and 3.
• There is another Dullard comic in the toon Biz Cas Fri 1.

Where in the second fun fact, the titles Dullard and Biz Cas Fri 1 are not emphasized. Here are two alternatives I can think of:

• This office was used again in Senor Mortgage, other days, and Biz Cas Fri 1, 2, and 3.
• There is another Dullard comic in the toon Biz Cas Fri 1.

Everything above that is a title is italicized. Below we have:

• This office was used again in Senor Mortgage, other days, and Biz Cas Fri 1, 2, and 3.
• There is another Dullard comic in the toon Biz Cas Fri 1.

Where everything is underlined. Since the links are automatically underlined, only everything else needs to be explicitly underlined. I'm not sure which one I like more, but the underlined one doesn't look bad at all! It can also serve as a guard, in case there are titles that were once linked above but no longer are for some reason, and so we can easily visually check for such unlinked titles. --Stux 16:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I kinda like the underlining. But the italics seem a bit out of place. — _talk Bubsty _edits 16:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the italics, but that's just me. Part of that is from the links not being underlined by default for me, and since I generally prefer italics anyway. Spell4yr 16:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Your links are not underlined by default for you? Well that's simply too bad! Just kidding. I'm curious, did you turn that off yourself? Do they still appear blue? The more I look at it, the more i'm liking the underlined, but you bring a good point that the links may not always be underlined. *sigh* Though they usually are! The italic ones seem a little bare. But I'm still wavering between the two. --Stux 17:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, it was set up like that by default when I signed up. It usually shows up that way for me no matter if I'm signed in or not, though I think a couple times when I've been logged in as an IP it underlined them. But usually they're not, and I prefer it that way. But, again, that's just me. Spell4yr 20:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, why can't we link every time? I will say again (well, for the first time on this page), "Once and Only Once" does not apply to links. The only reason we don't link character names (I think) is because it's unsightly, and because there is a specified place for them in toons (the character list). — It's dot com 22:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Link every time!? Link every time? Link every time. Hmmmm Link every time! If its links just for titles of toons (which is what I assume you meant to say), then it might be viable. But what of situations above where the title is repeated practically right after it is first presented? --Stux 02:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Harking back to your suggestions offered, Stux: first of all, I'm quite unfond of the first one; part of the reason I think electronic media shouldn't necessarily be held to all paper-media rules, especially regarding appearance, is that italics don't look so hot on a screen. For the second one, I like the concept, except I kind of have a problem with extending it to Dullard. Yeah, I know it's the official name of the strip, but the usage in the sentence is not as a proper noun. If the sentence were "Dullard is a comic strip that first appeared in dullard. Levert Burtmore, who draws Dullard, is..." ...then it would be another matter.

Now then, as to linking every time: Wow! I really didn't expect to hear that. I didn't know the policy applied only to characters. Give me a moment; this has rocked my universe slightly. It seems to me that "Once and only once" and "Every time, within reason" would be the only possibilities that would really work, for consistency. And I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for that much blue. —AbdiViklas 03:08, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, maybe every time is a little crazy. I have long wanted, however, to bring up our linking policy (and I can't remember if I have before or if I've just thought about it). I'm pretty much fine with how we link in toons (once for characters and places in a standardized location at the top) because with a little experience, anyone can know where to find them. In articles, however (especially longer articles), it makes more sense to link after every subheading, because you don't know what path the reader took to get there. Links are there for the convenience of the reader. Someone should never have to search for a link. Likewise, in tables, I think it's appropriate to link every instance. I realize this post is completely off-topic for this thread and so I will probably have to repost it somewhere else later, but, well, there it is. — It's dot com 16:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Joey, I don't think that things around here need italic titles simply because I don't think they fit the Chapter 13 guidelines. None of the things you mentioned--toons, e-mails, etc.--are, in my opinion, "independently packaged and distributed to a public audience." To my mind they're equivalent to short stories published in a collection, where the title of the collection (in this case the Homestar Runner web site) would be italicized and the titles of the individual stories (i.e. the shorts, toons, etc.) would go in quotation marks. — InterruptorJones 06:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Many replies... many replies! Ok I have to work here on a backlog of stuff to reply to (and i mean in the site in general). But here too... Abdi, to answer your question, I simply underlined Dullard cuz i thought it was a title. I just wanted to express the visual effect, but the technical aspect of wether it should be underlined or not ... i dunno? Dullard seems proper to me even in that context. But moving on... Dot Com, I think your comment is very relevant to your discussion. Should be end up modifying our link-once-and-only-once lest ye suffer a cruel and unusual fate, then there I think there would be less need to be concerned about toon title formats since they'd all be automatically "formatted". This leads to interrutor Jones comment. I do think that you have a better point: as these are short stories of sorts (the whole collection being the H*R site?), they could be mentioned in quotes. However I dunno how aesthetically pleasing that would be to have all of these links with quotes all over. Hmmm. More to ponder? --Stux 22:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I stand by my earlier statement that the closest thing we can compare it to are episodes of a TV series. I looked around for how those should be denoted and discovered to my surprise that they are to be set off in quotes. So, I'm changing my initial suggestion from italics to quotes in agreement with several people above me. — Joey (talk·edits) 23:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

