Wikipedia:Manual of Style extended FAQ

• Just follow the applicable basic guideline by default, absent a consensus to the contrary.
  • Broad advice that serves well on virtually all style questions: If there's any doubt, presume it's poorly founded and just follow the most applicable basic MoS guideline, as a default. When the guideline is skirted based on subjective doubt, it invites unnecessary dispute which would likely not arise otherwise. Put another way, if one can imagine some doubt, leave it to someone else with a bee in their bonnet about it to make the case that the doubt is well-founded and that an exception applies or should be made. Don't do the work for them (it is a thankless task, since such propositions nearly always meet with objection from others).
     
• If some MoS-codified exception to a basic guideline could conceivably apply but it's not certain, presume it doesn't.
  • Where MoS outlines narrow exceptions to basic principles, these are genuinely narrow and cannot be generalized beyond their explicit scope (or we would not have the basic guideline to begin with). For example, our basic criterion of
    WT:MOSTITLES
    .
     
• It is not productive to spend time (much of which will not be one's own) actively looking for potential exceptions to advocate against any MoS (or other) guideline.
  • Any argument for an exception is highly likely to turn into a protracted debate (that is very unlikely to conclude in favor of an exception). Almost all of these digressions are wastes of time, and too many of them turn heated.
  • The chief area in which this kind of pointless and circular-turning disputation exists is unnecessary capitalization on a per-topic basis (i.e., "capitalize this
    because it's important and often capitalized in specialist publications
    within the subject area". There is no greater source of editorial conflict about style than this. Please do not contribute to this recurrent problem.
  • The fact is that Wikipedia, like Chicago Manual of Style and many others, is following the very strong trend in contemporary English away from unnecessary capitalization.
    nor a debate battleground
    about writing quirks.

Here's a tutorial of sorts on how to create a variance from the WP:Manual of Style (which rarely should be done on an individual article basis), whether to pursue one at all, and pitfalls to avoid.

• At the article level, exceptions are made to that guideline under the same circumstances as exceptions to any other: when an
  WP:IAR
  ) claim is supported by sufficient evidence, policy-based argument, and common-sense reasoning that the variance gains consensus.
  • That doesn't mean just a consensus of the three editors who've primarily edited a particular article so far. If they find themselves constantly
    WP:CONLEVEL
    ) policy.
  • When a one-article variance is needed, it will generally be self-evident, and not require continual "defense".
  • Style is applied as consistently as possible, as a benefit to both readers and editors. Trying at an article talk page to get an MoS "exception", is usually misguided, and this is why such efforts usually do not achieve consensus, but cause lots of rancor and mutual frustration (the exception proponent doesn't get they want, and everyone else is annoyed by the attempt). It is not the right process. No one owns an article or a topic/category of articles; no category is even within the scope of only a single wikiproject. We have CONLEVEL policy, and MoS, for a reason.
     
• Most proposed variances are poor ideas, both at the article level and by adding new but unneeded micro-rules to MoS. We've been over it all before, in almost every case. Because of MoS's nature and the nature of style itself, IAR-based claims about style matters are usually not defensible, but based on personal preference, the specialized-style fallacy, or the common-style fallacy.
  • Like all style guides, MoS exists so that a roster of writers can get to work following a consistent set of rules, and not fritter their time away squabbling over minutiae that all vary widely from style guide to style guide, field to field, generation to generation, area to area, genre to genre (and about which few readers care).
  • A large number of style matters are simply arbitrary, and fighting over them is a pointless waste of time. Many principles in MoS, however, are not arbitrary within the context of Wikipedia, but have been arrived at over years of discussion and careful consideration. Where MoS does have an occasional arbitrary prescription, it is because experience has taught us that a rule of one kind or another is needed, to stop continual dispute about that particular matter.
  • MoS does not tell the world how to write or decide what is "correct", only how to get on with producing consistent content here, with an eye to encyclopedic tone and clarity for readers. It does not exist for linguistic
    activism
    of any kind: not personal, professional, socio-political, or otherwise.
     
