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A good instruction. I edited it a bit for style. I put back the bit at the start about discouraging the use of autolinking, because we went through a long discussion about it, and the consensus was that it's a bad idea, and I think it's good to make this clear to the reader. In fact, I would prefer to state the discouragement even more strongly. There's a need to have a NPOV in the main articles, but not in instructions for using Wikipedia, in my opinion.
I've also edited WP:CONTEXT and the parent article a bit to make this new rule clearer. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 12:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
The brusque treatment of Anderson, Dispenser, and Daytrivia below lead me to think I won't fare any better, but all the same, some thoughts.
I appreciate WP:DEMOCRACY (love the irony there) and how frustrating it can be having to repeat your arguments across several pages or against people simply in the wrong; more importantly, it seems clear Tony is far more passionate about pushing through this policy change than I am about the minor benefits the links provide.
Still, I did want to add these thoughts (if there's still a vote or discussion somewhere, I'm a no to these changes as currently explained) and suggest that he be more accurate both about the real problems (some extra server space and slightly faster processing is about the size of it; the autoformatting problems are simply autoformatting problems that could be far more efficiently solved by ... removing date autoformatting) and the real reasons for opposition (above and below). Not doing so is part and parcel of the WP:Civility problems on this page and elsewhere and risk causing people to become more petulant or even militant in their opposition, when I'm sure that's not what he intends. - LlywelynII ( talk) 22:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I have added a section about autoformatting being unsafe for non-Gregorian dates. I am not a calendar expert but I think I have enough knowledge to make the point that autoformatting can make a Julian date look like a Gregorian date. Lightmouse ( talk) 18:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
In what way does a Julian date look different from a Gregorian one? Abtract ( talk) 20:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Abstract, if you mean, you read a date in a document and you're not sure if it's Julian or Gregorian, what about the format would clue you in, the answer is "usually you can't tell". If it is known that the document uses the ISO-8601 format, and the author knows what s/he is doing, then dates like 1582-02-10 would be Gregorian. If the date looks like 10 February 1582, you usually can't tell. You can tell for a few dates, such as 29 February 1700, because the Gregorian calendar didn't have a leap year but the Julian calendar did, so it must be Julian. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 18:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Tony1 wrote to me on my talk page, and I'm moving the discussion here.
This is the edit history of the introductory statement of discouragement, which I'll abbreviate SoD hereinafter, on the main page's section Date autoformatting, and on the subpage:
editor | edit time of main page | SoD on main page | edit time of subpage | SoD on subpage | comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
24 August 2008 | |||||
Greg L | 19:32 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged. | 19:27 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged. | The first appearance of the SoD. Greg L created the subpage. |
Greg L | 19:35 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | 19:37 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | |
Greg L | 19:38 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | |||
Pmanderson | 20:08 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | 20:11 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer required; many editors would prefer to discourage it. It should probably be avoided unless there is a good reason to use it (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | |
August 25, 2008 | |||||
Greg L | 00:17 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature, such as French Revolution). | |||
Tony1 | 02:24 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so. | |||
Sdsds | 10:14 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | 10:16 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer required; many editors would prefer to discourage it. | |
Kotniski | 10:18 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so. | |||
Sdsds | 10:27 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | |||
Tony1 | 11:05 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so. | |||
Sdsds | 11:09 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | |||
Abtract | 11:20 | The autoformatting of dates is optional. | 11:18 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is optional. | |
Kotniski | 11:40 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | |||
Teemu Leisti | 12:57 | The autoformatting of dates is optional. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 12:33 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is optional. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | My first edit, with the edit comment in the subpage: "style (in particular, following Strunk and White's advice to "omit needless words")". Tony1 replied to my talk page, saying "Well, when I said that, I didn't think you'd be going back on your "Support" for the consensus wording on the talk page, repeatedly. Very disappointed, and I take back my thanks, I'm afraid. Did you support it, or didn't you? Tony (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)" |
Tony1 | 13:13 | The autoformatting of dates should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 13:17 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | Tony1's first revert, with the edit comment: "Going back to Anderson's version: if the consensus version is disputed, further consensus should be generated for an alternative wording of the key statement" |