How about some examples:

• I don't think we should use a mixed style. If we choose to make a change, it should be one or the other.
• Besides the fact that I don't think the look of italics is too keen, the problem with them is that ''this'' produces <em>this</em>, which technically is different from <i>this</i>. (Edit: I examined the source code and was surprised to see <i>.)
• Quotes pose other problems: they add to the length of the finished line and look silly in large numbers or back-to-back. And you have to consider what to do when the name of a toon is within another quotation:
  • "Let's watch 'i she be'."
• All this to say I still favor linking only, perhaps even at every reference:
  • Let's watch i she be. I think that i she be is a cool email.
• Or perhaps quotes on second reference (but I'm not crazy about this one):
  • Let's watch i she be. I think that "i she be" is a cool email.

Okay, there are my examples. — It's dot com 02:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

These quotes would look so much better if MediaWiki auto-generated “curly quotes” instead of "double primes". I've been surprised for a very long time that no one has thought to use correct typography in an encyclopedia. — Joey (talk·edits) 15:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Aw, they don't look so bad (although I would never use straight quotes professionally in actual printed matter, online they look okay). I've noticed that when people are talking about an email, like for instance "rock opera", in conversations where linking isn't practical, they use quotes. So that gets my vote. I think if we're gonna make a change, however, we should do full-blown tests of a very large page and a very large list. — It's dot com 16:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

So then we are going ahead with the double quotes for all toon titles? I just thought of something we need to inform the editors if we do: lately much discussion has happened regarding proper punctuation and the like. I just realized that we should really adopt and document a standard for punctuation regarding quotes (at least document it). As it stands "use your better judgement" is the policy, but not everyone has thoroughly developed that "judgement". I myself still have questions. A great example of a page that reflects what could happen is this page, where video games is under quotes, followed by a comma. The comma is inside the quotes, though to me that looks unconfortable, and it seems that the comma should go outside. Similarly I would like to explicitly ask: quotes will always go outside the link right? (i.e. they themselves are not part of the link). I looks like it but i want to be sure this is the agreement (why am I being so pendantic? I don't know, but I am trying to become a software engineer). So, yeah. --Stux 02:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, such an important discussion needs to be open for a while, and we need a few more yea votes, before we can say that the policy has become official. To address your specific points: The quotes should definitely go outside the link (one important reason for that is otherwise we'd have to use piped links all the time), and there should be no other punctuation between the link and the quotation marks, like so: The most recent toon I transcribed was "[[portrait]]". I personally would support calling this use of quotes a special case and that the best-judgment policy could continue in other cases. — It's dot com 17:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It is equally ok to use underlining for a title. Since its a link and its is already underlined, problem solved. I don't support putting every toon title in quotes or italics. Isn't standing out in blue enough? I R F 17:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Remember, though, that not all users see the links automatically underlined. — It's dot com 17:42, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Who doesn't see underlined links? Mozilla Firefox people? Netscape people? If that's the case y'all need to stop being to rebelleuos and get on the microsoft train...resistance is futile. I R F 17:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I'm sure that make somebody mad **cough cough JoeyDay cough cough** (I've seen his website) the comment was meant in jest. I R F 17:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, anybody (even an IE user) could be one of those people... just log out and see. Anonymous preferences don't automatically underline links. You could even set your own preferences to be the same (under "Misc"), as a lot of logged-in users have. — It's dot com 17:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

