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I'm reviewing Paulina Luisi for GAN. The nominator, using a local convention apparently specified at WP:UY, is rendering translated proper names like this:
Alianza de Mujeres para los Derechos Femeninos (transl. 'Women's Alliance for Women's Rights')
This seems to me, at least, to break the italic rules we have. Is this an acceptable convention or conflicting with MOS? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:51, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand the MoS correctly, the name should be in roman type but with the language tagged: Alianza de Mujeres para los Derechos Femeninos ({{langr|es|Alianza de Mujeres para los Derechos Femeninos}}. Indefatigable (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Slight clarification: I don't see that edit as an example of "overuse", but rather misuse of italics. I have no objection to keeping all of them, if valid; but in my reading of MOS:TERM none are valid, because in the linked sentence, they are used in running text for their normal English meaning, not mentioned as words. Mathglot (talk) 07:35, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some advice for the use of italics for awards? I tried with italics and without italics while editing The Kyiv Independent, and both look equally acceptable to me. I'm left wondering whether awards qualify as titles. (ChatGPT said no. I think I agree. I suppose I'll do likewise, pending further guidance.) SelfDestructible (talk) 08:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In Oct 2022 the following paragraph was included in MOS:BOLD:
For semanthical emphasis (to denote importance, seriousness, or urgency), you can also use the HTML element <strong>...</strong>, or the template {{strong}}. This is desirable because the words can standout for text to speech and other software, important due to accesibility issues.
However, the authoritative source of guidance on matters of style is the MOS, not any Template:Strong documentation. Furthermore, MOS:ACCESS (it its current version or back in 2022) doesn't say anything about the use of HTML strong or the corresponding template. Finally, between 2021 and 2022, there was a related discussion at Template_talk:Strong#Use_in_lead_sections_of_articles which toned down the wording in Template:Strong.
So, I've removed the paragraph above. To reinstate it, one would have to: (a) demonstrate the semantic markup is beneficial for accessibility (mainly text to speech); (b) clarify what use cases constitute valid instances of semanthical emphasis ("importance, seriousness, or urgency") without conflicting with existing guidance, such as:
MOS:EMPHASIS recommending the use of italics instead of boldface.
MOS:BOLDTITLE recommending the use of regular bold, not "strong", for titles.
MOS:BOLDREDIRECT recommending the use of regular bold, not "strong", for redirected titles.
fgnievinski, I don't think it's necessary to "demonstrate the semantic markup is beneficial for accessibility (mainly text to speech)". I imagine that audio browsers, or the audio modules of mainstream browsers, allow the "end user" to apply CSS to differentiate between B and STRONG (or among I, EM, and CITE); or, if they don't, could do so in the future. -- Hoary (talk) 03:25, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two-level highlighting
Let's suppose that an article is treating some grammatical matter, and that for each of several examples its editors want (editor wants) to indicate (A) sentences as a whole ("That's the office to which she was sent"), (B) certain parts ("to which she was sent") within these, and (C) certain parts ("which") within those "certain parts".
Three among the more obvious possibilities -- which of course could extend to yellow highlighting, exotic brackets【】〘〙and gods know what -- are:
That's the office ''to '''which''' she was sent''.
That's the office {{Em|1=to {{Strong|1=which}} she was sent}}.
That's the office ''to {{Smallcaps|1=which}} she was sent''.
