Style Guide

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

I think it would a nice touch, but perhaps we could standardize with one of the style guides the media uses. let me go dig out an old journalism text book.

It wouldn't be branch specific, but it would be standardized for all the American services atleast.

Maybe Nyles could shed some light on the CF abbreviation systems, as well.

The problem I've run into is that sometimes a soldier or marine is simply referred to as "Lieutenant <name>," and you can't see his bar, or if it's black and white and you can't tell what color it is.

[SPEMack618]

And that is when, in my opinion, a generic "Lt." works well in the caption.

Heck, with the exception of a really, really good friend of mine, addressed any Lieutenant as anything other than Lieutenant, or in the case of my old platoon leader "ell-tee" or occassionally, especially if it was just us in the Humvee, "Mike"

As in "HOLY CRAP MIKE, I think we just got hit by an IED!"

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

And that is when, in my opinion, a generic "Lt." works well in the caption.

Heck, with the exception of a really, really good friend of mine, addressed any Lieutenant as anything other than Lieutenant, or in the case of my old platoon leader "ell-tee" or occassionally, especially if it was just us in the Humvee, "Mike"

As in "HOLY CRAP MIKE, I think we just got hit by an IED!"

"Commander" falls into that as well, but you don't see it as much as the Lieutenant thing.

[SPEMack618]

And Colonel.

Also, General. But General shouldn't be hard to distinguish because we can all count to four. (hopefully)

Sergeant works for buck sergeants and (some) staff sergeants in the Army. For instance, I was never referred to as "Staff Sergeant" always sergeant or Mack.

The Marines, as I understand it, get persnickety about terms of address for enlisted folks and prefer to use the whole title

[funkychinaman]

Originally Posted by SPEMack618

And Colonel.

Also, General. But General shouldn't be hard to distinguish because we can all count to four. (hopefully)

Sergeant works for buck sergeants and (some) staff sergeants in the Army. For instance, I was never referred to as "Staff Sergeant" always sergeant or Mack.

The Marines, as I understand it, get persnickety about terms of address for enlisted folks and prefer to use the whole title

Yes, anyone who's ever called a Gunnery Sergeant "Sergeant" won't make that mistake again.

[funkychinaman]

Seeing something Thejoker wrote on the wiki reminded me of this: Should we standardize how we do foreign titles? I've always preferred to have the page title be the US title, and then create redirects for the foreign/original title. That way, if you type in "Battleship Potemkin," it'll go straight to that page, rather than a search page. I see a lot of users use both, so it'd be Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin). Any thoughts?

[commando552]

Originally Posted by funkychinaman

Seeing something Thejoker wrote on the wiki reminded me of this: Should we standardize how we do foreign titles? I've always preferred to have the page title be the US title, and then create redirects for the foreign/original title. That way, if you type in "Battleship Potemkin," it'll go straight to that page, rather than a search page. I see a lot of users use both, so it'd be Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin). Any thoughts?

Going by the rule of using the US title if it has one, it should just be called "Battleship Potemkin" as it has had an official US release which used this title. The times when we use as English title with the foreign title in parentheses is when there is not official US release title and it is just a translation of the official foreign title. There is the exception that if the film goes by its foreign title in the US then it is not translated.