LOL—replying to everybody at once here. You probably made the better part of the whole wiki somewhat mad, IRF; check the bottom right-hand corner of the page. :) And thanks for keeping the discussion open, Dot com, because I'm at least one of those "no" votes. Let me make my earlier statements stronger: I would prefer to keep it as is, arguing that the blue color alone is enough to make the title stand out, and that it doesn't have to be considered improper for electronic media to use different typographical conventions than print media. My second choice would be quotes (not for consistency or appearance so much as the fact that I still think italics should be reserved for longer works—like longer even than "big" 'toons. The DVDs could justifiably be italicized, but even a 6-minute cartoon is still on a magazine-article level as opposed to a novel.) —AbdiViklas 18:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Quotes around captions

So, I'm not entirely sure this is the right place to address this issue, but as it concerns punctuation, I'll go ahead and try it here. (Someone can move this if it should be discussed elsewhere.) I've observed an inconsistency on the Wiki concerning using quotation marks in captions: when the caption is itself a quote, we sometimes have quotation marks and we sometimes don't. I've always assumed they were unnecessary, but I'd be interested in reading what others think. Heimstern Läufer 01:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

This is probably the best place for that. I myself have wondered this. I kinda lean toward quotation marks around the caption if it's a direct quote from a toon, otherwise no. But that's just me. — It's dot com 01:23, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Dot com, I think that's a good idea, and I propose that we adopt that standard. For example: a picture of Reynold would have quotes around the caption if it said "Diaper biscuits" because this is a direct quote from the toon. But if it said "He's never had pizza" or "Proudly wearing a tie", it wouldn't have quotes. (I think that's what you were suggesting, Dot com; let me know if that's wrong.) Anybody agree or disagree? Heimstern Läufer 07:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

No objections? Then I guess I'll start standardizing it that way throughout the Wiki. Is it worth adding an entry about this issue to the manual of style for future reference? Heimstern Läufer 21:41, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Go for it (on both counts). — It's dot com 21:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Emdash

The emdash is an interesting punctuation. According to Chicagl manual of Style, when it occurs mid-sentence—is the laundry done yet?—no spaces surround it. But other style manuals allow spaces in this usage. And of course, usage of the emdash in other contexts is not subject to this rule at all. How do we want to handle it? - Qermaq - (^T/C)  18:51, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally prefer putting the spaces in — don't you? — as it seems more readable to me that way. — Joey (talk·edits) 21:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Certainly more readable, but I've never heard of it being acceptable style—at least in the middle of a sentence. As opposed to... — AbdiViklas 01:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Abdi. — It's dot com 01:34, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The inclusion of spaces around em dashes is slightly controversial among grammarians, but the generally-accepted rule in North American usage is that you do not include spaces unless you write for a newspaper and your editor tells you to. (For example, I spotted spaces around a dash on the front page of the New York Times just yesterday.) For what it's worth, I don't find either style more readable than the other. --TheNicestGuy 17:38, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to agree that non-spaced em dashes are probably a more established standard. I think TheNicestGuy is right — it's a matter of style that is established on an institution by institution basis. That said, I just checked in the Chicago Manual of Style, and though it doesn't explicitly say you shouldn't space your em dashes, all their em dash usage examples are sans the spaces. I'm willing to settle on that standard, even though I personally don't prefer it. — Joey (talk·edits) 18:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's another style guide which is explicit with regard to the spaces. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  18:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Ellipses vs. Dashes

It's very common in transcripts for a sentence to be split apart by stage direction, like so:

STRONG BAD: ... Now we gotta be sure and represent as many of the different states—

{A candy-based periodic table covers the screen.}

STRONG BAD: —of candy matter as possible. ...