Teemu Leisti | 14:12 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 14:02 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | I reverted back my copyediting changes, but left the introductory statement alone, except for style (deleted words "using the tools shown in the table below" and "in articles", and changed the parenthetical statement to a subclause). |
Teemu Leisti | 14:24 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 14:23 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | |
Pmanderson | 15:24 | Date autoformatting is a system by which dates which are wikilinked can be configured to the preference of readers who have accounts, are logged in, and have set their preferences on this question. Making such links is not required anywhere on Wikipedia; they have practical and aesthetic disadvantages, and many editors would prefer that the system not be used at all. | 15:17 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged; many editors feel it should generally not be used unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | Edit comment on subpage: "rephrase. Deprecation is further than there is consensus for; but many editors object." |
Tony1 | 15:46 | The autoformatting of dates should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 15:20 | The autoformatting of dates should not be used unless there is a good reason to do so. | Edit comment on subpage: "No. Go take a look at the wording that was given "Support" by an awful lot of people. If you want to propose another wording, start it over again at talk." |
Tony1 | 15:52 | Date autoformatting should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | |||
Pmanderson | 16:00 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | 15:43 | (none) | Pmanderson removed the SoD from the subpage, and gave this edit comment: "Just the facts here." After this, no one has reintroduced the SoD to the subpage. |
Abtract | 20:03 | The autoformatting of dates is optional. | |||
Kotniski | 20:30 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
Kotniski | 20:35 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
Pmanderson | 20:56 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated by many editors. | |||
Kotniski | 21:05 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
Abtract | 21:10 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is optional. | |||
Kotniski | 21:19 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
2008-08-28 | |||||
Teemu Leisti | 03:41 | Autoformatting dates should generally be avoided unless there is a particular reason to do so, ... | My edit comment: "updated introduction to date autoformatting from subpage ("deprecated" becomes "should be generally avoided") + moved advice on using a non-breaking space from there to here". Tony1 wrote to me on my talk page: "I thought we'd finally settled the issue, but you keep changing the text—the rest of the consensus would, I'm sure, appreciate it if you didn't. I don't understand the edit-summary justification of consistency with the offshoot essay. In any case, I've adjusted the essay to be consistent with the consensus-driven change at MOSNUM proper: the essay is now a retrospective explanation of the mechanism, and has no need at all to explain how to autoformat dates, since dates should now not be autoformatted. The removal of DA will take some time, so the essay is useful in explain what the hell the residual bright-blue dates are. Tony (talk) 03:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)" | ||
Tony1 | 03:49 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | Tony1's revert of my change, with the following edit comment on the main page: "I thought we'd settled on "deprecated". I see no countervailing text in the "essay" that requires that change". |
Tony1, the table you posted on the main page's talk page, to which I added my vote of support, and which I thought was the "consensus" you referred to, was as follows:
[[5 November]] or [[November 5]]; [[5 November]] [[1989]] or [[November 5]], [[1989]]
). The square brackets instruct the MediaWiki software to format the item according to the
date preferences for registered users who have chosen a setting and are logged in. This should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. Careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the autoformatting mechanism should be made before applying it: the mechanism does not work for the vast majority of readers, such as unregistered users and registered users who have not made a setting, and can affect readability and appearance if there are already numerous high-value links in the text.That box says "This should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so", not "deprecated". On the 28th, I edited the main page's SoD from "The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated." to "Autoformatting dates should generally be avoided unless there is a particular reason to do so, ..." — because I thought that that's what you preferred, because you reverted my change of the subpage's SoD the 24th to "The autoformatting of dates should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so.", which doesn't include the word "deprecated".
So, I'm now confused as to how you would like the SoD to read.
Now, I agree with you that "deprecated" would be better than "discouraged". But I also think that the edit history above shows that there is no consensus yet on how strong the SoD should be. Therefore, it's a bit too early to admonish me on breaking the "consensus".
I think a discussion should be started on exactly how strong the SoD should be. I vote for "deprecated". Teemu Leisti ( talk) 09:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Why not say "deprecate"? Because what we want out of this is a wave of editors saying "Date formatting is not a good idea, and this is why. Can we change this page, please?" We do not want "Out of my way, peasants! I'm on a mission from MOS, and I'm going to delink this page whether you like it or not."
