I'm just noodling through the requirements for something that might help build consensus. Even if you think this is the worst idea, please take a minute and think through how it could be changed or improved to help bring us to a middleground. There's a place for your comments at the bottom. Thanks!
It appears there are three intertangled threads here
People have been using DA to suggest removing wikilinking and consequently autoformatting. I believe that dates (like units) should be structured data. I imagine a template like this, which does not exist yet of course. The key thing is that similar to the age/birth/death templates, it's structured data behind the scenes, but looks like plain text on the page. I'm suggesting AWL as a counter proposal name, but would gladly take suggestions for a better title.
WIKIcode => What the default non registered user as well as an editor would see (ie: not linked)
{awl|2008|08|10} => 10 August 2008 (default is international)
{awl|2008|08|10|format=us} => August 10, 2008
{awl|2008|08|10|format=int} => 10 August 2008
{awl|2008|08|10|format=iso} => 2008-08-10
Interesting edges:
{awl|2008|08|10|string=Aug 10 08} => Aug 10 08 (used to specify exactly how an editor wants it to look)
{awl|2008|08|10|string=My name is Bill} => My name is Bill (would not recommend this, but ... )
{awl|2001|09|11|string=[[September 11, 2001]]} =>
September 11, 2001 (including links to specific dates)
Other Era's: (note, Im not too sure of this section)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=AD} => 10 August 2008 (default, but not displayed)
{awl|2008|08|10|format=usera} => August 10, 2008 AD (format says display, AD is default)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=BC} => 10 August 2008 (not sure, should BC display? imho no)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=BC|format=usera} => August 10, 2008 BC (format says display, BC is defined)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=CE|format=intera} => 10 August 2008 CE (format says display, CE is defined)
Sorting:
(see below for discussion)
{awl|2008|08|10|sort} will do the same thing as the dts template, using html to allow table sorting...
Please sign, please keep comments brief and non-emotional. thanks
But if such parser functions were to become available, I could think of far better uses than dates formatting. Like I said, I’m an American and normally write “February 2, 2008” in daily life. But when I’m on Wikipedia writing for an international audience, I use international date formats for articles not closely tied to the U.S. And for me personally, I don’t mind either format. I personally take brief note of the international format when I first encounter it on an article, but it isn’t too distracting. But I am quite distracted when I encounter words that aren’t spelled “correctly”. And by “correctly”, I mean my spell checker doesn’t flag it as incorrect. I use and think in American English and every damned time I encounter something like “realise”, I stop and think, “wait, is that right?” These little (!) brain interrupts are a nuisance we just have to live with on Wikipedia being what it is. If we had I.P.-based geolocation capability at the server level and the parser functions to use in templates, we could have templates like {{dialect|US|commonwealth|realize|realise}}
and {{dialect|US|commonwealth|trunk|boot}}
and {{dialect|US|commonwealth|long-distance line|trunk line}}
and {{dialect|US|commonwealth|President Bush is a heck of a deciderator.|That nitwit Bush: how could those Americans vote for him TWICE!}}
. These would be the first improvements I would make, anyway, once I had access to such parser functions.
Greg L (
talk) 22:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
P.S. reading your proposal (finally) thoroughly enough to understand (I think) what you are proposing, what is the benefit? Why not just write out the date in fixed text? Please explain in layman’s language what your tool does. Greg L ( talk) 22:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
2 February 2008
, and which looked like “2 February 2008”, it’s easier for me to just type it out than remember {awl|2008|08|10|format=int}
.Further, I would be reluctant to even start using a template unless it was locked down, out of fear that some malcontent would come along, mess with the template (changing every damned article in which I ever used it to what I specifically didn’t want), agitate for change, and make a thorough pest of himself over the issue. This date formatting is strangely contentious; I would have thought a style guideline that said “use the U.S. date format for articles on the U.S. and use international for everything else” would be uncontroversial. Foolish me. I’ve seen editors do the Wikipedia-equivalent of strap 10 kilograms of C4 to their bodies and run into a crowded marketplace over date formats. It’s odd.
And finally, why ask that experienced editors try to remember even a more simplified template syntax? What will the underlying data structure allow us to do? Note that Unicode has a special “kelvin” symbol “K” (U+212A), that is distinct from the regular “K”. And the reason at the inception of this was that in the future, computers could use these underlying Unicode hints to truly understand meaning in order to facilitate translation. But any computer can “understand” “2 February 2008”, so I can’t divine how one might actually benefit from having an underlying data structure.
And there will be legions of new and inexperienced editors just writing out “Feb. 2, 2008” (abbreviated name of the month and no non-breaking space). I just don’t see the effort/reward ratio as being really worth it here. Greg L ( talk) 21:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm just noodling through the requirements for something that might help build consensus. Even if you think this is the worst idea, please take a minute and think through how it could be changed or improved to help bring us to a middleground. There's a place for your comments at the bottom. Thanks!