• MoS already has virtually all the variances and detail it needs (and
  should not keep any that it does not need
  ). Much of MoS, especially in its more technical and topical subpages, does consist of particular variances from general, blanket axioms. These variances have been codified into MoS after consensus discussion (or sometimes have been added as common-sense edits and survived later editorial scrutiny).
  • Wikipedia has over 5 million articles. By now, most imaginable style disputes have been identified and hashed out, repeatedly. If you are a new editor, please see the talk page archives of the MoS and any of its relevant subpages (these archives are searchable). If a proposed change elicits an "ugh, not this again" reaction, it is because the proposal is perennial and has been rejected many times before.
  • The successful "imports" of specialized rules into the MoS all share the three A, B, and C points outlined below.
     
• Variances are usually accepted into MoS if and only if: A) they are common in general-audience publications, B) they're applied consistently in more specialized ones (especially if they are formal standards), and – not "or" – C) they do not conflict with everyday style in a way that may confuse readers.
  • Example: Wikipedia is never, ever going to accept the idea that, say, the names of rocks and minerals should be presented in boldface type, because: A) this is not typical in mainstream publications; B) it is only found in field guides, which simply use typographic effects like that as a visual scanning aid regardless of topic, and there is no standard in geology to do such a thing generally; and C) it would be mistaken by most readers for strong semantic emphasis.
  • A counter-example (one of many): proper names are not capitalized when used as elements of species epithets; "Smith" becomes "smith" in Brachypelma smithi, and this style is used on Wikipedia because: A) most mainstream publications have accepted this convention (along with the capitalization of the genus name and the italicization of genus and species); B) it is consistently done across all of biology, and is a part of the ICZN, ICN, and other international nomenclature standards; and C) readers are fairly familiar with it and usually know the italics aren't semantic emphasis and that it shouldn't be "corrected" to Smithi.
  • For numerous other examples, see all the special (usually scientific and mathematical) guidelines in
    kibibytes
    ", "gibibytes", etc., are found in a technical standard but are neither common in mainstream sources nor typically understood by readers. Another example is that Wikipedia follows scientific standards to separate numerical values and units in measurements and to use standardized unit symbols (3 kg, 32 ft); that there are other styles in existence (such as 3kilo or 32') is true but immaterial – Wikipedia does not use them because they are inconsistent, not universally understood, and may be ambiguous or otherwise confusing. Concerns such as these are often behind why MoS has selected one particular option from all the variants "in the wild".
  • Sometimes real-world language usage shifts. MoS should not leap suddenly on bandwagons of alleged language change. We'll know the time is right when most academic publishers like Oxford University Press, University of Chicago Press, and other encyclopedias, are reflecting the change. (An example is the dropping of the comma before "Jr." in a name like "Robert Downey Jr.", a process that has taken about 30 years, with the comma-free usage becoming dominant even in US English some time after around 2005, and MoS making the change several years later.)
     
• There is already a long-established process for altering guidelines. As with all other policies and guidelines, the process for codifying a special case is to get consensus on the guideline's talk page to do so.
  • If a usual, informal talk page discussion doesn't resolve a proposed MoS exception or addition (which it often does), use the standard
    WP:VPPOL), as well as relevant wikiprojects. For a major change, like elevation of a wikiproject style advice essay into an MoS guideline subpage, use the proposal process, typically posted at WP:Village pump (proposals) and also "advertised" at WP:VVPOL (or vice-versa), with additional notice at WT:MOS, and perhaps at WP:Centralized discussion
    .
  • Some MoS (and article title) disputation appears results from persistent article-by-article resistance against guideline application, out of a proprietary sentiment about
    WP:GAN, and other voluntary processes are somehow empowered to confer permanent immunity from guideline compliance on any article they "elevate" with a Featured or Good Article label. All of these are routes to pointless strife and cannot be defended under consensus-level or editing policy
    .
  • What is more common, though, is improper insistence that how some off-site publications choose to write about a subject is the only "proper" way to do it, even when confronted with evidence of in-field inconsistency and (more importantly) a lack of adoption of the style quibble in question by general-audiecnce publishers across English.

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/FAQ
  – summary of a few questions even more frequently asked about MoS than the ones above
• Category:Wikipedia essays and information pages about the Manual of Style – more editorial viewpoints about MoS