This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 105 | ← | Archive 109 | Archive 110 | Archive 111 | Archive 112 | Archive 113 | → | Archive 115 |
The music project says:
The film project referred to the music guideline and suggests formulas like:
Now the aircraft project is discussing the same issue at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#Template:Avyear. The music project and film project suggestions are not specific to just music or films. I think they have good suggestions that MOSNUM readers may find useful as options. Does anybody agree? Lightmouse ( talk) 20:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
A similar issue is present in Brian Boru, where years link to YYY in Ireland. I think it would be better to write in a style that gives readers a better idea of what they will find when they click on the link. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 20:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Good point, Anderson. Maybe that should be included as advice in MOSNUM. Tony (talk) 04:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Would anyone like to add this now? Lightmouse ( talk) 09:54, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Support Tony's, Gerry's, and Pmanderson's suggestions. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 05:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) serves no purpose at all, as it is simply rehash of WP:MOS (and in one place WP:MOSNUM). To the extent it may say anything distinctive that point should be added to MOS/MOSNUM, but otherwise this is just a blank-and-redirect-to-MOS. See also the closely related discussion at WT:MOS#Text formatting merge proposal. The merge-from page is inconsistent on many points with both target pages, and its talk page is evidence of a great deal of confusion being sown among editors as a result of this break-away "guideline"'s existence. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
PS: I have edited a few bits of it to comply better with MOS/MOSNUM, but much of it is still messed up. There are probably a few points in it not presently in either of the controlling guidelines (which is why I suggested merges instead of just wiping it). One of the most important of these (one that I just added) is that variables should be marked up with <var>variable</var>
(variable), not ''variable''
(variable). They both will typically visually render the same (depending upon user-side CSS), but the former actually has a semantic meaning, while the latter is just presentational hooey (notably, by the time it hits the user's browser, MediaWiki has converted the latter into <span style="font-style: italic;">variable</span>
, not <i>variable</i>
, because it has zero meaning at all from a content/semantics point of view). As with much else in MOS*, the average editor will ignore it and do what is convenient, but math editors (definitely not me) and cleanup gnomes (definitely me) should get this right. —
SMcCandlish [
talk] [
cont] ‹(-¿-)›
06:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I object to this undiscussed change of a policy that belongs in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) and not in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and I will revert it if I don't get a reply very very fast to my objection expressed on the manual's talk page. "SMcCandlish", you really need to take this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (mathematics) and also to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. It's already being discussed on the latter page. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I've done some archive-related changes in the last hour or so.
The newly created subpage "/Date format" had some discussions that were unrelated to the subject. Some of them seemed finished, with no updates in the last couple of days, so I moved them to /Archive 109. Some others had updates in the last couple of days, so I moved them back to this main talk page.
Even after these moves, "/Date format" remained huge. I thought it would be best to archive it as /Archive 110, even though the latest updates to some of the discussions were within the last couple of days. If anyone finds it necessary to continue on any of the individual discussions of that page, perhaps they could copy the text they wish to discuss back to this talk page. In any case, the poll among four choices had been closed, and the runoff poll hadn't been updated for over a day.
D7 in the archives box on the right also points to /Archive 110.
In any case, it's perhaps better to just discuss things just on this main talk page, to avoid any "hiding" of discussions, as a couple of people have pointed out above. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 17:11, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't actually advocate this proposal, but since some people seem to want to do it, I wish to bring the issue to a head and accept or reject it.
Resolved
The community of English Wikipedia editors retroactively recognizes the all-numeric date format used by the date autoformatting software (as of 13 September 2008), and names it the English Wikipedia All Numeric Date Format (E-WANDaF).
The format consists of a four-digit year, between 0001 and 9999 inclusive, a hyphen-minus (Unicode hex 002D), a two digit month, a hyphen-minus, and a two digit day-of-month. If necessary, any element is padded on the left to make up the stated number of digits.
Example: 2008-09-12
The format may be used to represent dates in the Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar (either the proleptic Julian calendar or the calendar as actually observed in Rome in 45 BC to AD 8 inclusive), or the old Roman calendar. If necessary, any conventional notation may be placed near the E-WANDaF date to indicate whether the date is AD or BC. The calendar used shall be deduced by the reader from the context of the article.
Please express your support or opposition below. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 21:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
{{
dts}}
was so that numerical date formats would not be a necessity in sortable tables. --
Jao (
talk)
10:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC){{
dts}}
are deficient in that they don't explain what range of years is valid.If we are to have any further attempts to measure opinions on this difficult issue of date format choice for articles related to non-English-speaking countries or to no country at all, I strongly feel that they should involve just two, maybe three, simple, narrow questions, each requiring just a yes or a no. The problem has been that fully-fledged proposals have been put; no wonder people baulk at having to declare a preference for a set of complex principles rather single issues.
On Pete Skyring's recent edit to MOSNUM: I wholly support Kotniski's reversion and edit summary. Your "country-driven" idea has been rejected, having been given a very reasonable airing. No one appreciates the disruption you are causing by slipping it back into the text. Tony (talk) 13:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I have an interest in dates on Wikipeida, in relation to birth (and death) dates for hCard and start and end dates for hCalendar microformats.
Is it not possible that the existing date templates could be used,; modified so that, if a date before a certain point is entered, a prominent warning is generated, requiring a "calendar" flag be set, and, depending on the flag, the date be rendered as "DD MM YYYY (Gregorian) or "DD MM YYYY (Julian), using any DD-MM-YYYY order/format as suits the user? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
In line with the concerns over mass-delinking of dates that would leave such dates difficult to relocated via computer searches (not impossible, just difficult), I really think we should consider the replacement of dates in articles with a templated version which provides many benefits. The template itself should be simple/stupid: {{d|2008|9|13|int}}, for example, as to make it easy to type as well. Use of the template is not required, but as shown by the benefits below, it can easily help an article maintain an article-consistent date format per MOS. An equivalent template can be made for date ranges. (Note that this is not an ISO date, the date is entered as described in the correct calendar format per the MOSNUM section).
The template would not have to link dates so we don't have over-linking, and the template would have a field for the date format specifier so that regardless of how it is determined what date format to use for an article, the template can put out dates in either format; such a format could also be easily changed in one shot in an article via automated tools like AWB and so forth (just by changing the template parameter in all dates in an article). No DA would be used at all, so the end page results are still the same for anon user and logged in user. The template can be used in main and footnote areas as to normalize the date format (the "cite" template family would need modification for this, but it needs modification anyway for date format equilivalence between text and footnotes). Bots and script tools that are already stripping dates can likely be easily modified to replace linked dates with the template version.
The key benefit is that very likely, if a DA solution is found that addresses all the concerns that others have against it (nonlinking result, anons are shown date format best suited to them (geographical-based or article-based), etc.) only the template has to be modified to bring in the DA solution. Now, there's a likelihood that a proper DA solution may not work with the template, but now we have the other benefit of using a template: a bot can go through and convert the templates to whatever format the DA needs.
The only drawback for this is that we will have a very widely used template, assuming full usage, at least 2 million times (once per page if not more). It would likely need full protection to prevent IP vandal harm, but that's not a huge concern. -- MASEM 13:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
{{dts|link=off|format=dmy|1995|04|28}}
. That produces "28 April 1995", doesn't produce a link, and sorts chronologically when used in a sortable table.{{dts}}
and {{cite}}
. For dates in normal text, we should just write out the date without markup. I don't really see the extra effort involved in template-ifying every single date being worth it.{{dts}}
template produce by default no links and an output in the dmy format, making it unnecessary to specify the parameters link=off|format=dmy
. Also, there should be another output format, shortdmy
or such, that would produce standard month abbreviations in case of the longer months, so the date field wouldn't date up so much space in tables: for instance, "23 Sep. 1879" instead of "23 September 1879".
Teemu Leisti (
talk)
19:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)---
Could we have a date template which, rather than require the specification of YYYY|MM|DD and format as four separate parameters, instead simply wrapped around already fully MOS formatted dates.
The point of this would be for those users who have date preferences set up, so that:
- Ideally I'd like the template name "date" rather than "dte", but "date" is already taken with this buggy thing. Perhaps this could be resolved in future, but I'd encourage keeping things simple for now.
To clarify all the combinations, and to suggest keeping it simple, I'd recommend allowing only the following MOS formats in the template:
Format in template | Rendering for user: | |
---|---|---|
International date preference | US date preference | |
9 May | 9 May | May 9 |
May 9 | 9 May | May 9 |
9 May 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
May 9, 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
Users without set date preferences would of course just get what's in the template.
This way both the user's preferences and the editor's intent (with respect to MOS) would be taken into account.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow the argument of how such a template would make it almost impossible for WP to manage its date formats. Could you explain? As I see it such a template's intent would simply be to give editors the option of catering for user date preferences. I'm not suggesting it ought to be mandatory, but I would ask why you'd deny such choice? It's not as if the question of why all the trouble over whether month or day comes first or second is a newly invented issue. The template would simply resolve linking context issues around the pre-existing date autoformatting approach. If anything, the pre-existence of that autoformatting approach, the fact that it was being used despite its linking issues, clearly indicates that some editors would like to be able to cater somehow for user date preferences. -- SallyScot ( talk) 14:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Again, I don't think I quite follow the argument. I don't see how editors would've been asking for date autoformatting preferences for IP users to be taken into account, because I don't see how such requests would make sense. Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it, you'd need to be a registered user in order to have set up preferences. I think this is how most editors would understand the situation, and as such they wouldn't have been banging on devs' doors asking for the implementation of something that couldn't be done for IP users. -- SallyScot ( talk) 19:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications here. I wasn't really considering the issue of article default date formats. I'm just making the point that IP users can't expect to have their own overriding date preferences without becoming registered users.
The date template I've suggested would simply resolve the linking context issues around the pre-existing approach to date autoformatting (now apparently deprecated). That pre-existing autoformatting approach was to cater for registered user date preference rather than article default date preferences.
Tony's point that "Editors need to see what their readers see" is at the expense of having user date preferences. It necessitates the removal of a long-established and pre-existing choice.
I would rather suggest that registered users (readers/editors) continue to be allowed this choice.
Perhaps some users would rather see dates in their preferred format. That is, rather than feel they're under any particular obligation to spend their time 'fixing' mixed date instances.
With it working this way, if an editor feels on the other hand that the issue of mixed dates formats is their overriding consideration, then they can choose to specify "No preference" as date format option on their preferences page.
Editors need to understand the implications of having their date preferences set, but they certainly ought not to be "prohibited from using the feature" as Jao suggests.
Another thought that occurs is that a date template may even be unnecessary for fully-formatted dates (ones that include day of month, month and year). It ought to be possible to recognise dates in article text; therefore it ought to be able to recognise and format 9 May 2001 and May 9, 2001 in accordance with user date preferences (i.e. without the need to wrap either full date format in a template in the article text).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
This poll runs for a week, and closes at 15:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC).
This is the final step in choosing the MOSNUM guideline to assist editors in determining the most suitable fixed-text date format to use in Wikipedia’s articles.
The results of the runoff poll, as of the vote by Pete, are as follows:
A = 1.31
C = 2.48
e = 1.48
So option C advances with a clear super-majority among the two options that laid out a specific proposal. Option e (each editor suggest an alternative solution) had a variety of opinions and no consistent theme. However, many editors voted with a non-zero value on e but did not add a ref-comment as to what they specifically had in mind. It seems that many treated e as “do nothing”, which would be applied as “keep the current wording.”
The next step is an up or down vote. Now that subsections on Talk:MOSNUM has been archived and the past voting moved to a subpage, we have freed up a lot of room here. The best venue for this next, critical step, is to keep this poll in this high-profile venue so the maximum number of editors can participate. One of the shortcomings of Wikipedia’s procedures is how controversial discussions have in the past been moved to remote backwater venues where it tends to drop off editors’ radar. That’s not good. The more controversial the issue, the more we need to foster the greatest participation by the Wikipedia community to ensure we are getting a good measure of the community’s mood. So let’s keep the voting here, well out in the open where the maximum number of editors can voice their opinion and discuss this matter.
Most everyone in the runoff poll did a great job of registering nuanced votes (a surprising number of 1, 2, and 3 votes), posted thoughtful and constructive vote comments, and debated without rancor. The general consensus in the previous voting, debate, and discussion was that option C was preferable to the other new options. But is option C better than what we currently have? Let’s see if we can push this to a natural conclusion and arrive at a general consensus now.
