Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:27, 30 September 2008

Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Misplaced Pages's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Misplaced Pages policies of Misplaced Pages's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

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Dates are not linked unless...

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)

• That's an interesting point. I'd have thought a linked article would be worthy of such because it contained extra information or context about the subject, not a mere mention. If this reference to the subject in the other article is indeed novel, it should probably be included in the article in question. If the larger context in the linked article is important enough for the reader to view as "secondary" information (I doubt it, given the fragmentary lists that make up almost every year page—have a look at them), it might be better to summarise that context neatly for the reader in the article on the subject. That will give greater cohesion and focus to the article, and free up the link space we need to allocate strategically (to avoid dilution) for a high-value link. Tony (talk) 02:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I already raised this issue not long ago (but it's been shunted into an archive). I've noticed people going around with bots removing ALL date links, which is surely quite wrong. I would argue that dates should be linked in infoboxes, for example, as a link to a date gives the reader the opportunity to see the wider context of what happened on a particular date or year. I'm not sure what is meant by free up link space I wasn't aware that 'link space' was limited? G-Man 02:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

"Link space"—the more you link, the more you dilute the individual high-value links. I think we seriously overestimate the number of links that readers actually follow; part of optimising the features of wiki is to use linking strategically—to put it crudely, to ration the links to the good ones. I'm unsure how "June 9" could be a good link. Can you point to a date link in an infobox that adds to the reader's understanding of the subject? I put it to you that in the unlikely event that there was a fact-fragment of the remotest relevance to the subject at such an anniversary date for each year, you'd want to put it in the article at hand rather than sending the one-in-ten-thousand readers who do click on that link through what would be almost a wild goose chase. If the purpose of the link to the date is to facilitate discretionary browsing, I'm sorry, but WP has moved away from bright-bluing textual items for that purpose. Discretionary browsers simply need to type a destination into the search box—it's not hard. The same applies to year-links. There's possibly one exception—the years of the two European world-wars in the 20th century, although again, such a larger context is probably better supplied through a direct link to a world-war article, where it would provide focused information—and probably to a section of one of those articles, not the general article. Tony (talk) 03:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Also 1776, 1789, 1492, 1815....Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You say the more you link, the more you dilute the individual high-value links. That is an opinion which I don't share. Part of the joy of wikipedia is the abillity to jump to a large number of topics. Who are we to say to the reader what they should and should not read, most readers are perfectly capable of making up their own minds. I would certainly argue that date links can help to establish context. G-Man 23:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think even the world wars or the French revolution merit a link to the years concerned. If a link is needed, it should be to the specific article on World War 2, on the French Revolution, or what have you. I see very little reason to ever link to a date article or to a year article. Teemu Leisti (talk) 05:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

But we are not all editors and are not required to see all reasons. That is why MOS should prescribe only in very clear cases.Robert A.West (Talk) 12:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute - I thought the idea of wikilinking a date was to format dates as per user preferences. ++ MortimerCat (talk) 13:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

We are discussing what linking of dates should exist even if autoformatting were to disappear tomorrow. My position is some, but less than there is; we should link to dates, when clicking on them will add significantly to the reader who clicks on them, just like any other word. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• Indeed: sadly, date autoformatting is mechanically entangled with linking, and in some respects needs to be discussed in a similar light (i.e., overlinking, dilution of high-value links). I'm trying to get to the bottom of why people would think that dates of birth and death should be linked; the argument appears to be that you can link to day-month article and year article. No one has shown why they're useful to understanding the topic. Anderson, can you point me to an instance where linking "1776" is useful to understanding a subject, and whether it would not be preferable to include any scraps of info in the year page in the actual article at hand? (Perhaps this is possible—it's a good-faith question.) Tony (talk) 13:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
  • • For a real example, the quote from Henry Laurens: "presiding officer of that congress from June until March of 1776." It would be off topic to include the political history of South Carolina at this point; but as with WWII, some readers will benefit from checking what was going on. They will find that SC had not yet declared independence, but had made demands to which even the local Loyalists were willing to subscribe; and that the British were about to evacuate Boston.
    • For a hypothetical example, consider: "In the century and a half from 1620 to 1776, New England ". Most readers will understand what the dates are, and why they are being used; some readers will find the links valuable. It may be possible to recast the sentence, but just substituting the settlement of Plymouth and American Revolution may make an already complex sentence unbearable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
    • As another actual example, I have just come across an offhand reference to an increase of royal control in New England in 1682. One way to find more about this would be to go to 1682 and either find it (which did not happen) or search the What links here for the page; but the second will only work if years are actually linked. (Searching on "New England" and 1682 turns up mostly survey articles broad enough to include both New England and the founding of Pennsylvania.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:05, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • What is the harm being prevented here? How does linking of dates that are significant to the article make Misplaced Pages worse? Some people like to know what else happened on a date, and especially so when the date is not within their personal memory. If reading about the First Anglo-Dutch War, it might provide a particular reader with useful perspective to see what else was going on in that year. For example, tea, coffee and cocoa all first arrived in London during the year 1652. While there is no immediate relevance to the war, that fact gives some perspective on the growth of world trade in the period. Even if the year article mentions nothing of interest or value now, that should change over time as Misplaced Pages improves. Obviously, you don't read that way, but Misplaced Pages is written for the readers, not for us editors. Personally, I think that linking years and dates is a service to readers and should be, if anything, encouraged. Robert A.West (Talk) 14:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I also think that linking the birth and death dates would be good and have mentioned that numerous times although I cannot seem to vocalize exactly why. But by this logic then we shouldn't be linking to places of birth, death, burial, etc. Are those to be the next targets of our hatred of overlinking.--Kumioko (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• I would react with some horror at the extensive wikilinking of birth and death dates. The vast majority of biographies I have come across have these dates linked, and I just feel that these links add nothing to any of the articles. What I am talking about includes EIIR, where the only date I have chosen to retain is the date of coronation; I might also consider linking the dates of death of Mao Zedong and John F. Kennedy and other leaders who died in office, or other world figures who died at the height of their influence - for example John Lennon. However, that's probably where I would stop. I would say that even Albert Einstein's birth and death dates are but biographical facts which add little significance to the world if linked to date and year articles. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• For some readers not wikilinking dates creates problems: for example, I like to know the wider historical state of the world for each date referred in an article, and wikilinking the date allows me to quickly have a look at the date articles, but deleting the wikilinks injures my reading experience, as I cannot as easily check the state of the world on a particular date. I know other users may not be as interested in history, though, and I also accept the fact that too many links make the "primary" high-importance links difficult to distinguate, although I maintain that deleting what some people see as "secondary" links is not a solution. By the way, if you read a recent CACM journal issue, there is an article in there in which a researcher (if I remember correctly then it's someone who is also a Wikipedian here, but I'm not sure whether I remember correctly) found that Misplaced Pages growth is related to its links, and especially its red links (ie red links make people write an article), which implies that being reluctant to link, especially for red links, could slow the growth of Misplaced Pages. For years (most of which are existant articles), this would mean that non-wikilinked year articles may receive less contributions than wikilinked year articles (many times reading an article then clicking a date wikilink there allows a reader to spot historical events that are noted in the article but not in the year articles, thus this may enable them to add these in the year article). In general, I believe that the benefits of wikilinking outweight the disadvantages in most situations, if done in the right way. NerdyNSK (talk) 19:14, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course, our year and date articles could use a lot of improvement. We could use more global perspective (though the prospect of {{globalize}} stuck on every one of them fills me with horror). There are events that we can pin down to a year, but not a specific day, should be listed. Major developments and milestones should be listed on the main year article, and not in "yyyy in xxxxx". But, I suppose I should take that up with Wikiproject years in my "copious" (i.e. nonexistent) spare time. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:31, 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, 2008-09-16t20:54z

What applications? —Remember the dot 22:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Semantic web. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-18t08:31z

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)

Dates aren't consistently linked now; anybody who autoformats does so at his own risk, for he is choosing to have more dates in his preferred format at the price of inconsistency (and sometimes bad grammar or factual error). The question here is "are any links in dates valuable as links?" I think some are. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:02, 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)

• How can an editor feel motivated to improve a year article if they know that someone will quickly step in to almost turn it into an orphaned article, thus the good work done becoming invisible to the readers? How can someone feel motivated to improve an article that people don't even want to see links towards it. De-linking dates means keeping them in their current poor state forever. This is unwiki. NerdyNSK (talk) 22:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm content with not normally, provided FA and GA will listen to cases for the benefits. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Greetings,

Let's not forget that the TWO most important things about Misplaced Pages 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, Misplaced Pages has become a collective "brain" of humanity, and building these links increases Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages's purpose and success.Ryoung122 10:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• And let us not forget that templates like {{Cite web}} and others automagically wikilink dates. I'm sure the job queue will have a heart attack if someone or somebot stats an edit battle over that. — MrDolomite • Talk 11:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Although I don't mean people to clutter LM's page with comment, there's an interesting little debate on "skilled linking" and solitary year-links at . Tony (talk) 14:28, 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)

This particular section is not about either issue. It's about the sentence itself, which is unclear and lacks context. It should be clarified or removed. Scolaire (talk) 06:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

A) In my reading, dates are not linked unless the linked date has information that contributes to the article in which the date appears. For example,...

Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) ... etc etc .... He was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14.

Here we have "a particular reason" to link the date, i.e. February 14 is Valentine's day.

So, this could be expressed as

• "Dates should only be linked if the date is that of a particular event directly related to the topic under discussion"
• Or as a firm benchmark: "Dates should only be linked if the article also discusses a relationship to an event on that date."

(or something to that effect).

Or, as an rule-of-thumb assist,...

• "whenever a link as ] could just as well be formulated as ]."

This might be too confusing though. Editors would probably misunderstand and do that literally.

In any case, these would all also cover the 1776 of the examples others have provided.

--

B) Not to muddy the issue, but something I haven't seen discussed is what happens when only one part of the date/date-range meets the criteria. Say, "(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)

Proposed replacement of "Strong national ties to a topic"

Given the state of tempers, I thought I would discuss this here, rather than being bold. I propose that we replace the "Strong national ties to a topic" section as follows. I use a level-3 section head to indicate a return to commentary.

Choosing a format

While the decision must be made by the editors of each article, the following principles should be observed.

• If a Wikiproject has achieved a consensus for the date format to use within a subject area, that format is strongly preferred.
• When the sources for an article predominantly use one format or the other, the predominant format is preferred.
• Otherwise, articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use whichever format predominates, assuming that one does.
  • For the United States of America, use the month-before-day format.
  • For most other English-speaking countries, use the day-before-month format.
  • Canada uses both about equally, so either may be used.
  • Many non-English-speaking countries use a format that is very similar to one of the two acceptable formats. In such cases, the closer of the two should be used

Discussion

The concept that uniformity of date format will somehow increase Misplaced Pages's prestige strikes me as misguided. If we wanted uniformity, we would prescribe a particular variety of English and enforce its use in all articles. Exceptions would be limited to quotations and references to dialectical usage. Instead, we use various national varieties, including the use of "Indianisms" in some cases. The train has left the station, been boarded on ship, and the ship has sailed and is in International Waters.

Misplaced Pages covers a lot of fields. If the best sources in a field use a date format consistently, we want to follow the sources in style as we do in content. The best judges of that are active subject-matter Wikiprojects. Failing that, the matter is best left to the editors on an individual page. If having a link the reader from seeing "the color of the sulfur" to reading "the colour of the sulphur" is acceptable, I don't see why taking him from "April 1" to "1 April" is one iota worse.

As for a comprehensive list of countries, I see no need and little purpose. If the result is obvious, there is no need. If the result is not obvious, I do not see that this little band is more qualified than the editors of an article to make a decision. Robert A.West (Talk) 16:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• I object to the last clause. There is no reason why articles on Sweden should use 22 September, just because Swedish uses 22 september; the only Swede to have commented here expressed puzzlement that we should do this. The Swedish WP is another matter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:29, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that last clause is really just proposing something that's already been firmly rejected. The others may have some sense, but is this continuous debate over a triviality really what Misplaced Pages needs?--Kotniski (talk) 17:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no reason why articles on Sweden should use 22 September, just because Swedish uses 22 september. Ummm. That's actually a reason TO use it. I think you'd have to come up with a pretty good reason NOT to use Sweden's preferred format, all else being equal.

Not if the Swedes don't see it as one; we are not helping them or anybody else. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, make up your mind - you say they use 22 September in one breath, and then dispute yourself in the next. Easily solved - just set your computer preferences to Swedish and see what the preferred format is. That's something any computer user can do for themselves. The Swedes don't use American date format, so please don't insult our intelligence by implying that they do. --Pete (talk) 01:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

What Jao said was

The idea that "13 September 2008" should somehow feel more natural than "September 13, 2008" because I consistently read and write "13 september 2008" in my native Swedish never crossed my mind. Why would it?

That seems clear enough; why would it indeed? Adopting the forms of Language A into Language B, when they are not natural in both, is a sign of incomplete mastery of one or the other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

You two obviously feel the need to defend your preferred date format. So far as I can see you are both causing a lot of unecessary disruption over something that's pretty trivial really. Misplaced Pages is an international project. You should get used to working with people from diverse backgrounds.

On the contrary, we support letting editors of various backgrounds use their preferred formats; Skyring has been continually revert warring to have this page dicountenance that. Then again, Skyring has been doing nothing but Date Warring for his preferred all over article space for some time now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:14, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

As for the wording of the proposal above, it's just common sense and courtesy. I like it. --Pete (talk) 18:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It is neither. But I note the appeal to that all-prevailing rationale: WP:ILIKEIT; at base, Skyring has no other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me add mine to the many voices urging you to contemplate this as a useful source of guidance. --Pete (talk) 01:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The rejection is here. That was Option D. By my count, 38 voices; 7 approved it, 5 were willing to tolerate it, 26 rejected it .

