Wikipedia:Converting to use of see-colon
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This essay explains the need for the new punctuation style (as "see:") which will affect many, many thousands of Wikipedia articles. However, the change in punctuation can be made gradually, over a period of months or years.
Article references need to start using a see-colon form as "see:" rather than just "see". When Wikipedia began, the article titles always began with a capitalized word, as in the style of a mainstream encyclopedia. However, Wikipedia has evolved into a distinction between uppercase and lowercase words, for example, allowing an article to be the name of a rock band named "einStein" or "einstein" rather than the name "Einstein". Also, common words have become article titles such as "see" (the verb "to see" or lowercase of German word "de:See") or "here" and such. The new style is as follows:
- For other uses, see here. becomes For other uses, see: here.
- For other uses, see see. becomes For other uses, see: see.
Alternatively, to further reduce confusion, the connection, in some cases, could be occasional use of the phrase "see article:" (as follows, For other uses, see article: see).
The change is not intended as a forced new style to be instantly bot-edited into a million articles ASAP. Rather, the use of see-colon will be a gradual change to accommodate a broader use of lowercase letters or other characters in the names of Wikipedia articles. Article pages and Wikipedia documentation or project pages should begin being changed to use "see:" in that manner, when making other changes at the time. There is no need to rush on this conversion.