Bhamwiki talk:Style

Numbered street names

Do we make an exception when the street name starts a sentence? I was taught to spell out numbers when they start a sentence, but I imagine that varies depending on the style guide used, which is what this page is as far as BhamWiki goes. --Lkseitz 06:50, 17 November 2006 (PST)

• I don't think it's necessary. You're welcome to do so as long as the link works when it's a link. --Dystopos 06:59, 17 November 2006 (PST)
• For example: [[16th Street Baptist Church|Sixteenth Street Baptist Church]] makes: Sixteenth Street Baptist Church -- Rob 15:00, 17 November 2006 (PST)

• precisely --Dystopos 17:41, 17 November 2006 (PST)

Birth year

• The rounding of years from an age given in a newspaper story is why I typically specify "circa" (c.) with the presumed year of birth in such cases. This still conveys the information, but makes it clear it's not 100% certain. --Lkseitz 10:48, 2 May 2008 (PDT)
  • Good practice. --Dystopos (talk) 08:03, 15 May 2020 (PDT)

Links

Perhaps we need a section on links? Here's Wikipedia's linking guide. --Lkseitz 10:07, 29 October 2009 (PDT)

Internet or internet?

• I was taught to capitalize the word "Internet". Argument can be found here. Apparently Dystopos and I disagree as he edited my Cullman Liquidators article. I've been changing them in other articles to be capitalized. Discussion? Ruling? --Wheresdib 18:02, 29 December 2009 (PST)

• I was unaware of the capitalization convention. To my mind it is silly to capitalize "internet", but I cannot dispute that the convention exists and has currency. I will make no extra effort to eradicate the capital, but I won't promise to employ it myself. --Dystopos 19:54, 29 December 2009 (PST)
• Grammar Girl agrees that "Internet" should typically be capitalized. I learned it that way once upon a time, but the argument about "the sky", in particular, is bothering me now. --Lkseitz 20:25, 29 December 2009 (PST)

• The AP Style Guide switched from "Web site" to "website" in 2010 and from "e-mail" to "email" in 2011, but THE "Web" and THE "Internet" remain capitalized. Except on Bhamwiki. --Dystopos 18:23, 5 April 2011 (PDT)

Alabama natives

• Do we have or can we make an official ruling for what name to use for residents of Alabama? Alabamians, Alabamans, or something else? If anyone cares, in its Alabama article, Wikipedia currently uses the former twice and the latter once. --Lkseitz 11:27, 19 October 2010 (PDT)
  • Alabamians. The official site for the state of Alabama (www.alabama.gov) uses "Alabamians" several dozen times and "Alabamans" none. I think that's about as official as it will ever get. --Wheresdib 16:05, 15 January 2011 (PST)
  • In my undisciplined opinion, "Alabamian" is correct. That view is supported by common local usage and by Kyle Whitmire on Twitter. "Alabaman" sounds like it may be referring to a member of the "Alibamu" tribe, but you'd want to check with current scholars before using it in that sense. --Dystopos (talk) 08:02, 15 May 2020 (PDT)

Single space between sentences

• Explained in Slate. --Dystopos 08:30, 14 January 2011 (PST)
  • I'll try to skip the long diatribe on some of the things wrong with that article (but will link to this rebuttal). Staying strictly on how this relates to Bhamwiki, it really doesn't matter. By default, HTML converts any number of spaces to a single space. As far as I know, MediaWiki has no code in it that changes this behavior, although some style sheets might be able to manipulate sentence spacing. Just to prove my point, as I typed this I started with one space between sentences and then added another space between each subsequent sentence, which you can see if you check the source. As you can see in the rendered page, it made no difference. I learned two spaces at the end of a sentence and, until recently, it was still required for the Unix text editor I use a lot in order to easily move the cursor from one sentence to the next when editing. So I'm sorry if my double spaces annoy you, but it's simply force of habit now. Also, since editing a page shows up in a proportional font, I find the double space makes it easier to read while I'm writing. --Lkseitz 11:22, 14 January 2011 (PST)
    • It only annoys me to the extent that I find myself deleting them sometimes. I certainly bear no ill will or personal grudges. --Dystopos 11:26, 14 January 2011 (PST)
      • I have been known to add them, but only where I am editing quite a bit. I certainly don't go out of my way to do so, because as I said, it doesn't matter on the rendered page. I also bear no ill will or personal grudges, no matter how long I manage to go on about the subject. --Lkseitz 12:05, 14 January 2011 (PST)
        • I was taught to use two spaces after a period. I've never noticed otherwise on here, but I know there's no way to undo 40 years of training for me, so feel free to remove the extra space in articles I write or edit. --Wheresdib 12:36, 15 January 2011 (PST)

Image sizes

You realize, of course, that apparent image size will vary depending on the resolution the user has set their monitor at. And how they have their browser sized. --Lkseitz 12:04, 6 April 2011 (PDT)

