Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid

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Edit count linking to the list of Wikipedians by number of edits?

There is currently a discussion whether the article Edit count should have a "See also" link to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. Input welcome at Talk:Edit count#Project link. – Uanfala (talk) 19:39, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sagan standard

It's not as cut-and-dried as you make it sound, and you'd do better to join the discussion at WT:Manual_of_Style#Hatnotes_from_Mainspace_to_Wikipedia, raising this specific example. E Eng 05:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Will do, and thanks for the feedback. It was more surprising that even after they acknowledge reading this page that they still chose to restore it naked without any {{selfref}} wrapper or using the selfref= parameter for {{for}}... nevermind that our readers don't likely understand why we'd be putting a link like that front and center. Thank you for the pointer to that other discussion. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 05:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is explaining terminology of the article permissible?

Can, or should, an article use phrasing such as "To simplify matters, the referents of wa and ga in this section are called the topic and subject respectively" (as seen in Japanese grammar)?

In other words, can an article decide or explain the terminology that the article will proceed to use thereafter?

Whether the answer is "yes/no/it depends", I'd propose that such an explanation should be added as a section in this "Manual of Style/Self-references" page. — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, at MOS:CONVERSIONS the example is given that an article on American football should not tiresomely convert every measurement in yards to metric, but instead just explain in a note what a yard is and leave everything in yards. But then our article American football tiresomely converts everything from yards to meters, so go figure. Certainly there will be math articles that explain notational conventions (though I can't name any just now), but of course math articles take a somewhat unusual narrative approach ("Suppose that XYZ and ABC; then JKL must be ...").
So in summary I don't really have an answer for you, other than to say I think some editors are much too huffy about the "presumption" of addressing the reader, and that you should just do what you think best and see how other editors respond. There's probably some hatnote template you're supposed to use for that, but if there is I can't find it. Maybe David Eppstein knows. EEng 21:03, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I've definitely seen mathematics articles that say something similar about what convention they'll be following in situations where there is more than one reasonable choice — if this is something you care about, there's a new move-discussion at Talk:Trapezium and Trapezoid that you might want to participate in, without much need for mathematical expertise. But I don't know of any hatnotes for that purpose. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's a very common thing in technical writing. I'd expect that many editors who know specialist subject material will use that style of specifying conventions practically by instinct. Thinking about sections and whole articles as structured prose with a logical flow of ideas, rather than as line-by-line pileups of facts, is a good thing that we should encourage. Moreover, it doesn't run into the problems that actually make self-references bad. It doesn't get in the way of reusing the content on another site, and it makes just as much sense when printed on paper as when read on a screen. XOR'easter (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Overall, this seems like an acceptable practice. Thanks for the community response! — JKVeganAbroad (talk) 00:53, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of allowing self-reference in list article criteria

I reverted the addition of an exception to WP:SELFREF for list article criteria, and have started a discussion here. Feel free to join the discussion! — hike395 (talk) 13:08, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is a new proposal on the table for resolving a contradiction between MOS:SELFREF and WP:SALLEAD. Please feel free to join in the discussion here. Thanks! — hike395 (talk) 11:56, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]