On the substance: we have the present text (R), which sets a firm rule for only some articles, those with strong ties to English-speaking countries. We had three alternatives which extended it to a rule for all articles (B resembled R, but was longer and differed in detail):

• A would have required all articles in a national dialect of English to use the corresponding date format.
• C would have required that all articles not strongly tied to the United States, US possessions and Canada use the British format.
• D is a wording almost identical to West's clause.

A and C did best, although none had a majority. There was then a runoff, which rejected A and had a hairline majority for C; C has then polled against the present text, and failed - despite widespread canvassing by Pete - to win even a majority.

It may be worth tweaking the present text to insert

• If a Wikiproject has achieved a consensus for the date format to use within a subject area, that format is strongly preferred.
• When the sources for an article predominantly use one format or the other, the predominant format is preferred.

although the first will run into objections from those who regard Wikiprojects as bumptious, with no right to object to the project-wide guidance here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at WP:CONSENSUS, I think you are reading to much into interpreting polls. I've summarised above the areas where we have consensus and where we don't. We've still got a way to go. --Pete (talk) 18:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

So can you at least please stop edit-warring on the policy page until we have consensus to change it. I've explained above why the word "English-speaking" that you keep removing is desirable; please at least answer the reasoning before continuing to repeat the change (I know it's not only you this time, but the same applies to others).--Kotniski (talk) 18:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• And there is no particular reason why we need those claims of fact at all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
• I don't think we need them for the rule to operate; editors will determine which format is prevalent in Canada, or Jamaica, the same way they tell whether those countries use color or colour: by knowing the local variant of English. We should not decide that; as has been pointed out, we don't know the answer for Jamaica, and the answer for Canada has been questioned in the course of the discussion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, I hate to be picky, but knowing the local English variant in Canada doesn't give you the date format. Canada bats both ways. English-speaking nations aren't a problem anyway. The current discussion revolves around how we treat non-English-speaking nations in Misplaced Pages. It's easy enough to determine the date format used in a specific - just set your computer preferences from the list provided and see what comes up. Anyone can do this. --Pete (talk) 19:14, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me, but this appears to be a suggestion that Microsoft (!) is a reliable source. Tell it to the Marines. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:40, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm using a Mac. --Pete (talk) 09:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

• Skyring is, as often, seeing what others say through his idée fixe. We have said nothing more than that a rule which has no majority can scarcely be consensus (rules which do have majorities may or may not be) and that if a rule has no consensus, MOS should not require it. (Again, consensus claims may or may not belong here.) In short, we discuss necessary, not sufficient conditions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not strongly attached to the point. I consider the national-preference clause to be better than a coin-flip, but not by much. The previous discussion and polls were quite lengthy, and I obviously misread them. I am strongly attached to following relevant scholars, so I regret muddying the waters with this point. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Misplaced Pages is an international effort, but en.wikipedia.org does not bear the responsibility for the internationalization of all of Misplaced Pages. This is the English version of Misplaced Pages. See the list of all the other Wikipedias. To continually bring up formatting matters concerning non-English speaking countries in English Misplaced Pages is trying to broaden the responsibility of this MOS beyond it's scope. I'm sure the hundred(s) of other Wikipedias have some MOS guideline for their use, and highly doubt they debate imposing the English Wikipedias methods upon their editors. So why do we continue to debate this point? It has been rejected by previous consensus and to keep rehashing it distracts from improving the current wording of MOS on date formatting as it applies to English Misplaced Pages.--«JavierMC»|Talk 23:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I've struck that part out of my proposal. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Mr. West's proposal contains "When the sources for an article predominantly use one format or the other, the predominant format is preferred." I can't agree with that, because (1) it can cause flip-flopping of the date format as sources come and go, and (2) if the sources are not online, no single editor may have access to enough of the sources to determine what format predominates. Also, one can probably argue that newspapers are a major source for almost any topic, and UK newspapers often use the mdy format (or so some editors have claimed in this discussion), so this proposal could be disruptive.

A variation of this proposal that I would support in an individual article, although it may not need to be in the guideline, is that if an article contains extensive quotations that use a particular format, it would be appropriate for the unquoted parts of the article to use that format too. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I would take the clause as applying to articles like Frederick North, Lord North, which should not be sourced from newspapers. Predominant should prevent switching; if the sources are so evenly divided that a few sources would overturn the balance, neither side was "predominant" to begin with. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the "Frederick North" article is a fine example. There are five sources, only one of which is online, and the online source is from 1867, so is not a good guide to date format in modern writing. If a question arose about the appropriate date format for the article, few editors would be able to determine which format predominates in the sources. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, all five sources are at Google Books. The American Tuchman is the only one to use the European style, presumably because her book is about more than the eighteenth century. But this is a reason to leave the question to the judgment of the editors who have actually consulted the sources; I would prefer acknowledging that they may wish to diverge from the norm to any rule permitting kibitzers to switch dates on their arbitrary judgment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:09, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Both fair points. How about, "When the scholarship on a subject predominantly uses one format or the other..."? That is more to my meaning in any case. As to the subject of quotations, I agree that it is reasonable to harmonize an article's style with its quotations, but that could lead to the sort of flip-flopping that Mr. Ashton so properly deprecates. Robert A.West (Talk) 18:56, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I would think the word "predominantly" in "When the sources for an article predominantly" should be enough to assuage Gerry's otherwise valid concern - would adding the words When "the most notable" scholarship ... help? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:01, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

This would have the interesting effect of making many British articles use American dates, as English-language newspapers, including The Times, typically use American-format dates. I think a lot of people would find this confusing. --Pete (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

If British newspapers predominantly use "American" format, on what basis do we say that "International" usage predominates in the U.K.? I would think that newspapers would be strongly motivated to use the format preferred by their readers. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this is hard to phrase. I would go along with an individual article using the format that predominates in all the modern English-language scholarly sources on a topic, but not on which predominates in the subset that happens to have been cited in a particular article. Any editor who embarks on editing a decent article should consult several good sources (which might not be the ones that have been cited so far) and if one format really does predominate the field, the editor will see that. One problem with expanding this point from consensus on an individual article to a guideline for all articles is that some topics are just ignored by scholarly sources, and I shudder to think what the predominant date format might turn out to be for sources on those articles.

As for extensive quotes, I suspect that will only come up when the subject of an article is a document, and most of the quotes will come from the subject document. Since the subject document won't change, there won't be a concern with flip-flopping. And anyway, I really think that should be decided by consensus for a particular article. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

My concern is that if we leave "national ties" as the one guiding principle, and note that they are the reason to change an article's format, we may prevent just the sort of per-article consensus that should evolve. That result would make Misplaced Pages worse. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• How about When the sources on a subject predominantly use one format or the other, the predominant format is preferred? The minor premise that the sources actually used tend to represent the whole universe of sources will usually be true, but not always. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

  This sounds constructive. I agree with Robert West's comment. As for Pete's - well, this gets back to a point I made a few days ago, what is wrong with listing countries where the official date system is x or y. That is like listing countries where the official religion is x or y. We just do not know whetehr it means that this is the system that the state requires used on all official documents, but is otherwise ignored by most people, or is it really what most people practice? We are giving the word "official" too much credit. Myabe it is all we have .... but lets not pretend that it necessarily means that thi is the only dating system people use, let alkone understand, in a given country. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, Robert, this is really just re-plowing old ground. While your suggestion of devolving the decision to individual Wikiprojects is a novel one, I’m not sure it’s altogether a wise one. First of all, the issue is not intrinsic to any Wikiproject’s purview, but rather it’s a general, encyclopedia-wide one; secondly, it is likely to result in more inconsistency and more edit-warring; thirdly, there are many articles not covered by any Wikiproject (and even more not covered by an active one). The second bullet, if it is meant to be second in importance, basically defaults to a universal “use whichever style was first introduced” and thus obviates the need for the remainder of your points. The last sub-bullet – the one most of those above are pointedly taking exception to – was, of course, the least-preferred option according to the polls (however valid one may feel them to be), despite having a few quite vocal champions. Nor is there likely to be found a scholarly consensus. An American scholar and a British scholar writing on the American Revolutionary War will each use their native style – and neither will be bothered by it. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:10, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, both are likely to use the format presently used in the United States, as with Lord North above; that's the format on primary documents on both sides of the Atlantic. Mark Askari forgets, I conjecture, how recently the European format was introduced in Britain and the Commonwealth. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

No, Askari Mark does not forget how recently the European format was adopted; however, I have read a lot of scholarly works originating from both sides of the “Big Puddle”. There is also the issue that when a manuscript is submitted for publication in a journal based on the opposite bank, that journal’s style guide may call for re-rendering in the local usage. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I acknowledge my conjecture. Journal style guides would seem to strengthen the case for the proposed language; if one or the other is predominant after that randomization, then it must have been so common in MS. that it would be surprising to see it otherwise. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, Askari, I believe that style is often field-dependent, and that Wikiprojects are precisely the groups that are most likely to make good decisions about style for each field. As for your criticism of the second bullet point, it is a decision based on the universe of sources. That is a far cry from "pick a style and stick with it." You are correct about the last point, and I have already apologized. I've struck it out to avoid having to apologize a third time. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:54, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Slrubenstein that the word "official" should be avoided in relation to date and time formats. As examples of official neglect of the subject, the Gregorian calendar is in effect in the United States because of the the British Calendar (New Style) Act 1750. In Britain, the Parliament has declined to decide whether GMT means Universal Time or Coordinated Universal Time.

I also have share the concerns about this bullet When the sources for an article predominantly use one format or the other, the predominant format is preferred. Does this imply that if the sources used for an article change or that enough sources are added that use a different format that the article should be changed? It seems to me that if a guideline is to be provided it should be one that can not easily be gamed and encourages stability. In many case one date format is no better than another, though all date formats will seem at least unusual to at least some of the editors, and most of the editors will find at least one format unusual. I think something akin to the first format used in article to be as good of rule as any, and makes a concrete point that can be used to prevent edit warring. PaleAqua (talk) 01:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Would you prefer sources on a subject, as suggested above? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

While that and the scholarship versions seem a little better they still seem like they present gaming risks. It is doubtful that the average editor would know most of the sources on a topic, which means that any set of sources revealed could be chosen with bias. Also they may be sources that could have both multiple additions, where versions that agree with a particular editors date format could be chosen. If such a call would be made it seems that a wikiproject involving the articles would be in a better position to make such a ruling, but that's already covered by the first point. I still think something simple that is easily determinable is the best guideline. Something like "If a Wikiproject has achieved a consensus for choosing a date format to use within a subject area, that choice is strongly preferred.", drop the "When the sources..." clause, and add at the end something akin to the retaining the existing format as the final option. PaleAqua (talk) 02:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

While I fully agree with Robert and PMA that journal styles can certainly display usages dominant to a particular field (terminology, specialist definitions, abbreviations, etc.), I cannot recall seeing such with regards to date formatting in particular. It’s an interesting conjecture, but I suspect if there’s a preponderance of use in a field that it may be more a reflection of a larger number of related publications existing in countries using one form vice other. Assuming there are cases that fit this conjecture, I’d recommend caution in formulating this guidance and restrict it to scholarly sources. Otherwise we might, as PaleAqua observes, come to find it being used as a justification for editwarring over the number of citation sources favoring one usage over the other. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

When to change an article

It would seem to go along with my suggestion about that "scholarly practice" should replace "national ties" as the reason for change par excellence. Otherwise, a carefully-made choice based on scholarly practice could be reversed on the basis of alleged strong national ties. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:31, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

While it would be nice to think of Wikipedians as scholars, in general we aren't, unless we accept Borat's definition. Any rules on date formats (or anything else) should have two features:

1. Clear and easily understood by editors
2. Producing consistent results accepted by readers.

The reason for introducing date autoformatting in the first place was so that editors would see dates in the style they preferred. Combined with the strong national ties rule which acted to keep American articles in American format and British articles in International format, this system worked well for years. Making radical changes to a working system is something that should be approached cautiously. --Pete (talk) 20:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It's already been radically changed, when date linking at all was deprecated, so that a person's Preferences no longer matter. Corvus cornix_talk 20:15, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The system may have reduced edit wars over dates, but it did not do anything for the vast majority of readers, that is, those who are not registered. So it didn't work well for years, it swept the problem under the rug for years. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:53, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

So, who are the majority of readers? Are they not Americans? Your argument then should be to require American format. Corvus cornix_talk 21:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

However, the script that is now being used to remove date-linking could easily be modified to make date format consistent, yet still leave date-autoformatting intact. I understand somebody also has a script that could remove date-linking & retain date auto-formatting. --JimWae (talk) 21:05, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

No, that was a patch to the wikimedia software, which was written and proposed, but not adopted. Since date autoformatting is depricated, I think it is unlikely that any date-autoformatting patch will be accepted. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:14, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, the headers for all discussion involving deprecation read "date-linking" and did not read "date-autoformatting" --JimWae (talk) 21:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

We are not by definition scholars, as Pete says, but we do rely on scholars and other notable, reliable sources when writing most articles; that is the point. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I would venture a guess that the "strong national ties" rule for formatting is unknown to most editors and to essentially all readers who are not editors. We don't make people pass an MOS certification exam before contributing. So long as date autoformatting was the norm, I gave the matter no thought, and I suspect that most editors were like me. As Mr. Ashton points out, that did not improve Misplaced Pages from the point of view of the unregistered reader, but it is the way it was. As for the casual reader, I would be astonished if more than a handful who link from George III of England to Boston Tea Party look at the difference in format and care one bit. Robert A.West (Talk) 00:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I think most of the points above have been made previously in discussion. I thank my fellow editors for reminding me. Most of all I thank those who reminded me of the points that I had made. That was sweet. One new thing I really like is the notion that the various wikiprojects decide how to handle matters of style in articles. Who else is better placed to know themselves, their subject and their readership?