What with such factors as (i) Wikipedia's general aversion to boldface, to (non-linking) underlining, and (I think) to less common markup practice, (ii) the widespread lack of genuine small caps (and use of ugly, smaller-point-size full caps in their place), (iii) the absurdity of a demand for "boldface", "italic" or "small caps" voice qualities for audio browsers, (iv) the preference (tho' not requirement) for standardization across articles, et cetera ... what's the current thinking on best practice(s) (or if that's too optimistic then least bad practice(s)) for this purpose? -- Hoary (talk) 01:04, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to comment that the characters 【】〘〙 are not compatible with Roman-letter typography, and should not normally appear in a document purporting to be in English, except in foreign language quotations. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:46, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They're not part of Roman-letter typography, Imaginatorium, and they would look uncomfortable as well as unfamiliar. But I'd say that their unfamiliarity would be a reason for preferring them over [ ] ( ): They'd draw attention to themselves, thus highlighting their content. But no, I'm not advocating their use, if only because they're likely to be rendered as identical "character unavailable" glyphs (perhaps question marks seemingly incised in black splodges). -- Hoary (talk) 05:04, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I think this is just an error. They do not belong in Roman typography, because they are not designed to fit a system with a baseline, an x-height, and space for ascenders and descenders. In the reverse direction, using them would be as horrible as the bulldog. They might look surprising or all sorts of things, but so might "emojis", and I don't think those belong either. And it does seem unnecessarily confusing to use these as jazzed-up versions of []() with (presumably) their Japanese meaning, which is more or less the opposite (emphasis as opposed to parenthesis) meaning to the original. (But I think this is all a sidetrack to your original point, concerning the need sometimes for more distinctions than the simplistic ideas of the "semantics" lobby.) Imaginatorium (talk) 09:33, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it has to be left to the judgement of editors. The important thing is to squash the "semantics" lobby, by which I mean people who think that choosing how to indicate something must involve selection from an (inadequate) set of "semantic primitives" - things may be more complicated than that. In the example above you might italicise the part of the sentence and underline the most important word. I don't think that generally things like highlighting are appropriate, but on the other hand flexibility means being open to the possibility; in an article full of linguistic examples, for example. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:25, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen italics used for normal highlighting, and either underlining of or small-capitalizing of the italics used for the next level. But that has been in printed books, or PDFs. -- Hoary (talk) 11:58, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That could work in Wikipedia too. And it makes sense to stay close to what other sources do. Though small-caps for the second level are probably better than underlining, otherwise people will think it's a link. Gawaon (talk) 17:30, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gawaon or Imaginatorium or anyone, I'll assume (perhaps very wrongly) that you're using a a new, mainstream browser in a standard sort of way. Putting aside the (important) matter of "accessibility" (and the minor one of blueness), how do (A) That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent and (B) That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent look to you? (To me, (A) is good enough, but (B) shows up the inconsistency of stem width (because the "small caps" are merely the full caps of a smaller font). I suppose I could have set up Firefox to use a "font family" that includes genuine small caps, but there are only so many free hours in the week.) -- Hoary (talk) 21:53, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was spurred into action by the sidetrack. I'll try to help. First it really would help to see the actual article and examples; that's what I meant by leaving it to editors. Perhaps there should be a section in the MOS about "grammatical examples", but it could come after deciding on how to handle some specific examples.
I don't think either of your (blue) examples is very clear. You are trying to use italics and small caps, when neither is available: I take your word for it that most browsers will not display small caps properly, and italics are not available in a sans-serif font. (If you want to write an encyclopedia, do not choose a sans-serif font. Oh, look what I chanced on: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting/Archive 2#Petition To Change Wikipedia's Fonts To Avoid Homograph Ambiguity - a lone voice cogently pointing out a serious problem, and no-one takes any notice.)
Again, you say "WP has an aversion to boldface"; what is the purpose of "WP's opinion"? Perhaps you could use a serif font for grammatical examples, then it might be effective to use italics and Roman bold (with your version for comparison):
That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent
That's the office to which Dolores del Río was sent
I don't understand what you mean by "stem width", and I can't see anything like that, but to me the use of sans-serif, sloped sans-serif, and "smaller" sans-serif is totally ineffective. If it helps, here's a picture of how these appear to me, on a fairly standard browser (Firefox): [2]Imaginatorium (talk) 07:37, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree that bold looks nicer and (especially) much more clearer and easier to distinguish in such a case. It should indeed be used sparingly, but in such cases, where two different types of emphasis are needed, "use italics for one, bold for the other (rarer) one" may indeed be the best advice. Gawaon (talk) 08:09, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Adding just for the record - in case of lengthy sentences could just go the route of nested \emph commands in LaTeX (at least for my distribution/setup), which just swaps back and forth between roman/non-italic and italic text. Imo works just fine logically/visually :), but dunno if {{em}}/html support nesting - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 15:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Imaginatorium, my guess is that boldface tends to be used by the immature in order to stand out, to express intransigence, or whatever. The more there is of it, the more juvenile it looks and the less impressive it gets. "Stem" as explained in Typeface anatomy. I hadn't thought of distinguishing between serif and sans-serif; and now that I do think of it, I don't like it at all, and for several reasons. Gawaon, yes, I now tend to think that italics for the first level, italics+bold for the second is the best solution. Thank you both for your input. -- Hoary (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect usage of boldface in “this page in a nutshell”
To editor Kikkerpoes: Eh those little hatnotes always use bold/strong for emphasis (at least that I've seen), so would be more consistent to keep them. Plus, as above comment :) - Asdfjrjjj (talk) 14:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Non-English music festival names
Hello. Should the names of non-English music festivals be italicised? The title of the article, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, is not italicised, but "Rock am Ring" and "Rock im Park" in the lead are italicised. Is a music festival considered an organisation? And in this case, if I follow MOS:BADITALICS, the German music festival Heute die! Morgen Du! is not italicised. I am not sure. Oroborvs (talk) 19:31, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I propose that whatever is passing for usage of MOS in regards to redirects and also the fairly common or more often than that practice of bolding names be rectified. In particular I would like this to be applicable in all articles which involve crime. Additionally this new policy could say that the perpetrator(s) name(s) would be used in a limited fashion.
