Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics

Not-greater-than rendering problems

On Talk:Inequality (mathematics)/Archive 1#Renderization of "not greater than" symbol, Fgnievinski reports problems rendering U+226F ≯ NOT GREATER-THAN, with Chrome version 123.0.6312.106 on Windows 10 version 22H2:

(The first three are all just the Unicode character not displaying properly.)

I assume this be added to the list of characters that should only be expressed with <math>...</math>? Are there any related characters for which anyone is also experiencing rendering problems? -- Beland (talk) 02:37, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Imo, the most problematic issue is with the symbol for function composition (∘ or ○). On some devices such as Safari on my laptop, the first one is so small that it is easily confused with an interpunct, and the second one has the same size as \circ ($\circ$). On other devices, such as Safari on my iPhone, the first has the same size as \circ, and the second one is much larger. I am thus in favor of using only latex for function composition, but this implies to edit a lot of articles. D.Lazard (talk) 16:36, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The nice thing about a latex $\circ$ is that it can stretch to fit whatever size you need. EEng 16:44, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@D.Lazard: I only see 231 articles with "∘". There are 597 articles with "○". It would be very easy for me to change all the instances of "∘" to "○". Would that solve the problem of visual confusion? -- Beland (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

This would deserve more discussion, since, on my smartphone, "○" is much too large. My opinion is that only latex should be used when the symbol for function composition is used. D.Lazard (talk) 09:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@D.Lazard: OK, I've added all three characters to the list, recommending LaTeX markup instead. -- Beland (talk) 23:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

No, the big circle is inappropriately large. –jacobolus (t) 14:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

One thing that would help a lot in my opinion is (English) Wikipedia directly hosting a "math" font indicated first in the font stack in the CSS for {{math}} templates which explicitly included a wide range of supported glyphs. This could be e.g. something constructed from Computer Modern glyphs, or STIX 2.0 (or something else?). The appearance of STIX 2 is not an exact stylistic match for Computer Modern, but it's also not inordinately far away. I don't really know what would be technically required for MediaWiki/Wikipedia to host something like that though. –jacobolus (t) 14:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Jacobolus: If you'd like to discuss that with the responsible parties, see [1] (where one developer said the server side generally doesn't host fonts) or [2] (where one person recommending asking Microsoft to fix their fonts). Beland (talk) 23:22, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, please voice your concerns at the bug tracker, because the report was dismissed as not a technical issue. fgnievinski (talk) 18:19, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Fractional exponents and subscripts

I have just discovered using {{sfrac}} for fractional exponents and subscripts (which is what MOS:FRAC and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Fractions require for science and math articles) doesn't really work visually, at least on my computer - the surrounding text is easily confused as part of the numerator or denominator and sometimes it's just unclear that the fraction is supposed to be a superscript or subscript at all. I'm wondering what other people see and what the preferred solution for this would be, if it is indeed really a problem? Here are some examples with {{math}} style applied:

• {{sfrac}} for subscript: x_⁠1/2⁠
• {{sfrac}} for superscript: x^⁠1/2⁠
• {{frac}} for subscript: x_1⁄2
• {{frac}} for superscript: x^1⁄2
• Unicode character for subscript: x_½
• Unicode character for superscript: x^½
• <math>...</math> with subscript: $x^{\frac {1}{2}}$
• <math>...</math> with superscript: $x_{\frac {1}{2}}$

Perhaps the MOS should be changed to use one of these in this sort of situation? Only a few fractions are available in precomposed Unicode characters, so that's probably not a complete solution, especially if we want visual consistency. That leaves the option of partially lifting the science-and-math ban on {{frac}} which would be slightly visually inconsistent (and TBH not all that well-rendered, either), and the option of switching any problematic expressions to LaTeX-style markup. Or perhaps someone has another clever solution or more illuminating examples or other considerations? -- Beland (talk) 08:56, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

In sub- or superscripts, it's usually best to use a horizontal fraction, as in x_1/2 or x^1/2, but LaTeX works better still: ⁠$x_{1/2}$⁠, ⁠$x^{1/2}$⁠. –jacobolus (t) 10:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh, nice, that looks way better and is already contemplated by the MOS. I've added a note about that situation, since it seems to occur a lot. (I'm systematically getting rid of the precomposed characters where they are not allowed). Many thanks! -- Beland (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Markup for Common sets of numbers?

The guidelines for § Common sets of numbers mention using \textbfin LaTeX. What about the LaTeX) commands

• \C ($\mathbb {C}$)
• \H ($\mathbb {H}$)
• \N ($\mathbb {N}$)
• \Q ($\mathbb {Q}$)
• \R ($\mathbb {R}$)
• \Z ($\mathbb {Z}$)

all of which render in blackboard? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:02, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

fixing {{Percent}}

Hoping someone with template editor rights and more knowledge of Lua can fix {{Percent}}, which is outputting hyphen-minus (---) and not minus-minus (−), e.g.: {{percent|-1}} → -1%

That should be producing: −1% —Joeyconnick (talk) 23:28, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Integral not bracketing the integrand

Does:

$\alpha (x,t)=e^{i\left(k_{0}x-\omega _{0}t\right)}\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }dk\,A(k)e^{i(k-k_{0})\left(x-\omega '_{0}t\right)}.$

warrant reformatting on the grounds of being confusing to those unfamiliar with the practice, or does MOS:STYLERET apply?

Thanks, catslash (talk) 23:51, 7 August 2024 (UTC)