Experience suggests that the line between these two is, all too often, whether the wording of this page can be read as a mandate. This is why I oppose mandates in general. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
One of the arguments for linking dates that it would create a metadata structure of times and events. Another argument is that I've also found that the blue color helped me quickly distinguish between numbers and dates, although we've first dropped it for year only numbers and now for dates completely. Shouldn't these be arguments be addressed? — Dispenser 04:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to do this a second time, but since the main page has now been protected, and a moderated discussion concerning its contents is now taking place on page Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Autoformatting proposal, let's move this there. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 05:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
What is current policy regarding wikilinking dates? I have been around and around the mulberry bush in these discussions and still can't see where a policy was agreed to. And yet, the MoS says "The use of full date formatting is now deprecated". Believe me, not every Wiki reader will know what that actually means, so it needs to be simpler/clearer. Could someone state the dates piping policy on this page. Kaiwhakahaere ( talk)
Why are the dates in articles never linked again ? -- AndreaMimi ( talk) 13:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I left a comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Did I miss something, why are we not suggesting the dts template instead of unstructured text?, but it might be better linked here... dm ( talk) 04:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm confused. I saw an edit on MOS about date linking being deprecated and that details are in the page. So I come here to find details and it starts with:
As of September 2008, it has been possible for registered users to choose one of four preferences regarding how dates are to be presented to them. The four choices are:
I thought that there have been preferences for quite some time. OK, assuming that there are preferences now, this page seems to contain a description of several date formats which people use, followed by a description of wikilinking dates. Stirred in are phrases which imply something in this page is past tense as if something is no longer true. And although an impression is provided that articles should contain dates in consistent formats, it is clearly stated that autoformatting exists and that implies that dates appear to be consistent. So where in this "Manual of Style" detail page does it state what style exists and how it is to be followed or used? I'm confused and just hope that the autosigning will show a legible datetime stamp. -- SEWilco ( talk) 04:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
So, in biography articles, should we still leave the birth and death dates linked? WhisperToMe ( talk) 00:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Tony, or anyone else who shares his view that this change won't lead to chaos, please comment on this diff, showing what some apparently well intentioned editors think is the right thing to do with dates that were perfectly fine the way they were. ( sdsds - talk) 00:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Now take a look at this edit. Some editor's "Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum and fix date formats" changed [[1978-02-22]] to February 2, 1978. Now the article is factually incorrect, thanks to this campaign of "improvements." (Navstar 1 really was launched "22 FEB 78" according to the cited source.) Someone should check their script, eh? ( sdsds - talk) 04:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Here is another example of a well-intentioned (and highly script-skilled) editor who, as part of this effort, left an article with date formatting worse than it was before the edit. How many of these would it take for you proponents of this to recognize that, however well-intentioned, your edits taken as a whole are harmful to our encyclopedia? ( sdsds - talk) 00:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, so what's the bottom line. I still like my dates displayed in the format I prefer, and find other formats to be very "jarring" when I see them, and possibly even confusing when those dates are expressed only in numbers (mm-dd-yy, dd-mm-yy, yy-dd-mm). So if we're not wikilinking dates anymore, how does it know how to display them to me? Or has that user preference between removed as well? GrahamDo ( talk) 08:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
[my screen-size doesn't show commas very well.] )April 11th, 1123 vs April 11, 1123
To expand my previous comment, the current version of autoformatting lost, but there is some support for the general idea of autoformatting. So if a means of autoformatting that is technically advanced enough to have a shot at gathering support is ever devised and tested, it would have to be proposed and garner consensus. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 22:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Can I kindly point out that most citation templates use date auto-formatting/autolinking. (I think)
Linking these dates really isn't of any use to providing context for sources. However autoformating is.-- ZayZayEM ( talk) 02:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
This unlinking of dates is going about everything the wrong way! If you dislike the dates being in different formats in the article, then just get a bot to change the source code so they are all the same. Just pick the first format used on the page and run with it. Or maybe have a section on the talk page or in the wikicode that informs the bot what format the dates on that page should be in.