The options are as follows:
(C) Default to international unless U.S. and its territories—listed countries for editors’ convenience:
(R) Retain present guideline: (This is the current wording. There will be no editwarring on MOSNUM to fight battles over this poll.)
Is the proposed text better than what we have now? This is an up-or-down vote. No “0–4” values for voting; just an “X”.
This poll runs for a week, and closes at 15:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC).
SUPPORT FOR OPTION | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Editor | C | R | |||
Greg L | X [1] | ||||
Septentrionalis | X [2] | ||||
JavierMC | X [3] | ||||
Teemu Leisti | X | ||||
Headbomb | X [4] | ||||
Woodstone | X | ||||
Jeandré du Toit [5] | |||||
Pete | X [6] | ||||
Mr.Z-man | X | ||||
JimWae | X [7] | ||||
GregorB | X [8] | ||||
Mdcollins1984 | X [9] | ||||
Gerry Ashton | X | ||||
Twas Now | × | ||||
Askari Mark | X [10] | ||||
erachima | X [11] | ||||
Arnoutf | X [12] | ||||
AliceJMarkham | X [13] | ||||
dm | X [14] | ||||
Christopher Parham | X [15] | ||||
Truthanado | X | ||||
Rrius | X [16] | ||||
Bzuk | X | ||||
Fullstop | X [17] | ||||
PaleAqua | X [18] | ||||
Ohconfucius* | X [19] | ||||
Robert A West | X [20] | ||||
NerdyNSK* | X | ||||
SharkD* | X [21] | ||||
MJBurrage* | X [22] | ||||
Danorton* | X [23] | ||||
Necrothesp* | X | ||||
Hiding* | X [24] [25] | ||||
ChrisDHDR* | X | ||||
Occuli* | X | ||||
Tom94022 | X | ||||
Arthur Rubin | X [26] | ||||
Calliopejen1 | X | ||||
gadfium | X | ||||
Dtobias | X [27] | ||||
Orderinchaos | X [28] | ||||
Fnagaton | X [29] | ||||
Tomas e | X | ||||
Carewolf | X | ||||
Jacklee | X | ||||
Nichalp | X | ||||
Bkonrad | X | ||||
In general, the primary units are SI (37 kilometers (23 mi)); however, [editors should use] US customary units … [as] the primary units in US-related topics.
Septentrionalis: With regard to your vote comment, come-on, we can read. The current guideline states “articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country…” Now clearly, the Kilogram article is about the kilogram. It could be argued that the French invented the thing, but France is not an English-speaking country and the article is not about France. So the article clearly has no “strong ties to a particular English-speaking country.” Accordingly, the current guideline requires that “the date format chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used”. So if I had used American-style dates, those would have been grandfathered in. That was the point of my vote comment: if I had used an inappropriate date format, the article would have been stuck with American-style dates under the current guideline, which is ill-advised and needs, IMO, to be updated. It’s not all about we editors. The style in articles should be more strongly based on what is most natural for the likely readership. That’s all. Greg L ( talk) 16:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC
I can't imagine what format JimWae is referring to when he says he prefers an International ISO format. I am not aware of any ISO format that allows the display of Julian calendar dates, or dates before 1582. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 20:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I object to the refusal among the "poll constructors" to even consider a country-blind option. Every single proposal that has been "voted" on has included language requiring certain formats for certain articles based on associations with particular nations. No opportunity has been given to register an objection to that requirement. Powers T 17:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I see with some bemusement that Greg L simultaneously wants this poll to stay on this page so it can get "the widest possible input from Wikipedia’s editors", and objects at great length to an RfC, which is the traditional tool for securing such input. I await an explanation which is consistent with good faith. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
“ | So option C advances with a clear super-majority among the two options that laid out a specific proposal. Option e (each editor suggest an alternative solution) had a variety of opinions and no consistent theme. However, many editors voted with a non-zero value on e but did not add a ref-comment as to what they specifically had in mind. It seems that many treated e as “do nothing”, which would be applied as “keep the current wording.” | ” |
I'm getting rather weary of all this. First to Greg, thanks for setting this polling up and doing your best to keep things calm. I might not agree with everything you've done, but it's plain you've acted in good faith throughout. Anderson, this whole dispute erupted because you changed the long-standing wording in MOSNUM without consensus [1] and then engaged in edit-warring to keep your preferred view. After a long discussion and two votes a fresh position emerged with strong support, but again you changed to your preferred wording [2] without consensus. Looking at the discussion above, I see the same arguments that we've already seen many times before. Rather than bloat out yet another discussion page, why not leave the poll to run its course, let editors make new points rather than rehashing old ones, and quit being disruptive? Is that so very hard? -- Pete ( talk) 19:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Obvious anti-Americanism run rampant yet again. There was nothing wrong with the previous way things worked, and this is going inevitably to lead to edit warring by Americans who feel that they're being discriminated against, or else there will be zealots attacking Americans who have the temerity to use American date formats in articles which are not specifically about American subject matter. Let me state clearly here and now: I will not bow down to date fascism, and will format dates in whatever format I damn well please. Corvus cornix talk 20:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I am just looking into this item in MOS, and I know there has been a lot of history, so I apologize if this seems out-of-place or a late addition to the discussion. It seems to me that a firm rule (as opposed to good counsel) on this subject is just asking for silliness: a commodity too common on Wikipedia. It matters little to ordinary readers whether one uses 4 July 1776 or July 4, 1776: any reasonable reader will understand. While the current rule about national tendencies is probably 80% right, there are significant issues not discussed. In particular, if the scholarly sources for an article use a particular format, Wikipedia should use that format, even if it runs opposite to the rule currently given.
Two examples: Modern military history tends to use the "European" form even when written in the U.S. Contrariwise, the current "U.S." form was common British practice in the late 18th century (a fact that should surprise no one). Some secondary sources modernize the usage except when quoting, and others use the older format throughout. It would strike me as useless to complain if the editors of an article decided to adopt the older format throughout. While Septentrionalis is correct that the MOS can be overruled by local article consensus, I think it would do not harm, and much good, for the text to add
Regards. Robert A.West ( Talk) 20:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking more carefully at the instructions for this poll, I see two options, first is a less verbose Option C, and the second says, Retain present guideline: (This is the current wording. There will be no editwarring on MOSNUM to fight battles over this poll. The problem is that the current wording has no consensus - it's merely PMAnderson's edit-warred version of the long-standing wording here. I grew tired of restoring the existing wording, believing that with broad discussion and polling underway, we'd get consensus, and Anderson wasn't heeding the warnings to cool it anyway. Now I find that Anderson's persistent edit-warring is taken to be the current wording, and we're voting for it or the winner of both the primary poll and the run-off. This is bizarre, especially given Greg's warning against edit-warring.
In fact, Anderson's wording has been rejected already - it is the rejected Option B of the first poll here. See for yourself:
(The note about Canada is non-contentious, and the existing guidelines in the MoS describe the "first major contributor" rule.)
So my objections are threefold:
I'll accept that Greg is acting in good faith, and doing his best to shepherd this thing to a satisfactory conclusion, and nobody's perfect, but in the light of these concerns I really must ask for an explanation.
What we should really be doing, I suggest, is recognising that Option C won twice over and instead of voting yet again, we should be working on the wording, forming it into something we can work with. I note that several (presumably American) editors have expressed concern over compulsion and "fascism". I'd like to ensure that the agreed wording addresses these concerns. -- Pete ( talk) 05:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
As for the less verbosity in option C, I omitted the “there will be no tie to dialect”-sentence. That sentence had been in a version of the text used in the prior votes only to highlight the distinction from the options that did tie the date format to the dialect used in the article (regardless of the subject matter); but as a standalone against the current MOSNUM guideline, it wasn’t really necessary and has zero effect on the proposed guideline. It was rather like, “You are instructed to go up (that means you won’t be going down)”: one doesn’t need the parenthetical caveat except for those who are galactically stupid or stubborn. Greg L ( talk) 20:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I am fairly sure that Skyring has been warned about WP:CANVASS before; but the evidence that he has been spending the last day largely appealling to anyone he can think of to vote on his position; including Ohconfucius, NerdyNSK, SharkD, MJBurrage, Necrothesp, Hiding, and Occuli; DANorton seems to have voted against the solicitation. (Two or three have not yet responded.) Skyring has at least learned to phrase more or less neutrally; but mass posting to a partisan audience is disapproved of - it is traditional to give less weight to such !votes, as not a random sample of all interested Wikipedians. In this case, Skyring has contacted those editors who disliked A last time, and none of those who disliked C. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
No running time has been given for the poll. I think this should be fixed at the start, so there can be no accusations on the person running the poll that they have cut off the poll at a time convenient to them. I suggest one week's running time, and the following note to be added to the poll's instructions: This poll closes at 15:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC). (The edit history shows that Greg L added the poll at 15:48 on the 13th.) Teemu Leisti ( talk) 07:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC) PS. Greg, I am not concerned about you manipulating the poll, simply about the best practice of polls, and avoiding the possibility of accusations of improper behaviour. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 07:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Corvus cornix is completely right. This is an atrocious waste of time. First, polls are non-binding. Second, a guideline is non-binding. Third, and most important: if you do not have the skills, time, or inclination to research substantive topics so you can write real encyclopedia articles, please do not try to inflate your edit count by busy-body actions that just amount to instruction-creep. Wikipedia is an anarchic community and the only rules that matter are the ones that allow people with diverse points of view work together. Aside from that, WP:BOLD, dudes. Rules which impose one way of doing things on others is the worst idea in the world, it is the opposite of freedom and anarchy and diversity i.e. core values of Wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
This does, indeed, seem to be one of those instances in which Wikipedians get into the most heated debates about the most pointless things, like the "road wars" where people got into fisticuffs over whether to use " New York State Route 376" or "State Route 376 (New York)" or "State Road 376 (New York)" or "Route 376 (New York State)" or whatever. I, for one, am American and tend to use American date formats in my offline life, but on the Internet I've often used more "internationalized" formats in places like my personal Web site (which has "This page was first created 07 Mar 1995, and last modified 16 May 2004.") and when presenting evidence in an ArbCom case here in the form of a chronological list of events, on the basis that this format, though not native to my own country, is concise and clear, and well suited to the international audience of the Internet. In still other contexts, like log formats, database fields, and file naming schemes (which, as a "techie", I deal with a lot), I generally use a format such as "2001-09-11 08:45:00" which has the virtue of sorting properly in an ASCII ordering. But I think the present guidelines which encourage use of dates corresponding to the format in use in the country relevant to the article and permit latitude in date formatting otherwise are a decent compromise, and "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" *Dan T.* ( talk) 13:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Two definite questions, and the possibility of a third, have come out of this poll, despite its structural inhibition of discussion. This is not <gesture of aversion> a new poll; these are questions whether tweaking the language in some directions can get general consent. If there is more than one or two voices in opposition to any of these, I will close it (as "resolved: no change") myself; also if there is no outpouring of wider support.
These are questions of what we should do in principle; if you approve changing in that direction, please suggest wording. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:12, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 105 | ← | Archive 109 | Archive 110 | Archive 111 | Archive 112 | Archive 113 | → | Archive 115 |
I would like to suggest that the bots that happily wander through pages and change wikilinked dates to plain text be prohibited from making any edits to pages in user space. Autoformatted dates work correctly for logged-in users, and if a user specifies a date preference, they should get what they asked for in pages that they control. Put another way, the deprecation of auto-formatted dates should not apply to user space. Truthanado ( talk) 20:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Who would bother running a script (not a bot) on a user page? Tony (talk) 01:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I've removed it again. I see no consensust for its placement there in the first place. It damages the status of the whole page, sending a message that it's unstable. Policy and style pages are inherently unstable—it'a a wiki. There's no "This is an unstable mess" posted in a huge box at the top of WP:NFC, even though WP:NFCC#8 has gone back and forth and back and forth month after month for most of this year. Tony (talk) 02:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
There is a section in the MOSNUM about using K/M/G rather than Ki/Mi/Gi. K is never a proper SI prefix; it should be lowercase k. I changed that, assuming it was an uncontroversial typo correction, but apparently I have to go through a procedure of discussing it here. Well here I mention it; change it or leave it as it is. I'm not wasting more time on it, but in the latter case I will take MOSNUM a lot less seriously in the future. Han-Kwang ( t) 20:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
If you read the technical literature of the 1950s and 1960s you will notice that case did not matter. Frequency was measured in kilocycles and megacycles (this was before hertz). You will see 10 mc and 10 MC for 10 megacycles. Capacitors were measured in microfarad abbreviated as "mfd" or "MFD". Picofarad was not used; micromicrofarad was used instead and abbreviated as "mmfd" or "MMFD". This worked because no one broadcast on 10 microcycles and you could not make a 10 megafarad capacitor. Here are some references to k and K.