As you can see, em dashes were used in this case to show the interruption and continuation of the dialog. Which looks just fine. But from a quick glance at other transcripts, it seems that ellipses are used more commonly. Which also looks just fine. I imagine that with the loose standards in screenwriting (as compared to academic writing, for example) there is no firm rule indicating one over the other. Anyone know better? Do we have a preference? There should be consistency, right? --TheNicestGuy 19:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting you should bring this up. A few months back when I was transcribing bits and pieces from Everything Else, Volume 1 DVD I thought to ask this question. I, personally, prefer em dashes for split dialogue and use ellipses when the speaker trails off and is not interrupted. But like you say, there really is no standard and we should strive to be more consistent across the wiki. However, it does not seem like a pressing issue at this point. We're still trying to standardize more visible issues like "Fixed Goofs" and the like. —THE PAPER ^PREEEOW 19:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

According to the established style on this page, trailing-off ellipses and break in dialogue ellipses are different. I think continuation ellipses are correct in the above situation. Emdashes tend to signal a shift in thought, and should be used as infrequently as possible out of that usage so they retain that function, IMO. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  19:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Em dashes also signal interruption and resumption. I think the general rule The Paper put forth (interruption vs. trailing off) is a good yardstick. — It's dot com 19:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Then this:

• Whenever you are using suspension points to indicate a continuation of thought, do not put a space after.

VOICEOVER: ...to have as many hot '60s-looking girls in your filmstrips as possible.

is incorrect usage, or at least inconsistent with what we're going to do? - Qermaq - (^T/C)  20:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Qermag, are you talking about the spacing, or the use of an ellipsis at all? It sounds like we're going for the ellipsis/suspension points being correct in this case, since it's a smooth continuation of what came before the stage direction. As for the spacing, it looks right to me. --TheNicestGuy 20:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

What I meant was that it seems you're saying the use of emdashes is preferable when breaking dialogue up with a stage direction or similar. That would mean that ellipsis would not match that, as this line would eventually be conformed to an emdash. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  20:14, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. At the time that particular sentence was chosen as an example, the issue we're currently discussing wasn't even on the horizon. If we change the punctuation in that sentence, we would need to find a new example to illustrate the proper use of suspension points at the beginning of a line. As for the issue at hand, it seems like a dash would be appropriate when there is no break in the dialogue, whereas suspension points would indicate more of a pause or a regathering of one's thoughts. These are all subtle points, however, and I'm not sure it's worth getting bogged down over. Whichever one makes the most sense on a case-by-case basis should be used. — It's dot com 20:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Three periods (...) vs. Ellipsis character (…)

I noticed that three periods are usually typed in as an ellipsis instead of the ellipsis character. Is there a reason that this is done this way? Jecowa 03:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Simplicity, mainly. The ellipsis is not a 7-bit ASCII character, which means it would have to be encoded to follow our standards. — It's dot com 03:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be a royal pain in the twees for editors to type &hellip; instead of ..., considering how frequently it appears. Which would not stop my being in favor of it, picky as I am, except that it also would not display properly on some platforms. The Blazer browser on my Treo, for example, just ignores any character that's not in its native encoding scheme. Doesn't even replace it with a box; just omits it entirely, which can get very confusing. So I'll maintain that, speaking very generally, the only non-ASCII character worth the hassle of using regularly is the em dash. It just looks much better than hyphens. Oh, but thanks for reminding me about the ellipsis, which I had forgotten was another character MS Word sometimes likes to AutoCorrect. --TheNicestGuy 13:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Some odds and ends

Three things:

• Homestar Runner Wiki should be abbreviated as HRWiki only in extremely rare and justified cases. It should be written out in full everywhere else.
• The King of Town should be abbreviated as KoT only in extremely rare and justified cases. It should be written out in full everywhere else.
• Strong Badia is two words.

Should these go in the miscellaneous section toward the bottom, or is there a more logical place for them? — Joey (talk·edits) 20:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps as a subentry under "Spelling"... or perhaps not. —AbdiViklas 20:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

From HRWiki:Standards:

Never abbreviate the names of characters, toons, or things on the site (e.g. The KoT or SBEmails). Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer to "The King of Town" as "the king" or "Homestar Runner" as "Homestar" and so forth.