It appears there are three intertangled threads here
People have been using DA to suggest removing wikilinking and consequently autoformatting. I believe that dates (like units) should be structured data. I imagine a template like this, which does not exist yet of course. The key thing is that similar to the age/birth/death templates, it's structured data behind the scenes, but looks like plain text on the page. I'm suggesting AWL as a counter proposal name, but would gladly take suggestions for a better title.
WIKIcode => What the default non registered user as well as an editor would see (ie: not linked)
{awl|2008|08|10} => 10 August 2008 (default is international)
{awl|2008|08|10|format=us} => August 10, 2008
{awl|2008|08|10|format=int} => 10 August 2008
{awl|2008|08|10|format=iso} => 2008-08-10
Interesting edges:
{awl|2008|08|10|string=Aug 10 08} => Aug 10 08 (used to specify exactly how an editor wants it to look)
{awl|2008|08|10|string=My name is Bill} => My name is Bill (would not recommend this, but ... )
{awl|2001|09|11|string=[[September 11, 2001]]} =>
September 11, 2001 (including links to specific dates)
Other Era's: (note, Im not too sure of this section)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=AD} => 10 August 2008 (default, but not displayed)
{awl|2008|08|10|format=usera} => August 10, 2008 AD (format says display, AD is default)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=BC} => 10 August 2008 (not sure, should BC display? imho no)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=BC|format=usera} => August 10, 2008 BC (format says display, BC is defined)
{awl|2008|08|10|era=CE|format=intera} => 10 August 2008 CE (format says display, CE is defined)
Sorting:
(see below for discussion)
{awl|2008|08|10|sort} will do the same thing as the dts template, using html to allow table sorting...
Please sign, please keep comments brief and non-emotional. thanks
But if such parser functions were to become available, I could think of far better uses than dates formatting. Like I said, I’m an American and normally write “February 2, 2008” in daily life. But when I’m on Wikipedia writing for an international audience, I use international date formats for articles not closely tied to the U.S. And for me personally, I don’t mind either format. I personally take brief note of the international format when I first encounter it on an article, but it isn’t too distracting. But I am quite distracted when I encounter words that aren’t spelled “correctly”. And by “correctly”, I mean my spell checker doesn’t flag it as incorrect. I use and think in American English and every damned time I encounter something like “realise”, I stop and think, “wait, is that right?” These little (!) brain interrupts are a nuisance we just have to live with on Wikipedia being what it is. If we had I.P.-based geolocation capability at the server level and the parser functions to use in templates, we could have templates like {{dialect|US|commonwealth|realize|realise}}
and {{dialect|US|commonwealth|trunk|boot}}
and {{dialect|US|commonwealth|long-distance line|trunk line}}
and {{dialect|US|commonwealth|President Bush is a heck of a deciderator.|That nitwit Bush: how could those Americans vote for him TWICE!}}
. These would be the first improvements I would make, anyway, once I had access to such parser functions.
Greg L (
talk) 22:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
P.S. reading your proposal (finally) thoroughly enough to understand (I think) what you are proposing, what is the benefit? Why not just write out the date in fixed text? Please explain in layman’s language what your tool does. Greg L ( talk) 22:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
2 February 2008
, and which looked like “2 February 2008”, it’s easier for me to just type it out than remember {awl|2008|08|10|format=int}
.Further, I would be reluctant to even start using a template unless it was locked down, out of fear that some malcontent would come along, mess with the template (changing every damned article in which I ever used it to what I specifically didn’t want), agitate for change, and make a thorough pest of himself over the issue. This date formatting is strangely contentious; I would have thought a style guideline that said “use the U.S. date format for articles on the U.S. and use international for everything else” would be uncontroversial. Foolish me. I’ve seen editors do the Wikipedia-equivalent of strap 10 kilograms of C4 to their bodies and run into a crowded marketplace over date formats. It’s odd.
And finally, why ask that experienced editors try to remember even a more simplified template syntax? What will the underlying data structure allow us to do? Note that Unicode has a special “kelvin” symbol “K” (U+212A), that is distinct from the regular “K”. And the reason at the inception of this was that in the future, computers could use these underlying Unicode hints to truly understand meaning in order to facilitate translation. But any computer can “understand” “2 February 2008”, so I can’t divine how one might actually benefit from having an underlying data structure.
And there will be legions of new and inexperienced editors just writing out “Feb. 2, 2008” (abbreviated name of the month and no non-breaking space). I just don’t see the effort/reward ratio as being really worth it here. Greg L ( talk) 21:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)