Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting/Archive 5

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see

• General Lee (car): italics are used for the article title, the lead, the infobox, and most occurrences throughout the article
• FAB 1: italics are used for most occurrences throughout the article, but not for the lead, the article title or the infobox
• Popemobile: italics are used in the lead and one image caption but not the article title or throughout the article
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (car): italics are used for the article title but nowhere else
• Goldenrod (car): Italics are used for most occurrences throughout the article but not the lead

I think it be helpful if

No evidence of italicization of land vehicles ("automobiles" is rather too limiting) in most reliable sources. It seems be limited to water vessels and (by analogy) to air- and spacecraft, though it's not as consistently applied to the latter two as to the former, where it borders on universal. Agree MOS should cover these cases. Amphibious vehicles, like the hovercraft ferries used in some places, would be treated as per boats, since they are boats that also happen to go up on land a bit.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  04:42, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

More really obvious carticles:

• Batmobile – no italics anywhere
• Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT) at Knight Rider (1982 TV series) and various associated articles – no italics anywhere
• Herbie and all associated film/TV articles – no italics anywhere except in titles of works
• Wonderbug – no italics anywhere except in titles of works
• Cars (film) and related articles – none of the anthropomorphized car characters' names are italicized

It may well be worth looking through edit histories of the previously mentioned articles that do show some italicization, and see if it's the same editor going around italicizing them. It seems weird to me that the individually named land vehicles best known in popular culture are not italicized by anyone, anywhere, as I just demonstrated, yet 5 cases suddenly turn up, on articles much less likely to be watchlisted (seriously, why does General Lee (car) exist as a separate article?), where italics are being used to differing degrees of consistency.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  17:46, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Since the above discussion,

MOS:ITALIC

has been substantially revised, and now includes the text:

The vessels convention does not apply to smaller conveyances such as cars, trucks, and buses.

DH85868993 (talk) 03:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding this recent edit and the corresponding one at

I wrote a text in Word that include a lot of italic words. I would like to copy and paste this (huge) text into a Wikipedia articles. When formatting my text to fit to the Wikipedia style, I really don't want to add the double quotes for italic words manually. Is there by any chance a way to add a double apostrophe before and after all italicized words in Word, so that I can copy and paste my text directly to Wikipedia? Many thanks in advance for your help.--Christophe Hendrickx (talk) 13:08, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Have a look at Help:WordToWiki and Wikipedia:Tools/Editing tools#From Microsoft Word or OpenOffice. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

@

WP:RD/C is a good place to ask. --Redrose64 (talk

) 13:43, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Many thanks for your swift replies Michael and Redrose, I did get what I wanted through WordtoWiki and the "Microsoft Office Word Add-in For MediaWiki". I actually found the old fashion way with Word actually, which consists of entering in the Find What control: (<*>) with italic as a format, and in Replace With control "^&", without forgetting to check the Use Wildcards option. That was tough to find, and the WediaWiki Add-in is an easier way indeed. I now need to find a way to cite sources with Zotero reference that I used in my text, in Word. The only technique I could find is this one: [[1]]. This will still take a lot of time to do with the large number of references that I have in my text though. But thanks for your help already, both you! Regards,--Christophe Hendrickx (talk) 15:15, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

See discussion here:

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussions elsewhere.

I've opened an RfC at

There is a proposal at the Village Pump that WT:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve actively guiding editors with style questions to WT:MoS and away from other pages, such as this one. Participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:22, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Why do the sections on boldface and italic advocate using templates and HTML code instead of wiki markup? I understood that Wikipedia favors use of wiki markup and discourages use of HTML code. Using templates makes editing even more complex for typical people who would like to edit Wikipedia.—Finell 23:42, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Could you point to the sections/paragraphs you object to? I noticed that you replaced the suggested coding of emphasised text, {{em}}, with wikimarkup for italics, '' … ''. I agree with the reasoning at Template:Em/doc and suggest you restore the previous guidance. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:18, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Template documentation is neither policy nor even a guideline; it is written by the template's author(s), who want to justify their template. MediaWiki wiki markup, like the MediaWiki application, was designed to be used on Wikipedia. The buttons above standard Wikipedia edit box apply wiki markup for bold and italic.

