Forum:Italicized titles

We have a bit of an issue here wherein a standard needs to be established. Some editors are making game titles italicized while others are removing them. I myself have been unsure at times which way seemed more consistent. This is a waste of time, and has made a vast level of inconsistency on the wiki.

There are several possible scenarios here -


 * 1) All game titles are italicized: Diablo III, Warcraft
 * 2) Any game titles other than the Diablo series are italicized: Diablo III, Warcraft
 * 3) Only the first mention of a title within an article is italicized, but not further mentions: Diablo III, blah blah blah, Diablo III
 * 4) No game titles are ever italicized: Diablo III, Warcraft

English grammar rules are not the overruling authority here, though they may play a role. The highest priority is what looks best for the wiki while keeping in mind that the Diablo titles are mentioned thousands of times on this wiki.

Book titles are probably less of an issue, although they could be covered here too. The standard for books and the standard for games need not be the same, again, the priority is what looks best for the wiki.

I'd like feedback from the admins on this so a standard can be set and understood, but if any other editors wish to respond here, feel free to give your own input. ◄► Tephra ◄► 18:33, September 18, 2013 (UTC)

I'd go with option 1. General rules of grammar and, IMO, looks better as well.--Hawki (talk) 22:25, September 18, 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that italicizing the game title makes it any more visible or proper and I'd prefer to leave it with a link, if that. Breywood (talk) 21:09, September 18, 2013 (UTC)

Hmm... Sorry about this, I started changing the titles to links several months ago and saw no complaints, so I assumed it was fine. I got rid of them just because I thought italicizing didn't really fit in with the articles, particularly because red text makes it look quite a bit thinner than normal text when it's italicized, and bolding would bring too much emphasis on a non-critical piece of the text. So that was my reasoning for leaving it as a link; it stands out reasonably well (because on most of the weapon/armor/whatever pages it is usually the only normal link, where the others are colored) and it implies that the link isn't critical to pursue as with most italic/bold links. Anyway, that's my reasoning, I don't really mind if it goes back to the way it was before.

◄► Tephra ◄► 02:46, September 19, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you wouldn't mind, but I don't think any of us feel so strongly about which way it goes that we will throw a fit over it. Nevertheless, the inconsistency is the issue, so we need a standard. I want to point out that this is not a critical issue, so I don't want you all to feel obligated to debate it. I just wanted to collect everyone together so we're all on the same page. Personally, I like #3 the best, I don't think every instance of a title needs to be italicized. I actually don't know where in grammar the first-use-only rule normally applies, I'm just not a fan of an article crammed full of italicized words, whether it is correct usage or not.
 * Anyway, we do not seem to have a consensus yet. So if you will, just list the four options in order of how much you would prefer them from best to worst. So for me that would be 3124.
 * If we're listing prefs, it would go 1-4-3-2. Also, whatever standard is chosen, I assume it would apply to novels too for instance, but what about in-universe tomes and refs?--Hawki (talk) 03:32, September 19, 2013 (UTC)

I'm 4-3-2-1. I think the italicizing is only for game titles. refs are generally italicized, I'm not sure about tomes though

◄► Tephra ◄► 04:26, September 19, 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I never really thought about in-game tomes. I suppose if they have an official title, they should get the same treatment as any real book. I know that in theory, game titles should hold the same importance and grammatical rules as book titles, but honestly, I think book titles just look better in italics (I don't know, is this too much of a double standard?). I suppose if you like, you can vote for a book standard as well... I guess in the case of book titles, that would be 1324 for me.


 * Also wondering about quest/act titles, whether they should be or not. More inclined to say they should be, but I'm generally ambivalent about the format used for them. Admittedly, a lack of italics for them seems to have been the prior norm.--Hawki (talk) 05:23, September 19, 2013 (UTC)


 * So, did we reach a decision? Notice that it's still been Diablo III on recently created articles.--Hawki (talk) 02:00, September 21, 2013 (UTC)

No, we didn't really... If you mean the articles I created, that would be due to them being mostly copy/pasted, I didn't even think about the game titles in them. Anyway, if I value our votes at +3, +2, +1, +0 for each of our four choices and add them up, the results are: Option 3 has the highest score, so we can adopt this as our standard if there are no objections. ◄► Tephra ◄► 03:26, September 21, 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) All game titles are italicized = 5 points
 * 2) Any game titles other than the Diablo series are italicized = 2 points
 * 3) Only the first mention of a title within an article is italicized, but not further mentions = 6 points
 * 4) No game titles are ever italicized = 5 points


 * I'm willing to go with the vote. One clarification though as to what counts a first mention, namely template appearences. E.g., looking at the Malthael page, how Reaper of Souls is italicized in his list of appearences (in his charbox), and Reaper of Souls is italicized again in his in-game section (where it states he'll be the main antagonist? Would the charbox entry count as a first mention in this case? Or should both be italicized, and any subsequent mentions of RoS in the article's main body after the main antagonist mention not be italicized?--Hawki (talk) 03:58, September 21, 2013 (UTC)

◄► Tephra ◄► 05:20, September 21, 2013 (UTC)
 * I always have considered info boxes and main text bodies as two separate entities, so I would say italicize in both.

Ok, before I begin adding this change, this does apply for all pages, right? So all Diablo II weapons/armour/skill pages? To summarise, all game titles, books and references should be italicized on their first appearance in an article or infoboxes. Should we have a mention of it in the Manual of Style (Do we even have one?)?

◄► Tephra ◄► 04:29, September 26, 2013 (UTC)
 * It would apply to all articles, but I do not consider this a high priority. If you want to manually update all of the articles you can find, I won't stop you, but it is perfectly fine if only articles that are being edited for some other reason get this update at the same time. We technically do have a Manual of Style, but it has not been updated since 2008, there would be little point in mentioning this unless the entire manual was rewritten (which you are quite welcome to do if you wish).

Hmm, well, to be honest, I don't really have a task to handle at the moment, so I guess I'll just work on it. And I'll take a look at the Manual of Style; it looks pretty detailed, so it might be interesting to see what the previous people were doing.

◄► Tephra ◄► 09:09, September 27, 2013 (UTC)
 * Since we're talking about it anyway, we need a list of things that should be added to the Manual of Style whenever it gets rewritten. This list should go onto the manual's talk page.