One of the points already agreed upon as consensus is that it doesn't matter which of the two formats is used - no confusion arises as to the date. The date-linking thing arose to prevent conflicts between editors, some of whom, as we can see, are strongly attached to their preferred formats. Using national ties as a determinant worked well. Of course date-linking did not and does not conceal date formats from editors working on an article; we see the raw text when we hit that "edit" button. Problems arise when we get chauvinists attempting to push American date formats, spellings, units of measurement and so on out into subject areas that do not normally use them. And vice versa, of course.

The fact that English-language newspapers commonly use American date formats is a matter of convenience - the major syndicated news agencies all use American format and newspapers do not care to employ people to change one format to another, story after story, hour after hour, night after night. National usage is a different thing, and we don't have to go hunting down official sources to see what format Malaysia prefers - just look at the control panel in our computers, and we can see that Mr Gates, Mr Jobs and Mr Linux have done the work for us. Presumably they have researched their markets and know exactly what computer users in each country prefer.

I'd prefer that the Manual of Style be as simple, fair and practical as possible. That way we minimise friction and disruption between editors. Asking editors to hunt through sources, or balance "ise" and "ize" word endings or trawl through the history is needlessly complex, and ensures that none but the most determined of nitpickers will do it. The most relevant wikipractice concerns which units of measurement we use, and here we use whichever system of units best suits the topic, a practice that works well for all except those troublemakers who wish metres and kilograms on Americans, and vice versa. Minimising conflict and disruption with clear, well-chosen guidelines is what we should be about. --Pete (talk) 01:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer that the Manual of Style be as simple, fair and practical as possible. When did you change your mind? You have spent the past month arguing for complex and impractical rules which would allow you to bully as many articles as possible into your preferred dating format. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Anderson's right. Please give it a rest, Skyring. Tony (talk) 01:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Since Skyring/Pete brought up Microsoft, it is worth noting that Microsoft admits that many countries have regional variations, which is why it advises use of API's and permits the user to customize national settings.Robert A.West (Talk) 02:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Robert, that's just good programming practice. There are always people or groups of people who like things a different way and giving them the tools to personalise their experience sells more boxes. The big computer/software companies are excellent examples of internationalism, and we could learn a lot from them.

• Yes, and Microsoft's Australian English spellchecker got it horribly wrong with the s/z thing; they still haven't corrected it, so we have to use the BrEng spellchecker. Don't hold them up as an example. Tony (talk) 11:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Just checked, and Microsoft Word 2008 running on my Mac doesn't flag "ise" words as spelling errors. It accepts both as valid, which seems to accord well with current Australian practice. Are ypu sure your software is up to date? I suppose we can do a comparison of the date formats recommended by Microsoft, Apple, the various flavours of Linux, Unix, Solaris etc. I wouldn't expect any great difference between them. I doubt that they pull this stuff out of thin air. Looking at what Mac recommends for Australia, I see:

• Long date: Saturday, 5 January 2008
• Short date: 5 January 2008
• Abbreviated dates: 05/01/2008 and 5/01/08
• Calendar: Gregorian
• Times: 12:34 AM and 4:56 PM
• Numbers: $1,234.56, 1,234.56, 123.456% and 1.23456E3
• Currency: Australian Dollar
• Measurement Units: Metric

That looks about right to me, though I'd tend to write the shortest date as 5/1/8 and I've customized (yes, the Mac control panel uses the "ize" form) the time to use 24 hour clock because that's the way I like it, given my military background. --Pete (talk) 22:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, Anderson is dead wrong. I prefer a simple effective solution. The last thing I want to do is bully anybody. Maybe Anderson feels pressured, but that seems to be SOP for him, looking back over his contributions long before he ever heard of me. --Pete (talk) 09:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

• I beg to differ: Anderson's solution is much simpler, which is to respect the way in which an article is begun if it has no strong national ties to an anglophone country. Your system is complicated and requires research and often precarious judgement for many articles (can a Phillipine-related article be in international if the editors want? What about some South American countries? Have a look at the article on date formatting, which is enough to give you the chills—and it's not even referenced.) Besides, why can't US authors write about topics unconnected with other anglophone countries in US English and US date format? It's absolutely unreasonable to upset the apple-cart in this way, and inconsistent with our "first contributor" criterion for Engvar, which works superbly well. Tony (talk) 11:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Upset the applecart? That's just bizarre. We've been using strong national ties for years. The relevant wording remained unchanged for nine months. I've pointed this out before, and anybody may check for themselves. Here's how the wording developed:

• 2004: It's generally preferable to use the format used by local English speakers at the location of the event. For events within Europe and Oceania, that is usually 11 February 2004 (no comma). For the United States it's usually February 11, 2004 (with comma).
• 2005: It is usually preferable to use the format preferred in the variety of English that is closest to the topic. For topics concerning Europe, Australia, Oceania and Africa, the formatting is usually 17 February 1958 (no comma and no "th"). In the United States and Canada, February 17, 1958, (with two commas—the year in this format is a parenthetical phrase) is correct, and in Canada, 17 February 1958 is common..
• 2006: If the topic itself concerns a specific country, editors may choose to use the date format used in that country. This is useful even if the dates are linked, because new users and users without a Misplaced Pages account do not have any date preferences set, and so they see whatever format was typed. For topics concerning Ireland, all member states of the Commonwealth of Nations except Canada, and most international organizations such as the United Nations, the formatting is usually 17 February 1958 (no comma and no "th"). In the United States, it is most commonly February 17, 1958. Elsewhere, either format is acceptable.
• Early 2007: If the topic itself concerns a specific country, editors may choose to use the date format used in that country. This is useful even if the dates are linked, because new users and users without a Misplaced Pages account do not have any date preferences set, and so they see whatever format was typed.
• Late 2007: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should generally use the more common date format for that nation.
• 2008:Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation; articles related to Canada may use either format consistently. Articles related to other countries that commonly use one of the two acceptable formats above should use that format.

Anderson changed the wording - without consensus, I might add - and I reverted until I got sick of his disruptive edit-warring. If anyone upset the applecart, with the resulting shitfight you now see, it's Anderson. We were doing just fine until he intervened. The guidelines were simple - use the date format of a relevant country - and there was very little confusion or disruption. The system worked. US editors can and did write about foreign countries using whatever format they wanted. Nobody stopped them doing so. Nobody really cared. I certainly don't mind if someone adds useful information without getting everything exactly as per the MoS - someone is bound to come along and square it away, and if it an article gets to FA status, which presumably is something we want for every article, then we'll have the real wikiwonks come along and get everything into showroom condition. As noted, anybody can check the most common date format used in a country by looking at their computer's control panel. If you are editing Misplaced Pages, you have a computer right there in front of you.

My preferred wording is simple, fair and practical. Just remove "English-speaking" from the current wording: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the U.S. this is month before day; for most others it is day before month. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently.

This is similar to the way we handle units of measurement and local currencies - we don't look at the history of articles on non-English-speaking nations and if some editor used yards instead of metres initially, keep that forever. It gets changed to the appropriate unit and nobody bothers. Except for a few chauvinists who seem to think that every time a date or a unit is changed from the American way, it's another star ripped off Old Glory. --Pete (talk) 23:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with that. My problem is with the requirement that unless it's specifically American, non-American formatting must be used. Corvus cornix_talk 23:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I certainly don't support compulsion along those lines. In fact there must be a huge range of articles where date formats are not an issue and either format is fine. UN agencies, for example. Or, as Tony has noted, British filmstars who move to Hollywood. Either format is acceptable there. But if an article has a natural and strong tie to a single nation, then why not use the date formats and units of measurement commonly used there? This applies to the USA, France, the UK, New Zealand, the Philippines... --Pete (talk) 23:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

You yourself said, If the date format used in a place where they don't speak English is day before month, then what on earth is wrong with using that format in written English? Am I missing something here? The only reason I can think of why people would edit-war and abuse other editors for the sake of using one date format over another is that they care very deeply about their own personal preference, and that's not the attitude of a reasonable person.. Corvus cornix_talk 23:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. What's wrong with that? Using the Swedish date format in an article about Sweden sounds pretty reasonable to me. But if there are good reasons not to use it - through local consensus or whatever - then I certainly wouldn't compel any editor to use a format they are not happy with. --Pete (talk) 00:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Because it's advocating limiting American format to American subjects, which has been my objection all along. Corvus cornix_talk 00:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, no. It's advocating using Swedish format in Swedish subjects and American format in American subjects and British format in British subjects and so on. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Going beyond articles with strong ties to specific nations we have articles on international topics such as Olympics or subjects with no specific ties, such as Commando. These categories have no preferred format and thus stay in the format first chosen. I'm certainly not advocating compulsion on date formats - just a return to the way we've always done things and which worked well. --Pete (talk) 12:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

And it's also something that was soundly rebutted by the last three weeks of discussion, polling and various other methods of trying to get the point through that this is English Misplaced Pages, not Russian, African, Japanese, Dutch, and a plethora of other Wikipedias, that have and maintain their own MoS, and should not be a consideration for this one. How non-English speaking countries write their date, has no basis for consideration of how the English Misplaced Pages will address the dating issue concerning articles written about them. It is restrictive, an unnecessary broadening of this MoS's responsibility, and frankly attempting to overly internationalize the English Misplaced Pages, when the non-English speaking countries have their own Wikipedias for use list. Go to their Wikipedias and try and impose our MoS on them and see how far you get. Lets have not only articles written in English here, but include all languages in this one, and delete all the others. Before I'm accused of balderdash once again, I will stop now. The notion to include, other than English-speaking countries date format conventions in this style guide, has been rejected. Lets move on please. Cheers.--«JavierMC»|Talk 02:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I've yet to see consensus for any one method of dealing with this, certainly not anything that justifies a change to our long-standing, workable and uncontroversial practice. Anderson changed the wording without obtaining consensus and since then it's been one unholy mess here. ---Pete (talk) 12:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Pete, note the evolution from "may use" to "should use" to a virtual "must use". That is a crucial change and one that, manifestly, never had a broad consensus. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't see anything saying "must use", though I haven't checked the latest wording "tweak", maybe there is a mob with torches and pitchforks standing by ready to go. I don't support must use for date formats, with the exception that we shouldn't use ISO 8601 dates in written text. Otherwise, the difference between the two date formats is much like hanging your toilet roll underhand or overhand. Either way works perfectly well, but by jingo, you get some zealots on this topic! --Pete (talk) 01:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

All this debate, but things would be so much easier...

...if the rule was simply: use the date formatting produced by ~~~~. Teemu Leisti (talk) 08:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

But nevermind. I'm done with this discussion, at least for a few months. Teemu Leisti (talk) 11:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

US military articles

While I do not think the MoS need specify under what exact circumstances DMY is appropriate for US military articles, such as this one, it probably should mention, before there's revert-warring, that such is sometimes acceptable and should NOT be switched without good reason. --JimWae (talk) 09:04, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I've audited the dates in many many articles, which has taught me that US military editors almost always prefer their articles to be in international date formats. I respect this when I audit. The provision was in some of the earlier proposals for rewording, but appears to have been lost. Tony (talk) 11:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I've restored this proviso - feel free to improve my wording.--Kotniski (talk) 12:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Seems perfect to me! Tony (talk) 12:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It does not seem to be true for historical articles, like Battle of Gettysburg, or even the far more recent Battle of Chosin Reservoir; but present-day should fix this. By the same token, we should perhaps mention in general that historical articles (i.e. Commonwealth historical articles) from before the introduction of the international format don't have to use it. (That's carefully phrased; we don't want some other Date Warrior going out of his way to switch Frederick North, Lord North either.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

" for example, articles on present-day U.S. military topics often use day before month, in accordance with usage in that field." Anderson, I see you've added "present-day". But this seems to exclude articles about, say, WWI and WWII battleship et al, which in my considerable experience of auditing are almost entirely in international format. Don't you think "often" and "in accordance with usage in that field" provide enough lattitude? "Present-day" appears to be more restrictive than the reality out there, which I'd have thought you'd dislike. Tony (talk) 02:59, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Chosin is from the Korean War, which is later. We should describe the reality, whatever it is; I don't want to encourage Date Warring in Battle of Trenton, however. Perhaps a generally will suffice. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend using a term like “present-day” as it begs that former British usage (what is now called the American style) would then inferentially become justifiable, if not altogether appropriate, which would just reopen that nasty can of worms. As long as it’s a military-related article, let the editors use what they are most comfortable with. Askari Mark (Talk) 21:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• Then you'll have disputes over articles on WW1 US battleships. How would you prevent that? Tony (talk) 02:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You know, Tony, that trying to prevent all disputes is a Sisyphean task. My advice on date style usage has been consistently to let the editors work it out rather than over-prescribe. Why force US military topic editors to use what they’re less accustomed to? They’ve been doing it for several years now with very little incident. Maybe some pointy types at FA get overwrought about it – you’d know much better than I – but that’s the exception in my experience. If there truly is a need for a “present-day” qualification, then it’s really the kind of thing for WikiProjects like MILHIST and SHIP to work out for themselves; I just don’t see it as something that MOSDATE needs to prescribe a “one size fits all” rule over. In short, I'm agreeing with you that there's no need for us here to be overly prescriptive. After all, why fix what isn't broken? Askari Mark (Talk) 04:17, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Mark, have you read Anderson's wording, which seems to fit the bill? "In certain subject areas the customary format may differ from the usual national one: for example, articles on the modern U.S. military often use day before month, in accordance with usage in that field." My italics highlight all of the words that provide lattitude, within an overall wording that says "it's OK to use international in modern US military articles if editors want to" (doesn't it?). If there were ever a dispute (there hasn't been thus far in many many hundreds of articles, we'd probably just go back to the "first contributor" rule. But it seems like a cohesive, good-natured field to me, having audited many articles within it. Tony (talk) 04:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it’s more the case that “articles written by modern U.S. military writers often use day before month” ; it’s not unique to modern military topics. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but it's not worth disputing on the article talk pages, is it? I'm all for letting editors decide, and in the absence of that, of going with the current format. Tony (talk) 10:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Year articles and wikilinks to year articles