On a 32k core size 704 computer, approximately 28,000 datum may be analyzed, … without resorting to auxiliary tape storage.
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help) The author is with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. (Note: The
IBM 704 used binary addressing, K = 1024.)The following scheme for assigning storage for fixed-word-length arrays seems to meet these criteria and has been used successfully in working with linear arrays on a 4k IBM 1401.
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IBM 1401 used decimal addressing, k = 1000.){{
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help) Figure 1 gives storage (memory) capacity ranges of the various models in "Capacity 8 bit bytes, 1 K = 1024"One type, designated as the small core memory (SCM) is a many bank coincident current type memory with a total of 64K words of 60 bit length (K=1024).
All-monolithic storage ... (1024-bit NMOS) This new improvement of processor storage makes system expansion more economical. Real storage capacity is available in 512K increments ranging from 512K to 2,048K bytes.
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help)SWTPC6800 ( talk) 15:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Some newer ones.
kilo (K). (1) A prefix indicating 1000. (2) In statements involving size of computer storage, a prefix indicating 210, or 1024. mega (M). (1) A prefix indicating one million. (2) In statements involving size of computer storage, a prefix indicating 220, or 1,048,576.
Kbyte. Kilobyte. Indicates 210 bytes. Mbyte. Megabyte. Indicates 220bytes. Gbyte is used in the Foreword.
SWTPC6800 ( talk) 19:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
The uses cited by Swtpc6800 don't really solve the issue of what Wikipedia should use for kbit when we mean 1000 bits. SI was not created until 1960, and we have to allow a few years for it to catch on, so the only journal article from the list above that tells us anything is the one from 1972, and that refers to the binary meaning (1024 bits). Since there is no clear use in the industry of K for 1000, I believe Wikipedia should use k, and the "Manual of Style (dates and numbers)" edited accordingly. Does anyone disagree? --
Gerry Ashton (
talk)
16:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
It struck me that I cannot see anything (at least obviously) that suggests or disallows use of month abbreviations (eg "Sept." for September), a fact that is often used in tables where there is date information but the table has gotten rather wide. Presuming that in line with "which format", is there a standard?
Namely: if abbreviations are ok, we should fix on one set of abbreviations (either all three letter, or the more common: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, June, July, Aug. Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec set.) and make sure what punctuation we should use, eg "Sept. 15, 2008" vs "Sept 15, 2008" and "15 Sept. 2008" vs "15 Sept 2008" (note lack of abbreviation period). If they are not ok, we should be stating this. -- MASEM 23:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Abbreviations are fine in charts and the like where full months make the thing too big or distract from more important data, but abbreviations in text are informal and produce ugly prose. -
Rrius (
talk)
04:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
LeadSongDog, keep in mind there is a vast difference between a date field and an accessdate field. The timespan covered by date is about 600 times greater than the timespan covered by accessdate, so the date must accomodate dates covered by Julian, Gregorian, and other calendars, some of which cannot be accurately associated with dates in modern calendar systems. They must also accomodate negative years or BC. Also keep in mind that citation templates are entirely optional. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 14:48, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
This article is currently going through a peer review. The point that that all numbers under 10 should be written, but are unsure how "1 minute 23 seconds" should be written as it's referring to time. Should it stay how it is or be written "one minute 23 seconds"? Thanks, -- Jimbo [online] 07:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Call me petty-minded, but I'm still bothered about the fact that some of the decade articles are misnamed. (We've discussed this before, and more or less agreed to make the change, but there were always more pressing things to do.) The problem concerns the decades which begin centuries (or end them, if BC), such as 1100s, 1800s and so on. We know, of course, that in real life 1100s refers to 100 years, not 10, but Wikipedia has decided differently. If you agree (or disagree) that this decision should be reversed (i.e. the decade article at 1100s should be renamed 1100–1109, etc.), then please comment at the discussion I started at what seems to be the most relevant page - namely WT:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Decades.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
At WP:JARGON, we have: "... as a rule of thumb, if expressing an equation requires LaTeX (as most do), do not assume the reader will understand what it means. It is also considered polite (but not always necessary) to explain how the symbols are read, e.g. "A ⇔ B means A is true if and only if B is true". Much of the hassle and redundancy can often be mitigated by providing a link to the extremely helpful table of mathematical symbols and providing a simple warning/disclaimer, such as at the top of the prisoner's dilemma article." I'd prefer that this material be here (in whatever tweaked form we prefer) rather than WP:JARGON because the typical users wondering what to do about numbers and symbols will probably be searching here or at the math MOS, not WP:JARGON. If you guys agree that this is a better page for that, I'll remove it there and we can start discussing it here. - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 13:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
What about a way to break up long sequences of numbers after a decimal point? For instance, at Earth a distance is given as 1.0167103335 AU. At Charon, the period is 6.3872304 ± 0.0000011 days. These can be rather difficult to read.
What about a convention of breaking up such sequences? Commas might prove confusing, but we have at least one numerical template that adds spaces:
Commas, for comparison:
kwami ( talk) 05:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
The recent "final" poll on date formats has expired and been moved to /Archive 111. For comments see below.-- Kotniski ( talk) 20:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Over in the automobiles project, the question has arisen of uppercase or lowercase expression for adverbial unit abbreviations. We've no convention on the matter within the project, and I find no explicit provisions anywhere in MoS. Grammar authorities seem to agree that noun abbreviations (NHTSA, RDA, IQ, THC, UFO, HIV, and so forth) get uppercase, while adverbial abbreviations (rpm, mpg, mph, and the regionally-preferred kph) get lowercase. See here, here, here, here, here (search page for rpm), here (search page for rpm), here (search page for mph), here (search for mph), and here (search mpg) for example. Can anyone think of a reason this convention should not be adopted here on Wikipedia? — Scheinwerfermann ( talk) 19:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
In chronological listings, historical summaries, scientific archiving, etc., it's generally the year that needs to be prominent. Is the MOS now saying that the rational order, year-month-day (actually, millennium-century-decade-year-month-day-hour-minute-second) is no longer acceptable? Having the day first and the year last when the year is more relevant than the day doesn't make sense. kwami ( talk) 19:51, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
I hope not. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, the poll has run its course according to its pre-announced running time. I've moved that whole large section to the archive; apologies if there were side-threads that people wanted to continue, but they can bring them back if they (really) want. I don't think anyone will dispute that the poll confirmed that there is no consensus to change the present wording of the section at this time (at least, not in the way suggested there, i.e. by making day-month the preferred format over month-day basically in any article not U.S./Canada-related). Other proposals for improving this section of the guidance are now awaited (though not very eagerly, I suspect).-- Kotniski ( talk) 20:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
---
Could we have a date template which, rather than require the specification of YYYY|MM|DD and format as four separate parameters, instead simply wrapped around already fully MOS formatted dates.
The point of this would be for those users who have date preferences set up, so that:
- Ideally I'd like the template name "date" rather than "dte", but "date" is already taken with this buggy thing. Perhaps this could be resolved in future, but I'd encourage keeping things simple for now.
To clarify all the combinations, and to suggest keeping it simple, I'd recommend allowing only the following MOS formats in the template:
Format in template | Rendering for user: | |
---|---|---|
International date preference | US date preference | |
9 May | 9 May | May 9 |
May 9 | 9 May | May 9 |
9 May 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
May 9, 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
Users without set date preferences would of course just get what's in the template.
This way both the user's preferences and the editor's intent (with respect to MOS) would be taken into account.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow the argument of how such a template would make it almost impossible for WP to manage its date formats. Could you explain? As I see it such a template's intent would simply be to give editors the option of catering for user date preferences. I'm not suggesting it ought to be mandatory, but I would ask why you'd deny such choice? It's not as if the question of why all the trouble over whether month or day comes first or second is a newly invented issue. The template would simply resolve linking context issues around the pre-existing date autoformatting approach. If anything, the pre-existence of that autoformatting approach, the fact that it was being used despite its linking issues, clearly indicates that some editors would like to be able to cater somehow for user date preferences. -- SallyScot ( talk) 14:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Again, I don't think I quite follow the argument. I don't see how editors would've been asking for date autoformatting preferences for IP users to be taken into account, because I don't see how such requests would make sense. Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it, you'd need to be a registered user in order to have set up preferences. I think this is how most editors would understand the situation, and as such they wouldn't have been banging on devs' doors asking for the implementation of something that couldn't be done for IP users. -- SallyScot ( talk) 19:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications here. I wasn't really considering the issue of article default date formats. I'm just making the point that IP users can't expect to have their own overriding date preferences without becoming registered users.
The date template I've suggested would simply resolve the linking context issues around the pre-existing approach to date autoformatting (now apparently deprecated). That pre-existing autoformatting approach was to cater for registered user date preference rather than article default date preferences.
Tony's point that "Editors need to see what their readers see" is at the expense of having user date preferences. It necessitates the removal of a long-established and pre-existing choice.
I would rather suggest that registered users (readers/editors) continue to be allowed this choice.
Perhaps some users would rather see dates in their preferred format. That is, rather than feel they're under any particular obligation to spend their time 'fixing' mixed date instances.
With it working this way, if an editor feels on the other hand that the issue of mixed dates formats is their overriding consideration, then they can choose to specify "No preference" as date format option on their preferences page.
Editors need to understand the implications of having their date preferences set, but they certainly ought not to be "prohibited from using the feature" as Jao suggests.
Another thought that occurs is that a date template may even be unnecessary for fully-formatted dates (ones that include day of month, month and year). It ought to be possible to recognise dates in article text; therefore it ought to be possible to recognise and format 9 May 2001 and May 9, 2001 in accordance with user date preferences (i.e. without the need to wrap either full date format in a template in the article text).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I can't see any real consensus coming out of the series of polls, except maybe that all but a few people are getting tired of discussing this. Counting noses is all very well, but given the changes in proposed wordings during the series of polls, no wording has overall approval. More than that, no philosophy has overall approval.
The comments of individual editors in discussion or when casting their !votes are more useful in gauging the mood of the community, and perhaps I can attempt to summarise my perceptions of things we have consensus on.
While not consensus as such, we have the ArbCom desicion on Jguk for high-level guidance. Summed up, this makes changing one existing style to another without good reason, and an example of good reason is given: with respect to English spelling as opposed to American spelling it would be acceptable to change from American spelling to English spelling if the article concerned an English subject.
Where we don't have consensus is in how to treat articles without clear ties to an English-speaking country. These fall into two types:
There are four approaches:
With the deprecation of date autoformatting, resulting in editors seeing the same mix of date formats as readers, it would give Wikipedia a more professional and uniform look to have some consistent guideline in place. As it stands, all four of the above approaches have been used, with predictable results for consistency. -- Pete ( talk) 21:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Considering the recent discussion, I think it is pertinent to quote what passes for law around here, which is the ArbCom ruling on jguk:
1) Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the "purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format," see [8]. The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent within an article." [9].
2) When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to English spelling as opposed to American spelling it would be acceptable to change from American spelling to English spelling if the article concerned an English subject. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article is colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles as both are acceptable.
3) Courtesy between Wikipedia editors is important, especially with respect to matters which are in dispute.
4) Revert wars are usually considered harmful, because they cause ill-will between users and negatively destabilize articles. Users are encourage to explore alternate methods of dispute resolution, such as negotiation, surveys, requests for comment, mediation, or arbitration.
5) At times the proper implementation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy will be a matter of dispute between reasonable editors who sincerely wish to uphold the principle. In these cases, no attempts to dictate the proper solution, whether coming from the Arbitration Committee or from a mechanism such as a poll, will be helpful. All that can be done is to insist that the participants in the dispute remain civil and respectful.
Clearly the ruling allows format changes to be made for good reason, and a national tie to a topic is a good reason.
Perhaps the final statement is the most telling. We can't expect the ArbCom to rule on a specific date format in an specific article. In fact I'd expect such a request to be tossed out, with the injunction that the involved editors should sort it out themselves and be civil to each other. Likewise a poll won't solve matters, if the dispute is between reasonable editors. -- Pete ( talk) 23:59, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking at this edit by Gerry Ashton, he gives an edit summary of Revert attempt to defeat consensus reached on talk page; assertion is unproven and irrlevant.
