Talk:Proofing Examples

2025 Revisions

A few people are updating this page again. The P2+1 team discusses changes in their forum. See forumpost:1367607.

2024 Revisions

I'm currently revising this page, adding new content, and revising the format. (In addition to other considerations, the new format should be more mobile friendly).

Please comment here if you have any concerns or comments on the refresh!

-- User:Chapka 11:27, 20 July 2024 (EDT)

Purpose

This page is intended to serve as a collection of examples of correct ways to proof content while working at DP. Most examples are drawn from posts in the DP fora by more or less experienced DPers. The intention is that all the examples include show correct proofing according to the current guidelines and current DP practice.

Layout

The examples are presented as a series of wiki tables. Each line of a table consists of four cells. The first holds simply a line number (or other identification). The second holds a representation of the scan of the content being formatted. In many cases this will be an image, either snipped form an actual scan, or an imitation scan created with an image editor. The third shows the correct proof of the text. The fourth cell holds comments on the issues involved, and usually a link to the forum post or thread where the issue was discussed, and on which the example is based. In this cell, excerpts from the Guidelines are frequently used as a source of authoritative guidance and are presented in a font of a contrasting color. Use the Template-Guidelines-quote below for convenience.

I really like the idea of these pages (this pg and formatting companion), but I think it would be best to use some other color for the quotations from the Guidelines. Red text is used in wikis to give "links" to "wanted page," and for "warning" messages, and that is certainly not what we mean to imply by the red text on these pages. I'd suggest using a color that cannot be misconstrued into a link, even momentarily. Dark green might work nicely. That's color #006400. There's also green and darkcyan as possibilities. My suggesting come from the green family because it is already so widely used on DP pages, but I think just about anything would work as long as blue, purpleish, red used in wiki links are avoided. -- kraester 22:13, 10 February 2007 (PST)

Good idea. Dark green might be too dark, and darkcyan may look a little too much like the blue clickable link color. Will try out green RGB #008000. Will edit template and update documentation. Whatever color we try will show up above.-- jkenny

Color further changed to #4AA020C. Further color changes will be documented in the talk page of the template. jkenny 03:10 14 Feb 2007 (UTC)

To avoid excessive wrapping, the image call and the proof cell are stacked above one another, so each table "line" technically consists of two table rows. To help distinguish them, the "scan" cell has a blue-grey background, while the "proof" cell has a light green (to indicate that it is correct) background.

Force line breaks at appropriate points with <br/> tags, particularly in the "proof" section, but also in the "image" section (if you are not using an actual image). Do not depend on the way the wrapping happens to come out -- it will be different in a different browser or if a longer example is added to the same table later.

Try not to create examples whose "proof" is excessivly wide, as this squeezes the remarks column. Rework examples to have larger numbers of shorter lines, unless this changes the point of the example.

The "Proof" section will display in a fixed-width font. At least this is true in most browsers.

Templates

To keep the table format consistent, and to avoid having to to type in lots of repetitive wiki table syntax, this page uses a series of templates. Each table starts with a call to Template:Example-Proof-Start, which sets up the table and creates the header line. Then each body line is created with a call to Template:Example-Line. The parameters to this set the content and to some extent the layout of the cells in the line. Finally the table is closed by a call to Template:Example-End.

The uses and parameters of these templates are documented in Template talk:Example-Proof-Start and Template talk:Example-Line. Note that an unclosed link or unescaped pipe symbol (|) in the parameters to any of these templates, or a failure to close the template call with }} can produce some very odd-looking table displays. It is worth doing a preview when adding a table or a line.

Template:Guidelines-quote is used to emphasize and consistantly style direct quotes from the Proofing Guidelines. Refer to the talk page of the template for documentation. In gist, the template is simply applied as:

{{Guidelines-quote|This is an example quote.}}

will render as:

This is an example quote.

Overall Discussion

Please comment on this page, what it should contain, and how it should look, here. DESiegel60

The look of it is great. Thanks for creating it. But I'm a bit worried about the quoting and attributing of opinions tbh. In one of the two ellipsis queries where I am quoted, I actually didn't agree with what the person above me in the forum thread had originally answered, but I chose not to cause further confusion. So my advice to put a note was more like "Well I wouldn't put a space, but if you must put a space then for heaven's sake note it!" Laurawisewell 14:44, 30 January 2007 (PST)

I think it is essential to attribute the opnions, to show that they have some validity, nd to allow people to look to the context in which they were initally written, and to use the reputation of the person being quoted. I did add a warning to the intro about getting fuller context in the actual forum discussion. I reveiwed the specific quote you mention. I think that the "if you insist" language, which was included in the section copied to the wiki page, makes your intention clear, and you will note that the example text follows your advice on this point. How do you suggest we handle this better? if we don't cite our sources, it makes the wiki page seem like an attempt to dictate from "on high" which it isn't, and which I at least am not qualified to do anyway. Would you prefer just a link to the relevant foum post with no quoting at all? DESiegel60 08:48, 31 January 2007 (PST)

Actually, I meant the other ellipsis, the "Victoria..." one. You quote me as saying "laurawisewell in the same thread says that there should also be a space after the dots." when my mental reasoning was more like "Well I wouildn't put a space before or after, but if you're putting one before, then you should also put one after." But it's not a big deal.

Your comment about "reputation" is a little scary! But see what others think. It's also the case that, unlike the forums, the wiki is visible by non-logged-in users, so in a sense you're taking something said in private and making it public. Doesn't bother me in the slightest, but might bother some people. Laurawisewell 10:32, 31 January 2007 (PST)

I see. That was not clear to me from the forum post. If you want to edit the comments in the example, please do so -- this IS a wiki. I intended the mention of "reputation" to be mainly positive -- the comments of someone with a good reputation will weigh more highly than those of Joe Shmoe who no one has ever heard of. As to the privacy issue, since anyone can log into the fora at any time, for the trivial cost of creating a DP userid, which anyone can do, and since people are identified only by their DP uids (which will often not indicate their legal names, although some do, including mine) I didn't think that forum comments were very private. And since only comments relevant to a proofing or formatting example would even be quoted in these wiki pages, I don't really see why anyone would really care if they are made "public". But if anyone thinks this is a concern, we could remove all user names from the remarks, or even all quoted comments, and just leave forum links, with possibly re-written summaries.

To me it felt wrong to quote without attribution, and poor practice to give disembodied rules as if they were totally authoritative. Besides I think the forum context adds value. But if the consensus here is otherwise, so be it. DESiegel60 13:23, 31 January 2007 (PST)

I have edited the Victoria and Uncle Henry ellipsis examples as best as I can to reflect the divergent views expressed in the forum thread. I think this would be fair to do if the various views are all consistent with some interpretation of the guidelines. In the remarks column, I have also indicated in bold that there is no consensus. I hope this approach is fine?

I see that Acunning40 has noted the need to address the topic of end-of-line ellipses in her wiki page on suggestions for guidelines changes. So we may expect some convergence of views with the next version of the guidelines. Jkenny 02:55, 1 February 2007 (PST)

Please, when the remerks consit of direct quotes from forum postings, do not edit them for style or grammer: they are supposed to be exact quotes from the cited post or thread. If the style needs re-writing that badly, remove the quotes, rewite in toto, and change the citation to make it clear that we are quoting merely the sense of the forum post. But I think it is usually better to let the exact quote stand. DESiegel60 14:04, 17 February 2007 (PST)

Discussion of Specific Examples

Please comment on the merits or problems of the proofing used in specific examples here. DESiegel60