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)

There is some discussion above at #Dates are not linked unless.... Tony is at least close to the position that no year links are useful to the reader; I see at least three cases where they are (or should be). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

There may be rare exceptions, but I put it to you: if 1776 contains important contextual information, isn't it better to link specifically to it or to include it in the topic? And I'd prefer a month-year link, if possible, according to WP:CONTEXT, which asks for as specific as possible a link. Tony (talk) 03:04, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I regard Tony's approach as very narrow and limited. I would like to see our year articles gradually built up so that they can be used to provide a general historical context. This would include much information about which a specific date may not be available or relevant. What countries were dominant in Europe? What was the general situation in East Asia? What technological advances were made in or about that year? I would prefer to make year links more valuable rather than to remove them wholesale. This will not be a rapid process, but it is an area where Misplaced Pages can be greatly improved. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:09, 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):

• For a real example, the quote from Henry Laurens: "presiding officer of that congress from June until March of 1776." It would be off topic to include the political history of South Carolina at this point; but as with WWII, some readers will benefit from checking what was going on. They will find that SC had not yet declared independence, but had made demands to which even the local Loyalists were willing to subscribe; and that the British were about to evacuate Boston.
• For a hypothetical example, consider: "In the century and a half from 1620 to 1776, New England ". Most readers will understand what the dates are, and why they are being used; some readers will find the links valuable. It may be possible to recast the sentence, but just substituting the settlement of Plymouth and American Revolution may make an already complex sentence unbearable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
• As another actual example, I have just come across an offhand reference to an increase of royal control in New England in 1682. One way to find more about this would be to go to 1682 and either find it (which did not happen) or search the What links here for the page; but the second will only work if years are actually linked. (Searching on "New England" and 1682 turns up mostly survey articles broad enough to include both New England and the founding of Pennsylvania.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:20, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • but there are 1000s of articles that link to 1582. It does no service to the reader to expect them to find relevant articles by following thewhat links here links. Far better to include some relevant links in the text, OR in the See also section, no? Other possibilities: create a section within the article that presents the relevant concurrent events - or even a separate article. Piped links such as ] work well too, povided they are not "Easter eggs" --JimWae (talk) 07:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
    • There are 1000s of articles that link to 1582 because 1000s of things happened in 1582. That "what links here" list might be long, but it is a veritable goldmine of data for those wanting to improve the article on 1582, or even read more than what 1582 tells us. You could search within Misplaced Pages for the text of 1582, but in theory, if used properly, the "what links here" list will provide a suitable filtered search function. Seriously, I actually use "what links here". I suspect many people either don't use it, or give up too easily when faced with a huge list of links. Carcharoth (talk) 07:54, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Links to 1582:
        • Categories
        • Portals
        • Misplaced Pages namespace
        • User namespace
        • Talk namespace
        • Articles
        • That is just under 500 articles that link to 1582 (depending on whether the bot has removed lots). That is not an unmanageable number and does provide a starting point to work with. Carcharoth (talk) 08:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, but there are nearly 3000 that link to 1776 (and nearly 1000 to 1682 ). 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)

Editors as well as general readers use "what links here". I wonder if there is a way to have "editorial" links, as opposed to "reader" links? That could be useful, but might get messy. Would probably end up as a "primary" and "secondary" links system, with the secondary links turned on or off in preferences, with the default being off. Carcharoth (talk) 04:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• that was my thought too. However, there does not seem to be much success in getting developers to work on what editors want to see. There even seems to be resistance. The only obvious exception has been date auto-formatting, which would not even be that difficult to fix up to meet current objections--JimWae (talk) 04:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
• but taking 1582 above as an example, probably 95% of the good links are in the Categories group, no? --JimWae (talk) 04:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• I agree. But I wouldn't want to see a bot remove year links without checking to see if the link needed to be converted to a category. That's probably not possible though. Also, categories can be a bit unstable. If at some future point, it goes out of control, the whole category structure for years could get decimated. Carcharoth (talk) 04:50, 24 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)

If you wish to propose that all pre-1500 years should be deleted then you should propose that. While these years exist then it is logical that links to them are permitted. It is true the dark age era has very threadbare year articles but that is a reflection of the Western bias of Misplaced Pages. Chinese record keeping did not get worse during that period. Hence, it can be expected that these years will fill out over time. It is not at all the same situation as before 500 BCE when the records that survive are so sparse that there is never expected to be an adequate page. Links to years are important gateways for users and need to be encouraged.Dejvid (talk) 11:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

For me pages like 1344,even tho a little short, are useful. If I'm reading about Edward's coinage I can switch to the year and see that at that moment there was famine in China and that in Mexico a major city was being founded. True, the influence between those societies was so weak that they might as well have been on different planets. But they were on the same planet and I find it useful to keep a tab on how these societies were developing over time because they are going to come into contact later on. I can't convince you that these links are useful because you don't look at history in the way I do. Just because something isn't helpful for you don't assume that it is not useful for others.Dejvid (talk) 11:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I rest my case. Tony (talk) 12:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I asked you why don't you propose the deletion of pre 1500 years seeing as that is what want. Trying to produce the same effect with a bot, by making them all orphans, is a little unhelpful. It would be nice if you could answer my question.Dejvid (talk)

• I think the current position (that year links shouldn't exist without a particular reason) is fine. The same rule should apply to every link; why create links that have no reason to exist? I have no faith that a bot can analyze the context of a link well enough to decide if it should be removed or not. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • To be fair, the current situation probably does require bots to shepherd people in the right direction (people edit by example, not by reading the MoS). What we need to avoid, though, is bot-tyranny. Even if the protests are loud and vociferous, and people are frustrated that protests are slowing progress, the protests still need to be heard and answered. If it takes a year instead of a month, that is not too bad in the overall scheme of things. Carcharoth (talk) 04:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
    • A bot which added an "is this link necessary?" notice to talkpages, quoting MOS and prehaps linking to a discussion, would be very useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
      • No, it wouldn't. I would have to argue that yes, it is, every time I encountered it. Corvus cornix_talk 02:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
        • • If nobody agreed with it, you could let the comment rest in silence, like all too many other comments from editors with the intelligence of bots. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Strike out "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so".

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)

Um .... nooooo. 12:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Dejvid, I disagree with you; I think the "dates are not linked" stipulation needs to stay. It's a pretty fundamental, basic formatting convention for Misplaced Pages. If you have substantial reasons why it should be changed, please state them, but so far your argument is just "I don't like it", which doesn't constitute a valid reason for removal. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 13:18, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

It is not "I don't like it" it is that the MOS is overlong. An overlong MOS is one that most users will find esoteric and that risks causing conflict. Given the whole argument over Lightbot, this clause is clearly causing conflict. It is difficult for me to prove that this not as you claim "fundamental". All the reasons advanced in favor of this clause seem at best minor. If think that there are reasons why we would be worse off if we were just silent on the matter please give those reasons and explain why the gain is more than trivial.Dejvid (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I've taken this up at Dejvid's talk page. Tony (talk) 14:40, 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)

Without a doubt, it's being misinterpreted to support actions being taken against policy. That fact needs to be added to the MOS now. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I oppose. I'm more or less totally opposed to linking to any year article. The previous need for and history of wikilinking has bred a psychological reflex to link any 'bare' years they see in articles, so I see the phrase is absolutely necessary to kill that reflex. I am not sure deleting that one phrase is going to make much odds to the length of the article, but I wouldn't want it to be some excuse to further any hidden agenda. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Why is it "absolutely necessary" to prevent linking of years? At least some links of that type improve Misplaced Pages. The vast majority of the rest do not make Misplaced Pages one iota worse. The rare case of true overlinking can be dealt with otherwise, and may not involve years at all. What is the imperative here? Robert A.West (Talk) 22:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, there is clearly no consensus for this statement, and it is being abused by people claiming it as justification for mass deletion of ALL year links with bots (which it does not in any way justify). Secondly, the justification for this 'rule' is weak and highly contestible. Sure, there is a case for getting rid of repetitive links, but who are we to say what the reader may or may not read, they are perfectly capable of making up their own minds. Get rid of it I say. G-Man 23:09, 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)

You're still not presenting any cogent, thoughtful reason to withdraw the stipulation that dates not be linked. I was being diplomatic characterising your argument as WP:UGH, for I wanted to avoid pointing out that your argument is specious. "There are too many rules, so let's remove this one" is a nonsequitur at best; your suggestion to remove this particular rule is not supported by your opinion that there are too many rules. If you feel the no-date-links rule per se is disadvantageous, please state your reasons. Perhaps they're meritorious. In the meantime, sorry, but I'm not interested in a pointless squabble with you, nor will I do your homework or prove your case; you're the one who wants to make a change, so it's up to you to provide substantive, thoughtful support for your idea. The mere fact that you make a proposal does not create an obligation for anyone else; that's not how it works here. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 01:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

There was never consensus for removing date links. There is now a limited consensus that day-of-year links should be unlinked, but not for isolated year links.

Due to the fact that people are misusing the term "depreciated":

1. The only part on which consensus had been reached is that full date links are depreciated, meaning is that including date links had been a guideline, and is no longer.
2. There is now apparently a majority position from RfC/Tony1 that full date links should be unlinked, although I wouldn't describe it has consensus.
3. The MOS statement is that date links should be included only if there is a good reason.
4. Mr LinkBot is interpreting that as date and year links should be deleted unless there is an exceptional reason, and he's not going to bother to check.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that Rubin, Dejvid et al. calm down and take a few days to think through their "I don't like it" outrage and what is, to say the least, their eccentric take on consensus. This is an old debate that has been thoroughly aired upteem times and resolved by the community. I'm sorry if it's not to your liking, but almost all WPians realise that in their evolving wiki this is a significant change for the better. Rather than trying to railroad it by sudden brute force, please engage with substantive issues. Tony (talk) 02:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

There's been consensus for about a month that date links should not be added without good reason, and there is now at least a supermajority that full date links should be removed if there isn't a good reason, but there is not and never has been consensus that year links should be removed from articles unless there was good reason for them to have been added. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:30, 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)

Yes, it looks like he meant unless there was no good reason. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

But as for Sandy's assertion: Where is this consensus? (I could believe in consensus against every year should be linked; but that's not the same thing. There are many steps between all and none.) That is not what the present statement actually says; what is the discusussion that decided thus? What is the present supermajority that supports it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that some of the more strident proponents of change without consensus don't appear to be taking an appropriately broad, coöperative, or self-considerate view of the matter. Arthur Rubin is talking about "depreciation" when in fact deprecation is the term he's trying for — this undermines, to some extent, his comments regarding the manual of how things ought to be written. A cursory glance at Dejvid's comments here and on his talk page, meanwhile, shows that he may not have the most advanced grasp of written English in general. That does not make either editor unworthy or unwelcome or anything of the sort, but it does cast some light particularly on Dejvid's belief that the MoS is too long and too complex. Perhaps he finds it challenging, but it seems to have done an effective job so far as the grammatical, syntactic, and stylistic basis for an excellent and steadily-improving encyclopædia.

Arthur Rubin, you write (inter alia) There's consensus that date links should not be added without good reason but there is not consensus that year links should be removed from articles unless there was good reason for them to have been added. It seems to me you are suggesting that if a date or year link happens to have been added without cause in spite of the consensus against it, then there's nothing to be done about it because there's no consensus for removing such links. Do I understand your position correctly? I hope not. Please clarify, keeping SandyGeorgia's accurate comment in mind.

• Such heavy weather for a typo; deprecated is indeed being used for "had been a guideline, and is no longer." May your fingers never slip; I don't suppose the proverb about Steinwerfer and glass houses conveys much. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
• As for Sandy's assertion, where's the evidence? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I would remind Dejvid that the MoS is voluminous because of the many different situations it must address. Fortunately, its volume is not problematic, because only a small subset of the manual applies to whatever specific situation an editor might find himself in. It's sort of like a telephone directory, which consists of thousands of pages of very small type. Very daunting, except when you remember that you don't have to read the whole thing. All you have to do is look up the number of the person you want to call, and because the directory is organised logically, that's easy to do. It's sort of like driving: there are a lot of rules and regulations because there are a lot of different driving situations, but we only ever find ourselves in one driving situation at a time, and for any given driving situation, we need only mind a small subset of the rules: at high noon on a bright, sunny, hot day on a 2-lane urban road, you don't need to know what the law says about when to turn on your wipers or lights. You don't need to know anything about snow tires, or anything about driving on an 8-lane freeway. All you need to know (and mind) is what laws apply to driving in clear conditions in the city. It's even easier here on Misplaced Pages, where the answer to "What should I do now?" is always just a couple of mouseclicks away, so there's really no reason to get agitated over the length or volume of the MoS. Tony1's comments on Dejvid's talk page (linked above) are well aligned towards a productive way of improving the MoS. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 03:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• MoS is not a highway code; Misplaced Pages is not a legal system. If it were, it would be in sorry need of codification; MOS especially has a dusty smell of Jarndyces about it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, yes, I didn't say MoS is a highway code or a legal system, I merely made an analogy. Relax! —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 03:47, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm relaxed; almost to the point of rolling on the floor. The analogy breaks down precisely on the point of WP:NOTLAW; we don't need to regulate everything; we can't, and we assuredly are not competent to do so. We don't need to invent or regulate the English language; it already exists.