I doubt I am the only editor who is correcting the delinking of dates. 93.97.214.183 ( talk) 01:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC) (long time wiki editor not signed in for reasons that are irrelevant here)
<sigh>there are at least six significant problems in DA. Here's some background reading for you:
Tony (talk) 03:02, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
In reply to User:My first is in ptarmigan: they are not, "Hell bent on delinking dates." They are, however, intent on taking a big step back in date autoformatting. They think it was wrong to use linking to tag dates for autoformatting, and they are willing to sacrifice the benefits that accrue from that mechanism even before any other mechanism is available to use as a replacement. Hopefully one day they will introduce an acceptable mechanism for date autoformatting in MediaWiki wikis, and we can begin to make forward progress again. ( sdsds - talk) 04:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
GrahamDo is essentially correct, it is a "deeply" flawed consensus, if it is a consensus of any sort at all. As a matter of process, no one user or small cabal should take it upon themselves to: (a) argue the case for a change, (b) declare consensus has been reached and (c) take a heavy hand in implementing the change themselves using a massive, script-assisted editing campaign. If those things can't all be done by entirely different groups of editors then there is little reason to believe there was a wiki-wide consensus that truly supported the change in the first place. That is not a criticism of motives: to the contrary it is wonderful that a small and dedicated group feel empowered to make a change they feel will lead to a better wikipedia. It is, however, a statement that this attempt to bring about change has strained the bounds of etiquette. ( sdsds - talk) 20:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
In the interest of heading off any edit wars, I have reverted the text (as before) to exactly where it was before Sligocki's initial edit. Why? Because there is no need to change the page while the AN/I is under way; that is the only concern at this time. Contrary to some of the edit summaries, this is in no way an attempt to change the guideline, only a request to avoid changing it. (As for OC's note re: "disabled", the feature still operates. Dates wrapped in brackets will still be autoformatted, so we cannot say "disabled" in any case.) -- Ckatz chat spy 05:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
These issues have been the subject of an ongoing ArbCom hearing, and a further RFC (after those held in November at MOSNUM) is under way to settle important details.
Which ever way you feel, it’s important that the current RFC capture full community opinion. You may wish to participate. Ohconfucius ( talk) 13:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems like it would solve all the problems if there were some tag to identify dates which would not create a link to another article, and then dates set off in this tag would show by default in whatever format they were typed in (so if someone typed <date>May 25, 2006</date> then it would show as "May 25, 2006" to anyone who doesn't have a default formatting set (and it would look identical to the date without any tag), but to people who have a specific preference for reading dates, they would see 2006-05-25, for instance. Any inconsistencies can be fixed by the majority of editors who don't set preferences, or, more simply, by a bot. How hard is it to add an entirely new tag to Wikipedia? Note that date formatting exists beyond seeing dates in articles. For instance, at the end of this post, it says, "Aleph Infinity (talk) 19:41, 18 September 2009". It seems as though changing my preferences doesn't actually change the way this shows, as I just changed to "ISO" format to test and it still looks identical. Aleph Infinity ( talk) 19:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
There is in fact a
MediaWiki magic word for this: {{#dateformat:}}. If you input, for example, {{#dateformat:2010-11-13|dmy}}
, then logged-in users who have set a preference will see it in accordance with their preference: 13 November 2010, while for users with no preference set (including non-logged-in users), it will default to dmy format (because of the |dmy
at the end). You can also set it to default to mdy, ymd, and ISO 8601, or you can leave out the parameter at the end in which case it will default to whatever format you entered the date in.
—Angr (
talk)
11:12, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
{{#dateformat:2010-11-13|default format}}
where default format is one of "dmy", "mdy", "ymd", or "ISO 8601". If you don't enter anything as the default format, it defaults to however you wrote the date yourself. If you type {{#dateformat:2010-11-13}}
it defaults to "2010-11-13", but if you type {{#dateformat:13 November 2010}}
it defaults to "13 November 2010", and so on.
—Angr (
talk)
12:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)What about BCE dates?
This is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias include BCE dates in articles on history, religions and biography.
So the sorting and formatting of BCE dates are important functions to consider in Wikipedia. Which makes their absence from the discussion conspicuous.
For example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:List_of_monarchs_who_abdicated&action=edit§ion=2
This provides some clues as to what to do: /info/en/?search=ISO_8601#Years
So:
(I've also posted this in Help:Time functions.)
50.71.169.56 ( talk) 19:43, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
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A good instruction. I edited it a bit for style. I put back the bit at the start about discouraging the use of autolinking, because we went through a long discussion about it, and the consensus was that it's a bad idea, and I think it's good to make this clear to the reader. In fact, I would prefer to state the discouragement even more strongly. There's a need to have a NPOV in the main articles, but not in instructions for using Wikipedia, in my opinion.