Wikipedia:Tutorial/Formatting instructs editors to use wiki markup for bold, italic, and bold italic. Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia#Markup, formatting and layout, based on communal consensus, instructs editors to use wiki markup for these attributes. So does the first line of Help:Cheatsheet. None of these sources even mentions using templates instead of the most basic wiki markup. Using templates in place of wiki markup is a needless complication. Complication is the main reason that most new editors quickly give up editing Wikipedia—and that is a serious problem for the project. I edit Wikipedia fairly often, and have done so for many years. I cannot remember ever seeing templates used for italic or boldface.—Finell

07:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Could you point to the sections/paragraphs you object to? Where are templates advocated to create bold or italic output? Note that {{em}}, {{strong}}, {{var}} are not templates to achieve italics – they have a special meaning although they might, or might not, render text in italics. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:27, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Before I changed it, § 2.2 ("Emphasis") said to use HTML markup <em> ... </em> or Template:em. However, § 1.4, which said to use italic rather than boldface for emphasis, showed only wiki markup. However, § 2.2 ("Emphasis") in the main MOS said to use italic sparingly for emphasis, with no mention of using a template or HTML. On this page, § 1 ("Boldface") says that boldface "is usually created by surrounding the text to be boldfaced with triple apostrophes: ..., but can also be done with the <b>...</b> HTML element." No reason exists for the MOS to mention HTML as an alternative to wiki markup.

WP:MOS, like every published style guide, prescribes specific uses of italic, boldface, and small caps. Neither WP:MOS nor any other published style guide prescribes typeface conventions that distinguish among multiple levels of emphasis. You can immediately spot text created using MS Word's styles for subtle emphasis, emphasis, intense emphasis, and strong, each with its own combination of italic and bold and, by default, color(!)—and you immediately know that whoever did this has no idea what a published document should look like.—Finell

02:03, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: In a recent edit, you changed the text to say that some non-Latin scripts shouldn't be italicized. This implies that some can be italicized. As far as I know, all non-Latin scripts should not italicized, and I can't think of any exceptions, so please explain. — Eru·tuon 22:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

We have a Russian source as a reference, that's an article in a journal. The article title would be placed in quotation marks, and the journal title would be placed in italics. That would be true whether we gave them in Cyrillic or in Latin transliteration. — kwami (talk) 22:48, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@

Fyodor Dostoyevsky or the examples throughout Russian phonology. — Eru·tuon

02:55, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not really even an exception. Rather: You add the Cyrillic (which happens to be a title, but this rule doesn't care), and do not italicize it, being Cyrillic. But you then (under a separate rule that doesn't make exceptions) italicize it because it's a title. So, I think that "some" addition needs to be reverted. Instead add and note about "except when italicized as the title of major creative work". Simple solution.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:56, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

The discussion about whether to italicize the names of spacecraft, per

• Thanks for opening this, SMcC. I think User:Philosopher got it right in the linked discussion. I think its clear that the names of individually named spacecraft should be italicized (e.g., Eagle (Apollo 11 lunar lander), Columbia (Apollo 11 command module; also space shuttle), Challenger (space shuttle)), following the accepted precedent of italicizing individually named sea vessels (e.g., U.S.S. Enterprise) and individually named aircraft (e.g., Spirit of St. Louis). Numbered space missions (e.g., Apollo 11, STS-124) should not be italicized when the spacecraft was given a separate name different from the numbered mission. To my way of thinking, it is far less clear what to do about numbered space missions/spacecraft that were not individually named (e.g., Ranger 8), the key question being is "Ranger 8" a mission, a spacecraft, or both? Perhaps someone else has already thought through this last example. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:38, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Both; depends on context. "Ranger 8 passed the orbit of ..." vs. "As a Ranger 8 mission control technician, she ...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:00, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I propose adding the following to the "Other text formatting concerns" section:

Citations

Text formatting in citations should follow established citation styles. The formatting applied by citation templates, such as Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 templates, should not be adjusted. Parameters should be accurate and should not be omitted if the formatting applied by the template is not in agreement with the text formatting guidelines above.