What the bulk of MOS (with its innumerable subpages) does do is to make it unreadable and nearly useless; a tangled wood of arbitrary prescriptions, each buried by its own squirrel, who digs it out not to eat, but to brandish at other editors: "see, see, you have to do it my way; Holy MOS says so." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Once again people are getting hot and bothered about the issues. Can I bring people's attention back to the sentence, "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so"? I came to it myself because I was trying to bring an article up to GA and I wanted to know what the current position on date-linking was; the sentence left me more confused than before! Let's break it down:

• "Dates": this is ambiguous for a start! I would take the word on its own to mean "January 1, 2001", but the discussion continually veers off into year dates. If day-month-year dates and year dates are separate issues - and they clearly are - there should be at least two sentences, each specifying the precise date type referred to.
• "are not linked": this is patently untrue. Dates are linked, de-linked, re-linked and become the subject of edit-wars. It's probably safe to say there is a consensus that dates are linked but not just for the sake of it; that's not the same thing at all.
• "unless there is a particular reason to do so": this phrase (clause?) is meaningless, since nobody is willing to even hazard a guess what constitutes a "particular reason", and there is a sizeable body of people who assert that there is no good reason for linking.

Pending a consensus on the issue (currently expected September 2018) the statement should reflect the status quo, something like "Dates are linked to provide context to the article, never just because they are there."

The sentence as it stands, in a "Manual of Style", is the exact equivalent of a sentence in a camera manual that says, "For the taking of better pictures press the button 1." Scolaire (talk) 08:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It's nice to know that people are carefully reading what I wrote, looking for typos (yes, that was supposed to be "not"). It would be nice if they looking similarly at the guideline discussion, and not read "depreciate" (loosely, 1) as "deprecate" (2). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry? Is that a reply to me, or the continuation of a train of thought from somewhere up ↑there? Like, what was supposed to be "not"? Scolaire (talk) 15:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The most recent edit: "Dates (years, months, day and month, full dates) should not be linked, unless there is a particular reason to do so", is more, not less ambiguous. The likely "particular reasons" for, say, day-and-month and full dates are not going to be the same, as I said above. Again, can somebody not dream up a teenie-weenie example of a "particular reason" to add to the sentence? Scolaire (talk) 07:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Dates are linked

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)

It's nothing new; it's very long-standing advice (except that it was recently extended - after long and extensive dicussion - to include the links that were previously encouraged on the grounds of autoformatting magic). It now says "dates should not be linked..." to make its prescriptive nature clear. To dispute it is to say that dates should be linked for no reason except that they are dates - I see no-one seriously arguing that. What we are trying to do is to define what is meant by "particular reasons". Let's all participate in good faith in that discussion and not keep reinserting tags that imply that a very well-established style guideline is not to be taken seriously.--Kotniski (talk) 10:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Again, I am disputing the sentence - in good faith - and I am not saying "that dates should be linked for no reason except that they are dates". The purpose of the tag was simply to inform users that the thing was under discussion - again good faith. I have replaced the sentence with one which IMO says the same thing, but in a positive and meaningful way. Let's discuss that now and see if we can get a MOS that actually tells it like it is. Scolaire (talk) 10:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

In answer to the repeated justification (in edit summaries) that this is a consensus statement, here are ten posts in the last week , , , , , , , , , (not including my own) disagreeing either with the sentence or with the views expressed in it. Whatever consensus there may have been is now gone. Scolaire (talk) 14:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

In answer to the somewhat disturbing edit summary, "We are giving instructions here; the sentence should clearly tell people not to link." (1) When was WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY revoked? (2) How is "dates should not be linked, unless..." clearly telling people not to link, and "but the great majority of dates should not be linked" not? Scolaire (talk) 14:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

And in answer to the edit summary, "Scolaire, just blurting out that "dates are linked" at talk will convince no one. Please don't be disruptive", that is not acceptable language at all! Anybody who wants to defend the wording of a sentence should have the curtesy to discuss it in an NPA way on the talk page. I am up to three reverts now so I am withdrawing from the discussion altogether, but I think the unthinking unlinkers have behaved very poorly today. Scolaire (talk) 14:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

As I responded to Scolaire on my talk page, I'm sorry that s/he has taken my strong wording this way: perhaps it was too strong, for which I apologise if I'm "unthinking" and "have behaved very poorly today". I'd rather engage with Scolaire and convince him at least to watch the implementation of the new consensus than see him/her walk out. Feedback is valuable, even when negative. Tony (talk) 15:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The sentence I was proposing was: "Dates are linked when the link is useful for providing a context to the sentence in the artice, but the great majority of dates should not be linked." I myself think that it is a positive, not a negative, statement of the case. I'd like to know why people think it's a bad substitute for the sentence that's under discussion. Scolaire (talk) 15:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Another note on "consensus": I thought if I found exactly when this sentence was added, it might shed some light on how the consensus was arrived at. I found it here. Seriously, guys, does that edit summary indicate a long-standing consensus for this sentence? Scolaire (talk) 19:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Concrete examples (year links)

The above discussions keep veering away from the point I'm trying to pin down. Can those who think single-linking of years is unhelpful please either say they want all single-year links removed, or give examples of when they think it is acceptable to link a year (or not acceptable - whichever list is shortest). I will give a few examples to start things off (apologies if this is repeating arguments made 5 or 6 years ago, but I wasn't here then):

• Category:Time, date and calendar templates (more than you can shake a stick at!)
• Template:Year nav (used to navigate between year and other history chronology articles)
• Template:Year nav topic2 (complex template with a variety of possible outputs)
• Template:Decade category header (used in categories)
• Category:1850 (example of year navigation in categories)
• Category:19th century (another example of year navigation in categories)
• Links from "year in" articles: 1854 in literature
  • I'm happy for all the above to be linked. Kot
• Year(s) and sometimes date(s) when an event took place: John F. Kennedy assassination
• Birth and death years (and dates) in biographical articles: Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Publication dates of a book or other publication (eg. film): Ulysses (novel)
• Founding year of an organisation or construction of a building or monument: Albert Memorial
  • I'd be OK with this as long as we could successfully restrict it to specific cases like this (bearing in mind that editors tend to see certain links and insert what they think are analogous ones elsewhere - leading to overlinking). Kot
• Mentions of years in the references for an article: Eduardo Abaroa
  • Fairly pointless I'd have thought. Kot
• Disambiguation pages: 2000 (disambiguation)
  • Yes. Kot
• A relevant mention of a year in an article
  • Don't understand - relevant to what? Kot
• Any random mention of a year in an article
  • No, this has long been recognized as leading to overlinking. Kot

Most of those articles don't have the relevant years linked. Would it be acceptable for any of these examples (some are obviously acceptable, so please state which ones you would use year links in), and should anything else be linked instead? (When commenting, please don't assume I support all or any of these examples.) I'm aware that many of these are from template and category space, and involve "year in" articles, rather than year articles, but if the main points are to push chronological navigation away from wikilinks and into template and category space (eg. birth and death years are covered by categories), then please say that (it will avoid a lot of arguments).

On a broader point, when removing links, can a bot make some of the necessary distinctions? If not, is it acceptable for a bot to remove all links and then rely on humans to rebuild the previously-overlinked articles? This latter point seems to be what some people are implying by their statements, and it is an important philosophical point - when something, such as date-formatting linking, gets out of control and gets entangled with other sorts of overlinking, is it best to rip it all down with some collateral damage to be fixed by humans, or rely on humans to slowly fix things the wiki-way? The latter approach relies on people carefully reading the MoS (cue much hilarity), rather than copying what they see in articles, so I have some sympathy with the bot and bot-assisted and script approaches that seem to be aiming to level the playing field and start date linking from scratch again. But if there are clear examples people can agree on, and which have utility, those should be retained. And please, please, remember that linking, though it shouldn't have been, has been used to accumulate vast amounts of meta-data that should not be stripped out without retaining the utility of the meta-data. See the links at Misplaced Pages:Metadata. Carcharoth (talk) 04:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm on record as saying that links to date fragments are appropriate in articles on date fragments; links to solitary years are fine in "year-in-X" articles; this should probably be written into MOSNUM—it's a very reasonable compromise. On very rare occasions, a year-link may be justified in normal articles, but the onus is on an editor to demonstrate why it functions to significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic; a talented editor such as Anderson has shown that this may be possible, although I believe it is not commonly applicable. (In this respect, merely providing a magic blue flying carpet to a year link for discretionary browsers is insufficient). What is the difference between "a relevant mention" and "any random mention" of a year in an article?

There is generally no justification for linking solitary years in the other types of article listed above, except for those that are purely to do with navigation. In the J.F. Kennedy article, are you suggesting the linking of "1963"? It's not useful, IMO, because of the same old specificity–generality conundrum: if the year article is comprehensive, and in particular not culturally or racially biased, it will be huge, at least in the past hundred years, and very little of the information will be of even vague relevance to the good president. Providing such contextual information is the job of the article itself, and one of the most rewarding aspects of building a good WP article. Such context should not be delegated to a sea of factoids in isolation. Tony (talk) 05:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Tony, you've scored in your own goal with this one. Read the events of 1963; about 20% have been directly connected by someone with the aasassination, and most of the rest are instance of trends (violence, Southern racism, the growth of the Soviet Empire, the weakness of the Soviet Empire....) which have been.

I agree that most of the year articles are ill-written, incomplete, and need work. What genre of two thousand articles doesn't meet that description?

But I do appreciate the buttering up. Please don't let this deter you from doing more of it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Do you think you (Tony and Anderson) could discuss this without mentioning each other? Carcharoth (talk) 05:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And spoil our Mutual Admiration Society ;)? You should have seen us two months ago; I'm certain you'd prefer this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Getting back on topic, hopefully, the alternative navigation route for that sort of browsing to find out about events and other things about the year 1963, involves waiting until the end of the article (has advantanges and disadvantages), clicking Category:1963 in the United States and browsing from there. To reach 1963 takes three more clicks: Category:1963 by country, Category:1963 and then 1963. Alternatively, all year subcategories could have the year linked, so you could go straight from Category:1963 in the United States to 1963. Or you could have a link to 1963 in the article. Incidentally, November 22, 1963 redirects to the most famous event of that day. But does anyone know what else happened that day? How would one find out? Well, jumping over to November 22, we find that that page currently lists the assassination, one birth, and four other deaths. Some people will be completely uninterested in who the other people are who died on that day (thousands of people are born every day, and thousands die every day), but some will go to that page and look. That's human nature. It might not be what people want to see an encyclopedia provide, but there is a demand for it. I'm not saying that linking 22 November is the right way to satisfy that demand, but if you want to divert such demand away from wikilinking and towards categories or templates or "year in" articles, then understanding and acknowledging the demand for such navigational links is the first step in managing them. Carcharoth (talk) 05:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Anderson and I will disagree in the future as in the past on some matters, but understanding and goodwill should be encouraged in this viper's pit, not be the subject of objection, Carcharoth. I agree that someone has inserted quite a few factoids concerning Kennedy in that year article, although you do have to hunt through many irrelevant facts to find them (Britain's "big freeze", a double murder in Sydney, a triple murder in Perth, WA, ...). You'd think the US, Australia and the UK were just about the only countries on the planet in January 1963. This is a problem in most year pages: they're not a world view, but show extreme culture-centric bias. They're also by their design fragmentary: the information is isolated into disconnected facts through the whole year, where the article on Kennedy is the place to do what WP does so brilliantly: wind them into a cohesive whole that presents a context for the subject. Isn't there also a daughter article on the assassination of Kennedy? That is probably the place into which these factoids should be herded and bound together into the Internet's most cogent tertiary source on the Kennedy-related factoids currently in "1963". But if editors are really keen to retain the link to that article, well, let them make a case. It doesn't change the basic decision by the community that solitary years should generally not be linked. And, BTW, Anderson's right in that 1963 is a good example of the case for the odd exception. You won't find many like it. Tony (talk) 05:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And Rome was not built in a day (gratiutous overlinking!). The existing links may contain data that could help build such articles (both the year one and the specific event ones). Sure, it will all need to be sourced and properly written, but categories, for example, are often good places to look for topic organisation when trying to plan an article and interweave different strands. "What links here" is a similar resource. The balance between tearing down the existing structure and rebuilding it, and taking it down brick-by-brick is something I'm not sure about myself. Sometimes tearing it down and rebuilding it does work better. My objection to the disagreement was more the naming of people - that personalises it - not the disagreement per se. Carcharoth (talk) 06:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC) Will be away for most of a week now, so that's my lot for this page.

To answer the direct question above about pre-1500 (or whenever) year pages: I can only say that they're quite unsatisfactory at the moment, since they're so small. They'd be less trivial and provide the opportunity for greater cohesion if conflated into decade pages, I believe. Even for the diversionary browser, they're not much good, but could be made into a great strength of WP with skilled editing; then I'd be in favour of highlighting them on the main page in a big way, and they'd be appearing as nominations at FLC and, better, FAC on a regular basis. That would be excellent, and if one WikiProject could coordinate (in some respects) all of the chronolotical pages, including the year-in-X pages that would link to them, year pages could be lifted out of their present malaise. But who's going to do this? And it wouldn't solve the current structural impediments to freely linking every year that pops up in every article, the way WP used to. Tony (talk) 15:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree strongly with Kotniski that linking dates of birth and death should be standard practice. I can see absolutely no justification for this unless, in rare instances, it can be demonstrated that a year-page is not swamped with irrelevant information. This is simply open the floodgates to the linking of all solitary years. Tony (talk) 16:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I’ll be pleased to give you an example. Experienced editors know how these blue date abominations work. But they are Easter eggs to many new readers. To give you an example, when {cite book} is used. If one uses this code…

{{cite book | author = A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall
| title = A Brief History of Science
| publisher = New American Library of Canada
| date = 1964
| pages = 6}}

…You produce this:

1. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall (1964). A Brief History of Science. New American Library of Canada. p. 6.