This policy would not bewilder or confuse those looking for information related to the incidents. There are other ways to write about or publish information on Wikipedia including things like footnotes. If this policy is adopted here then I would think it is unnecessary to go to other Wikipedia message boards. If it is advisable to include other talk pages to accomplish making a new policy, that would be something to be done. I think here is a fine place to begin. I would add we should be considering the feelings of victims' families in these instances. In my view it is never appropriate to draw undue attention or bold said names. In the 2025 incident in Manhattan where a Blackstone executive was killed, I would agree that there could be more coverage of her career or accomplishments. Efficacity (talk) 22:33, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Efficacity my apologies, but I read this through several times and I have very little idea what you are concerned about or what you want to change. Bolding the victim's name in the lead paragraph of a crime article because their name redirects to said crime article? This may be something you find particularly insensitive, unfortunately, and I'm not sure it's a commonly understood sentiment.
I can only really parse the last sentence, and want to make it clear that we're an encyclopedia, not a memorial service. That should be left to the affected communities. Our job is the same on those articles as on any other. Remsense 🌈 论22:53, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense: I believe your reading of it was correct. To distill it down, @Efficacity is proposing a change to MOS:BOLDREDIRECT when it involves the perpetrator(s) and victim(s) of mass shooting events. For example for an article on a mass shooting, if the shooter's name is a redirect to the crime article, the name would not be bolded at the first instance (lead or section) as it would normally be per BOLDREDIRECT. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:48, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a potential issue here, where, on the one hand, MOS calls for putting redirect names in bold font. Overall, that's reasonable as a navigational aid. But, on the other hand, there can be situations where the names of perpetrators or victims are redirects to a page about the crime, and it can seem a bit odd for their names to appear in bold font at the target page. In some cases, there may be friction between the formatting guideline, and WP:BLP (or WP:BDP), because the font draws attention to the names, and readers who did not arrive at the page via the redirect might understandably wonder why we are highlighting those names. I don't know, but perhaps there could be a way for this guideline to allow editors more flexibility in choosing not to highlight sensitive names. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which names are "sensitive" though, and how to decide that? Generally, the current policy (bold name when there's a redirect) is clear and straightforward, so I would be very hesitant about changing it. Gawaon (talk) 07:36, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you are one person, but setting aside whether or not there are more of us than of you for now... I could ask you what you mean by very hesitant. If something is broken, in disrepair, doesn't function, it goes out the window. Maybe I can get you to not waffle by telling you precisely what is meant by sensitive. We are referencing mostly criminal cases, so far that's all we are talking about. Efficacity (talk) 08:18, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you are saying the names of criminals shouldn't be put in bold because they are criminal? But Hitler and Stalin have their names in bold too, and nobody seems to mind that. If you think having your name in bold in Wikipedia is an honour, rest assured: it is not. Gawaon (talk) 10:30, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hitler and Stalin has their names in bold because they have articles about them, obviously. What we're talking about here is a perpetrator who isn't notable enough to have his own article, but has his own section in a different article, and that section is a redirect target. The section is obviously about the perpetrator, the reader doesn't have to hunt around for the name, there's no reason to boldface it.
