Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting

Emanuel Löffler

I removed the bold text per MOS:BOLD and MOS:NOBOLD from the page (the word "exactly"), but @QuakerIlK restored it and expressed dissatisfaction and disagreement on my Talk page. I think that in line with MOS, italics would be better. Can I ask for an unbiased opinion to resolve our dispute? Thank you. FromCzech (talk) 05:20, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

My advice: remove the word "exactly" altogether (currently it occurs twice in the same sentence, which is once to twice too many) or better remove or reword the whole paragraph. I don't get why "finished in 40th place" is a misfortune, let alone an exact one, and the relevance and sanity of the entire paragraph sounds highly doubtful to me. Gawaon (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

MOS:NOBOLD and MOS:EMPHASIS are both quite clear that bold should not be used for emphasis. There is a similar problem in the article Janina Skirlińska, along with unencyclopedic tone in both articles. PamD 09:57, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

There has already been a discussion about this. Gawaon and PamD, neither one of you have demonstrated that you have read that discussion to determine all of the relevant policy and practice issues which have also not been introduced yet here on this page, much less discussed. I am off to a meeting and don't have time to discuss/rediscuss more thoroughly, but will do so, if needed, when I get back. Please look at all of the relevant policy and practice issues and be prepared to discuss them. Also, I have been on Wikipedia for over 15 years and familiar with a number of policies, such as the advice not to delete a lot of content, especially if it is all created by one user, which applies both to the Skirlińska and Löffler articles, as I have supplied nearly all of the material on those articles. Gawaon, your suggesting possibly removing the entire paragraph because of the usage of boldface for emphasis is something Wikipedia policy advises to be careful.QuakerIlK (talk) 14:17, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

@QuakerIlK I have read the earlier discussion, but I do not need to have read any discussion in order to see the words "Do not use boldfacing for emphasis" in MOS:EMPHASIS. That's the MOS and I have removed the bolding. PamD 16:32, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

@PamD MOS:EMPHASIS is a guideline, rather than a policy. The Wikipedia policies and guidelines template specifically classifies the MOS under "guidelines", not "policies". Back to the basics of editing on Wikipedia, from Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines "Although Wikipedia generally does not have hard-and-fast rules, policies and guidelines are standards all users should normally follow, with guidelines providing guidance in specific contexts". Specifically, the basic Wikipedia definitions for policies and guidelines states about guidelines, under Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Role, "Guidelines are sets of best practices supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." So, one question I have for you is - How, exactly, is my having used boldface for emphasis only once in the Skirlińska and Löffler articles, and only twice in the much longer Děkanová article, not an "occasional exception"? Also, as I already pointed out on the initial discussion, there are numerous other extant examples of bolface being used (albeit sparingly, just like my usages) in the bio articles for sports figures such as Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan. I already discussed with FromCzech that part of the guidelines regarding boldfacing from Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting#Article_title_terms "Boldface is often applied to the first occurrence of the article's title word or phrase in the lead. This is also done at the first occurrence of a term (commonly a synonym in the lead) that redirects to the article or one of its subsections, whether the term appears in the lead or not." I already pointed out numerous examples, such as how The Greatest, emphasized with Boldface within the Muhammad Ali article, is neither the first usage of the article title in the lead, nor a redirect, nor an equivalent name used uniquely only for that article. If you check the Wikipedia article for The Greatest, it leads to a page where the article for Muhammad Ali is one of only 19 such articles to which this phrase applies. The page for MJ, emphasized with boldface within the Michael Jordan article, lists more than 30 such articles for which “MJ” can refer. Additionally, the boldface emphasized Air Jordan within the leader for Jordan’s article, when entered into Wikipedia’s search box, refers to the basketball and shortwear shoes line, not specifically and uniquely to Michael Jordan, himself, and there is even an advisement before the leader in the article saying For the defunct airline, see Air Jordan (airline). Similarly, within the Gretzky article, the boldface emphasized "The Great One", when used in Wikipedia’s search box, leads to an article where Gretzky’s article is only 1 of no fewer than 13 listed as relevant. Also, at least whereas the Jordan and Ali articles are concerned, I checked the talk page and all archives of the talk page, and there has never been a discussion of those examples of emphasized boldface - they've never, ever been objected to. So far in this discussion, nobody has linked to any specific guidelines that clearly enshrine those examples, differentiating them from my same degree of usage in the Skirlińska, Löffler, and Děkanová articles.