Many readers assume that the “1964” will take you to more information on that edition of the book. Notwithstanding the fact that they are reading a science article, and the citation is a science book, and notwithstanding the fact that they are clicking on a date about an edition of a particular book, readers are only taken to an absolutely random list of unrelated historical trivia, such as this one: “May 27 - Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India dies; he is succeeded by Lal Bahadur Shastri.”  Once a new reader becomes an experienced reader, they learn to ignore these worthless links.

If I write “The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy”, many readers assume they will go to an article on the assassination. But no, all they are met with is a metric ton of weapons-grade disappointment. Every instance I’ve seen of linked dates are done in a way where the context of the linked date leads many readers to assume they will be taken to an article with more detail of what happened on that particular subject during that year.

Well written articles anticipate what the reader would likely be interested in further exploring. By judiciously limiting the quantity of blue links, they remain novel to the reader’s mind so they don’t start being filtered out and ignored. When so written, we invite exploration and learning. But when we over-link an article with disappointing Easter eggs, we just turn that article into a giant blue turd.

If we are to adhere to WP:Principle of least astonishment, we would write “The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy (click here for a list of random trivia that occurred during 1963).” How many readers are going to click on that now that we’ve given full disclosure and fair warning? A few times. At first—for the novelty. Never again after that.

So my short answer is this: do not link any single years unless it is fully disclosed via piping (aliasing) as to precisely what the reader will be taken to. And, even then, such uses should generally be limited to intrinsically historical articles, like French Revolution, since readers of such articles are often interested in many things historical.

Furthermore, dates like “May 22” should never, ever be linked—even when properly piped and in intrinsically historical articles. Why? Because if someone is reading French Revolution, they might well want to see what else occurred in 1799 (if fair disclosure is given so they aren’t Easter egg hunts). But if they read that “Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate on 10 June”, such readers are not going to give a holy dump that “ 1960, Marilyn Monroe wears her “Saturday” panties for the fourth day in a row!”

We mustn’t assume that readers must first become experienced readers before they know how to not step on these land mines. Autoformatting is beyond worthless. Deprecating its use was one of the wiser things done here on MOSNUM. Praise be to people like Tony, who has been patiently working this issue for years. For just as long, I’ve been patiently reverting these blue turds in the articles I’ve been working on after some editor wades into the middle of it, linking everything in sight for the shear sake that an article exists on Misplaced Pages that can be linked to. That’s not the way proper writing and technical writing is done. Greg L (talk) 16:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, there was a long-standing consensus that links not take us to articles we aren't expecting. There is an article on 1963. There is an article on Kennedy assassination. We have lots of articles such as 1963 in film which get hidden under year links, which I am hoping nobody is suggesting be unlinked. Could we discuss whether a link such as Greg L describes above be hidden beneath a link to another article or not? Corvus cornix_talk 02:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with most of Greg L's points, and I agree that easter eggs are really annoying. Putting "The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954" just hides the article 1954 in literature behind a single year link. Some people will assume it is a link to 1954, and will refuse to click on it. Some will think it is a link to 1954 and be surprised when they click on it to get something different. Other will use mouse-over and see what the destination is, but some will not. Better to write instead: "The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954. Among the other books published that year were The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis". Strictly speaking, you still don't need to link to the "1954 in literature" page from a section of an article discussing Tolkien and Lewis (see The Inklings), but I can see cases where 1954 in literature would be a useful "see also" link. Some guidelines ask for "see also" links to be incorporated into the text, but some types of articles require piping (unless you can devise a wording that uses "1954 in literature") to do that, and if the "date fragment" article (to use Ton'y wording) is an aside, it is better linked as an aside. The other place to link to such articles is in the introduction. By the way, Greg, WP:EGG is a good summary of this, though I'm sure you already know that.

Turning to the specific example, an experienced reader should be able to distinguish between:

1. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
2. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
3. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
4. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
5. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
6. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
7. The Secret Service updated the way it guards presidents after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.

I think most people would agree that (1) is overlinked and poorly-linked at that. (2) makes 'assassination' an Easter egg, but does have the advantage of linking separately to JFK for the readers who want to go straight to that article instead of being routed through the assassination article. (3) is a version of (2) without the year link. (4) is clearer (ie. no Easter Egg), but hides the JFK links behind the assassination article. (5) is a version of (4) without the year link. (6) and (7) are a year-linked and non-year-linked pair for those who think linking to the assassination is overlinking. I would personally go for 3 or 5, as I think linking the year is unnecessary here, but linking to the assassination article is good. I would still aim to link from the assassination article to 1963, but either in context, or in the lead section.

Turning to birth and death years. I disagree with Tony that this is overlinking. Many biographical articles (the good ones, anyway) do describe the state of the world when the subject of the article was born, and when they died (as well as during their lifetime). Greg L's objections about the principle of 'least astonishment' don't seem to apply here. When a reader comes across a link to two year articles at the beginning of an article, clearly identified as the birth year and the death year, then I can't think of anything else they would expect other than to be taken to articles about the years. Staying with the JKF example:

1. John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
2. John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
3. John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.

I've given three examples above. (1) is the current version in the article. (2) adds links to the birth and death years. (3) pipes in 'easter egg' links to the birth and death categories (already at the bottom of the article, but why should the reader wait until the end of the article for this?). An alternative is to wait until the birth and death are mentioned in the main text, and to link the years at that point:

• Kennedy was born at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts on Tuesday, May 29, 1917, at 3:00 p.m. (sets a bad example and would encourage overlinking)

Or add a sentence or two to the "early life" section to give the context of the year 1917, and "set the scene". Mention that he was born in the closing years of World War I, that conscription began in the United States the next month, and so on. Not overdoing it, of course, as the article should be about JFK, not the history of the wider world, but some passing references to give people a flavour of the times he grew up in (the 1920s and 1930s) and the times his parents lived in. It is very difficult to do this well, but when done well it can work. One big problem is deciding what to put in and what to leave out, and to avoid slanting things by implication. In my view, one way to avoid problems with this is to simply link to years if you want to guide people to the wider "state of the world" at that time. It is, in essence, a placeholder, saying: "something needs to be said here, but for now let's link to the year article". Does anyone agree with this? Maybe something like a redirect from State of the world in 1917 to 1917 would help distinguish thoughtful links from gratuitous links? Carcharoth (talk) 05:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If we are going to link years, I think they should be linked directly to the year article, without any imaginative piping to surprise the reader - this is presumably what's meant by least astonishment. But frankly I'm not sure editors would be discplined and informed enough to respect a rule that says (for example) that years of birth are to be linked. We know what happened when autoformatting links were encouraged - some editors assumed (perfectly reasonably - I know I did) that this means that year links in general must be encouraged, and went around putting them in all over the place. I fear similar effects if we start encouraging year links in particular places. If there were some great benefit to it, then I would support it, but knowing what our year articles are generally like, I think the links would be more likely to disappoint users following them than to be of any use. If we think it's significant that someone was born in the same year that World War II started or the 500th episode of Happy Days was broadcast, then we can say that explicitly in the section on their early life.--Kotniski (talk) 08:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• 'Days of the year should never, ever, be linked. Tony has been carried away by his rhetoric; he is forgetting the cases where a day of the year is a common name for something. The most obvious cases are in the French Revolutionary calendar, because they haven't run into disambiguation problems with the day articles discussed here; let 18 Brumaire be the type case. But there are other examples: August 10, July 4, 5 November. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• To Kotniski: Your #1 JFK example seems to me to be the most well written one. Each link properly anticipates what a reader visiting that article would like to further explore.

  To Septentrionalis/PMAnderson: Tony and I have maintained a consistent position on the issue of linking dates. I note that Tony has been active here for a long time and—unlike other Misplaced Pages venues where self-appointed leaders run roughshod over others—he seems to carefully work to build consensus and read the prevailing mood. I think it is unfortunate that he has to put up with so much crap from various quarters; you just can’t make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time—especially in a world-wide collaborative writing environment like this.

  It’s a simple message point: To be effective, links should only be employed when they are topical and germane to the article. Period. The only links to mindless, rambling lists of pure trivia (events that happened on this date across history) should be limited to Misplaced Pages’s Trivia article. Readers of Misplaced Pages’s Trivia article might be fascinated and just happy as a clam to read the following:

1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.

But most everyone else reading all of Misplaced Pages’s other articles would just as soon stub their little toe on the foot of their bed than be forced to wade through these lists. Greg L (talk) 21:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• • I like to see Tony "carefully work to build consensus"; he has done so sometimes, especially recently. I deny that it has always been his style. But this need not be continued while he abstains from riding in rough shoes, or here in any case.
  • I deny that unlinking all years, without exception, is consensus; I fail to see anyone but you and Tony support it. (LM has not argued on either side; he has merely permitted his bot to act.
  • I also deny that linking all years is consensus; I don't see anyone support it, and arguing against it is a straw man.
  • We are therefore in the middle ground of deciding whether there is a "particular reason" to link or not. If Lightbot could tell that, it would be an AI - and Lightmouse would be wasting his time here; he should publish and buy tickets to Stockholm. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• In other words: WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Then don't read it; don't click on years, and use the back button if you do. Nobody can be forced to wade through anything. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• No, it’s not a matter of “I don’t like it.” Your response speaks straight to the heart of the issue: you don’t “get it”. It’s not about trying to force someone to to wade through a mountain of trivia crap they would prefer not to read. It’s all about proper technical writing practices and not desensitizing readers to links by having articles on Misplaced Pages that are overlinked with wholly unnecessary ones that few—if any—readers will be interested in. What part of “To be effective, links should only be employed when they are topical and germane to the article” don’t you understand? We’re trying to get Misplaced Pages away from this fad that developed a couple of years ago of “if an article exists on Misplaced Pages to link to, then link to it”. Or is it that you do understand this fundamental point of technical writing but don’t care?

  Lightmouse’s bots are the only way to handle this issue. There are far too many date links across the entire Misplaced Pages project to shake a stick at and manually fixing them all is humanly impossible. He is doing the proper thing by automating the de-linking process. The (very) few false positives that get swept up in the process can easily be manually restored. As I’ve spoken of before, the judicious use of linked years in intrinsically historical articles—like French Revolution—is appropriate; such readers of history might like to see random ramblings of historical trivia. And linked dates are a no-brainer for the bot. There are only three articles across all of en.Misplaced Pages where dates should be linked to random rambling lists of trivia: Trivia, Boredom and Chaos theory.

  P.S. If you are going to break into the middle of my posts, please have the courtesy of setting them off in small type or something similar to make it clearer who’s writing what. Greg L (talk) 20:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm vaguely amused to note that your example of an article where year links would be appropriate, French Revolution, actually has had all of its date links removed by Lightmouse. -Chunky Rice (talk) 20:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Dates? Like when the readers clicks on a particular date in 1799 and comes to a list of mindless trivia like “ 1960, Marilyn Monroe wears her “Saturday” panties for the fourth day in a row!”? Good riddance. Years? If properly linked so they aren’t Easter eggs and readers know the link will take them to an article showing other historical happenings of 1799, that makes sense… in a historical article, doesn’t it? These can be manually restored (after they’ve been revised so they aren’t the Easter eggs they often take the form of).

  P.S. In my 20:16, 26 September 2008 post above, I wrote as follows: “…the judicious use of linked years in intrinsically historical articles…”. Greg L (talk) 21:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Years, like this one . The event to which the year is attached is even listed on the year page. Yet it was removed, citing the MOS. I just find it amusing is all. Why even bother relinking it when someone else will just come along and indiscriminately unlink it again. -Chunky Rice (talk) 21:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• The particular example you provided doesn’t look like a particularly well-deserving or properly done link when taken in context with the rest of the sentence. But to your broader point Chunky Rice: Judicious use of properly linked years, IMO, in intrinsically historical articles would be appropriate. As to the rest of your point (“why even bother relinking it when someone else will just come along and indiscriminately unlink it again”), I think we clearly need to arrive at a broad-based consensus on how and when to link years. I personally can see where that sort of information would be of interest to those who take a fancy to history. That is what links are for: to properly anticipate what the typical reader would be interested in further exploring.

  An important issue in my mind is to keep these links from acting like Easter eggs for new readers. I remember the first time I encountered some text on Misplaced Pages (I was quite “new”) and the text read something like this: “But with the May 22, 1989 discovery of cold fusion”. So I clicked on the date portion, thinking I would go to an article that drilled in with keen detail on that aspect of the discovery. Of course, nothing of the sort; totally unrelated trivia. Lesson learned: don’t click on blue years and dates. Were it me adding year links to historical articles, I’d do something like this…

During the Reign of Terror phase of the French Revolution, the French people managed to lop off the heads of perhaps 12,000 victims in only the first half of 1794 (notable events of 1794).

It looks a bit ungainly for those who have long been used to just linking the year without piping, but by George, there’s no Easter egg quality to the link whatsoever; readers know precisely what to expect. This is in keeping with WP:Principle of least astonishment. And we wouldn’t even have to link every year in a historical article; after the first one, readers will have the “Ah haaa” to know about these links. Then if they encounter the year “1795”, they can just go type them into the search field. Greg L (talk) 00:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Greg, I just got back from a weekend away, and I've been reading through this section. Some of your comments (and others as well, to be fair) are a little bit rhetorical and over the top, especially the condescending and faintly insulting comments about trivia, boredom and chaos theory. Do you think you could tone it down a bit? I provided some examples above (though you seem to have got me and Kotniski mixed up). Do you think we could refocus the discussion on the examples I gave? Technical writing is a skill, but there is a spectrum of opinion on how much linking is appropriate, and no one correct answer in many cases. My view is that, within reason, a little bit of overlinking or underlinking is not too bad, as long as the information is still getting across to the reader. Also, some of the points I raised are getting missed in the sturm und drang - the points I made about categories and templates, for example. Carcharoth (talk) 19:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• I’ve seen your style of argument before, Carcharoth: all the bias masquerading as ‘high-road/big picture thinker’ who employs politically correct slogans so you come across as a moderate. You dished out a metric butt-load of that tactic on the ANI against Lightmouse . Lightmouse is a valued contributor on Misplaced Pages who earned two barnstars from his peers. He listens to other editors if his bots need tweaking and he is responsible and follows MOSNUM guidelines.