I've also edited WP:CONTEXT and the parent article a bit to make this new rule clearer. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 12:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
The brusque treatment of Anderson, Dispenser, and Daytrivia below lead me to think I won't fare any better, but all the same, some thoughts.
I appreciate WP:DEMOCRACY (love the irony there) and how frustrating it can be having to repeat your arguments across several pages or against people simply in the wrong; more importantly, it seems clear Tony is far more passionate about pushing through this policy change than I am about the minor benefits the links provide.
Still, I did want to add these thoughts (if there's still a vote or discussion somewhere, I'm a no to these changes as currently explained) and suggest that he be more accurate both about the real problems (some extra server space and slightly faster processing is about the size of it; the autoformatting problems are simply autoformatting problems that could be far more efficiently solved by ... removing date autoformatting) and the real reasons for opposition (above and below). Not doing so is part and parcel of the WP:Civility problems on this page and elsewhere and risk causing people to become more petulant or even militant in their opposition, when I'm sure that's not what he intends. - LlywelynII ( talk) 22:15, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I have added a section about autoformatting being unsafe for non-Gregorian dates. I am not a calendar expert but I think I have enough knowledge to make the point that autoformatting can make a Julian date look like a Gregorian date. Lightmouse ( talk) 18:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
In what way does a Julian date look different from a Gregorian one? Abtract ( talk) 20:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Abstract, if you mean, you read a date in a document and you're not sure if it's Julian or Gregorian, what about the format would clue you in, the answer is "usually you can't tell". If it is known that the document uses the ISO-8601 format, and the author knows what s/he is doing, then dates like 1582-02-10 would be Gregorian. If the date looks like 10 February 1582, you usually can't tell. You can tell for a few dates, such as 29 February 1700, because the Gregorian calendar didn't have a leap year but the Julian calendar did, so it must be Julian. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 18:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Tony1 wrote to me on my talk page, and I'm moving the discussion here.
This is the edit history of the introductory statement of discouragement, which I'll abbreviate SoD hereinafter, on the main page's section Date autoformatting, and on the subpage:
editor | edit time of main page | SoD on main page | edit time of subpage | SoD on subpage | comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
24 August 2008 | |||||
Greg L | 19:32 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged. | 19:27 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged. | The first appearance of the SoD. Greg L created the subpage. |
Greg L | 19:35 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | 19:37 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | |
Greg L | 19:38 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | |||
Pmanderson | 20:08 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | 20:11 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer required; many editors would prefer to discourage it. It should probably be avoided unless there is a good reason to use it (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | |
August 25, 2008 | |||||
Greg L | 00:17 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature, such as French Revolution). | |||
Tony1 | 02:24 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so. | |||
Sdsds | 10:14 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | 10:16 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer required; many editors would prefer to discourage it. | |
Kotniski | 10:18 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so. | |||
Sdsds | 10:27 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | |||
Tony1 | 11:05 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so. | |||
Sdsds | 11:09 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | |||
Abtract | 11:20 | The autoformatting of dates is optional. | 11:18 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is optional. | |
Kotniski | 11:40 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | |||
Teemu Leisti | 12:57 | The autoformatting of dates is optional. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 12:33 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is optional. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | My first edit, with the edit comment in the subpage: "style (in particular, following Strunk and White's advice to "omit needless words")". Tony1 replied to my talk page, saying "Well, when I said that, I didn't think you'd be going back on your "Support" for the consensus wording on the talk page, repeatedly. Very disappointed, and I take back my thanks, I'm afraid. Did you support it, or didn't you? Tony (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)" |
Tony1 | 13:13 | The autoformatting of dates should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 13:17 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | Tony1's first revert, with the edit comment: "Going back to Anderson's version: if the consensus version is disputed, further consensus should be generated for an alternative wording of the key statement" |
Teemu Leisti | 14:12 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 14:02 | The autoformatting of dates using the tools shown in the table below is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used in articles unless there is good reason to do so (such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature). | I reverted back my copyediting changes, but left the introductory statement alone, except for style (deleted words "using the tools shown in the table below" and "in articles", and changed the parenthetical statement to a subclause). |
