Forums: Helping Hand > Manual of Style
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I've noticed that some have been changing headings from title case to sentence case. Why are we making these edits? To the best of my knowledge, we have not agreed on a standard for this. Wikipedia uses sentence case, but there is no reason for us to do so. I think we should come to some sort of consensus on the matter before we start editing a whole bunch of entries.
I personally much prefer title case, since a heading is, after all, a title.
I kinda like title case, but I was going by BadCat's Manual of Style. By all means, open the floor for discussion if you feel strongly about it.
I LOVE that BatCat is working on a Manual of Style; I think we need one, and my desire for consistency and standards outweighs my desire for title case. I'm just arguing that when BatCat is ready, we should discuss what things we like and don't like the same way we deal with any other proposals, before we go making changes.
I've made a couple of changes to de-cap section headings, as per BadCat's Manual of Style. This was mostly for the purpose of clearing the page caches (in older versions of MediaWiki this was necessary, but apparently not any longer), and not because I felt editing the case down was hugely important. I was operating under the assumption that sentence case was established practice. For the record, I'm pretty sure the Wikipedia sentence case practice is based on an old version (or simplified reading) of the Chicago Manual of Style, and is mainly used for the sake of consistency. Personally, I favor sentence case in titles, as I feel it looks cleaner. However, what's most important here is settling on a standard so things can be kept nice and uniform. I'll abide by whatever you decide is better.
--Ir'revrykal (talk) 15:36, March 2, 2016 (UTC)
I know I've been using sentence-case headings. TBH, I prefer more capitals, but when I first started here, people changed my upper-cases to lower-cases, so I assumed it was already a standard and I've been using it ever since. Hence why I put it in the style guide. I imagine most standard styles came about the same way: more people used one way than another, others followed, someone assumed it was a standard and wrote down that it was.
I keep meaning to finish the style guide, but other things keep come up. Including being invited to write for a professional style guide, for which my FRW style guide turned out to be a good example of my work. :)
Actually, it would help if you all make suggestions, raise concerns, or flag issues with me now, rather than after the MoS is done. That way we can settle things prior to writing, I get more ideas on what to write about, and I get more of a push to finish it. :)
— BadCatMan (talk) 07:14, March 3, 2016 (UTC)