  Of course, this isn’t a criticism of you as a person; it’s just that I don’t think you made a wise “choice” of the tactic to employ over over on the ANI—and here, for that matter. I will not further respond to someone who has an extreme agenda but tries to hide behind the apron strings of being a politically correct moderate. Your motives are clear. Goodbye. Greg L (talk) 17:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Greg, just a brief response, as you've made some serious assertions here that shouldn't go unchallenged. I don't have an extreme agenda. I stand by what I said on ANI (in your link), though I think you've seriously mischaracterised what I said there (what I actually said, among other things, was that a team would handle things better than a single person and their bot). I'm going to continue to participate in this debate, and I hope you do as well. That's not a platitude, I mean that. If you want to discuss this issue of discussion style in more detail, my talk page would probably be a more appropriate place than here. Similarly, the next time I think your discussion style is disrupting a discussion, I will initially raise it on your talk page, rather than distract from the discussion. When you and I are ready to get back to discussing examples and not our styles of argument, then I'll be happy to discuss those here, as I see we have both continued to do below. Carcharoth (talk) 05:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Enforcement of MOS:UNLINKDATES

Understanding that I could be trout slapped for this: I've noticed that enforcement of MOS:UNLINKDATES has begun but I can find no consensus on the policy. The main article that should support it is just an essay. Is this being discussed somewhere where the conversation is not forked to the point that it is incomprehensible? -- Mufka 13:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

See the footnote at the bottom of MOSNUM.--Kotniski (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

That's the discussion where there is no clear consensus. And the new discussion is forked into uselessness. -- Mufka 15:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

While there's enforcement of a type at FAC and FLC, I see no one at either place raising a finger in resistance—perhaps they're keen for a professional look to their nominations. More broadly, to call the script-assisted auditing of articles "enforcement" sounds a little like spin. Most people see it rather as a service to editors, sparing them the manual labour of removing the square brackets while improving the look of their text and the exposure of their high-value links. Having decided that date autoformatting is undesirable (link available to wide enthusiastic support on request), it's hard to see why people would ever object to date auditing that involves the unblueing of dates, particularly when it involves:

• the correction of faulty DF syntax;
• the ironing out of inconsistencies (widespread, I'm afraid); and
• the correction of wrong choices of DF for whole articles (also surprisingly common; today, NASA was not in US formatting, and neither were several articles on US performers—and vice versa).

This kind of clean-up is long overdue. Tony (talk) 15:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus that it's appropriate. Silence does not indicate consent, and it seems possible that the consensus that autolinking is depreciated (not deprecated) might be revisited. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

My point is that if someone is citing a policy when they make a cleanup edit, it stands to reason that the policy should exist in a valid form (i.e consensus). I don't have a penguin in this race, but it seems like the way things are, the situation is ripe for edit warring. Cleanup is good, but what if someone objects and reverts - where's the apparatus to remedy that? I'd love to see a bot steamroll every article and iron out inconsistencies. But alas, it can't be done without consensus. -- Mufka 18:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Please point to this rash of edit-warring; links? Tony (talk) 02:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

My concern is in the possibility for edit warring because of lack of consensus, not a current rash of edit warring. Good fences make good neighbors. -- Mufka 13:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I have nominated MOS:UNLINKDATES and MOS:UNLINKYEARS for deletion as they do not reflect consensus. Corvus cornix_talk 02:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

That is absurd. The community has clearly decided that date autoformatting (if that's what you're referring to) is undesirable). Why is a completely separate imprimatur required to implement what the Manual of Style says? So, shall we start requests for consensus to enable people to correct (in whatever way) every single clause in MOSNUM and MoS? Over to you: it will take a lot of headings; we're waiting ... Tony (talk) 02:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Where does the MOS say to delete links? Corvus cornix_talk 02:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Corvus cornix, your position amounts to "Nobody should do it, but if somebody does it, nobody should undo it". I'm pretty good at reading even very intricate maps with lots of twists and turns, but I am having a very difficult time trying to fathom how that position could possibly seem at all logically defensible to you. I think you face a very difficult sale here (and in your deletion proposals), but perhaps I'll be proved wrong. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 03:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Corvus says: "Where does the MOS say to delete links?" Two things: (1) where does it say not to do so? It would be a peculiar state of affairs if the MOS deprecated something and banned people from removing instances of it to comply with the deprecation. (2) Where does it say to delete the "p.m." from the 24-hour time "14:45 p.m."? Does it have to say explicitly that this should be done, as well as saying "24-hour clock times have no a.m., p.m., noon or midnight suffix." What you propose is a revolution in the writing and interpretation of our style guides. I'd like to see you post a proposal for this sudden necessity to double-up every single provision with an explicit "OK, do it" clause.

More likely, this is just another case of I don't like it. I'd prefer to engage with you as to the benefits of the change rather than waste time contemplating an entirely new double-up speak for our style guides (and policy pages, indeed). We've had remarkable success in convincing people who are initially cautious about the benefits of ridding WP of this cancer. You're welcome to continue the conversation on our talk pages, where it won't clutter more important business on this page. Tony (talk) 04:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

MOS:UNLINKDATES as a shortcut name is a kind of double-speak itself. The general question of unlinking dates is entirely separate from the autoformatting issue. The shortcuts should be more specific (off the top if my head I can't think of one, but I'm sure somebody can) so that people can continue the good work of unlinking the "deprecated" autoformatting-type dates while remaining aware that there is as yet no consensus for unlinking all dates. Scolaire (talk) 07:36, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems reasonable that calling something UNLINKDATES would lead to the misunderstanding that policy exists that calls for the unlinking of existing dates. Is this what we want? -- Mufka 13:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing "double" about the shortcut. The community, after long and detailed discussion, has made a decision that has wide support. You happen to question it, which is fine, but I think your strategy is disruptive and your reasoning circular, as Schein points out above. What is double-speak is the notion that we should have a strong guideline based on consensus, but balk at implementing it. Bizarre. Tony (talk) 13:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely wrong. There's consensus that dates (day-of-year) should not generally be linked, because of the autoformatting. There is now a consensus established, at your (probably improperly introduced) RfC, that dates should be unlinked. There's no consensus established for years. I'm not even sure there's consensus that years should not be linked without a particular reason, only that years should not be linked without a reason. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Where is this RfC? -- Mufka 15:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Tony1 — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I read that RfC conclusion as saying that Tony1 was not going against procedure by de-linking, but I'm still looking for the place where it was decided that dates should not be linked, without reference to auto-formatting. If there is a consensus other than the AF consensus, why is it so d****d hard to link to it? Scolaire (talk) 16:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

MOS:UNLINKYEARS and MOS:SYL are much, much older than the recent MOS:UNLINKDATES. This MOS had a stable "Date elements that do not contain both a day number and a month should not generally be linked; for example, solitary months, solitary days of the week, solitary years, decades, centuries, and month and year combinations. Such links should not be used unless following the link would genuinely help the reader understand the topic more fully; see WP:CONTEXT." clause for a long time, only removed a month ago (presumably because it wouldn't be needed with the new, more general date unlinking). -- Jao (talk) 10:48, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of dates and years should be unlinked. I'm fine with that. But as far as I can tell, there's certainly no consensus that no dates or years should ever be linked. Is that correct? -Chunky Rice (talk) 00:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Your understanding matches mine. TTBOMK nobody advocates a blanket prohibition on linking dates or years. The MOS entry says dates should not be linked, unless there is a particular reason to do so. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 13:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Concealed links and autoformatting

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)

That's an interesting example, I've not come across many like that. The hidden links are by and large useless here as it is not obvious that they point to other articles. The use in the date range is odd, as it misses out links to 1847 and 1848. I would unlink all the dates - the link to The Great Hunger should provide enough background context, but in case it doesn't, I would further suggest a "See also" of 1846 in Ireland, which makes it clear there is background material there.–MDCollins (talk) 09:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The article probably has too many of the "xxxx in Ireland" dates, but that does not make them all bad. Their destination is readily available as a tooltip with no clicking required.

As for autoformatting, that is only an issue if the month day are linked (which they should not be under the new guidelines). —MJBurrage 16:21, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

New guidelines? Please, please can you point me to the new guidelines (not the AF ones)? Scolaire (talk) 16:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This page (Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates) 5th bullet "Dates (years, months, day and month, full dates) should not be linked, unless there is a particular reason to do so."

—MJBurrage 18:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL. I meant, who formulated this famous guideline, when, and where? Scolaire (talk) 19:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that, if I understand your question, the answer was added as a footnote and is found at (Archive D6#Again calling for date linking to be deprecated) —MJBurrage 01:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, MJ, that does help. Scolaire (talk) 05:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for bot/script-assisted date unlinking

I've created Template:Linked dates to help editors interested in unlinking dates from large numbers of articles. If this is placed on article talk pages, I believe that it would help educate editors about the recent linked date guideline changes and give interested editors a chance to comment in advance. I'm hopeful that its use would help to avoid some of the more contentious and/or confrontational methods now being employed for unlinking dates. I put the template together in about five minutes and have absolutely no problem with it being 'edited mercilessly'. I selected a time period of two weeks because I think that's a reasonable amount of time, but would not care if it were longer. The template does not populate any maintenance categories, but it would be easy to add them in if needed. — Bellhalla (talk) 13:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• What is the point of the above post? I don’t understand. Why is the link unavailable? If this post was a tongue-in-cheek joke (I see no evidence of your having worked on such a template in your September contributions), it doesn’t really read as a joke, Bellhalla, and should be regarded as unhelpful graffiti. If you changed your mind and deleted your own template, it would be nice to give notice of your having done so, or delete or strike your post. If someone else was responsible for deleting the above template (because they disagree with what it does and it is soooo damned easy to delete someone else’s labors than actually create something), then it would be nice if they had the backbone to put a post here stating that they are the “responsible” party. If the reason is: “none of the above”, it would be nice to post a notice explaining why there is an orphaned link. Greg L (talk) 18:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I proposed it be deleted as {{db-t2}} (incorrect representation of policy), and another admin apparently agreed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

• I see. Perhaps then, if there are no objections, I will delete this thread about ten+ hours from now? Greg L (talk) 20:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
  • The point of the post was a good-faith attempt at trying to avoid problems and conflict over the mass unlinking of dates that some editors are undertaking. The template was deleted under {{db-t2}} which is reserved for "blatant misrepresentations of established policy", a characterization of the template (as I wrote it, at least) that I disagree with. The draft wording that I had written was, I thought, very neutrally worded and provided a link to MOS:NUM and a link to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date autoformatting. The thanks you get for trying to help solve a problem… — Bellhalla (talk) 04:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Bellhalla, I did this originally for 100 articles as an experiment—not a template such as this, but a pasted in section on talk, clearly headed. The silence was deafening. I have the stats for the proportion of articles in which there were positive comments "Please do it", "Fine with me", etc., which I recall were about 20%. About 6% flushed out editors who were negative about it, and who have since participated in the debate; quite a few of this hard core who took a conservative stance have since changed their tune. In the rest of the articles, no one was motivated to stop by.

I get a few queries from people who hit the MOSNUM link on edit summaries and who want reassurance; this I'm only too happy to provide. A few people are thankful enough to post nice comments, such as this and this, yesterday.

I can't see the point of this now. It's quite enough work to assist editors in this way without placing artificial hurdles in the way. Tony (talk) 04:43, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I'm not trying to put hurdles in anyone's way at all. I'm genuinely and sincerely trying to help. Look at it this way: If your data is representative of Misplaced Pages as a whole, and there's a bot or script-assisted user, say UserA, that unlinks dates in, say, 500 articles in one day, there will be around 30 editors who will either revert the changes (the net result is UserA's time was wasted) or be angry (resulting in posts on talk pages, ANI, or more that end up occupying UserA's time). No one can please everybody, but use of a method like this allows editors—like you, for example—to focus on articles where their efforts are welcomed. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you have highlighted an important issue. Given the huge number of editors involved, 30 editors sounds like a drop in the ocean to me. The number of pages that have had date links reduced or eliminated is getting on for half a million. As Tony says, the statistics show that most editors say nothing, do nothing, or both. Some explicitly say they are happy about delinking. Furthermore, any pro-linking argument is worthless unless it comes up with a proposal to fix the *huge* number of systematic errors, broken autoformats, and popular misunderstandings. What are your proposals for that? Lightmouse (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

That argument would only work if you could run a counter-experiment where a bot added links and we could observe whether: "most editors say nothing, do nothing, or both". It is possible that the true conclusion would then be that most editors don't care whether dates are linked or not. That might be difficult, though, for either "side" to accept (that no-one really cares what the outcome is). Carcharoth (talk) 19:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess that explains a lot about your approach, Lightmouse. If I'm reading what you wrote correctly, you seem to have a very cavalier attitude towards "drop-in-the-bucket" editors who might have a difference of opinion. But with that aside, what sort of "pro-linking argument" are you talking about, Lightmouse? I hope you're not talking about my proposed template. If so, can you please explain what exactly in it is "pro-linking"? I'd really like to know… — Bellhalla (talk) 20:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

If reluctance to wait for 100% agreement on all things at all times is cavalier, then bring on the horses. Lightmouse (talk) 20:17, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

In fact, you are nowhere near 100%. Disturbing thirty editors about anything is a remarkable achievement; doubly so since this is not one of our established and widely watched polls, like RfA or AfD. There are doubtless innumerable editors who don't care, and a few who care deeply on both sides. My own position, as often, is near the middle: we should not autoformat, we should link rarely, but we should link sometimes (and therefore that decision should not be made by a bot); but, overall, whether we do or not is not of the earthshaking importance that Tony, Lightmouse and some on the other side have been claiming. I therefore expect flack from both sides. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't all dates be linked?