The reason is that the formatting applied by many citation templates do not match the guidelines set forth on this page. Nonetheless, the formatting applied by many citation templates is the result of broad consensus for how citations should be formatted, non-Wikipedia guidelines (eg. MLA style), or technical reasons. This issue has been the subject of several discussions, particularly in relation to italicization of works, such as (ordered somewhat in order of depth/relevance):

• Italicized work parameter
• Website italicisation
• Italicisation of websites in references
• Consistency between work and publisher parameters in citation templates
• Help with template: website?
• Non-italicized news sources
• Italics in citation references?

This is also an issue that seems to arise often at featured content reviews. There really needs to be something in the MOS to reconcile the differences between the text formatting guidelines on this page and the formatting style used by citation templates. Since most citation pages aren't part of the MOS, I think this page is a good location for such a guideline. AHeneen (talk) 21:36, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

@

WT:CS1

, I went into this in more detail, and I think this approach resolves all these issues:

When CS1/CS2 are used in their default "native" Wikipedia citation style mode (i.e., not being used to generate an externally-derived citation style like Vancouver), they should entirely comply with MOS (but that doesn't mean what it sounds like). If there is some way in which they do not, then either they need to change, or a variance needs to be accounted for in the fine print over here at

WP:LOCALCONSENSUS

issues, people fighting about it). Our own internal citation styles should always be in agreement with our own internal style guide (even that mostly means MOS makes a variance for CS1/CS2). As long as we only add a rule in MOS:TEXT saying "does not apply to externally-derived citation styles like Vancouver, ..." or something to this effect (to keep people from stripping smallcaps or whatever), this should basically mean that MOS and the internal citation style are never out of synch for more than a brief time in which a simple discussion will resolve the newly arisen discrepancy. Easy-peasy.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:32, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

A specific rewording, addressing several needs at once, might run like this:

Text formatting in citations should follow, consistently within an article, an established citation style or system. Options include either of Wikipedia's own template-based

WP:CITEVAR). The formatting applied by citation templates

should not be evaded.^[fn] Parameters should be accurate, and should not be omitted if the formatting applied by the template is not in agreement with the text formatting guidelines above. Those guidelines do not apply to any non-Wikipedia citation style, which should not be changed to conform to them.

...

^fn. In unusual cases the default formatting may need to be adjusted to conform to some other guideline, e.g. italicization of a non-English term in a title that would otherwise not be italicized.

This provides more information and links, reinforces consistency within the article, distinguishes between WP and off-WP cite styles, permits necessary adjustments, and warns against alteration of non-MOS styles in externally-derived cite styles (important because some of them are quite jarring and frequently inspire "correction", especially to remove smallcaps).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

PS: See also

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see

See current discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Somewhat related discussion. Please comment there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Disputing a major BOLDSYN change – vying proposals for addressing when to not boldface alternative names in the lead section.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:39, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Either I've missed it, or this MOS says nothing about them. Maybe they fall under "Words as words"? Anyway, should they be italicised, quotation-marked, both or neither in articles specifically about such a saying? Example pages are The king is dead, long live the king! and Mashallah, both of which have italicised titles, so I'd say they have to be italicised. Would be nice though if the MOS mentioned this. - HyperGaruda (talk) 19:54, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Why would we italicize them? When we're discussing them as utterances, they can be given in quotation marks or italicized as

words as words, but they would not be otherwise, including in the topic sentence, where the boldfacing is sufficient. Our articles like Irregardless are the model to use. Mashallahh is being italicized as a non-English. Quotation marks should logically be used for something like "long live the king!", to semantically isolate the "!" as being part of the quoted expression, or reader confusion is likely. A words-as-word analytical example might be something like: Despite the construction of the French expression, the English version is long live the king, since live the king is not idiomatic in this language.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:50, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes. For reference, see

