Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks

The General rules section is too messy

I believe the section Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Trademarks#General_rules to be very confusing in its current state. I think it should be reformatted into a table, or more distinct sections. It feels like a bunch of different rules stuck together. FaviFake (talk) 10:05, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

No. It was more clear before your changes. – The Grid (talk) 18:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Well, I changed nothing in the way the content is displayed. Do you think it would be better formatted as distinct sections, or as a table, or something else? FaviFake (talk) 19:14, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I would wait until the discussions with xkcd are closed. – The Grid (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

...is that a yes? The ongoing discussion on xkcd is not about the formatting of a MOS page, it's about a policy issue. I'm not suggesting we change the guidelines. FaviFake (talk) 15:23, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a no because you're still changing a page that's relevant to the discussion. – The Grid (talk) 15:37, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh nono I wasn't going to reformat it myself, I never wanted to. I created this section to ask other people if they agreed and wanted to do it themselves FaviFake (talk) 16:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Conflict with guideline on citations

Just a note I started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Conforming citations to Wikipedia style regarding guidance which appears to conflict with MOS:CONFORMTITLE, MOS:CONFORM, and MOS:TMRULES, if anyone here is interested in participating. -- Beland (talk) 03:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Trademark and registered characters

I apologize if this has been discussed in the past, so please forgive my ignorance. The TM and circled-R superscript symbols are commonly used across a multitude of documentation. Why are they specifically advised against on Wikipedia? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 22:56, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Capitalization

• "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization practices, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", as long as this is a style already in widespread use, rather than inventing a new one: (But see exception below under § Trademarks that begin with a lowercase letter.)
  • use: Time, Kiss, Asus, Sony Mobile. (Capitalize GEICO, IBM, as acronyms/initialisms.)
  • avoid: TIME, KISS, ASUS, SONY Mobile"

I'd like to propose to the community that this Wikipedia rule be changed. Capitalization of a brand name equally represents its identity. If, as in the example, ASUS is also in the full company name (ASUSTeK Computer Inc.), I don't see any reason to write it in lowercase. The situation is different if the capitalization is only in the logo (such as Sony, which is capitalized only in the logo).

In my opinion, this rule should be rewritten, especially considering the countless cases in which capitalization is used both by companies and by other Wikipedia pages about certain brands (which have not complied with this rule).

Let me know your opinion. Paranoid25 (talk) 10:13, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Support — This seems to be one of those arbitrary rules that seems to only be an issue here at Wikipedia. Trade magazines, newspapers, books and other media have no problem using letter-case established and used by the subject. I’m sure the original arguments ‘against’ are archived somewhere and someone might dredge those up — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 21:02, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

The guideline already states that we follow the sources on this. So, when trade magazines, newspapers, books and other sources use the letter-case established and used by the subject, we should do so as well. But… there are numerous situations where these sources don’t. And when they don’t, neither should we. Blueboar (talk) 23:36, 18 April 2026 (UTC)