Teemu Leisti | 14:24 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 14:23 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged and should generally not be used unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | |
Pmanderson | 15:24 | Date autoformatting is a system by which dates which are wikilinked can be configured to the preference of readers who have accounts, are logged in, and have set their preferences on this question. Making such links is not required anywhere on Wikipedia; they have practical and aesthetic disadvantages, and many editors would prefer that the system not be used at all. | 15:17 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged; many editors feel it should generally not be used unless there is good reason to do so, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | Edit comment on subpage: "rephrase. Deprecation is further than there is consensus for; but many editors object." |
Tony1 | 15:46 | The autoformatting of dates should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | 15:20 | The autoformatting of dates should not be used unless there is a good reason to do so. | Edit comment on subpage: "No. Go take a look at the wording that was given "Support" by an awful lot of people. If you want to propose another wording, start it over again at talk." |
Tony1 | 15:52 | Date autoformatting should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. In fact, many editors discourage it, and prefer that it only be used if there is a particularly good reason, such as in articles that are intrinsically historical in nature. | |||
Pmanderson | 16:00 | The autoformatting of dates is no longer encouraged. | 15:43 | (none) | Pmanderson removed the SoD from the subpage, and gave this edit comment: "Just the facts here." After this, no one has reintroduced the SoD to the subpage. |
Abtract | 20:03 | The autoformatting of dates is optional. | |||
Kotniski | 20:30 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
Kotniski | 20:35 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
Pmanderson | 20:56 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated by many editors. | |||
Kotniski | 21:05 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
Abtract | 21:10 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is optional. | |||
Kotniski | 21:19 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | |||
2008-08-28 | |||||
Teemu Leisti | 03:41 | Autoformatting dates should generally be avoided unless there is a particular reason to do so, ... | My edit comment: "updated introduction to date autoformatting from subpage ("deprecated" becomes "should be generally avoided") + moved advice on using a non-breaking space from there to here". Tony1 wrote to me on my talk page: "I thought we'd finally settled the issue, but you keep changing the text—the rest of the consensus would, I'm sure, appreciate it if you didn't. I don't understand the edit-summary justification of consistency with the offshoot essay. In any case, I've adjusted the essay to be consistent with the consensus-driven change at MOSNUM proper: the essay is now a retrospective explanation of the mechanism, and has no need at all to explain how to autoformat dates, since dates should now not be autoformatted. The removal of DA will take some time, so the essay is useful in explain what the hell the residual bright-blue dates are. Tony (talk) 03:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)" | ||
Tony1 | 03:49 | The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated. | Tony1's revert of my change, with the following edit comment on the main page: "I thought we'd settled on "deprecated". I see no countervailing text in the "essay" that requires that change". |
Tony1, the table you posted on the main page's talk page, to which I added my vote of support, and which I thought was the "consensus" you referred to, was as follows:
[[5 November]] or [[November 5]]; [[5 November]] [[1989]] or [[November 5]], [[1989]]
). The square brackets instruct the MediaWiki software to format the item according to the
date preferences for registered users who have chosen a setting and are logged in. This should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so. Careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the autoformatting mechanism should be made before applying it: the mechanism does not work for the vast majority of readers, such as unregistered users and registered users who have not made a setting, and can affect readability and appearance if there are already numerous high-value links in the text.That box says "This should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so", not "deprecated". On the 28th, I edited the main page's SoD from "The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated." to "Autoformatting dates should generally be avoided unless there is a particular reason to do so, ..." — because I thought that that's what you preferred, because you reverted my change of the subpage's SoD the 24th to "The autoformatting of dates should not generally be used unless there is a particular reason to do so.", which doesn't include the word "deprecated".
So, I'm now confused as to how you would like the SoD to read.
Now, I agree with you that "deprecated" would be better than "discouraged". But I also think that the edit history above shows that there is no consensus yet on how strong the SoD should be. Therefore, it's a bit too early to admonish me on breaking the "consensus".
I think a discussion should be started on exactly how strong the SoD should be. I vote for "deprecated". Teemu Leisti ( talk) 09:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Why not say "deprecate"? Because what we want out of this is a wave of editors saying "Date formatting is not a good idea, and this is why. Can we change this page, please?" We do not want "Out of my way, peasants! I'm on a mission from MOS, and I'm going to delink this page whether you like it or not."