He's also saying that applies to victims. In the case of the discussion linked two sections above, victim names are all over the article and yet one or two in the middle are bolded, because that's where the redirect target goes. This violates WP:PLA for someone reading the article who didn't arrive there by the redirect, because the name has already appeared in the article before, so there's no need to boldface it. There's also a WP:BDP issue concerning sensitivity; if the victim was your family member, how would you feel about their name being highlighted in the middle of an article that isn't about your relative? ~Anachronist (talk) 15:34, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
name being highlighted in the middle of an article that isn't about [them] But that's just it, it is the only place they're going to be discussed on Wikipedia. Hitler and Stalin has their names in bold because they have articles about them, obviously No, it's because of MOS:TEXT#TITLE. The violates WP:PLA still has me at a loss, as PLA (and WP:RPLA) is why we bold targets for redirects per MOS:BOLDREDIRECT. —Locke Cole • t • c15:41, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's just it. The names are all over the article. This has been explained over and over. These terms aren't notable article topics. If you can't understand why running across a boldface term in the middle of an article violates the principle of least astonishment when that term is discussed earlier in the article, and you can't understand that BOLDREDIRECT isn't a mandatory rule to follow blindly, well WP:IDHT keeps coming to mind. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:52, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When it's at the beginning of a section to which the redirect points, well, that's exactly what's described in WP:BOLDREDIRECT: Terms which redirect to an article or section are commonly bolded when they appear in the first couple of paragraphs of the lead section, or at the beginning of another section. It doesn't add "only if the term wasn't mentioned earlier" and there is nothing to imply that that would be the case.
WP:RASTONISH states: "inbound redirects" ... should be mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs of the article or section to which the redirect goes. If one wanted to wikilawyer it, the considering that is followed with It will often be appropriate to put the redirected term in bold at its first occurrence in the target, noting that often will be appropriate clearly leaves room for isn't always the first occurrence.
Your (Anachronist) argument is reasonable, but Lock Cole's position seems to be based on a clear reading that (to me, at least) appears more in line with what the style guide actually says. So you disagree - so what? That's the point of discussion - to flesh that out and arrive at a consensus view of the intent of the guide. But given the fact that Locke Cole isn't the only party that sees it this way, I think that suggesting IDHT seems obtuse. ButlerBlog (talk) 17:22, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I "trotted out" IDHT deliberately because, in the context of the article linked in the discussions above, what's repeatedly ignored with hand-waving replies is the elephant in the room: BOLDREDIRECT, clearly reading as currently worded, isn't prescriptive. It doesn't even make a recommendation, it merely states what is "commonly" done, which is as weak as "often".
And I think it should remain that way. Applying boldface should be considered on a case by case basis. The guideline says it's permissible, a common practice, but isn't mandatory. And that's how it should be.
This particular discussion, however, involves clarifying the guideline with respect to articles about crime. For that, I don't think we need to change anything. Again, case by case basis. My position is that a section dedicated to a perpetrator can have his name bolded if it's the target of a redirect, but doesn't have to because clearly if you're following the redirect, and you land on the section about the topic, you aren't surprised if nothing is bolded because the section is about the redirect topic. Someone else reading the article without being directed to it also isn't surprised that the perpetrator's name not bolded. Therefore, the principle of least astonishment doesn't apply and is irrelevant if the bolding isn't there. It can be present, or not, nobody would notice or care.