WP:TRADEMARK. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk

}} 15:57, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed; following

T

16:03, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

in the intro, use it once with textual explanation of "stylized as pmdtechnologies" , but not thereafter. We are not here to promote vanity typeface usage. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:51, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Exactly as TheRedPenOfDoom says. (And the article should be moved to

SONY and BURGER KING. Excuse me, make that:
BURGER
KING.   How about "no, no, a thousand times no"?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢

 ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:07, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

In the lead section, maybe (see

MOS:BOLD); but not in the body. --Redrose64 (talk

) 20:09, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

That’s not exactly what it says, rather “… the first couple of paragraphs of an article, or at the beginning of a section …”.—Odysseus1479 04:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

• I reverted it once, if you feel strongly, please take action. I find it confusing, as if it has extra importance. I do not see it as a useful synonym. BMK has very strong opinions. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:53, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
• I understood that it only applied to redirects from sub-topics or alternative names. S a g a C i t y (talk) 08:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC) : updated S a g a C i t y (talk) 15:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
• Those are subtopics. (A subtopic is not a subheading, though it may have one; it's something that, not having its own article, is covered at an article that is not entirely about that topic.) The bolding would make more contextual sense if there was a "Companies founded" heading or something. It's highly unlikely any of the companies is notable enough to have its own article, so the William Sloane Coffin Sr. article will probably always remain the article on those companies, too. It is "extra importance", being noteworthy but not quite notable things associated with this figure that people thought were encyclopedically important enough to create redirects for and to write about in the article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:28, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

In a recent GA review, it was noted that the use of italics plus quote marks is common for song lyrics and poetry. Also, it was pointed out that this construction is sometimes necessary to distinguish the actual lyrics being quoted from quotations relating to those lyrics. For example,

Discussing the lyrics, particularly the line "Show me that I'm everywhere, and get me home for tea", MacDonald considers the song to be "the locus classicus of English psychedelia".

Should the guideline be amended to allow for song lyrics and poetry to use italics plus quote marks? —Ojorojo (talk) 16:39, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to see the guideline changed to allow for the option. Italicising inside quote marks does make it easy to differentiate between three elements that otherwise all receive the same rom + quotes treatment: the lyrics/verse being discussed; quoted critical commentary or interpretation; and titles of songs/poems with which the work might be compared. Admittedly, it's fairly unlikely that a single sentence might contain all three; on the other hand, we can have a paragraph or more containing consecutive sentences with different permutations.

Aside from that, it is an approach I've seen used in many books. An example, citing the same lyric that Ojorojo mentions above, appears in

McGraw-Hill

:

… "It's All Too Much", whose highlights include some searing Velvet Underground feedback and an unusually witty epigram that just about sums up the Spirit of '67: "Show me that I'm everywhere, and get me home for tea."

JG66 (talk) 03:19, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

• Short quotes of lyrics or poems go in quotation marks; long one quotes, in block quotation markup. Neither are italicized. The convention of italicizing refrains and such within an otherwise non-italic presentation can be respected in the block quotation, but only if found in the original publication of the lyrics/poem (which is a
  WP:VPPOL RfCs about style matters with overwhelming source support that were nonetheless controverted).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢
   ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:49, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I think you read it correctly the first time around; some articles are exceptions to the "bold type at start of lead for the subject of the article" (e.g. today's featured article 2003 Sri Lanka cyclone). What you're referring to could be added to the first sentence, like this:

The most common use of boldface is to highlight the first occurrence of the title word/phrase of the article (and often its synonyms) in the lead section, as well as terms that are redirected to the article or its sub-sections. This is done for the majority of articles, but is not a requirement.