No consensus was reached on the talk page, let alone over this point. Nor is the assertion unproven: a glance at Calendar date gives a list of countries where "day before month" is the predominant format. Checking this via a computer control panel gives the same result. The language spoken is irrelevant. -- Pete ( talk) 00:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Gentlepedians, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. In truth, most countries do use the European style, and the point you’re editwarring over is pretty trivial. The simple fact is, the American format is (to be precise): “predominant in the US, and widely used in Canada and a few other countries”. If you’re going to point out that the former style is “common in most countries”, then it’s probably obligatory to note at the least the major exceptions, if not the full specific list (which I do not advocate). None of this is contrary to the consensus.
As for reverting back to the “original” version, I’ll point out that there’s an open question as to which that is, since edits to the section have continued unabated throughout most of the debate. In fact, what Gerry is reverting to is simply the first revision of the day (20 Sep.) by PMAnderson. His edit replaced a series of changes by Ckatz, JimWae and, lastly, DI2000 the previous day.
So instead of edit warring over “protecting” some “official” version, may I suggest that you come to an agreement here on just how many other countries besides the U.S. should be mentioned and then make the change to the MOSDATE text. As long as it doesn't contravene the sense of the consensus, no harm is probably done by such minor changes. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:28, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
What is the policy on delinking dates that are linked for purely autoformatting reasons? When I first saw that date autoformatting was deprecated, I sighed (I like date autoformatting, though I understand the reasons for ditching it) and went about delinking when I came across it. Then I saw a side discussion on this page where a few people said we should hold off until some other issue (presumably what format to use) was handled. I decided to just heed that advice, but now I am not sure what to do. Should I be delinking and putting those dates in the appropriate ENGVAR format or not? - Rrius ( talk) 23:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Hope this is the right place ;) What is the best way to word the following: "On March 26–28, 1958, the NCLC held the first of many workshops..." Should it say "on" or "from" at the beginning, and should the dates say:
Opinions? Kaldari ( talk) 06:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I might "during March 26–28" but NOT "from March 26–28", since "from" goes with "to" (and similarly "between" goes with "and" in cases like this). Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Moved from Lightmouse talk page: begin
Please stop removing instances of template {{ convert}} dealing with ship speeds from infoboxes in ship articles as you did recently here. I have asked you previously to stop ( here) but you have continued. Please stop using whatever assistive tools you are using to prevent your further removal of speed conversions unless and until they can be altered to avoid such removals in the future. — Bellhalla ( talk) 13:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I understand that you object to the abbreviation 'kn'. I also understand that you don't like it being used even though it is part of the template code invisible to readers. Although I disagree with you, I have tried to work with you by using the full form. I had hoped that you would be happy with that. I don't understand why you object to the full form 'knot' or 'knots'. I think we should take this off my talk page and onto a different page such as wp:mosnum. As you suggest, third party involvement would be a good idea. Lightmouse ( talk) 18:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Moved from Lightmouse talk page: end
User:Bellhalla is unhappy with some of my edits. I will not add any more comments but he/she did suggest that I ask somebody else to explain the objection. I agree that it would be a good idea to seek third party input. I am reluctant to add further comment because I don't fully understand the problem. So it might need a little digging around to find out what he/she said and what I said. If anyone else is willing to take a look at this, I would be grateful. Thanks. Lightmouse ( talk) 18:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Can we try and discuss the basic question of year articles and wikilinks to year articles without mentioning autoformatting? The recent changes (by User:Lightbot among others) seem to be removing links to year articles that were never part of any date, autoformatted or not. So what reason would there be to remove all links to year articles? There are surely some cases where year articles should be linked, otherwise there is no reason for them to exist. Or should year articles only be linked from calendars and categories-set-up-as-calendars? My view is that some year links are a useful placeholder to allow "what links here" for a particular year to be used to locate notable events for that year, and hence build the year articles. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
For discussion, I present my three cases again; the second is not doable by a month year link, and cases like the first may not be (the month may not be known):
OK, but there are nearly 3000 that link to 1776 (and nearly 1000 to 1682 [which is what I meant to type]). None of those amounts is useful to the "general reader" - if some links are truly relevant, some other method needs to be used -- JimWae ( talk) 09:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Response from Tony1: "I regard Tony's approach as very narrow and limited."—Well, year pages are very narrow and limited, as you appear to admit. If 2000-plus year articles are still ragtag slender lists of unconnected factoids after all of this time, I'm unconvinced that magically they'll be transformed any time soon. The task of bringing year-pages up to standard would be monumental.
If you want my opinion, before a certain century (possibly the 15th, but I'm unsure), the information becomes so threadbare that it would be better to conflate year pages into decade pages. 1345 demonstrates this: per se, it's a relatively good attempt, but robs the surrounding years of much content. Better that such articles deal with broader historical descriptions over ten-year periods. In more recent centuries, year pages are more appropriate: not only has there been a faster level of activity and change in human societies, but more information is available, because the sources are both more recent and more variegated.
But none of this overcomes the specificity–generality quandary in linking years as a standard formula: either the year page buries the information that is relevant to an article from which it is linked (when properly developed and dealing as it should with a whole-world context); or it contains no information of relevance (when, as usual, the year article is woefully underdeveloped).
Please convince me that this view is wrong, or at least challenge my arguments, because thus far no one has come up with the answer. If the orphaning of year pages is of concern, it should not be: year-in-X pages are the obvious gateway to solitary year pages, and year-in-X pages, provided they are not arrived at through unthinking, formulaic "hidden" links in articles, should be regarded as part of the same chronological infrastructure in WP. At present, they are not, which is a great pity (WikiProjects please note). Tony (talk) 09:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I accept there are reasons for this but they are not so compelling that they are worth all the hastle when it is possible for someone to misinterpret it as a reason for mass delinking of years. Most important, this MOS is over long and needs reducing. Dejvid ( talk) 11:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Dejvid, you may find the MoS overly long, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. This what you've written is a perfect example of " I don't like it" argumentation. — Scheinwerfermann ( talk) 15:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Scheinwerfermann, I said three things. First of all this clause has a cost. It is creating arguments and I'm not alone in saying that it is being abused. That's real. I then said I didn't think it was worth the cost. Fine, just because I don't think it is worth the cost, doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason. You may have a killer reason of which I'm unaware. I'm not a mind reader. I have asked to tell me what reason you have in mind that is so overwhelming to be worth the problems it is causing. Until you give me a reason what can I do but assume that you have no good reason. Finally I made a general point about the MOS being too big. If you are going have a set of rules they work best when they are few. As you increase them a law of diminishing returns sets in. Beyond a certain threshold each new rule becomes counter productive. Eventually most users will become alienated from the rules, they will no longer participate in the consensus needed to give them legitimacy and will ignore them. I may be wrong about my opinion that the MOS has exceeded that threshold but lets test it by finding a way of seeking the opinion of editors who do not normally come near the MOS. So please stop just labelling what I'm saying as " I don't like it" argumentation as an excuse to ignore my arguments. Dejvid ( talk) 23:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'm not parsing Rubin's sentence correctly, but there has been even longer standing consensus that solo years are not linked. That's a very old given. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 03:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
To put the argument in a nutshell: dates are linked. Unless and until there is a resolution on the general linking issue, as opposed to the autoformatting issue, the status quo is that dates are linked. Therefore any sentence that begins "Dates are not linked..." is untrue! What follows those words is immaterial. Any statement beginning "dates are linked only...", "dates are linked when...", "dates are linked but..." etc. is acceptable, but "dates are not linked..." is not. It looks like an attempt to pre-empt an ongoing discussion. I'm not saying that that was the intention of the person who put it there, but now that it is disputed that construction could be put on the attempts to keep it as it is. Scolaire ( talk) 10:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
There is widespread confusion about concealed links. People seem absolutely determined to use concealed links even where they break autoformatting. I think that either the language in the MOS needs to be shorter and stronger, or people need more education. I fix many of these errors yet people are prepared to revert over it.
For just one example, see the history of Ballinglass Incident. What can be done? Lightmouse ( talk) 09:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
The last bullet under the Dates section could use some clarification. It currently states "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so". What is considered a good "particular reason"? Notable historic events – surely. Birth/death of a notable person – maybe. What else? Should linked dates only include those events back referenced from the date pages?
Also, I noticed that there is a movement by some editors to remove existing date links. For example, this edit to the Usain Bolt article removed a link from the subject's birth date, even though the subject is listed on the date pages. Is it the intent of this policy to remove such links?
I'm sure if I dig through the discussion archives I'll find some answers, but my point is that the specific guidelines should be on the MOS page. Thank you. -- Tcncv ( talk) 01:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Are there any plans to replace the meta data applications linked dates provide? The mass delinking is breaking those options. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-16 t20:54z
Is it actually suggested here that it would be OK for an article (like the Queen's) to consistently use "21 April 1926", "29 May 1926", "6 February 1952" etc., plus one " 2 June 1953", which will for some users be presented as "June 2, 1953"? Isn't that a little too inconsistent? (Then, it might get people to turn off preferences, which is probably a good idea anyway.) Also, how about linking to the specific date article for the date when the subject matter occurred, came into being or ceased to exist ("the competition was held on August 9, 2004", or "the competition was held on 9 August 2004")? These articles only exist for a few years however, and whether or not they should exist is probably a question for Category talk:Dates. An article listing the events of August 9, 2004 feels like trivia, but hardly any more so than listing lots of events that happened on August 9 in the main August 9 article. (Note: I'm not saying we should be linking any dates, I don't feel strongly either way about that. Just asking how we should link, if at all.) -- Jao ( talk) 16:50, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
What is the value of a June 2 article or a 1953 article? I presume many people think they are valuable since there are hundreds of such articles. What kind of article should link to them? Self-evidently if all dates are de-linked then all those articles will become orphaned. So back to Tcncv's original point: "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so" should be followed by a statement of what constitutes a good reason; and his other point: the dates of events, births, deaths etc. in those articles should always be linked. Scolaire ( talk) 15:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Tony1's comment: I haven't seen one good reason why dates of birth and death should be linked. They are linked only because of an appalling decision in the programming design of date autoformatting to entangle it with the linking mechanism. "9 June" etc was never intended to function as a link to the corresponding anniversary article: magic bright-blue buttons for diversionary browsing are discouraged in a serious encyclopedia, for all of the reasons trotted out ad infinitum on this page and its archives). Neither was the other other date fragment in autoformatted dates intended as a wormhole to a year-page, and most casual readers would be unaware that it links separately to such.
Having surveyed many year-pages, all I can say is that they're poor. When they approach the standard of 1345, we might start to promote them in the project. But for the most part, they're rag-tag threadbare lists of fragmentary facts. The quandary raised by 1345 is that it sucks in much of the suitable information for the surrounding years, too. What would be more suitable is decade articles before the last few centuries. They could make a fascinating addition to WP's historical articles. But the chance that this will happen is slender, I suspect. I note PMA's arguments above, and apologise for not yet responding. Surely the exceptional year-link is allowable under the current guidelines ("not normally"), where editors want to put a case for the benefits? I'm referring to odd years such as 1776 in the context of the American revolution, and years in the two 20th-century world wars. Tony (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Let's not forget that the TWO most important things about Wikipedia are that:
A. Anyone can edit, which leads to potential for the most up-to-date information
B. Wikilinks, which allow a user to get from one topic area to a related (but tangential) topic very quickly. In short, Wikipedia has become a collective "brain" of humanity, and building these links increases Wikipedia's brainpower.