• Of course, we can only affect the image display size in pixels. I've generally assumed an 800-pixel browser window for Bhamwiki. It may be a slightly outdated standard for multi-column sites, but, in my opinion, still the best for our format. My display is 1650 pixels wide, but I usually work with two browser windows open side by side. --Dystopos 12:13, 6 April 2011 (PDT)
  • For what it's worth, I now use a 2560-pixel display on my iMac and 640-pixel on my phone. I tend to gravitate to 1024-pixel browser windows. Anything wider makes a lot of pages with wall-to-wall text very hard to read. So until we accept boustrophedonics as an HTML standard, that might be the end of the road. --Dystopos 16:15, 16 July 2013 (PDT)
    • I have access to a 1600x900 display. It is indeed difficult to read entries on it with the browser maximized. --Lkseitz 06:55, 17 July 2013 (PDT)
      • It's 10 and a half years later and I'm still using the same iMac, but I get a lot of errors because I can no longer update the OS to handle current devices, browsers and apps. --Dystopos (talk) 21:09, 29 December 2023 (CST)

Initials

• Long ago I made the determination that "When used, multiple initials should have a space between them. (i. e. T. C. Cannon)". This would also apply to U. S. Highway 31 and "Washington D. C." except that it starts to look funny. Anyone want to weigh in? --Dystopos 16:11, 16 July 2013 (PDT)
  • I think it makes sense to have the space between two initials in people's names. It does sometimes looks funny for "U. S." though. Also, sometimes the browser will break the text at that space so that the "U." ends one line and the "S." starts the next, which looks awkward in all cases (not just "U. S."). I decided to see what Wikipedia's standard was. They say specifically to not use a space in "U.S." Unfortunately, I see no guidance for other cases. --Lkseitz 07:18, 17 July 2013 (PDT)
    • Sounds good. I'm still spacing out "D. R. Copeland", but no longer spacing out "U.S. Navy". --Dystopos (talk) 07:57, 15 May 2020 (PDT)

Capitalizing The

Here's a discussion of considerations surrounding whether to capitalize the "The" in the name of a publication. --Dystopos (talk) 15:02, 24 June 2019 (PDT)

Citation format

Out of personal habit, I've generally been doing something like this:

• Last name, First name & First Last, First Last, et al (date) "Title of article or chapter (linked if online)". Name of book, periodical or website (wikilinked if it has an entry here). Place: Publisher ISBN pp. x-x (for books) or Vol. _, No. _, pp. x-x (for periodicals) or - accessed date (for online sources)

No one is bound to that format, though I may be inclined to reformat when I come across something that doesn't accord to my taste. In other news, APA has officially removed "place of publication" as a requirement for book citations. I'd still include it for books where it's prominent on the title/publication pages, but where it's not evident, there's no need to go searching (as I have in the past) for the publisher's address. --Dystopos (talk) 07:50, 15 May 2020 (PDT)

Re:Theater

In general, I prefer "theater" to "theatre" when used as a common noun. Noted authority Benjamin Dreyer reminds us to respect those identified by proper nouns, such as "Alabama Theatre" by conforming with their preferences. Where these would create apparent inconsistencies, I tend to accept them as unavoidable. --14:43, 21 June 2022 (PDT)

Apostrophes and quote marks

Up to now, I've been satisfied by using the keyboard to create "typewriter apostrophes" for contractions and possessives and to create single and double "straight" quote marks for titles and quotations. I have trouble imagining a reliable way of adopting the more elegant and appropriate curved versions in any systematic way. Whenever we think about it, though, It's useful to create redirects for articles that include such marks. --Dystopos (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2022 (PST)

• I know they look nice, but "curved" marks have a horrible history of breaking things in computer systems. If you're publishing a print publication, sure go ahead and (try to) format it to look extra nice. But writing an article on a computer that's going to be edited by others in the future? Just use the one on the keyboard. My two cents. --Lkseitz (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2023 (CST)

Church names

• Thanks for the new section on church names. What you say makes sense. But a couple notes: in the case of numbered street names, churches do different things. Sixteenth Street Baptist and Sixth Avenue Baptist almost always spell it out. 46th Street Baptist spells it that way on the web but "Forty Sixth Street" on the sign and "Forty Six Street" on the corenerstone (presumably a misspelling carved in stone). On "Baptist" vs. "Missionary Baptist," there seems to have been a move for churches belonging to the Alabama State Missionary Baptist Convention to incorporate "missionary" into their name. Historically most did not have that, and many churches seem to have resisted the move. The convention itself was named the "Colored Baptist" convention into at least the 1960s. They key thing here is probably (as with Methodists) to follow current usage and redirect from the other usage as necessary.David Bains (talk) 13:53, 27 December 2023 (CST)
  • No arguments. I do have a question. When I spent the day looking at Mt Pilgrim Baptist Association church signs, I noticed that a great number of those churches have a sign that looks like this red one, or like this blue one. Out of idle curiosity, do you know anything about how such signs are obtained or who makes them? And do the red and blue have any significance? --Dystopos (talk) 21:06, 29 December 2023 (CST)
    • I don't know who makes the signs. I believe church publishing houses such as Cokesbury (United Methodist) and Lifeway (Southern Baptist) have sometimes featured them in their catalogs. I think red or blue is a matter of customer choice. The red one, like many, has a place for a logo at the top. I have the impression, or maybe just imagined, that the SBC provided signs at a discount to Black churches if they used the SBC logo. --David Bains (talk) 16:22, 30 December 2023 (CST)
      • My eyes have been opened. Looks like Stewart supplies Lifeway. And now they have in-house artists with access to gradient fills. (link)--Dystopos (talk) 09:46, 31 December 2023 (CST)
        • And you can search by ZIP code! --Dystopos (talk) 09:47, 31 December 2023 (CST)