{"id":40,"date":"2007-05-21T15:33:44","date_gmt":"2007-05-21T15:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/2007\/05\/21\/a-manual-of-style-for-humans\/"},"modified":"2007-08-16T23:36:48","modified_gmt":"2007-08-16T23:36:48","slug":"a-manual-of-style-for-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/2007\/05\/21\/a-manual-of-style-for-humans\/","title":{"rendered":"A Manual of Style for humans."},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>I really love <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:No_angry_mastodons\">some<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Don%27t-give-a-fuckism\">of<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/User:Durova\/The_dark_side\">our<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Grief\">essays<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Spoiler\">Wikipedia:Spoiler<\/a> is heading for usefulness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style\">Manual of Style<\/a> is lengthy, comprehensive and really sucks to try to read or use. Compare to a really readable reference, like <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fowler%27s_Modern_English_Usage\">Fowler<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Elements_of_Style\">Strunk &amp; White<\/a>. Or even <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Chicago_Manual_of_Style\">Chicago<\/a>. Have you ever picked up those books and thought <i>&#8220;this is really good, I can use this stuff&#8221;<\/i>? I&#8217;d hope you had. If you have aspirations to writing better, those books get your brain <i>sizzling<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>But, rather than being a guideline for thoughtful application by editors seeking guidance in writing effective encyclopedia entries, our manual of style has become a sequence of programming instructions for bots. So no-one ever looks at it unless they&#8217;re looking for (or adding) a stick to hit other editors with.<\/p>\n<p>Our MOS should be something that editors will <i>want<\/i> to read.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&amp;diff=132452254&amp;oldid=132369265\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/w\/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&amp;diff=132452254&amp;oldid=132369265\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here<\/a>&#8216;s my attempt to make the intro readable.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone want to help recast the rest of the megabytes of MOS as thoughtful guidance in English, rather than programming instructions for bots and weapons to be wielded by the antisocial?<\/p>\n<p><b>Edited to add:<\/b> From my <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/User:David_Gerard\">user page<\/a>, <b>my personal style guide:<\/b> We&#8217;re writing articles for someone who knows nothing about a topic but needs to get up to speed <i>really quickly<\/i>. You have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.useit.com\/papers\/responsetime.html\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.useit.com\/papers\/responsetime.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">ten seconds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Who, what, where, when, why?<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.poynter.org\/column.asp?id=52&amp;aid=38693\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.poynter.org\/column.asp?id=52&amp;aid=38693\" rel=\"nofollow\">Summary<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:Lead_section\" title=\"Wikipedia:Lead section\">Lead section<\/a>, then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.useit.com\/alertbox\/9606.html\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.useit.com\/alertbox\/9606.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">inverted pyramid<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Elements_of_Style\" title=\"The Elements of Style\">Omit needless words<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/research\/StyleGuide\/\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/research\/StyleGuide\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Economist Style Guide<\/a>: clarity with precision. (<i>&#8220;I love <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Economist\" title=\"The Economist\">The Economist<\/a>. It&#8217;s like a really rational guy on <a href=\"http:\/\/groups.google.com\/groups?selm=3e33bb09%240%242569%24afc38c87%40news.ukonline.co.uk\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/groups.google.com\/groups?selm=3e33bb09%240%242569%24afc38c87%40news.ukonline.co.uk\" rel=\"nofollow\">crack<\/a>.&#8221;<\/i> &mdash; Erithromycin)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kuro5hin.org\/story\/2003\/9\/29\/104212\/112\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.kuro5hin.org\/story\/2003\/9\/29\/104212\/112\" rel=\"nofollow\">HOWTO: write bad documentation that looks good<\/a>. &#8220;Why&#8221; is almost more important than &#8220;what.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Brevity. <i>&#8220;It&#8217;s about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/reddragdiva\/90300.html\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/reddragdiva\/90300.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">viral payload density<\/a>.&#8221;<\/i> &mdash; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/hirez\/35316.html\" class=\"external text\" title=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/users\/hirez\/35316.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">John Hawkes-Reed<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I sometimes picture my reader as a very bright ten- to twelve-year-old. Someone with a good reading age, but who knows <i>nothing<\/i> yet. Did you used to devour encyclopaedias as a kid?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I really love some of our essays. Wikipedia:Spoiler is heading for usefulness. Our Manual of Style is lengthy, comprehensive and really sucks to try to read or use. Compare to a really readable reference, like Fowler or Strunk &amp; White. Or even Chicago. Have you ever picked up those books and thought &#8220;this is really &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/2007\/05\/21\/a-manual-of-style-for-humans\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Manual of Style for humans.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wiki"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4FmVR-E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}