Clearly, in keeping with basic Wikipedia tenets and the spirit of the law on Wikipedia, and in keeping with numerous common and prominent examples of practice, my sparing usage of boldface on the Skirlińska, Löffler, and Děkanová articles is not explicitly out of line and is not specifically differentiated, in any Wikipedia guidelines that have yet been cited, from the Ali, Gretzky and Jordan examples, and PamD, you have, in haste, and without consensus, removed the boldfaced emphasizing from BOTH the Skirlińska and Löffler articles.QuakerIlK (talk) 17:48, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

I suggested to remove the paragraphs in question NOT because there was boldface in them, but because they seem to be expressing purely an editor's viewpoint of what's "misfortune" and are irrelevant for describing the lives of the article subjects. And because of that I have indeed deleted them now. Gawaon (talk) 02:42, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree that bold formatting should not be used for emphasis instead of italics without a very strong justification, which this scenario does not appear to have.

Since bold text indicates that the term is the subject of the article (including alternative names for the subject as well as terms that are redirect targets)—regardless of whether or not the terms in question are unique to that subject—using boldface only once in the body of an article when italics could serve the same purpose does not obviously serve the article better, and it arguably could confuse readers who are familiar with this widespread convention across WP. I'm not seeing an obvious deviation from the MOS in any of the examples given by QuakerIIK, so I'm a bit confused on how those scenarios are relevant here if at all.

Using bold text for emphasis could be justified in scenarios where italic formatting is already so abundant that italics alone would not provide emphasis, but that does not seem to be the case here. Lastly, the emphasis (or lack thereof) on "exactly" in this case is highly unlikely to change the meaning of the sentence, so it does not feel particularly important to emphasize at all; my personal opinion (which appears to align with others) is that the word "exactly" doesn't even need to be in the sentence, let alone emphasized. MossOnALog^Talk 18:45, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

For one, User:MossOnALog, you didn't mention (via hyperlink) or quote any policies or guidelines, whatsoever, in your response. Furthermore, when it came down to the one specific differentiality which is the most technically helpful one in bolstering my synthesized argument, you merely set aside with hyphens regardless of whether or not the terms in question are unique to that subject, essentially saying "It doesn't matter", as if you, yourself, are the ultimate arbiter or judge and are creating a new policy. Then you argued upholding your opinion by saying that my sparing use of boldfaced emphasizing could "confuse" people. Neither is it my problem that, nor should I and every other user on Wikipedia be subjected to, paralyzing, flattening, minimizing, and overly equivocating micromanagement because, other readers or editors are either imbeciles or fail to understand the basic spirit of law on Wikipedia. This is not the Simple Wikipedia () for children or the intellectually impaired. This is Wikipedia for adults. Also, I fail to understand why you, like other users involved in this discussion, are trying to mushroom my very sparingly used boldfaced emphasizing by saying that that the words, themselves, should perhaps be eliminated, or others involved in this discussion are suggesting perhaps even eliminating entire paragraphs or saying that the whole articles are unencyclopedic in tone or bringing up comparisons to tabloid journalism. I'm not imposing any rules on anybody else or arguing that anything else should be changed, although I use manifestations in other articles for illumination onto the discussion. So, why the suggestion of possible escalation of deletionism of not only the style of my usage, but of the very content, itself? Are those meant to be scare tactics to silence me because my level of knowledge of Wikipedia's Spirit of Law, in addition to Policies and Guidelines, and in addition to my logical and writing skills, are unpalatable to those who disagree with me?QuakerIlK (talk) 20:44, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

@QuakerIlK, my apologies for not referencing the specific guidelines relevant to the points I was making. I didn't think it was necessary to link to MOS:NOBOLD and MOS:BOLD since those were already mentioned and linked in the post that I replied to, and MOS:EMPHASIS was already linked to in the first response to the original post. Some additional guidelines that are relevant are MOS:BOLDLEAD and MOS:BOLDALTNAMES, which cover the usage of bold formatting for the lead section and for alternative names, as well as MOS:BOLDREDIRECT and WP:RSURPRISE, which cover the usage of bold formatting for redirects.