Does this belong on just one of the two pages, or both? And if both, I think it could probably follow the same wording in both cases, perhaps rolling "HRWiki" into the point as another example. ⇔Thunderbird⇔ 20:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Tense Stuff

Hi-low everpeoples. Okay, after completely chewing Shwoo's ear off about the literary present — something I've been troubled about for some time — I thought I'd bring it up here. I guess I come off as a nit-picky nerd, (a lot of my edits consist of punctuation problems), but I'm a big fan of grammar and consistency, (and H*R, duh). I also realize that we aren't dealing with literature here, but I thought that the literary present would be a good standard to adopt for this wiki. (Sorry if this suggestion seems pointless and gratuitous). kai lyn 01:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that literary precedent should at least be considered, if not adopted. What specifically are you proposing? - Qermaq - (^T/C)  01:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'd like a section on "tense" on this page, if that's okay. kai lyn 01:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It's likely ok. Write it up, post it, and if objections exist you'll find out straight away. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  01:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh... Okay! I guess I'm still an idiot new to this whole wiki thing or something, because it didn't even occur to me that I could edit this page. I was under the impression that only systops could for some reason. kai lyn 01:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I can't right now though — chores a'callin'. {sigh} kai lyn 01:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Even us old folks understand that. Make edits as you can; the community will respond appropriately. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  01:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that general articles tend to be written in literary present, but toon articles are written from the perspective of "now" as it is (or was) when a toon is released. — It's dot com 05:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, for the most part, most of the general articles are already written in the lit. present. But there are still tense issues, (example, Strong Bad and Strong Sad's Relationship page). Mostly, I just want everyone aware of tense, since it's something rarely thought about (by most). But before I go on, do we want to write about H*R as "artwork", or report it as "history", because if it's the latter, then this conversation should actually go in the opposite direction. kai lyn 17:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that toons should continue to be from the perspective of the date of release—at least for inside references and fast forwards. In other words, inside references are usually phrased as "such-and-such previously happened in the earlier toon" and fast forwards "such-and-such happens again in the later toon". — It's dot com 21:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree on all points. So, (just to make sure I've got it), you're talking about: 1. relating toon B to toon A (A was released before B) for inside references, where the past tense would be used, and 2. relating toon B to toon C, (C coming after B) where the present continuous/ future tense would be used. And you're saying do all this with the mindset of the date of release, even when adding a fact, like, a year later. Definitely.

For goofs, trivia, explanation, etc. concerning the toon itself though, the literary present should be used. The lit. present should also be used on, say, a running gags page, where appearances are listed, unless there's a relationship shown between two different toons in one bulleted idea. Uhhmm... I can't really think of anything more to say about it right now, but I know there was something else... Oh well. How about this so far, Dot Com? kai lyn 17:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. — It's dot com 16:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Possessive forms of singular nouns ending in s

After careful consideration, I've come to the belief that this is the standard we should adopt for the possessive forms of singular nouns ending in s.

• Possessive forms of singular nouns ending in s should always be written with a second s after an apostrophe, unless the accepted convention is to do otherwise (see Wikipedia:Apostrophe#Singulars). Examples of this would include Dr. Christmas's, Nibbles's, and even Reinforcements's. A notable exception to this rule is to write Bubs' without the extra s, since it has appeared that way several times on Bubs' Concession Stand.

Is there agreement on this? If so, I'll add this to HRWiki:Manual of Style#Apostrophe Trey56 23:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. On a side note, listening closely, Strong Bad occasionally pronounces it Bubs's (perhaps someone could help me out with an example). Do we transcribe it as such in those cases? — It's dot com 23:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

A good example is Homestar's use of "Bubs's" in pom pom. And while I hesitate to add an "exception to the exception" to the rule above, I think that's absolutely the right thing to do — if a character pronounces it that way, we transcribe it that way. Trey56 00:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

So, uh, how's about this:

• Possessive forms of singular nouns ending in s should always be written with a second s after an apostrophe, unless the accepted convention is to do otherwise (see Wikipedia:Apostrophe#Singulars). Examples of this would include Dr. Christmas's, Nibbles's, and even Reinforcements's. A notable exception to this rule is to always write Bubs' without the extra s, since it has appeared that way several times on Bubs' Concession Stand. Nevertheless, if a character explicitly pronounces a second s, the transcript should indicate this. (for example, Homestar Runner's line, "I think he's over at Bubs's, filming his documentary." from pom pom)

Trey56 00:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Oooo, I love grammar! And I totally agree with this convention (and for the record, always have... silly teachers who don't read their MLA handbooks anymore...) Nice eye, Trey! Got my vote, (not that we're voting or anything). kai lyn 01:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)