Bulbanews talk:Manual of style

I think we could do without some parts of news style. The month-abbreviating and non-serial-comma practice is a space-saving measure, and completely unjustified otherwise (especially the latter - a comma could not possibly be more than a third of an em!). We do not have the limitations of paper. [Though, visual economy is important with sidebars like infoboxes.]

Personally, I feel that 10, 11 and 12 should also be spelt out for the same reasons that 1 - 9 are: they are single, atomic words in modern English.

As for the quotation-punctuation usage, it's distinctly Americanist to always without fail include punctuation inside quotes. British usage is far more sensible, taking into account context, and is increasingly popular for at least quoting URLs and computer input: wp:Quotation marks#Punctuation - 振霖_T 02:41, 16 September 2005 (CDT)

Quote Wikinews style guide (boldface mine): A news style is developed with emphasis on efficient, and accurate imparting of information about events. Shorter is always the better choice in news, as a reporter wants to get the story's information across to a reader as quickly as possible. This is the same for headlines as well as copy.

News style dictates that numbers 10 and above are left as numerals. Even Wikinews agrees with this with the exception of 10. They are left as numerals because they are more than one digit. Your personal preference has nothing to do with it.

Regarding the abbreviation of months, appropriate style would to have them abbreviated when paired with a specific date. For example, "Halloween is in October" would not see an abbreviation, while "Halloween is on Oct. 31" would.

I will compromise on serial commas, even though they are not accepted news style.

As a side note, copy is measured in picas and points, not ems.

As I and most others who access this website are American, and most of us never come across the British way of handling quotations and punctuation, we will stay with the American usage unless it becomes a problem (I expect that it won't). Frankly, the British way irks me and entices me to make rampant corrections. I think our readers are smart enough to realize that that period at the end of a URL isn't part of the URL itself. --Argy 15:27, 16 September 2005 (CDT)

Pah. Frankly, American quotation usage strongly irks me, especially in cases of single words. I, too, am enticed to make rampant corrections. I suggest a compromise: use italics for single words and phrases.

I prefer the interpretation that 0 - 9 are spelt out because they are single, atomic words, not because they are a single digit in length. By that interpretation, 0 - 12, and possibly 100th, 1000th, 1,000,000th, 1,000,000,000th etc., should be spelt out as well. (Of course, this would be different for different languages.) But my personal preference is to never spell out numbers except for small ordinals and emphatic use.

While my personal preference is to be concise and say things in as few words as possible, I do not have a particular preference for expressing things in as few characters as possible: I would rather use a longer, more precise word than a shorter word.