Everything I said before was my good-faith interpretation of the guidelines/policies and my analysis of how this situation fits in with these guidelines and policies in a way that best serves the encyclopedia's goals and its users. A certain level of consistency across the encyclopedia is necessary no matter how intelligent the users are, hence the reason that we have a MOS and guidelines that represent consensus on the matters—i.e., striving for consistency is not a judgement of the audience's intelligence, it's a consideration for the user experience. You are welcome to disagree with my interpretations or analysis, and I don't believe I ever implied that my opinion counts more than others' opinions.

I have no intentions of trying to accuse or silence anyone, so I would appreciate if accusations of bad-faith or otherwise disruptive behavior were backed up with diffs and specific evidence, as outlined in the following essay: WP:ASPERSIONS. MossOnALog^Talk 21:19, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Here's one more relevant policy on the additional names of article subjects: WP:OTHERNAMES. MossOnALog^Talk 21:36, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

1) From the original discussion We do not write fiction or an article for tabloid. The encyclopedia should use a neutral and factual tone and avoid emotional overtones, sensationalism, and drawing attention to text that someone finds interesting. See WP:FORMAL. The paragraph in Löffler's page should be rewritten to avoid the phrase "extreme misfortune" and information about Skirlińska's career that is not directly related to Löffler. This was written by FromCzech as if I needed to have an entire mentality explained to me. Also, it was not only boldfaced emphasizing, but suggesting the entire paragraph be removed, as one entire paragraph on each the Löffler and Skirlińska articles relate one to the other within a specific context. Moreover, FromCzech performed the same un-boldfacing on an entirely different article from the Skirlińska one back in May – that of the Löffler article. I noticed the repetition in behavior on my edits and that they were the same user, hence my need to explain a rationale on the Talk page, which I began by thanking them, only to receive, essentially, insults and insinuations/suggestions of further repeated deletionism, which user had committed twice (May 2nd and November 18th ) against my edits, already. How is it that FromCzech came upon non-prominent articles and decided to make these edits withput any discussion, anyway, especially on the same user’s edits?

2) remove the word "exactly" altogether (currently it occurs twice in the same sentence, which is once to twice too many) or better remove or reword the whole paragraph This was written by user Gawaon. Clear escalation via insinuated/suggested deletion.

3) There is a similar problem in the article Janina Skirlińska, along with unencyclopedic tone in both articles. This was written by PamD. Along with PamD’s action of removing boldface emphasizing on BOTH Skirlińska’s and Löffler's articles, is she suggesting that yet more of the content of the articles are under threat?

4) @MossOnALogYou, yourself, stated my personal opinion (which appears to align with others) is that the word "exactly" doesn't even need to be in the sentence, let alone emphasized, which is yet more escalation of insinuated/suggested deletionism of not only removing boldface emphasis, but the actual word. The word, itself, is highly relevant. It is a fact that Löffler and Skirlińska were both the All-Around Bronze Medalists at the 1934 Worlds and the 40th place finishers at the 1936 Olympics. It is a fact that this was a change in outcome, for the both of them, that is exact in the paralleling, from one Worlds/Olympics to the next, which I further highlighted in the Děkanová article where I thoroughly provided the sources proving that, in context and contrast with all of their other all-around finishes at all other Worlds/Olympics that decade, this was a uniquely and contextually very low outcome for the both of them. WP:OTHERNAMES

5) The synthesized argument I put together already addressed (whether I or others mentioned them, specifically or not, and most were mentioned, specifically) all of the policies you linked to in the most recent post of yours. Moreover, WP:OTHERNAMES makes absolutely zero mention of boldface or emphasis.

Lastly, maybe I didn’t resort to casting aspersions and proving them with diffs because I’m not as quick to resort to unilateral, deletionist-style edits and/or insinuations/suggestions of minimalizing/effacing/deleting actions as all 4 of the rest of you have proven yourselves to be in this particular instance.QuakerIlK (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

If you think these edits or the behavior of these editors are problematic—which I would disagree with—you are welcome to pursue a number of dispute resolution options. MossOnALog^Talk 23:15, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