Therefore, it doesn't make sense to unlink dates. WHY are dates used? To place events in historical context. Links allow us to investigate that context. No links reduces and devalues one of the two main pillars of Wikipedia's purpose and success. Ryoung122 10:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I think there's a demonstrated lack of consensus for "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so". Can we remove it? hateless 14:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the issue of linking to year articles needs to be separated out from the autoformatting issues. See here for a separate discussion. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
[[date X]]
could just as well be formulated as [[link to article for event Y|date X]]
."(December 31, 210—February 14, 270)
" for Saint Val. Should then nothing be linked here (since the event is also referred to later in the text), or only "February 14" be linked, or the whole date, or both dates or what? --
Fullstop (
talk)
07:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 105 | ← | Archive 109 | Archive 110 | Archive 111 | Archive 112 | Archive 113 | → | Archive 115 |
The music project says:
The film project referred to the music guideline and suggests formulas like:
Now the aircraft project is discussing the same issue at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#Template:Avyear. The music project and film project suggestions are not specific to just music or films. I think they have good suggestions that MOSNUM readers may find useful as options. Does anybody agree? Lightmouse ( talk) 20:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
A similar issue is present in Brian Boru, where years link to YYY in Ireland. I think it would be better to write in a style that gives readers a better idea of what they will find when they click on the link. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 20:26, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Good point, Anderson. Maybe that should be included as advice in MOSNUM. Tony (talk) 04:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Would anyone like to add this now? Lightmouse ( talk) 09:54, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Support Tony's, Gerry's, and Pmanderson's suggestions. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 05:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) serves no purpose at all, as it is simply rehash of WP:MOS (and in one place WP:MOSNUM). To the extent it may say anything distinctive that point should be added to MOS/MOSNUM, but otherwise this is just a blank-and-redirect-to-MOS. See also the closely related discussion at WT:MOS#Text formatting merge proposal. The merge-from page is inconsistent on many points with both target pages, and its talk page is evidence of a great deal of confusion being sown among editors as a result of this break-away "guideline"'s existence. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
PS: I have edited a few bits of it to comply better with MOS/MOSNUM, but much of it is still messed up. There are probably a few points in it not presently in either of the controlling guidelines (which is why I suggested merges instead of just wiping it). One of the most important of these (one that I just added) is that variables should be marked up with <var>variable</var>
(variable), not ''variable''
(variable). They both will typically visually render the same (depending upon user-side CSS), but the former actually has a semantic meaning, while the latter is just presentational hooey (notably, by the time it hits the user's browser, MediaWiki has converted the latter into <span style="font-style: italic;">variable</span>
, not <i>variable</i>
, because it has zero meaning at all from a content/semantics point of view). As with much else in MOS*, the average editor will ignore it and do what is convenient, but math editors (definitely not me) and cleanup gnomes (definitely me) should get this right. —
SMcCandlish [
talk] [
cont] ‹(-¿-)›
06:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I object to this undiscussed change of a policy that belongs in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) and not in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and I will revert it if I don't get a reply very very fast to my objection expressed on the manual's talk page. "SMcCandlish", you really need to take this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (mathematics) and also to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. It's already being discussed on the latter page. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
I've done some archive-related changes in the last hour or so.
The newly created subpage "/Date format" had some discussions that were unrelated to the subject. Some of them seemed finished, with no updates in the last couple of days, so I moved them to /Archive 109. Some others had updates in the last couple of days, so I moved them back to this main talk page.
Even after these moves, "/Date format" remained huge. I thought it would be best to archive it as /Archive 110, even though the latest updates to some of the discussions were within the last couple of days. If anyone finds it necessary to continue on any of the individual discussions of that page, perhaps they could copy the text they wish to discuss back to this talk page. In any case, the poll among four choices had been closed, and the runoff poll hadn't been updated for over a day.
D7 in the archives box on the right also points to /Archive 110.
In any case, it's perhaps better to just discuss things just on this main talk page, to avoid any "hiding" of discussions, as a couple of people have pointed out above. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 17:11, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't actually advocate this proposal, but since some people seem to want to do it, I wish to bring the issue to a head and accept or reject it.
Resolved
The community of English Wikipedia editors retroactively recognizes the all-numeric date format used by the date autoformatting software (as of 13 September 2008), and names it the English Wikipedia All Numeric Date Format (E-WANDaF).
The format consists of a four-digit year, between 0001 and 9999 inclusive, a hyphen-minus (Unicode hex 002D), a two digit month, a hyphen-minus, and a two digit day-of-month. If necessary, any element is padded on the left to make up the stated number of digits.
Example: 2008-09-12
The format may be used to represent dates in the Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar (either the proleptic Julian calendar or the calendar as actually observed in Rome in 45 BC to AD 8 inclusive), or the old Roman calendar. If necessary, any conventional notation may be placed near the E-WANDaF date to indicate whether the date is AD or BC. The calendar used shall be deduced by the reader from the context of the article.
Please express your support or opposition below. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 21:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
{{
dts}}
was so that numerical date formats would not be a necessity in sortable tables. --
Jao (
talk)
10:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC){{
dts}}
are deficient in that they don't explain what range of years is valid.If we are to have any further attempts to measure opinions on this difficult issue of date format choice for articles related to non-English-speaking countries or to no country at all, I strongly feel that they should involve just two, maybe three, simple, narrow questions, each requiring just a yes or a no. The problem has been that fully-fledged proposals have been put; no wonder people baulk at having to declare a preference for a set of complex principles rather single issues.
On Pete Skyring's recent edit to MOSNUM: I wholly support Kotniski's reversion and edit summary. Your "country-driven" idea has been rejected, having been given a very reasonable airing. No one appreciates the disruption you are causing by slipping it back into the text. Tony (talk) 13:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I have an interest in dates on Wikipeida, in relation to birth (and death) dates for hCard and start and end dates for hCalendar microformats.
Is it not possible that the existing date templates could be used,; modified so that, if a date before a certain point is entered, a prominent warning is generated, requiring a "calendar" flag be set, and, depending on the flag, the date be rendered as "DD MM YYYY (Gregorian) or "DD MM YYYY (Julian), using any DD-MM-YYYY order/format as suits the user? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
In line with the concerns over mass-delinking of dates that would leave such dates difficult to relocated via computer searches (not impossible, just difficult), I really think we should consider the replacement of dates in articles with a templated version which provides many benefits. The template itself should be simple/stupid: {{d|2008|9|13|int}}, for example, as to make it easy to type as well. Use of the template is not required, but as shown by the benefits below, it can easily help an article maintain an article-consistent date format per MOS. An equivalent template can be made for date ranges. (Note that this is not an ISO date, the date is entered as described in the correct calendar format per the MOSNUM section).
The template would not have to link dates so we don't have over-linking, and the template would have a field for the date format specifier so that regardless of how it is determined what date format to use for an article, the template can put out dates in either format; such a format could also be easily changed in one shot in an article via automated tools like AWB and so forth (just by changing the template parameter in all dates in an article). No DA would be used at all, so the end page results are still the same for anon user and logged in user. The template can be used in main and footnote areas as to normalize the date format (the "cite" template family would need modification for this, but it needs modification anyway for date format equilivalence between text and footnotes). Bots and script tools that are already stripping dates can likely be easily modified to replace linked dates with the template version.
The key benefit is that very likely, if a DA solution is found that addresses all the concerns that others have against it (nonlinking result, anons are shown date format best suited to them (geographical-based or article-based), etc.) only the template has to be modified to bring in the DA solution. Now, there's a likelihood that a proper DA solution may not work with the template, but now we have the other benefit of using a template: a bot can go through and convert the templates to whatever format the DA needs.
The only drawback for this is that we will have a very widely used template, assuming full usage, at least 2 million times (once per page if not more). It would likely need full protection to prevent IP vandal harm, but that's not a huge concern. -- MASEM 13:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
{{dts|link=off|format=dmy|1995|04|28}}
. That produces "28 April 1995", doesn't produce a link, and sorts chronologically when used in a sortable table.{{dts}}
and {{cite}}
. For dates in normal text, we should just write out the date without markup. I don't really see the extra effort involved in template-ifying every single date being worth it.{{dts}}
template produce by default no links and an output in the dmy format, making it unnecessary to specify the parameters link=off|format=dmy
. Also, there should be another output format, shortdmy
or such, that would produce standard month abbreviations in case of the longer months, so the date field wouldn't date up so much space in tables: for instance, "23 Sep. 1879" instead of "23 September 1879".
Teemu Leisti (
talk)
19:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)---
Could we have a date template which, rather than require the specification of YYYY|MM|DD and format as four separate parameters, instead simply wrapped around already fully MOS formatted dates.
The point of this would be for those users who have date preferences set up, so that:
- Ideally I'd like the template name "date" rather than "dte", but "date" is already taken with this buggy thing. Perhaps this could be resolved in future, but I'd encourage keeping things simple for now.
To clarify all the combinations, and to suggest keeping it simple, I'd recommend allowing only the following MOS formats in the template:
Format in template | Rendering for user: | |
---|---|---|
International date preference | US date preference | |
9 May | 9 May | May 9 |
May 9 | 9 May | May 9 |
9 May 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
May 9, 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
Users without set date preferences would of course just get what's in the template.
This way both the user's preferences and the editor's intent (with respect to MOS) would be taken into account.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow the argument of how such a template would make it almost impossible for WP to manage its date formats. Could you explain? As I see it such a template's intent would simply be to give editors the option of catering for user date preferences. I'm not suggesting it ought to be mandatory, but I would ask why you'd deny such choice? It's not as if the question of why all the trouble over whether month or day comes first or second is a newly invented issue. The template would simply resolve linking context issues around the pre-existing date autoformatting approach. If anything, the pre-existence of that autoformatting approach, the fact that it was being used despite its linking issues, clearly indicates that some editors would like to be able to cater somehow for user date preferences. -- SallyScot ( talk) 14:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Again, I don't think I quite follow the argument. I don't see how editors would've been asking for date autoformatting preferences for IP users to be taken into account, because I don't see how such requests would make sense. Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it, you'd need to be a registered user in order to have set up preferences. I think this is how most editors would understand the situation, and as such they wouldn't have been banging on devs' doors asking for the implementation of something that couldn't be done for IP users. -- SallyScot ( talk) 19:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications here. I wasn't really considering the issue of article default date formats. I'm just making the point that IP users can't expect to have their own overriding date preferences without becoming registered users.
The date template I've suggested would simply resolve the linking context issues around the pre-existing approach to date autoformatting (now apparently deprecated). That pre-existing autoformatting approach was to cater for registered user date preference rather than article default date preferences.
Tony's point that "Editors need to see what their readers see" is at the expense of having user date preferences. It necessitates the removal of a long-established and pre-existing choice.
I would rather suggest that registered users (readers/editors) continue to be allowed this choice.
Perhaps some users would rather see dates in their preferred format. That is, rather than feel they're under any particular obligation to spend their time 'fixing' mixed date instances.
With it working this way, if an editor feels on the other hand that the issue of mixed dates formats is their overriding consideration, then they can choose to specify "No preference" as date format option on their preferences page.
Editors need to understand the implications of having their date preferences set, but they certainly ought not to be "prohibited from using the feature" as Jao suggests.
Another thought that occurs is that a date template may even be unnecessary for fully-formatted dates (ones that include day of month, month and year). It ought to be possible to recognise dates in article text; therefore it ought to be able to recognise and format 9 May 2001 and May 9, 2001 in accordance with user date preferences (i.e. without the need to wrap either full date format in a template in the article text).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
This poll runs for a week, and closes at 15:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC).
This is the final step in choosing the MOSNUM guideline to assist editors in determining the most suitable fixed-text date format to use in Wikipedia’s articles.
The results of the runoff poll, as of the vote by Pete, are as follows:
A = 1.31
C = 2.48
e = 1.48
So option C advances with a clear super-majority among the two options that laid out a specific proposal. Option e (each editor suggest an alternative solution) had a variety of opinions and no consistent theme. However, many editors voted with a non-zero value on e but did not add a ref-comment as to what they specifically had in mind. It seems that many treated e as “do nothing”, which would be applied as “keep the current wording.”
The next step is an up or down vote. Now that subsections on Talk:MOSNUM has been archived and the past voting moved to a subpage, we have freed up a lot of room here. The best venue for this next, critical step, is to keep this poll in this high-profile venue so the maximum number of editors can participate. One of the shortcomings of Wikipedia’s procedures is how controversial discussions have in the past been moved to remote backwater venues where it tends to drop off editors’ radar. That’s not good. The more controversial the issue, the more we need to foster the greatest participation by the Wikipedia community to ensure we are getting a good measure of the community’s mood. So let’s keep the voting here, well out in the open where the maximum number of editors can voice their opinion and discuss this matter.
Most everyone in the runoff poll did a great job of registering nuanced votes (a surprising number of 1, 2, and 3 votes), posted thoughtful and constructive vote comments, and debated without rancor. The general consensus in the previous voting, debate, and discussion was that option C was preferable to the other new options. But is option C better than what we currently have? Let’s see if we can push this to a natural conclusion and arrive at a general consensus now.