Where I objected to bolding in that article is where the redirect is a victim's name but the target of the redirect is to a section about the perpetrator. The victim isn't the topic, it's astonishing to a reader who wasn't redirected there to see the victim's name all over the place and then suddenly in boldface in the middle of a section that isn't even about the victim, just for the imagined convenience to a user who followed the redirect can't find the victim's name a few lines into the section. If the victim's name was buried deeper, maybe there's a case for bolding it to make it clear why the redirect landed you on that section. Again, case by case. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:08, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the case-by-case basis. And maybe I just missed the prescriptive/descriptive discussion (since this is going on in multiple places), and in that regard, I guess IDidn'tHT (insert sheepish averted gaze). Anyway... I see your point about bolding in that article is where the redirect is a victim's name but the target of the redirect is to a section about the perpetrator and I think I agreed with you in that regard at Talk:2025 Midtown Manhattan shooting#RFC: Bolding. Thanks for taking the time to clarify your point/position. ButlerBlog (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your (Trypto) position of friction with BLP, but I disagree with its relevancy. That seems to be an overly broad reading of BLP. We use bold text for page titles, alternate titles, and redirects throughout the site. To say that the font draws attention to the names, and readers who did not arrive at the page via the redirect might understandably wonder why we are highlighting those names could be said about any text bolded under BOLDREDIRECT, so using it in some instances but not others is inconsistent. We have Wikipedia:Consistency that exists in other areas of MOS, so it makes more sense to equally apply BOLDREDIRECT in all cases rather than just some due to some external (and arbitrary) sensitivity. ButlerBlog (talk) 12:56, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, and this isn't a hill I want to die on. But I also think consistency only gets us so far. The reason WP:IAR has been settled consensus for so long is that we value (or should value) human judgment over rigid rules. And to respond to the comment above about Hitler and Stalin, I don't see this as being about "bad people" per se. For me it's more about WP:NOTPUBLICFIGUREs, which Hitler and Stalin obviously are not. For private persons, and especially non-notable victims of crime, I'd prefer to do less in the way of drawing attention to them. But again, this is a battle I'm not going to fight. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well in the case of non-notable victims of crime, the question may well be whether a redirect using their name is really needed? If the redirect is deleted, then there's certainly no reason for bolding. Gawaon (talk) 21:37, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would certainly seem like the path of least resistance, the only concern I'd have is that RFD discussions tend to invoke WP:CHEAP when discussing a redirect that is actually relevant to the target. Plus if we want to remain internally consistent as a project, we'd likely want to do a mass nomination of such redirects, or we'd run the risk of some of them being deleted while others were kept.
In this I am in total agreement with Locke Cole. We could delete the redirects of non-notable victim names. Where I disagree is that if we have a redirect (because, WP:CHEAP, y'know) that we must boldface the name, even though we have no guideline saying this is mandatory. The guideline simply says we do this "commonly" or "often" but doesn't say we should or must do it. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Anachronist, while we're looking at things that are obvious. Two things to keep in mind. One, just because there are two or even five people who want to keep BoldReDirect and RPLA the way it is should not mean we can't do hard work and amend them. They certainly try to thwart that though. Two, almost all articles about crime should not have the perpetrator's name in bold. That's a universal thing. I am incredulous that I have to explain this to people who should be able to see that. Efficacity (talk) 20:19, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have never been fully on board with your position. I think I have made that clear. I initially removed all boldfacing at your request from one article, but early on I agreed it might be appropriate to boldface the perpetrator in that specific article, but not the victims. All of my arguments have been consistent with that position. I don't necessarily agree with a broad application to all crime articles. Those would be considered on a case by case basis depending on context. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:27, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we can get to an agreement on "a case-by-case basis", I'd take that as an improvement over the argument that some editors make, that the names must be bolded every time. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Beginning to think that if I could agree with Anachronist we'd find some new anti-gravity device... Why do you have to "sign on" to my ideas or say they're all fine? Do I have to outline this in extremely simple terms. We have some people who are tired of "fighting" on Wikipedia and so they're sitting this whole thing out, barely being involved, or are reticent to do much. Others (we're talking two to four) are seeing this as sport and won't let things be accomplished. I am saying in all or nearly all articles which are about crime, the perpetrator doesn't need to be bolded. How many times would that need to be said for it to sink in? Your case-by-case basis is not going to solve much. It does nothing for how victims' families feel. As for redirects, we could take that on too. This is not only about bolding. When I bring up ethics, morals, having compunction... it goes right by your ears, most of you. Get it together. I really think this site is getting hopeless. Efficacity (talk) 20:48, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except for you, all editors here are basing arguments on Wikipedia policies and guidelines, which have been formed over years of consensus-building discussion. We don't override them lightly. You, on the other hand, are offering only appeals to emotion, so don't be surprised when experienced editors ignore those appeals – especially when we're discussing a content guideline, as we are here on this page.
In the article where this all started, I didn't see a case for bolding victim names based on our policies and guidelines, but saw a case to go either way based on our policies and guidelines. My views would be different in different crime articles. As I said, case by case.
![[2]](https://imaginatorium.org/private/dolores.png){kind=link}