In conclusion, and for the record, this started out as being a discussion merely about one stylistic decision regarding the usage of boldface for emphasis on the article for Janina Skirlińska. The discussion was them moved to this MOS page where the discussion was begun, by editors other than me, about the same usage of boldface for emphasis on the article for Emanuel Löffler, instead of the article for Skirlińska. (The discussion was begun on FromCzech’s user page because they made edits on both the Löffler () and Skirlińska () articles, a few months apart, themselves, to begin with). I have experienced elsewhere on Wikipedia, when disagreements have arisen, relevant points that I have raised being side-stepped, and the focus was only on undoing or deleting work that I have done, which happened this time, also. In this case, once a consensus was reached against my position, not only were the original issues of contention decided against my position, but further deletionist action (the removing of whole paragraphs) of fact-based and properly-referenced material was taken against my work and the articles I was working on. Specifically, user Gawaon removed 2 significant chunks or paragraphs in 2 edits ( and ) from the Löffler article and 2 complete paragraphs in 1 edit () from the Skirlińska article.

For the record, and in summary, once consensus was reached, it appears that at least one involved editor interpreted this to provide carte blanche permission to go on further major deletions on my work and these articles, greatly reducing the informative quality of them. I am making this last contribution to this discussion for the purpose of providing clarity about the inappropriate, disproportionate, and negative outcome of these discussions, rather than allowing the resulting deletionary edits to remain under-noticed.QuakerIlK (talk) 22:09, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Let's keep the discussion on whether to restore the deleted content in some form or other to the talk pages of the articles in question, it does not belong here. Also, the discussion here was not about whether those paragraphs are relevant and appropriate for Wikipedia in the first place, and you should know that anyone can edit and improve Wikipedia, including by removing irrelevant or unsourced content. No prior talk page consensus is required to do so. Gawaon (talk) 02:02, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Revisiting this discussion led me to look at Vlasta Děkanová where I have removed bolding used for emphasis in two places. I am not sure that the level of detail about other competitors is appropriate: others might like to have a look. There is a completely unsourced section. PamD 05:58, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

Exceptions to 85% font size for motorsport articles?

There is a discussion about whether motorsport articles should be exempt from the guidance on this page that says "No text should be reduced below 85% of the page's default font size." Please comment there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Update: The consensus at the WikiProject page appears to be that the editors feel that motorsport articles should be exempt from the 85% font size guideline, which was the subject of at least one RFC, as far as I know. Meanwhile, thousands of WikiProject NASCAR articles display text at 64% of the base page size, and that project has been notified twice of those problems, with no response. Editors here might be interested in contributing to the discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:20, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I might point out that per WP:CONLEVEL, WikiProject discussions cannot override any rule set by the MOS. In this case that's clearly for the better, since such an outcome (exemption) would be very unfriendly to any readers with less than perfect eyesight. Gawaon (talk) 02:45, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

You might point that out with greater effect at the discussion linked above, per WP:TALKFORK. I would be grateful for your participation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Done. Gawaon (talk) 03:06, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

That is not the argument at all. The argument is that there is a relevant trade-off between various accessibility issues present. The nature of oversized tables is that they cannot exist without such compromise. Either they are too large, are more likely to require a scrolling function, conflate numerical entries within cells, are broken up, or do not exist at all; or they have small text.

I maintain that plain numbers should be treated differently to written prose regardless, without considering that the re-skin of Wikipedia in 2022 rendered the prior consensus on text size moot. This consensus was determined when 85% of the text size was what 74% is now for the vast majority of readers and editors. Standard superscript is ~80% of the normal text size: ² 2.

For reference, I have a –3.50 dioptre and use the small text setting; the only issue I have had in my years of editing motorsport articles are the tables on NASCAR articles—{{small}} within 75% is plainly too small to be accessible and outright flaunts the policy. This was seemingly selected as a compromise for the tables being 43 columns wide, but I agree that is an undue balance. The consensus in MOTORSPORT is not referring to those tables, rather the use of {{small}}—exclusively on 1–2 digit numerical entries—within 85–95% tables. MB2437 04:11, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Giardiniera

If I'm reading and understanding MOS:FOREIGNITALIC correctly, Giardiniera does not qualify for an italics title (using {{Italics title}}) as using italics "...does not apply to loanwords or phrases that see everyday use in non-specialized English, such as qi, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps, e.g., i.e., etc.—as these have become English-language vocabulary...", which I would argue that Giardiniera is now in everyday use in English. However, there is a user who diagrees with me on this, so rather than dragging this out, I'd thought I'd come here and try to establish some sort of consensus. Thoughts? Also, I have no idea about whether this is correct or not. I would assume these two issues are related, but I have not looked into the {{lang}} bit. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 14:12, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Italic semantics

Should we have more templates to compliment {{em}} for MOS:NAT, MOS:WAW, etc. better indicate the semantics of italics? ~Kvng (talk) 14:46, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

No, that would merely complicate editing with no obvious benefit. Wiki markup is easiest and should stay the default. Gawaon (talk) 14:50, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I've seen a number of recent edits converting italics to {{em}}. Should these be discouraged?