‑‑Yodin^T 09:46, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

That would make much more sense because, then, it would not seem as though we should either not highlight text in bold outside of lead sections or highlight such text only in rare exceptions.

(talk)

20:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

There is an RFC concerning the formatting of names like “special editions” and “remasters” of major works at

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see

I've only been on Wikipedia for a little while, but I've noticed that the formatting of the names of the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft is inconsistent. This is visible on the Voyager 1 and Voyager program pages.

A concise (and the most recent) discussion I could find concerning the issue was this talk page, where no consensus seems to have been reached. Here were the main arguments, in summary:

1. Voyager 1 and others like it are spacecraft, and therefore should be italicized.

2. The NASA style guide says not to italicize probe names, and thus we shouldn't either. They aren't true spacecraft.

3. Voyager and Pioneer are class names, and thus it should be "Voyager 1", etc., with only the class being italicized and not the number.

I'm not sure which side I personally prescribe to, thought the third option does seem to make the most sense, however bold it may be. Regardless, I believe we need a clear rule about whether and what to italicize. Thoughts?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Unknown Pleasures#RfC: Italics for Pitchfork (website) magazine?. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

See related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Words as words on whether or not (and if so: how) this type of italicisation can be applied to article titles. Please discuss there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:05, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Currently

I propose that MOS:ITALICS should changed to "Italics ... are used only for various specific purposes in Wikipedia .." for consistency with MOS:BOLD.

The problem with not including the word "only" is that any editor can use italics for any arbitrary purpose and legitimately says that there's no guideline against it. (Example: [2], Template talk:Western Australian elections#italics.) If italics can be used arbitrarily, it defeats the purpose of enumerating specific purposes, reduces the value of italics (because it's harder to know what the italics formatting means in any given usage) and reduces the consistency of the text formatting in general. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:05, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Seems to be a classic case of using a hammer to crack a nut. Italics have been used on election templates to signify future elections for at least a decade without objection. One editor suddenly deciding they don't like it doesn't mean they should be removed. Also, disappointing to see no effort to notify editors at WikiProject Elections and Referendums given that this is an attempt to force changes to election and referendum templates. I will do this now. Number 57 13:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose for the same reason; italics are consistently being used for this purpose in election link templates. —Nightstallion 13:35, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose for the same reason: in this list of elections, this reader asks himself 'why do I see an election that hasn't yet happen?' and the italics are quite then quite clear for this emphasis. Wykx (talk) 13:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

  and the italics are quite then quite clear for this emphasis — I suggest that it is not "quite clear" what the italics mean. It would be much clearer if we just said so explicitly. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:11, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

You mean with an explanation at the end of the template like in Template:Earthquakes_in_2017? Wykx (talk) 13:25, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I note your recent addition to Template:Western Australian elections - but no, I mean explicit inline text per my comment on Template talk:Western Australian elections. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:36, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

No matter how explanation is done (at the end or just after), that doesn't prevent to use italics in such particular cases. Wykx (talk) 14:03, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per Number 57. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:28, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment:

  "The problem with not including the word 'only' is that any editor can use italics for any arbitrary purpose and legitimately says that there's no guideline against it."