The options are as follows:
(C) Default to international unless U.S. and its territories—listed countries for editors’ convenience:
(R) Retain present guideline: (This is the current wording. There will be no editwarring on MOSNUM to fight battles over this poll.)
Is the proposed text better than what we have now? This is an up-or-down vote. No “0–4” values for voting; just an “X”.
This poll runs for a week, and closes at 15:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC).
SUPPORT FOR OPTION | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Editor | C | R | |||
Greg L | X [1] | ||||
Septentrionalis | X [2] | ||||
JavierMC | X [3] | ||||
Teemu Leisti | X | ||||
Headbomb | X [4] | ||||
Woodstone | X | ||||
Jeandré du Toit [5] | |||||
Pete | X [6] | ||||
Mr.Z-man | X | ||||
JimWae | X [7] | ||||
GregorB | X [8] | ||||
Mdcollins1984 | X [9] | ||||
Gerry Ashton | X | ||||
Twas Now | × | ||||
Askari Mark | X [10] | ||||
erachima | X [11] | ||||
Arnoutf | X [12] | ||||
AliceJMarkham | X [13] | ||||
dm | X [14] | ||||
Christopher Parham | X [15] | ||||
Truthanado | X | ||||
Rrius | X [16] | ||||
Bzuk | X | ||||
Fullstop | X [17] | ||||
PaleAqua | X [18] | ||||
Ohconfucius* | X [19] | ||||
Robert A West | X [20] | ||||
NerdyNSK* | X | ||||
SharkD* | X [21] | ||||
MJBurrage* | X [22] | ||||
Danorton* | X [23] | ||||
Necrothesp* | X | ||||
Hiding* | X [24] [25] | ||||
ChrisDHDR* | X | ||||
Occuli* | X | ||||
Tom94022 | X | ||||
Arthur Rubin | X [26] | ||||
Calliopejen1 | X | ||||
gadfium | X | ||||
Dtobias | X [27] | ||||
Orderinchaos | X [28] | ||||
Fnagaton | X [29] | ||||
Tomas e | X | ||||
Carewolf | X | ||||
Jacklee | X | ||||
Nichalp | X | ||||
Bkonrad | X | ||||
In general, the primary units are SI (37 kilometers (23 mi)); however, [editors should use] US customary units … [as] the primary units in US-related topics.
Septentrionalis: With regard to your vote comment, come-on, we can read. The current guideline states “articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country…” Now clearly, the Kilogram article is about the kilogram. It could be argued that the French invented the thing, but France is not an English-speaking country and the article is not about France. So the article clearly has no “strong ties to a particular English-speaking country.” Accordingly, the current guideline requires that “the date format chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used”. So if I had used American-style dates, those would have been grandfathered in. That was the point of my vote comment: if I had used an inappropriate date format, the article would have been stuck with American-style dates under the current guideline, which is ill-advised and needs, IMO, to be updated. It’s not all about we editors. The style in articles should be more strongly based on what is most natural for the likely readership. That’s all. Greg L ( talk) 16:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC
I can't imagine what format JimWae is referring to when he says he prefers an International ISO format. I am not aware of any ISO format that allows the display of Julian calendar dates, or dates before 1582. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 20:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I object to the refusal among the "poll constructors" to even consider a country-blind option. Every single proposal that has been "voted" on has included language requiring certain formats for certain articles based on associations with particular nations. No opportunity has been given to register an objection to that requirement. Powers T 17:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I see with some bemusement that Greg L simultaneously wants this poll to stay on this page so it can get "the widest possible input from Wikipedia’s editors", and objects at great length to an RfC, which is the traditional tool for securing such input. I await an explanation which is consistent with good faith. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
“ | So option C advances with a clear super-majority among the two options that laid out a specific proposal. Option e (each editor suggest an alternative solution) had a variety of opinions and no consistent theme. However, many editors voted with a non-zero value on e but did not add a ref-comment as to what they specifically had in mind. It seems that many treated e as “do nothing”, which would be applied as “keep the current wording.” | ” |
I'm getting rather weary of all this. First to Greg, thanks for setting this polling up and doing your best to keep things calm. I might not agree with everything you've done, but it's plain you've acted in good faith throughout. Anderson, this whole dispute erupted because you changed the long-standing wording in MOSNUM without consensus [1] and then engaged in edit-warring to keep your preferred view. After a long discussion and two votes a fresh position emerged with strong support, but again you changed to your preferred wording [2] without consensus. Looking at the discussion above, I see the same arguments that we've already seen many times before. Rather than bloat out yet another discussion page, why not leave the poll to run its course, let editors make new points rather than rehashing old ones, and quit being disruptive? Is that so very hard? -- Pete ( talk) 19:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Obvious anti-Americanism run rampant yet again. There was nothing wrong with the previous way things worked, and this is going inevitably to lead to edit warring by Americans who feel that they're being discriminated against, or else there will be zealots attacking Americans who have the temerity to use American date formats in articles which are not specifically about American subject matter. Let me state clearly here and now: I will not bow down to date fascism, and will format dates in whatever format I damn well please. Corvus cornix talk 20:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I am just looking into this item in MOS, and I know there has been a lot of history, so I apologize if this seems out-of-place or a late addition to the discussion. It seems to me that a firm rule (as opposed to good counsel) on this subject is just asking for silliness: a commodity too common on Wikipedia. It matters little to ordinary readers whether one uses 4 July 1776 or July 4, 1776: any reasonable reader will understand. While the current rule about national tendencies is probably 80% right, there are significant issues not discussed. In particular, if the scholarly sources for an article use a particular format, Wikipedia should use that format, even if it runs opposite to the rule currently given.
Two examples: Modern military history tends to use the "European" form even when written in the U.S. Contrariwise, the current "U.S." form was common British practice in the late 18th century (a fact that should surprise no one). Some secondary sources modernize the usage except when quoting, and others use the older format throughout. It would strike me as useless to complain if the editors of an article decided to adopt the older format throughout. While Septentrionalis is correct that the MOS can be overruled by local article consensus, I think it would do not harm, and much good, for the text to add
Regards. Robert A.West ( Talk) 20:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking more carefully at the instructions for this poll, I see two options, first is a less verbose Option C, and the second says, Retain present guideline: (This is the current wording. There will be no editwarring on MOSNUM to fight battles over this poll. The problem is that the current wording has no consensus - it's merely PMAnderson's edit-warred version of the long-standing wording here. I grew tired of restoring the existing wording, believing that with broad discussion and polling underway, we'd get consensus, and Anderson wasn't heeding the warnings to cool it anyway. Now I find that Anderson's persistent edit-warring is taken to be the current wording, and we're voting for it or the winner of both the primary poll and the run-off. This is bizarre, especially given Greg's warning against edit-warring.
In fact, Anderson's wording has been rejected already - it is the rejected Option B of the first poll here. See for yourself:
(The note about Canada is non-contentious, and the existing guidelines in the MoS describe the "first major contributor" rule.)
So my objections are threefold:
I'll accept that Greg is acting in good faith, and doing his best to shepherd this thing to a satisfactory conclusion, and nobody's perfect, but in the light of these concerns I really must ask for an explanation.
What we should really be doing, I suggest, is recognising that Option C won twice over and instead of voting yet again, we should be working on the wording, forming it into something we can work with. I note that several (presumably American) editors have expressed concern over compulsion and "fascism". I'd like to ensure that the agreed wording addresses these concerns. -- Pete ( talk) 05:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
As for the less verbosity in option C, I omitted the “there will be no tie to dialect”-sentence. That sentence had been in a version of the text used in the prior votes only to highlight the distinction from the options that did tie the date format to the dialect used in the article (regardless of the subject matter); but as a standalone against the current MOSNUM guideline, it wasn’t really necessary and has zero effect on the proposed guideline. It was rather like, “You are instructed to go up (that means you won’t be going down)”: one doesn’t need the parenthetical caveat except for those who are galactically stupid or stubborn. Greg L ( talk) 20:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I am fairly sure that Skyring has been warned about WP:CANVASS before; but the evidence that he has been spending the last day largely appealling to anyone he can think of to vote on his position; including Ohconfucius, NerdyNSK, SharkD, MJBurrage, Necrothesp, Hiding, and Occuli; DANorton seems to have voted against the solicitation. (Two or three have not yet responded.) Skyring has at least learned to phrase more or less neutrally; but mass posting to a partisan audience is disapproved of - it is traditional to give less weight to such !votes, as not a random sample of all interested Wikipedians. In this case, Skyring has contacted those editors who disliked A last time, and none of those who disliked C. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
No running time has been given for the poll. I think this should be fixed at the start, so there can be no accusations on the person running the poll that they have cut off the poll at a time convenient to them. I suggest one week's running time, and the following note to be added to the poll's instructions: This poll closes at 15:48, 20 September 2008 (UTC). (The edit history shows that Greg L added the poll at 15:48 on the 13th.) Teemu Leisti ( talk) 07:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC) PS. Greg, I am not concerned about you manipulating the poll, simply about the best practice of polls, and avoiding the possibility of accusations of improper behaviour. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 07:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Corvus cornix is completely right. This is an atrocious waste of time. First, polls are non-binding. Second, a guideline is non-binding. Third, and most important: if you do not have the skills, time, or inclination to research substantive topics so you can write real encyclopedia articles, please do not try to inflate your edit count by busy-body actions that just amount to instruction-creep. Wikipedia is an anarchic community and the only rules that matter are the ones that allow people with diverse points of view work together. Aside from that, WP:BOLD, dudes. Rules which impose one way of doing things on others is the worst idea in the world, it is the opposite of freedom and anarchy and diversity i.e. core values of Wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
This does, indeed, seem to be one of those instances in which Wikipedians get into the most heated debates about the most pointless things, like the "road wars" where people got into fisticuffs over whether to use " New York State Route 376" or "State Route 376 (New York)" or "State Road 376 (New York)" or "Route 376 (New York State)" or whatever. I, for one, am American and tend to use American date formats in my offline life, but on the Internet I've often used more "internationalized" formats in places like my personal Web site (which has "This page was first created 07 Mar 1995, and last modified 16 May 2004.") and when presenting evidence in an ArbCom case here in the form of a chronological list of events, on the basis that this format, though not native to my own country, is concise and clear, and well suited to the international audience of the Internet. In still other contexts, like log formats, database fields, and file naming schemes (which, as a "techie", I deal with a lot), I generally use a format such as "2001-09-11 08:45:00" which has the virtue of sorting properly in an ASCII ordering. But I think the present guidelines which encourage use of dates corresponding to the format in use in the country relevant to the article and permit latitude in date formatting otherwise are a decent compromise, and "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" *Dan T.* ( talk) 13:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Two definite questions, and the possibility of a third, have come out of this poll, despite its structural inhibition of discussion. This is not <gesture of aversion> a new poll; these are questions whether tweaking the language in some directions can get general consent. If there is more than one or two voices in opposition to any of these, I will close it (as "resolved: no change") myself; also if there is no outpouring of wider support.
These are questions of what we should do in principle; if you approve changing in that direction, please suggest wording. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:12, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 105 | ← | Archive 109 | Archive 110 | Archive 111 | Archive 112 | Archive 113 | → | Archive 115 |
I would like to suggest that the bots that happily wander through pages and change wikilinked dates to plain text be prohibited from making any edits to pages in user space. Autoformatted dates work correctly for logged-in users, and if a user specifies a date preference, they should get what they asked for in pages that they control. Put another way, the deprecation of auto-formatted dates should not apply to user space. Truthanado ( talk) 20:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Who would bother running a script (not a bot) on a user page? Tony (talk) 01:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I've removed it again. I see no consensust for its placement there in the first place. It damages the status of the whole page, sending a message that it's unstable. Policy and style pages are inherently unstable—it'a a wiki. There's no "This is an unstable mess" posted in a huge box at the top of WP:NFC, even though WP:NFCC#8 has gone back and forth and back and forth month after month for most of this year. Tony (talk) 02:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
There is a section in the MOSNUM about using K/M/G rather than Ki/Mi/Gi. K is never a proper SI prefix; it should be lowercase k. I changed that, assuming it was an uncontroversial typo correction, but apparently I have to go through a procedure of discussing it here. Well here I mention it; change it or leave it as it is. I'm not wasting more time on it, but in the latter case I will take MOSNUM a lot less seriously in the future. Han-Kwang ( t) 20:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
If you read the technical literature of the 1950s and 1960s you will notice that case did not matter. Frequency was measured in kilocycles and megacycles (this was before hertz). You will see 10 mc and 10 MC for 10 megacycles. Capacitors were measured in microfarad abbreviated as "mfd" or "MFD". Picofarad was not used; micromicrofarad was used instead and abbreviated as "mmfd" or "MMFD". This worked because no one broadcast on 10 microcycles and you could not make a 10 megafarad capacitor. Here are some references to k and K.