@Gawaon, the documentation for {{em}} does make a case for its benefit: editors...can use this template as a baseline insurance against accidental or uninformed replacement by bots and human editors, as well as to add web accessibility. Does this hold any water for you? ~Kvng (talk) 15:06, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

It's inapplicable to MOS:NAT and MOS:WAW, where emphasis is in any case not intended. Gawaon (talk) 17:29, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, that's why I'm asking whether it would be useful to have another template (or more) for MOS:NAT, MOS:WAW, etc., cases. They would all render as italics but, for instance, a screen reader may be able to make use of the semantic information. ~Kvng (talk) 20:13, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

How would a screen reader use it? Gawaon (talk) 20:55, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I could imagine a rhythm change and inflection like people use when they do air quotes with their fingers. ~Kvng (talk) 14:57, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

According to MDN Web Docs, The <em> element represents stress emphasis of its contents, while the <i> element represents text that is set off from the normal prose, such as a foreign word, fictional character thoughts, or when the text refers to the definition of a word instead of representing its semantic meaning. (The title of a work, such as the name of a book or movie, should use <cite>.). So the current MOS:EMPHASIS is correct: using <em> or {{em}} for rare cases where we use emphasis (e.g. when preserving emphasis in quotes), but normal wiki italic markup for MOS:WAW and MOS:NONENGITALIC. We could consider switching to <cite> for MOS:NAT, but {{em}} doesn't seem to be the right sematic markup for this. --Yodin^T 16:51, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the current division of works seems okay enough: {{em}} for emphasis, which we rarely use in the article space, while wiki markup is for works of titles and words as words, which are not emphasized, but simply rendered in italics. Personally I don't bother with the difference when writing talk page comments (as visible in this one), but if other editors are more careful here, that sure is fine with me. Gawaon (talk) 17:29, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I think we probably should. There should be em for emphasis, something for the cite HTML for titles of things, and something for waw ({{lang}}? I don't know what HTML that makes but here is an example hmm it doesn't get italicized in en by default, what a shame). Default italics will be left as an ambiguous default. Dingolover6969 (talk) 06:05, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography § Discrepancy between MOS:BOLDREDIRECT and MOS:NICKCRUFT (and other problems)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography § Discrepancy between MOS:BOLDREDIRECT and MOS:NICKCRUFT (and other problems). —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:20, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDREDIRECT when also a section heading

Is there any need to bold a redirect term within a section when it's also the exact name of that section's heading? I've seen different views on this but the MOS doesn't seem to rule on it. Belbury (talk) 08:57, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Section headings don't count as paragraphs or running text, so in my understanding MOS:BOLDREDIRECT applies regardless of whether a heading happens to have the same name. Gawaon (talk) 11:00, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

WP:RBOLD frames the bolding of redirect terms as being to reduce astonishment ("Hang on ... I wanted to read about this. Why has the link taken me to that?" Make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place.), which does make it sound as if it may be unnecessary in cases where the section heading closely matches what our reader was looking for.

In not counting it as text, are there any technical situations in which a reader wouldn't see the heading? Belbury (talk) 18:51, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

By that logic, MOS:BOLDLEAD would be unnecessary since it simply puts the article title in bold, repeating what's already there and visible to all readers. But I don't think that kind of logic is meant to be applied when bolding the subject of an article or a redirect. Gawaon (talk) 08:29, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't know if there's exact verbiage about it, but I think it should probably follow the same rules as a normal Wikipedia article lede: bold if the term occurs in the running text, but don't feel pressured to put that term in the running text if it's unneeded (eg if a redirect "history of Portugal" went to Portugal § History, there is no need to write "history" or "history of Portugal" just because) Dingolover6969 (talk) 18:27, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Bot task to remove erroneously italicized commas

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § Bot task to remove erroneously italicized commas. Sdkb ^talk 01:13, 11 June 2026 (UTC)