  I agree that we should write guidelines and policies so as to not allow loopholes like this. I've been told that
  WP:PSEUDOHEAD's wording: "Do not make pseudo-headings using semicolon markup and try to avoid using bold markup", which arguably prohibits the former but not the latter. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs
  ) 20:22, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

  It's prohibited because using semicolon markup to make pseudo-headings creates an accessibility problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:52, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I would support the proposal in principle, however there are clearly current usages that are not enumerated in the specific purposes at present. The usage that made me notice this proposal is in a navbox template of past events (elections in this case), any future ones are displayed in italics. The discussion that led me here also mentions that water bodies are displayed in italics in a table of neighbouring (implicitly land-based) locations. There may be others, so the set of specific purposes needs to be completed before banning extra uses. --Scott Davis ^Talk 10:41, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

water bodies are displayed in italics in a table of neighbouring (implicitly land-based) locations — per [3][4], listing an ocean as a suburb is just wrong. Fix the root problem instead of using italics to emphasis the error. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Number 57, Nightstallion, Wykx, and The Drover's Wife: the proposed change is to WP:ITALICS in general; not just election templates. If there is a legitimate case for using italics in election templates — then, as ScottDavis suggests, add that usage to the list of "certain usages". (I disagree with that usage; we should instead explicitly state that the election hasn't happened yet.) But even if we add that usage to the list, I still think we should explicitly state that italics are only used for the listed purposes, otherwise there's no point in listing the usages at all. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:22, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

This kind of unhelpful pedantry needs to be stopped generally, so yes, I oppose any such change as suggested. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose For many of the reasons expressed above. Seems to not improve the Project beyond mere 'show' rather than substance. Never a good sign. doktorb _words^deeds 00:34, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. MoS is a guideline not a policy. Much of the strife surrounding it over the last several years has been one or another editors' creeping insistence on trying to word it like a code of law instead of a guideline, but gradually making what it says more and more emphatic and less (intentionally!) flexible. Yes, there will always be
  WP:COMMONSENSE. Also agreed with the above comments in many respects, especially the observation that italics are used by convention for too many things for us to list them all. The instant we thought we were done someone would dig up another. We are not here to write a perfectly complete list of what Wikipedians may use italics for, but to work on an encyclopedia. MoS exists to help provide a consistent and professional-looking product, and to short-circuit recurrent editorial conflicts over the same style matters again and again; if a particular dispute is uncommon, we do not and should not add it to MoS, or MoS would be 10x longer than it already is.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢
   ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Should this apply to non-body-text instances where text is bold-set by default, e.g. in section and table headers? Adding {{nobold}} to every such instance seems like an unnecessary hassle, and doesn't seem in line with the spirit of the recommendation, which is to avoid unnecessary formatting (in fact, it overly distinguishes the foreign script, making it appear thin when everything else is bold). --Paul_012 (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

No. Don't try to override what MediaWiki does by default, without a good reason. If you did this, then it would have the opposite effect anyway: If you have a bold heading that includes a Russian or Greek string, then de-bolding that part will serve to emphasize it, just as bolding or italicizing it in regular prose would.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:29, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

To quote

1. The alternate name is the target of a redirect, e.g.
   Adrianople
   .
2. The common name is ambiguous, e.g. Kreutzer Sonata.
3. An ambiguous initialism is piped, e.g. MP.

Narky Blert (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Disagree. Common name does not means correct name, its selection can be very contentious, dependent on the means of measurement, and the other names can still be valid and extremely popular. Take

common daisy for example - OK maybe most books use the scientific name but I'd bet that daisy is way more frequent in common speech. Difficult to measure that though. Batternut (talk

) 21:46, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't really relate to whether it should be bolded or not. If it redirects to that article, or is a (not necessarily "the") common name for the subject (whether it is also a common name for some other subject or not), then bold it. An exception would be when something has a whole lot of common name in different regions; if you're bolding more than maybe 5 alternatives, it's no longer helpful to the reader in any way, and just looks like a river of shouting.

There is no provision in the guidelines for boldfacing things just because they're ambiguous; I don't know where Narky Blert got that idea from. I'm unaware of it in any other style guide, either.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:40, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

A fine example of shouting is

carpenter's herb either redirect to, or disambiguation page redirect to. Yes, hmmm, do dab page redirections officially qualify for bold? Batternut (talk

) 22:56, 19 June 2017 (UTC)