User:Croctotheface/MOSTM/Essay

Wikipedia gets to choose our own style

The editors who write this encyclopedia make stylistic choices that we feel best help us create a readable and credible encyclopedia that helps our readers. We don't need to answer to anyone else (this includes both trademark owners and your English teacher) about our stylistic choices.

Style vs. content

It's important to remember that MOSTM deals with matters of style, not content. It's a guideline designed to help editors figure out how to write names, not to tell them what the name is.

Choosing among styles that exist

MOSTM requires that we choose from among styles that already exist in our sources. Although our preference for standard English has some overlap with the notion of "correcting grammar," approaching MOSTM-related discussions as though it is our job to "correct" things is generally not a useful mentality. Styles that do not comport with standard English aren't truly incorrect; they just don't fit with Wikipedia's style choices.

Besides, there are plenty of names that are ungrammatical, but attempting to "correct" them would require making a content change, not a style change. "50 Cent" as it's used in the rapper's name is ungrammatical, but we would never change it to "50 Cents".

If sources are unanimous in choosing a style, then no matter how persuasively an editor can argue for his or her preferred style, MOSTM is clear that we should not use it. In fact, for most trademarks, the guideline never comes into play, since most trademarks are always written the same way, "officially" and not, by high-level sources and random dudes on fan forums. Most trademarks are already in standard English. This guideline comes into play when that may not be the case.

Preference for standard English

The guiding principle of MOSTM is that we use standard English. When editors discuss what style to use, the key question for MOSTM is which style most closely resembles standard English.

What is standard English?

A lot of what governs standard English is the stuff grammar and usage books discuss. Proper names should have the first letter capitalized, but probably not the rest, and so on.

Why not just pick the style used by the majority of reliable sources?

Every now and then, an editor suggests that MOSTM should adopt a standard that would, in essence, "count votes" from sources and use the style that "wins the vote." There are a few reasons we don't do this.

First, Wikipedia gets to choose our own style. We don't "count votes" on other matters of style, such as whether punctuation goes inside or outside quote marks, whether to use the serial comma, and so forth. We get to make our own editorial choices.

Second, not all sources are created equal. Some are more reliable than others. Some pay more attention to matters of style and usage than others. Some sources, such as press releases, are published by the trademark owners themselves, or written by the trademark owner and republished verbatim elsewhere. A business news site, for instance, might republish press releases verbatim, retaining a nonstandard style, but standardize that same style in their journalistic articles. How do we "count" those sorts of votes?

If anything, we're closer to a "majority of major style guides" standard. If the AP Style Guide, Chicago Manual of Style, and New York Times Style Guide all choose a certain style, that's likely to be persuasive as to whether that style is standard English. If every single industry trade newspaper uses a style, but it's not widely used among high-level generalist sources that care very much about matters of style, we shouldn't simply bow to superior numbers.

• * *

It is the practice of nearly all major newspapers and publishers to standardize trademarks for which the owner wishes to apply variant capitalization, punctuation, or other similar types of formatting. [Here, we cite the myriad style guides, such as AP, Chicago, NY Times, and so forth that do this.] Wikipedia follows this practice as well: when multiple different styles for a trademark exist in reliable sources, editors should choose the one that most closely resembles standard English.

There are many reasons we do this. Essentially all words and phrases, including essentially all trademarks, follow and fit nicely within standard English usage. Nonstandard usage often creates a jarring experience for the reader and disrupts the consistency and uniformity that the Manual of Style seeks to achieve. Furthermore, because these nonstandard styles are jarring, they run a substantial risk of calling undue attention to some subjects rather than others, which risks violating core policies regarding neutrality and what Wikipedia is not. In fact, many companies choose nonstandard styles specifically because they call attention to themselves, which helps with branding and marketing the trademark.

Some editors have, over time, expressed concerns with such a practice because it does not account for what the trademark owner considers "official." First, we must be clear that in nearly every case, we do follow what the trademark owner considers official because their chosen style does not conflict with standard English style. Second, our primary responsibility is to our readers, not to trademark owners, and readers are not served well if our encyclopedia articles read like press releases. Third, we rarely if ever use names that are completely "official." For example, the full, official, legal name of the New York Islanders is "New York Islanders Hockey Club, LP." The full and official name is not used throughout Wikipedia because using it over and over again would make for weird prose, which is not in the best interest of our readers. It is fine to prominently feature the "official" formatting at the top of the article; this way, readers can see it without having it adversely affect the main body of the text.

There are cases where certain typographical categories, such as the one that "iPod" and "eBay" belong to, appear nonstandard, yet they are used so overwhelmingly by independent reliable sources that there is little room left to believe that such styles are not, in fact, standard English.

Stuff to add:

distinction between "naming" and "formatting"

Wikipedia:Specialist_style_fallacy

FAQ form

Why are you so hostile to corporations?

We're not. In the vast majority of articles, we use the formatting that the trademark owners prefer because they have chosen a formatting that fits nicely within standard English.

Where does Wikipedia get off inventing its own names?

We're not inventing anything. This guideline only applies when reliable sources don't agree about how to format a trademark, and we only use styles that exist in reliable sources. Also, this guideline never dictates changing the name of anything; it only deals with how those names are formatted.

What does that part about naming versus formatting mean exactly?

It means that the issues that concern this guideline, issues such as capitalization and decorative punctuation, affect only the visual presentation of the name, the way it appears, not what it actually is. None of these distinctions would be present, for example, in spoken language. "Time magazine" is pronounced exactly the same as "TIME magazine".

But shouldn't we report

It is certainly appropriate to reference the nonstandard formatting prominently within the article lead.

But surely we should use a nonstandard style if it's the legal name of a company!

Actually, we almost never use full legal names in our articles. The full, official, legal name of the New York Islanders is "New York Islanders Hockey Club, LP". Any reference in Wikipedia's text to "the New York Islanders" or to "the Islanders" or to "the Isles" uses a name other than the legal name. Repeating all the extra stuff every time would be patently ridiculous, despite the legal name of the team. It is no more necessary to repeat a nonstandard style throughout the article than it is to repeat "LP" or "Hockey Club" or even "New York".