On a 32k core size 704 computer, approximately 28,000 datum may be analyzed, … without resorting to auxiliary tape storage.
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IBM 704 used binary addressing, K = 1024.)The following scheme for assigning storage for fixed-word-length arrays seems to meet these criteria and has been used successfully in working with linear arrays on a 4k IBM 1401.
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IBM 1401 used decimal addressing, k = 1000.){{
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help) Figure 1 gives storage (memory) capacity ranges of the various models in "Capacity 8 bit bytes, 1 K = 1024"One type, designated as the small core memory (SCM) is a many bank coincident current type memory with a total of 64K words of 60 bit length (K=1024).
All-monolithic storage ... (1024-bit NMOS) This new improvement of processor storage makes system expansion more economical. Real storage capacity is available in 512K increments ranging from 512K to 2,048K bytes.
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help)SWTPC6800 ( talk) 15:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Some newer ones.
kilo (K). (1) A prefix indicating 1000. (2) In statements involving size of computer storage, a prefix indicating 210, or 1024. mega (M). (1) A prefix indicating one million. (2) In statements involving size of computer storage, a prefix indicating 220, or 1,048,576.
Kbyte. Kilobyte. Indicates 210 bytes. Mbyte. Megabyte. Indicates 220bytes. Gbyte is used in the Foreword.
SWTPC6800 ( talk) 19:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
The uses cited by Swtpc6800 don't really solve the issue of what Wikipedia should use for kbit when we mean 1000 bits. SI was not created until 1960, and we have to allow a few years for it to catch on, so the only journal article from the list above that tells us anything is the one from 1972, and that refers to the binary meaning (1024 bits). Since there is no clear use in the industry of K for 1000, I believe Wikipedia should use k, and the "Manual of Style (dates and numbers)" edited accordingly. Does anyone disagree? --
Gerry Ashton (
talk)
16:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
It struck me that I cannot see anything (at least obviously) that suggests or disallows use of month abbreviations (eg "Sept." for September), a fact that is often used in tables where there is date information but the table has gotten rather wide. Presuming that in line with "which format", is there a standard?
Namely: if abbreviations are ok, we should fix on one set of abbreviations (either all three letter, or the more common: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, June, July, Aug. Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec set.) and make sure what punctuation we should use, eg "Sept. 15, 2008" vs "Sept 15, 2008" and "15 Sept. 2008" vs "15 Sept 2008" (note lack of abbreviation period). If they are not ok, we should be stating this. -- MASEM 23:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Abbreviations are fine in charts and the like where full months make the thing too big or distract from more important data, but abbreviations in text are informal and produce ugly prose. -
Rrius (
talk)
04:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
LeadSongDog, keep in mind there is a vast difference between a date field and an accessdate field. The timespan covered by date is about 600 times greater than the timespan covered by accessdate, so the date must accomodate dates covered by Julian, Gregorian, and other calendars, some of which cannot be accurately associated with dates in modern calendar systems. They must also accomodate negative years or BC. Also keep in mind that citation templates are entirely optional. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 14:48, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
This article is currently going through a peer review. The point that that all numbers under 10 should be written, but are unsure how "1 minute 23 seconds" should be written as it's referring to time. Should it stay how it is or be written "one minute 23 seconds"? Thanks, -- Jimbo [online] 07:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Call me petty-minded, but I'm still bothered about the fact that some of the decade articles are misnamed. (We've discussed this before, and more or less agreed to make the change, but there were always more pressing things to do.) The problem concerns the decades which begin centuries (or end them, if BC), such as 1100s, 1800s and so on. We know, of course, that in real life 1100s refers to 100 years, not 10, but Wikipedia has decided differently. If you agree (or disagree) that this decision should be reversed (i.e. the decade article at 1100s should be renamed 1100–1109, etc.), then please comment at the discussion I started at what seems to be the most relevant page - namely WT:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Decades.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:02, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
At WP:JARGON, we have: "... as a rule of thumb, if expressing an equation requires LaTeX (as most do), do not assume the reader will understand what it means. It is also considered polite (but not always necessary) to explain how the symbols are read, e.g. "A ⇔ B means A is true if and only if B is true". Much of the hassle and redundancy can often be mitigated by providing a link to the extremely helpful table of mathematical symbols and providing a simple warning/disclaimer, such as at the top of the prisoner's dilemma article." I'd prefer that this material be here (in whatever tweaked form we prefer) rather than WP:JARGON because the typical users wondering what to do about numbers and symbols will probably be searching here or at the math MOS, not WP:JARGON. If you guys agree that this is a better page for that, I'll remove it there and we can start discussing it here. - Dan Dank55 ( send/receive) 13:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
What about a way to break up long sequences of numbers after a decimal point? For instance, at Earth a distance is given as 1.0167103335 AU. At Charon, the period is 6.3872304 ± 0.0000011 days. These can be rather difficult to read.
What about a convention of breaking up such sequences? Commas might prove confusing, but we have at least one numerical template that adds spaces:
Commas, for comparison:
kwami ( talk) 05:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
The recent "final" poll on date formats has expired and been moved to /Archive 111. For comments see below.-- Kotniski ( talk) 20:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Over in the automobiles project, the question has arisen of uppercase or lowercase expression for adverbial unit abbreviations. We've no convention on the matter within the project, and I find no explicit provisions anywhere in MoS. Grammar authorities seem to agree that noun abbreviations (NHTSA, RDA, IQ, THC, UFO, HIV, and so forth) get uppercase, while adverbial abbreviations (rpm, mpg, mph, and the regionally-preferred kph) get lowercase. See here, here, here, here, here (search page for rpm), here (search page for rpm), here (search page for mph), here (search for mph), and here (search mpg) for example. Can anyone think of a reason this convention should not be adopted here on Wikipedia? — Scheinwerfermann ( talk) 19:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
In chronological listings, historical summaries, scientific archiving, etc., it's generally the year that needs to be prominent. Is the MOS now saying that the rational order, year-month-day (actually, millennium-century-decade-year-month-day-hour-minute-second) is no longer acceptable? Having the day first and the year last when the year is more relevant than the day doesn't make sense. kwami ( talk) 19:51, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
I hope not. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, the poll has run its course according to its pre-announced running time. I've moved that whole large section to the archive; apologies if there were side-threads that people wanted to continue, but they can bring them back if they (really) want. I don't think anyone will dispute that the poll confirmed that there is no consensus to change the present wording of the section at this time (at least, not in the way suggested there, i.e. by making day-month the preferred format over month-day basically in any article not U.S./Canada-related). Other proposals for improving this section of the guidance are now awaited (though not very eagerly, I suspect).-- Kotniski ( talk) 20:46, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
---
Could we have a date template which, rather than require the specification of YYYY|MM|DD and format as four separate parameters, instead simply wrapped around already fully MOS formatted dates.
The point of this would be for those users who have date preferences set up, so that:
- Ideally I'd like the template name "date" rather than "dte", but "date" is already taken with this buggy thing. Perhaps this could be resolved in future, but I'd encourage keeping things simple for now.
To clarify all the combinations, and to suggest keeping it simple, I'd recommend allowing only the following MOS formats in the template:
Format in template | Rendering for user: | |
---|---|---|
International date preference | US date preference | |
9 May | 9 May | May 9 |
May 9 | 9 May | May 9 |
9 May 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
May 9, 2001 | 9 May 2001 | May 9, 2001 |
Users without set date preferences would of course just get what's in the template.
This way both the user's preferences and the editor's intent (with respect to MOS) would be taken into account.
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow the argument of how such a template would make it almost impossible for WP to manage its date formats. Could you explain? As I see it such a template's intent would simply be to give editors the option of catering for user date preferences. I'm not suggesting it ought to be mandatory, but I would ask why you'd deny such choice? It's not as if the question of why all the trouble over whether month or day comes first or second is a newly invented issue. The template would simply resolve linking context issues around the pre-existing date autoformatting approach. If anything, the pre-existence of that autoformatting approach, the fact that it was being used despite its linking issues, clearly indicates that some editors would like to be able to cater somehow for user date preferences. -- SallyScot ( talk) 14:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Again, I don't think I quite follow the argument. I don't see how editors would've been asking for date autoformatting preferences for IP users to be taken into account, because I don't see how such requests would make sense. Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it, you'd need to be a registered user in order to have set up preferences. I think this is how most editors would understand the situation, and as such they wouldn't have been banging on devs' doors asking for the implementation of something that couldn't be done for IP users. -- SallyScot ( talk) 19:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarifications here. I wasn't really considering the issue of article default date formats. I'm just making the point that IP users can't expect to have their own overriding date preferences without becoming registered users.
The date template I've suggested would simply resolve the linking context issues around the pre-existing approach to date autoformatting (now apparently deprecated). That pre-existing autoformatting approach was to cater for registered user date preference rather than article default date preferences.
Tony's point that "Editors need to see what their readers see" is at the expense of having user date preferences. It necessitates the removal of a long-established and pre-existing choice.
I would rather suggest that registered users (readers/editors) continue to be allowed this choice.
Perhaps some users would rather see dates in their preferred format. That is, rather than feel they're under any particular obligation to spend their time 'fixing' mixed date instances.
With it working this way, if an editor feels on the other hand that the issue of mixed dates formats is their overriding consideration, then they can choose to specify "No preference" as date format option on their preferences page.
Editors need to understand the implications of having their date preferences set, but they certainly ought not to be "prohibited from using the feature" as Jao suggests.
Another thought that occurs is that a date template may even be unnecessary for fully-formatted dates (ones that include day of month, month and year). It ought to be possible to recognise dates in article text; therefore it ought to be possible to recognise and format 9 May 2001 and May 9, 2001 in accordance with user date preferences (i.e. without the need to wrap either full date format in a template in the article text).
-- SallyScot ( talk) 13:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I can't see any real consensus coming out of the series of polls, except maybe that all but a few people are getting tired of discussing this. Counting noses is all very well, but given the changes in proposed wordings during the series of polls, no wording has overall approval. More than that, no philosophy has overall approval.
The comments of individual editors in discussion or when casting their !votes are more useful in gauging the mood of the community, and perhaps I can attempt to summarise my perceptions of things we have consensus on.
While not consensus as such, we have the ArbCom desicion on Jguk for high-level guidance. Summed up, this makes changing one existing style to another without good reason, and an example of good reason is given: with respect to English spelling as opposed to American spelling it would be acceptable to change from American spelling to English spelling if the article concerned an English subject.
Where we don't have consensus is in how to treat articles without clear ties to an English-speaking country. These fall into two types:
There are four approaches:
With the deprecation of date autoformatting, resulting in editors seeing the same mix of date formats as readers, it would give Wikipedia a more professional and uniform look to have some consistent guideline in place. As it stands, all four of the above approaches have been used, with predictable results for consistency. -- Pete ( talk) 21:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Considering the recent discussion, I think it is pertinent to quote what passes for law around here, which is the ArbCom ruling on jguk:
1) Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the "purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format," see [8]. The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent within an article." [9].
2) When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to English spelling as opposed to American spelling it would be acceptable to change from American spelling to English spelling if the article concerned an English subject. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article is colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles as both are acceptable.
3) Courtesy between Wikipedia editors is important, especially with respect to matters which are in dispute.
4) Revert wars are usually considered harmful, because they cause ill-will between users and negatively destabilize articles. Users are encourage to explore alternate methods of dispute resolution, such as negotiation, surveys, requests for comment, mediation, or arbitration.
5) At times the proper implementation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy will be a matter of dispute between reasonable editors who sincerely wish to uphold the principle. In these cases, no attempts to dictate the proper solution, whether coming from the Arbitration Committee or from a mechanism such as a poll, will be helpful. All that can be done is to insist that the participants in the dispute remain civil and respectful.
Clearly the ruling allows format changes to be made for good reason, and a national tie to a topic is a good reason.
