Wikipedia:Converting to use of see-colon

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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.