Experience suggests that the line between these two is, all too often, whether the wording of this page can be read as a mandate. This is why I oppose mandates in general. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
One of the arguments for linking dates that it would create a metadata structure of times and events. Another argument is that I've also found that the blue color helped me quickly distinguish between numbers and dates, although we've first dropped it for year only numbers and now for dates completely. Shouldn't these be arguments be addressed? — Dispenser 04:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to do this a second time, but since the main page has now been protected, and a moderated discussion concerning its contents is now taking place on page Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Autoformatting proposal, let's move this there. Teemu Leisti ( talk) 05:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
What is current policy regarding wikilinking dates? I have been around and around the mulberry bush in these discussions and still can't see where a policy was agreed to. And yet, the MoS says "The use of full date formatting is now deprecated". Believe me, not every Wiki reader will know what that actually means, so it needs to be simpler/clearer. Could someone state the dates piping policy on this page. Kaiwhakahaere ( talk)
Why are the dates in articles never linked again ? -- AndreaMimi ( talk) 13:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
I left a comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Did I miss something, why are we not suggesting the dts template instead of unstructured text?, but it might be better linked here... dm ( talk) 04:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm confused. I saw an edit on MOS about date linking being deprecated and that details are in the page. So I come here to find details and it starts with:
As of September 2008, it has been possible for registered users to choose one of four preferences regarding how dates are to be presented to them. The four choices are:
I thought that there have been preferences for quite some time. OK, assuming that there are preferences now, this page seems to contain a description of several date formats which people use, followed by a description of wikilinking dates. Stirred in are phrases which imply something in this page is past tense as if something is no longer true. And although an impression is provided that articles should contain dates in consistent formats, it is clearly stated that autoformatting exists and that implies that dates appear to be consistent. So where in this "Manual of Style" detail page does it state what style exists and how it is to be followed or used? I'm confused and just hope that the autosigning will show a legible datetime stamp. -- SEWilco ( talk) 04:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
So, in biography articles, should we still leave the birth and death dates linked? WhisperToMe ( talk) 00:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Tony, or anyone else who shares his view that this change won't lead to chaos, please comment on this diff, showing what some apparently well intentioned editors think is the right thing to do with dates that were perfectly fine the way they were. ( sdsds - talk) 00:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Now take a look at this edit. Some editor's "Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum and fix date formats" changed [[1978-02-22]] to February 2, 1978. Now the article is factually incorrect, thanks to this campaign of "improvements." (Navstar 1 really was launched "22 FEB 78" according to the cited source.) Someone should check their script, eh? ( sdsds - talk) 04:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Here is another example of a well-intentioned (and highly script-skilled) editor who, as part of this effort, left an article with date formatting worse than it was before the edit. How many of these would it take for you proponents of this to recognize that, however well-intentioned, your edits taken as a whole are harmful to our encyclopedia? ( sdsds - talk) 00:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, so what's the bottom line. I still like my dates displayed in the format I prefer, and find other formats to be very "jarring" when I see them, and possibly even confusing when those dates are expressed only in numbers (mm-dd-yy, dd-mm-yy, yy-dd-mm). So if we're not wikilinking dates anymore, how does it know how to display them to me? Or has that user preference between removed as well? GrahamDo ( talk) 08:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
[my screen-size doesn't show commas very well.] )April 11th, 1123 vs April 11, 1123
To expand my previous comment, the current version of autoformatting lost, but there is some support for the general idea of autoformatting. So if a means of autoformatting that is technically advanced enough to have a shot at gathering support is ever devised and tested, it would have to be proposed and garner consensus. -- Gerry Ashton ( talk) 22:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Can I kindly point out that most citation templates use date auto-formatting/autolinking. (I think)
Linking these dates really isn't of any use to providing context for sources. However autoformating is.-- ZayZayEM ( talk) 02:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
This unlinking of dates is going about everything the wrong way! If you dislike the dates being in different formats in the article, then just get a bot to change the source code so they are all the same. Just pick the first format used on the page and run with it. Or maybe have a section on the talk page or in the wikicode that informs the bot what format the dates on that page should be in.
