Historical note: The pageWikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics was originally obtained by moving content fromWikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics here, see thediff. As such, this page was not created from scratch on 18:39, 19 January 2005 as the page history may suggest, but is rather the product of collaborative discussion of Wikipedians since 2001 or 2002.
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PerMOS:DIGITS "digits are grouped both sides of the decimal point" ... "digits are generally grouped into threes". So if you find them grouped in other ways, I think they should be regrouped to this consistent style. —David Eppstein (talk)01:21, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How should formulae be displayed in lede to appear correctly in Navigation popup?
If including formulae in the lede that must appear innavigation popups, one should use raw HTML,but my question is: can one use LaTeX using<math>...</math> or not?
Is it correct to make this change then?
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The leadshould,asmuchaspossible,beaccessible toageneral reader,so specialized terminology and symbolsshouldbeavoided.Formulas should appear in the first paragraph only if necessary,sincetheywill not be displayedinthepreviewthatpopsupwhenhoveringoveralink.Forhavingformulaedisplayedwhenhovering,theymustbewritten in rawhtml(withouttemplates <span>{{</span>[[Template:var|var]]<span>}}</span> or <span>{{</span>[[Template:math|math]]<spanclass="nowrap">}}</span>),orinLaTeX(inside<math>...</math>).In thelattercasetheLaTeXsourceisdisplayedwithoutthetags<math>and</math>.
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The leadshouldbeas[[Wikipedia:ManualofStyle/Accessibility|accessible]]aspossible tothe reader,minimizing specialized terminology and symbols.Formulas should appear in the first paragraph only if necessary,becausetheymay not be displayedcorrectlyinlink-hoverpreviews(e.g.,[[mw:PGPRVW|PagePreviews]]or[[Wikipedia:Tools/Navigationpopups|Navigationpopups]]).Ifyouneedformulaetodisplaywithinanavigationpopup,writethem in rawHTML(byavoidingthe <span>{{</span>[[Template:var|var]]<span>}}</span> or <span>{{</span>[[Template:math|math]]<spanclass="nowrap">}}</span>templates),orbyusing[[LaTeX]]inside the<codeclass="nowrap"style=""><math>...</math></code>tag.
The move was motivated because the title used a centered ellipsis (a single character)instead of three dots. I suggest to request a move for replacing dots with centered dots (I did the change in the text).D.Lazard (talk)14:34, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's probably because MOS says not to use the unicode ellipsis character for lowered dots and someone got it into their head that this meant a blanket prohibition on any other kind of ellipsis. —David Eppstein (talk)17:37, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They do not appear centred on my device (Firefox on Android). They look identical to a normal ellipsis so I didn't know it was different. Since I was apparently wrong in thinking this was an uncontroversial move, it ought to be reversed.Hairy Dude (talk)18:18, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.@Hairy Dude: With Firefox on Android on my Samsung Galaxy (Firefox Beta 135.0b8), they appear centered as expected (both with the mobile site and the desktop site); you may have unusual settings. —Vincent Lefèvre (talk)21:22, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I understand, section§ Terminology conventions is intended for making Wikipeida homogeneous in the cases where different conventions are common outside Wikipedia, and disputes occur frequently between editors who disagree on the convention to be used. Presently, it is no more common to use "field" instead of "division algebra", and disagreements about the convention to use are unlikely. The only problem is to avoid confusion for the (rare, I suppose) readers who are accustomed to the older terminology. This is not a subject for the manual of style, and the edits done onField (mathematics) solve the problem completely, in my opinion,D.Lazard (talk)14:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see, as a mathematical notational convention,The bar notation is discouraged because it is not supported by all browsers followed by a suggestion to use the deprecatedTemplate:Unicode which seems to exist to fix (long-EOLed) Windows XP. Is this still an active concern?Sesquilinear (talk)17:40, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based onmw:Compatibility#Browsers the only browser from before the depreciation that isn't in the "you're on your own, buddy" category is the Android WebView which I'm pretty sure did not have any Unicode issues like that. So I don't think it makes sense to have this in the MoS.Sesquilinear (talk)18:51, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