Perhaps the final statement is the most telling. We can't expect the ArbCom to rule on a specific date format in an specific article. In fact I'd expect such a request to be tossed out, with the injunction that the involved editors should sort it out themselves and be civil to each other. Likewise a poll won't solve matters, if the dispute is between reasonable editors. -- Pete ( talk) 23:59, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking at this edit by Gerry Ashton, he gives an edit summary of Revert attempt to defeat consensus reached on talk page; assertion is unproven and irrlevant.
No consensus was reached on the talk page, let alone over this point. Nor is the assertion unproven: a glance at Calendar date gives a list of countries where "day before month" is the predominant format. Checking this via a computer control panel gives the same result. The language spoken is irrelevant. -- Pete ( talk) 00:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Gentlepedians, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. In truth, most countries do use the European style, and the point you’re editwarring over is pretty trivial. The simple fact is, the American format is (to be precise): “predominant in the US, and widely used in Canada and a few other countries”. If you’re going to point out that the former style is “common in most countries”, then it’s probably obligatory to note at the least the major exceptions, if not the full specific list (which I do not advocate). None of this is contrary to the consensus.
As for reverting back to the “original” version, I’ll point out that there’s an open question as to which that is, since edits to the section have continued unabated throughout most of the debate. In fact, what Gerry is reverting to is simply the first revision of the day (20 Sep.) by PMAnderson. His edit replaced a series of changes by Ckatz, JimWae and, lastly, DI2000 the previous day.
So instead of edit warring over “protecting” some “official” version, may I suggest that you come to an agreement here on just how many other countries besides the U.S. should be mentioned and then make the change to the MOSDATE text. As long as it doesn't contravene the sense of the consensus, no harm is probably done by such minor changes. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:28, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
What is the policy on delinking dates that are linked for purely autoformatting reasons? When I first saw that date autoformatting was deprecated, I sighed (I like date autoformatting, though I understand the reasons for ditching it) and went about delinking when I came across it. Then I saw a side discussion on this page where a few people said we should hold off until some other issue (presumably what format to use) was handled. I decided to just heed that advice, but now I am not sure what to do. Should I be delinking and putting those dates in the appropriate ENGVAR format or not? - Rrius ( talk) 23:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Hope this is the right place ;) What is the best way to word the following: "On March 26–28, 1958, the NCLC held the first of many workshops..." Should it say "on" or "from" at the beginning, and should the dates say:
Opinions? Kaldari ( talk) 06:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I might "during March 26–28" but NOT "from March 26–28", since "from" goes with "to" (and similarly "between" goes with "and" in cases like this). Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Moved from Lightmouse talk page: begin
Please stop removing instances of template {{ convert}} dealing with ship speeds from infoboxes in ship articles as you did recently here. I have asked you previously to stop ( here) but you have continued. Please stop using whatever assistive tools you are using to prevent your further removal of speed conversions unless and until they can be altered to avoid such removals in the future. — Bellhalla ( talk) 13:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I understand that you object to the abbreviation 'kn'. I also understand that you don't like it being used even though it is part of the template code invisible to readers. Although I disagree with you, I have tried to work with you by using the full form. I had hoped that you would be happy with that. I don't understand why you object to the full form 'knot' or 'knots'. I think we should take this off my talk page and onto a different page such as wp:mosnum. As you suggest, third party involvement would be a good idea. Lightmouse ( talk) 18:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Moved from Lightmouse talk page: end
User:Bellhalla is unhappy with some of my edits. I will not add any more comments but he/she did suggest that I ask somebody else to explain the objection. I agree that it would be a good idea to seek third party input. I am reluctant to add further comment because I don't fully understand the problem. So it might need a little digging around to find out what he/she said and what I said. If anyone else is willing to take a look at this, I would be grateful. Thanks. Lightmouse ( talk) 18:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Can we try and discuss the basic question of year articles and wikilinks to year articles without mentioning autoformatting? The recent changes (by User:Lightbot among others) seem to be removing links to year articles that were never part of any date, autoformatted or not. So what reason would there be to remove all links to year articles? There are surely some cases where year articles should be linked, otherwise there is no reason for them to exist. Or should year articles only be linked from calendars and categories-set-up-as-calendars? My view is that some year links are a useful placeholder to allow "what links here" for a particular year to be used to locate notable events for that year, and hence build the year articles. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
For discussion, I present my three cases again; the second is not doable by a month year link, and cases like the first may not be (the month may not be known):
OK, but there are nearly 3000 that link to 1776 (and nearly 1000 to 1682 [which is what I meant to type]). None of those amounts is useful to the "general reader" - if some links are truly relevant, some other method needs to be used -- JimWae ( talk) 09:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Response from Tony1: "I regard Tony's approach as very narrow and limited."—Well, year pages are very narrow and limited, as you appear to admit. If 2000-plus year articles are still ragtag slender lists of unconnected factoids after all of this time, I'm unconvinced that magically they'll be transformed any time soon. The task of bringing year-pages up to standard would be monumental.
If you want my opinion, before a certain century (possibly the 15th, but I'm unsure), the information becomes so threadbare that it would be better to conflate year pages into decade pages. 1345 demonstrates this: per se, it's a relatively good attempt, but robs the surrounding years of much content. Better that such articles deal with broader historical descriptions over ten-year periods. In more recent centuries, year pages are more appropriate: not only has there been a faster level of activity and change in human societies, but more information is available, because the sources are both more recent and more variegated.
But none of this overcomes the specificity–generality quandary in linking years as a standard formula: either the year page buries the information that is relevant to an article from which it is linked (when properly developed and dealing as it should with a whole-world context); or it contains no information of relevance (when, as usual, the year article is woefully underdeveloped).
Please convince me that this view is wrong, or at least challenge my arguments, because thus far no one has come up with the answer. If the orphaning of year pages is of concern, it should not be: year-in-X pages are the obvious gateway to solitary year pages, and year-in-X pages, provided they are not arrived at through unthinking, formulaic "hidden" links in articles, should be regarded as part of the same chronological infrastructure in WP. At present, they are not, which is a great pity (WikiProjects please note). Tony (talk) 09:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I accept there are reasons for this but they are not so compelling that they are worth all the hastle when it is possible for someone to misinterpret it as a reason for mass delinking of years. Most important, this MOS is over long and needs reducing. Dejvid ( talk) 11:53, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Dejvid, you may find the MoS overly long, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. This what you've written is a perfect example of " I don't like it" argumentation. — Scheinwerfermann ( talk) 15:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Scheinwerfermann, I said three things. First of all this clause has a cost. It is creating arguments and I'm not alone in saying that it is being abused. That's real. I then said I didn't think it was worth the cost. Fine, just because I don't think it is worth the cost, doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason. You may have a killer reason of which I'm unaware. I'm not a mind reader. I have asked to tell me what reason you have in mind that is so overwhelming to be worth the problems it is causing. Until you give me a reason what can I do but assume that you have no good reason. Finally I made a general point about the MOS being too big. If you are going have a set of rules they work best when they are few. As you increase them a law of diminishing returns sets in. Beyond a certain threshold each new rule becomes counter productive. Eventually most users will become alienated from the rules, they will no longer participate in the consensus needed to give them legitimacy and will ignore them. I may be wrong about my opinion that the MOS has exceeded that threshold but lets test it by finding a way of seeking the opinion of editors who do not normally come near the MOS. So please stop just labelling what I'm saying as " I don't like it" argumentation as an excuse to ignore my arguments. Dejvid ( talk) 23:38, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'm not parsing Rubin's sentence correctly, but there has been even longer standing consensus that solo years are not linked. That's a very old given. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 03:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
To put the argument in a nutshell: dates are linked. Unless and until there is a resolution on the general linking issue, as opposed to the autoformatting issue, the status quo is that dates are linked. Therefore any sentence that begins "Dates are not linked..." is untrue! What follows those words is immaterial. Any statement beginning "dates are linked only...", "dates are linked when...", "dates are linked but..." etc. is acceptable, but "dates are not linked..." is not. It looks like an attempt to pre-empt an ongoing discussion. I'm not saying that that was the intention of the person who put it there, but now that it is disputed that construction could be put on the attempts to keep it as it is. Scolaire ( talk) 10:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
There is widespread confusion about concealed links. People seem absolutely determined to use concealed links even where they break autoformatting. I think that either the language in the MOS needs to be shorter and stronger, or people need more education. I fix many of these errors yet people are prepared to revert over it.
For just one example, see the history of Ballinglass Incident. What can be done? Lightmouse ( talk) 09:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
The last bullet under the Dates section could use some clarification. It currently states "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so". What is considered a good "particular reason"? Notable historic events – surely. Birth/death of a notable person – maybe. What else? Should linked dates only include those events back referenced from the date pages?
Also, I noticed that there is a movement by some editors to remove existing date links. For example, this edit to the Usain Bolt article removed a link from the subject's birth date, even though the subject is listed on the date pages. Is it the intent of this policy to remove such links?
I'm sure if I dig through the discussion archives I'll find some answers, but my point is that the specific guidelines should be on the MOS page. Thank you. -- Tcncv ( talk) 01:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Are there any plans to replace the meta data applications linked dates provide? The mass delinking is breaking those options. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-16 t20:54z
Is it actually suggested here that it would be OK for an article (like the Queen's) to consistently use "21 April 1926", "29 May 1926", "6 February 1952" etc., plus one " 2 June 1953", which will for some users be presented as "June 2, 1953"? Isn't that a little too inconsistent? (Then, it might get people to turn off preferences, which is probably a good idea anyway.) Also, how about linking to the specific date article for the date when the subject matter occurred, came into being or ceased to exist ("the competition was held on August 9, 2004", or "the competition was held on 9 August 2004")? These articles only exist for a few years however, and whether or not they should exist is probably a question for Category talk:Dates. An article listing the events of August 9, 2004 feels like trivia, but hardly any more so than listing lots of events that happened on August 9 in the main August 9 article. (Note: I'm not saying we should be linking any dates, I don't feel strongly either way about that. Just asking how we should link, if at all.) -- Jao ( talk) 16:50, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
What is the value of a June 2 article or a 1953 article? I presume many people think they are valuable since there are hundreds of such articles. What kind of article should link to them? Self-evidently if all dates are de-linked then all those articles will become orphaned. So back to Tcncv's original point: "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so" should be followed by a statement of what constitutes a good reason; and his other point: the dates of events, births, deaths etc. in those articles should always be linked. Scolaire ( talk) 15:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Tony1's comment: I haven't seen one good reason why dates of birth and death should be linked. They are linked only because of an appalling decision in the programming design of date autoformatting to entangle it with the linking mechanism. "9 June" etc was never intended to function as a link to the corresponding anniversary article: magic bright-blue buttons for diversionary browsing are discouraged in a serious encyclopedia, for all of the reasons trotted out ad infinitum on this page and its archives). Neither was the other other date fragment in autoformatted dates intended as a wormhole to a year-page, and most casual readers would be unaware that it links separately to such.
Having surveyed many year-pages, all I can say is that they're poor. When they approach the standard of 1345, we might start to promote them in the project. But for the most part, they're rag-tag threadbare lists of fragmentary facts. The quandary raised by 1345 is that it sucks in much of the suitable information for the surrounding years, too. What would be more suitable is decade articles before the last few centuries. They could make a fascinating addition to WP's historical articles. But the chance that this will happen is slender, I suspect. I note PMA's arguments above, and apologise for not yet responding. Surely the exceptional year-link is allowable under the current guidelines ("not normally"), where editors want to put a case for the benefits? I'm referring to odd years such as 1776 in the context of the American revolution, and years in the two 20th-century world wars. Tony (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Let's not forget that the TWO most important things about Wikipedia are that:
A. Anyone can edit, which leads to potential for the most up-to-date information
B. Wikilinks, which allow a user to get from one topic area to a related (but tangential) topic very quickly. In short, Wikipedia has become a collective "brain" of humanity, and building these links increases Wikipedia's brainpower.
Therefore, it doesn't make sense to unlink dates. WHY are dates used? To place events in historical context. Links allow us to investigate that context. No links reduces and devalues one of the two main pillars of Wikipedia's purpose and success. Ryoung122 10:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
I think there's a demonstrated lack of consensus for "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so". Can we remove it? hateless 14:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the issue of linking to year articles needs to be separated out from the autoformatting issues. See here for a separate discussion. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
[[date X]]
could just as well be formulated as [[link to article for event Y|date X]]
."(December 31, 210—February 14, 270)
" for Saint Val. Should then nothing be linked here (since the event is also referred to later in the text), or only "February 14" be linked, or the whole date, or both dates or what? --
Fullstop (
talk)
07:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)