I doubt I am the only editor who is correcting the delinking of dates. 93.97.214.183 ( talk) 01:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC) (long time wiki editor not signed in for reasons that are irrelevant here)
<sigh>there are at least six significant problems in DA. Here's some background reading for you:
Tony (talk) 03:02, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
In reply to User:My first is in ptarmigan: they are not, "Hell bent on delinking dates." They are, however, intent on taking a big step back in date autoformatting. They think it was wrong to use linking to tag dates for autoformatting, and they are willing to sacrifice the benefits that accrue from that mechanism even before any other mechanism is available to use as a replacement. Hopefully one day they will introduce an acceptable mechanism for date autoformatting in MediaWiki wikis, and we can begin to make forward progress again. ( sdsds - talk) 04:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
GrahamDo is essentially correct, it is a "deeply" flawed consensus, if it is a consensus of any sort at all. As a matter of process, no one user or small cabal should take it upon themselves to: (a) argue the case for a change, (b) declare consensus has been reached and (c) take a heavy hand in implementing the change themselves using a massive, script-assisted editing campaign. If those things can't all be done by entirely different groups of editors then there is little reason to believe there was a wiki-wide consensus that truly supported the change in the first place. That is not a criticism of motives: to the contrary it is wonderful that a small and dedicated group feel empowered to make a change they feel will lead to a better wikipedia. It is, however, a statement that this attempt to bring about change has strained the bounds of etiquette. ( sdsds - talk) 20:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
In the interest of heading off any edit wars, I have reverted the text (as before) to exactly where it was before Sligocki's initial edit. Why? Because there is no need to change the page while the AN/I is under way; that is the only concern at this time. Contrary to some of the edit summaries, this is in no way an attempt to change the guideline, only a request to avoid changing it. (As for OC's note re: "disabled", the feature still operates. Dates wrapped in brackets will still be autoformatted, so we cannot say "disabled" in any case.) -- Ckatz chat spy 05:37, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
These issues have been the subject of an ongoing ArbCom hearing, and a further RFC (after those held in November at MOSNUM) is under way to settle important details.
Which ever way you feel, it’s important that the current RFC capture full community opinion. You may wish to participate. Ohconfucius ( talk) 13:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
It seems like it would solve all the problems if there were some tag to identify dates which would not create a link to another article, and then dates set off in this tag would show by default in whatever format they were typed in (so if someone typed <date>May 25, 2006</date> then it would show as "May 25, 2006" to anyone who doesn't have a default formatting set (and it would look identical to the date without any tag), but to people who have a specific preference for reading dates, they would see 2006-05-25, for instance. Any inconsistencies can be fixed by the majority of editors who don't set preferences, or, more simply, by a bot. How hard is it to add an entirely new tag to Wikipedia? Note that date formatting exists beyond seeing dates in articles. For instance, at the end of this post, it says, "Aleph Infinity (talk) 19:41, 18 September 2009". It seems as though changing my preferences doesn't actually change the way this shows, as I just changed to "ISO" format to test and it still looks identical. Aleph Infinity ( talk) 19:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
There is in fact a
MediaWiki magic word for this: {{#dateformat:}}. If you input, for example, {{#dateformat:2010-11-13|dmy}}
, then logged-in users who have set a preference will see it in accordance with their preference: 13 November 2010, while for users with no preference set (including non-logged-in users), it will default to dmy format (because of the |dmy
at the end). You can also set it to default to mdy, ymd, and ISO 8601, or you can leave out the parameter at the end in which case it will default to whatever format you entered the date in.
—Angr (
talk)
11:12, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
{{#dateformat:2010-11-13|default format}}
where default format is one of "dmy", "mdy", "ymd", or "ISO 8601". If you don't enter anything as the default format, it defaults to however you wrote the date yourself. If you type {{#dateformat:2010-11-13}}
it defaults to "2010-11-13", but if you type {{#dateformat:13 November 2010}}
it defaults to "13 November 2010", and so on.
—Angr (
talk)
12:52, 13 November 2010 (UTC)What about BCE dates?
This is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias include BCE dates in articles on history, religions and biography.
So the sorting and formatting of BCE dates are important functions to consider in Wikipedia. Which makes their absence from the discussion conspicuous.
For example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:List_of_monarchs_who_abdicated&action=edit§ion=2
This provides some clues as to what to do: /info/en/?search=ISO_8601#Years
So:
(I've also posted this in Help:Time functions.)
50.71.169.56 ( talk) 19:43, 6 August 2017 (UTC)