I've tried to take in as much of the discussion above. But I just don't understand why all dates shouldn't be linked? What's so wrong with that? Petemyers (talk) 16:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

If you've taken in the discussion, I'm assuming you have already seen the personal feelings against a "sea of blue" and "links to random trivia". What's mentioned less often is that this is closely tied to an attempt at complying with our general linking guideline, WP:CONTEXT, which in a nutshell says that links not helping the reader are not only unnecessary but also unwanted. -- Jao (talk) 17:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and I went to WP:CONTEXT and had a look around. I understand that insane linking is stupid and unhelpful, as it misdirects readers from high-quality links. But a date has something of an objective fact about it, that reference to a country or organisation might have. So I'd also say it would be good to link any organisation that an article mentions, even if it's a bit loose to the articles content. Why aren't dates in that kind of category? Petemyers (talk) 17:25, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Petemyers here. One of the points of Misplaced Pages is that it provides simple cross-referencing that is easy to follow but easy to ignore. Certainly, I think the linking of years can often be helpful (and category links simply don't cut the mustard, as some posters have mentioned above), whilst day links are hardly harmful. Date autoformatting self-evidently doesn't yet work properly — I get a big mixture of formats in articles at the moment, which is far worse than seeing all dates be blue, frankly. I'd rather see link-soup than inconsistency.

At the moment, there seems (to me) to be very little in the way of consensus on this topic and it's far too soon for bots (or users) to be unlinking dates willy-nilly. I'm still not convinced I see a net advantage in unlinking dates, over the formatting and consistency benefits, personally. — User:OwenBlacker (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

It is absurd to think that a practice can be discouraged in the guideline, yet correcting articles to conform with the guideline would be unacceptable. There is doubt about whether some of the automated campaigns to fix the problem are appropriate, but I think that is more about the ability of a bot to make the changes appropriately than about the desire to remove indiscriminate linking of dates.

Another point of view is that indiscriminate date linking should be retained pending a better date autoformatting system, but I think most of the editors who commented feel that such an improved mechanism will not be created any time soon. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Especially that last part is too bad. Developers are really waiting a long time with that. (True, they are all just volunteers). Still, I prefer a sea of blue links over a removal of autoformatting since I really like to see the dates in my preferred format and to stop same lame edit wars. Garion96 (talk) 21:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

OwenBlacker says above: "category links simply don't cut the mustard". I, for one, find category dating links useful to a certain extent, but only if they were more efficiently used in a similar matter to tagging (or keywording - ie. index term), rather than categorising or linking. Being able to tag an article about an event that took place in year X with a tag for that year, would be very helpful. Currently, this is partially done with category structures like Category:Births by year, Category:Years by country, Category:Deaths by year, Category:Disestablishments by year, Category:Establishments by year and Category:Events by year. The over-arching categories are Category:Categories by year and Category:Categories by time. Please do browse through these category structures and say what you think of them - how well do they address the need that motivates some people to link years? Carcharoth (talk) 21:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

(reply to Gerry). I see no contradiction between the statements that date links should not generally be added (without good reason) and that date links should not generally be removed (without good reason). Nor should anyone editing a consensus document. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Linking of dates of birth and death

Template:RFCstyle

Proposal: to add the words

These dates should normally be linked.

to the section WP:MOSDAB#Dates of birth and death, and to link the example dates, so the section would read

At the start of an article on an individual, his or her dates of birth and death are provided. These dates should normally be linked. For example: "Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British ..."

• For an individual still living: "Serena Williams (born September 26, 1981) ...", not "... (September 26, 1981 –) ..."
• When only the years are known: "Socrates (470–399 BC) was..."
• When the year of birth is completely unknown, it should be extrapolated from earliest known period of activity: "Offa of Mercia (before 734 – 26 July 796) ..."

...

Rationale There are some - most vocally perhaps Tony - who believe that pretty much no dates should be linked; and this seems to be what Lightbot was trying to achieve, too. But I don't believe that is the view of the majority. On the contrary, I think the balance of opinion, even amongst those who don't want to see pages becoming a "sea of blue", is that it is useful to have at least some date links on a page, to let people establish a broader context for the times in which a person lived, by clicking their way through the date hierarchy especially via pages like List of state leaders in xxxx or xxxx in the United Kingdom, etc. The proposal that at least the date of birth and date of death in a biographical article should be linked has been made independently in at least four different threads: by Scolaire in the section above #Dates are not linked unless; by Carcharoth in the section above #Concrete examples (year links); by Eleassar, relaying a question raised to him in talk, at WT:CONTEXT#Birth dates?; and by myself at User talk:Lightmouse#Date linking request (birth and death years). It therefore seems appropriate to put up this proposal specifically as a formal well-advertised RfC. Jheald (talk) 11:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support. The date page hierarchy, and pages rapidly linked from it, provides a useful link to historical context for biographical articles. The biographical articles are stronger for such context; and the birth date and death date are the most obvious choice of dates to link. Jheald (talk) 11:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. (1) You're linking an anniversary day and month that is useless to our readers (please demonstrate some that are useful, and not just a magic carpet for discretionary browsers); and many editors will confuse this with the old autoformatting function. (2) Did you mean to "nowiki" the laborious constructions above that are concealed behind the piped linking ((] ] – ] ])? I'm sure this will go down very well with editors, who who will not only have to memorise how to do this, but will have to actually do it in every article. (3) You haven't demonstrated why it is worth forcing editors to make a link to a year page (birth/death): while it might be possible in a few rare instances to argue that the year of death page is vaguely useful (e.g., 1963 for the death of JF Kennedy, but even that example demonstrates how the fragmented facts about JFK in that year are better in the JFK article itself, or a daughter article on the assassination). (4) The "year in X" links are fine, except that concealing them behind what looks like a useless year-link is self-defeating, isn't it? Already, at least one WikiProject says not to use them. MOSLINK recommends the use of explicit wording to overcome the concealment. Tony (talk) 11:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • No, this has nothing to do with autoformatting. I'm proposing that such dates - the year, and the day - in the opening words of a bio article should be linked, end of story; something a number of other editors have also raised. The principal value being for the context that these links, and onward links from such pages, allow readers to click through to and explore.
    I'm not talking about "Year in X" articles, I'm talking about the bare year articles themselves. And I'm not intending to particularly mandate the   characters - they were there already, so I just left them. My proposal is very simple: as a rule, the days and years in those opening words should be linked. I want to see where the balance of the community rests on that question. Jheald (talk) 12:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, per many of Tony's comments, and just the fact that these year articles (much less day of the month ones!) don't provide useful historical context, they provide an often enormous list of trivial crap. If a large and well-organized WikiProject were capable of producing actually useful year articles that summarized the truly notable happenings in those years, I could maybe see the linking of years (only) for birth/death/establishment/disestablishment dates (only, for the most part). The problem with this though is that editors will see them linked in the lead sentence and then go around linking them all over the place, and we'd be pretty much back where we started. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 11:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I opposed delinking dates in the first place and I still do. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, I've never seen much sense in date linking, and links to day-of-the-month articles result in triviality amost by definition. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I agree this is a good question to work out. My question is whether we should use what I think you are proposing, the well known and much disliked, "link to the day of year", "link to the year" (which is why people are asking about autoformatting), or if we should be suggesting {{Birth date|yyyy|mm|dd}} and {{Death date and age|yyyy|mm|dd|yyyy|mm|dd}} which provides protection against lightbot and allows for more flexibility in the future. As for those who oppose the "trivia dumping grounds", I suspect that if the links are to specific types of narrowly defined data (such as Births on January 15, 1900 or People who share a birthday on 15 January) most people would be fine with that. dm (talk) 12:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support. In that case, the first example should be ""'''Charles Darwin''' {{DL|y=1809|m=February|d-12|mode=eng}} – {{DL|y=1882|m=April|d=19|mode=end}}) was a British ...", with the details of the template worked out later. (And yes, if the question is whether the dates be linked in the lead sentence, my answer is strong support.) Disagree with secret links to 1990 births or 15 January birthdays / January 15 birthdays (if, for no other reason, we'd need staff monitoring which of the latter is linked to.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:22, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support with comment There are many who do click and want to click on a date link to look at a reference in context, and whether that is trivial, banal or whatever is not my business, nor mine to judge. I can understand that someone may wish to click on a link to find out the context of a date of birth to the world around them at the time. Do I do it? No. Should it be allowable? Yes. For instance a child born during a battle in the local area, or being named Victoria, and that being the date of the coronation of Queen Victoria, or some other event that may have an effect on that person's environment. This information can be quite relevant. So the issue then becomes managing it, and making it useful. Is there 'overlinking' on dates, most definitely, and the information should be most specific, however, the request is specifically for Dates of Life. With regard to the comments about triviality ... for goodness sake, the difference between trivia and excellent knowledge is solely your own virtual framework and environment. If some people thrive on trivia, good luck to them, WP is here for all types. Not asking for extreme, let us find the median position. -- billinghurst (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Linking some, but not all full dates in the article will be confusing. I don't see birth and death date-linking to be valuable at all. Most biographies do have categories for year of birth and death that would get your average browser to the year page anyway. Karanacs (talk) 14:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Query to Billinghurst: Your assertion that many people click on and want to click on a date link seems unlikely—do you have sources for this? Tony (talk) 14:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Thanks Tony. wikt:many Anecdotally from reading, especially the commentary when it was on User_talk:Lightmouse; some (light) discussions with genealogists, who are a little date focused. I too would love to see evidentiary information about date links and whether they are followed or not. If someone has the right wand to produce that data, it would be lovely. To Karanacs the proposal is just Dates of Life, not all dates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Billinghurst (talk • contribs)
      • For tony to make such a statement that it is unlikely only proves that he is not paying attention to the comments being made against delinking of dates. I have stated on several occasions (as have others) that I do click on dates (sometime only to see if the article is associated to the date). As for evidence I recommend that someone does a query on the toolserver for all the date articles and see if the hits reduce over the next few months as more and more articles have the dates delinked. I believe we will find a marked reduction in the traffic to those date articles do to their delinking.--Kumioko (talk) 16:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. It adds complexity and I just don't see the value. Haukur (talk) 14:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support I never agreed with Tony's 2 dimensional view that date linking is bad. Misplaced Pages is a 3 dimensional database of articles and is not bound by the 2 dimensional rules of a paper article. If we have an article in wikipedia that is linkable to an article then we should link to it (whether ir directly relates or not). That doesn't mean that it should be linked 4 or 5 times but it should be linked and the birth and death dates to me are reasonable. If we go along with this delinking of dates argument that tony presents then next we will be delinking the city and state of birth, military ranks, allegiances and any other link that is not directly related to an articles content. I think that this date argument sets a very ugly precedent. Additionally, given the volume of arguments for and against this venture it should be obvious to everyone (regardless of how they feel about whether dates should or should not be linked) that this does not meet consensus, regardless of how the vote previously came out.--Kumioko (talk) 15:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Strong but partial support I believe linking the year to the bare year articles for births and deaths in bio provides useful context information. I'm actually in favour of linking years (decades etc.) where ever the historical context is significant to the subject of the article, even if the subject itself is not significant to the period of time linked. However, I am not as convinced of the value of linking the month and day, especially since those links would not seem to add much context without the year. PaleAqua (talk) 15:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Two simple points to PaleAqua: (1) Where was the consensus to link these items in the first place? (2) No one is suggesting a slippery slope to no wikilinking; rather, I sense that the motivation is the direct opposite: the encouragement of a stronger wikilinking system through the avoidance of extremely low-value dilutions. Tony (talk) 16:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • 1) Rhetorical statements are unhelpful. Where is so much of the information and documentation of templates, convention, etc. Wikis evolve, we are talking about a controlled evolution. 2) No, you are correct, no slippery slope suggested, it was Dates of Life only. Low value to you, statements to the contrary by others that dates of linking are not of low value seem to be ignored or derided as of low value. :-( billinghurst (talk) 17:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support. It certainly does no harm. Also usefull for lovers of trivia. Let readers decide what they want to read. G-Man 19:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. One of the dates in the example, 26 July 796, would be displayed to those who have selected the "2001-01-15T16:12:34" date format preference as 0796-07-26. The unique format in the preference menu clearly defines this date as an ISO 8601 date, even though that term does not appear on the menu. Also, the discussion leading to the implementation of date autoformatting makes it clear this format was intended to be ISO 8601. ISO 8601 requires dates to be in the Gregorian calendar, and requires mutual consent before information exchange partners exchange any date before the year 1583. Since the date 26 July 796 is in the Julian calendar, both requirements are violated. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: this discussion is not intended to be about autoformatting. This is about hard-linking of the dates, rendered as written, which is how 99% of readers will see them. If there are bugs in autoformatting, then there are bugs in autoformatting. User beware. But we shouldn't let the tail wag the dog. The question is, regardless of autoformatting, should these dates be linked? Jheald (talk) 20:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • You're wrong. Every date linking discussion is always about date autoformatting until the date autoformatting cancer is excised and incinerated. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Just because an article exists on Misplaced Pages that can be linked to, doesn’t mean it should be linked to. Links should be topical and germane to the article and should properly anticipate what the readership will likely want to further explore. Linking of years (1982), isn’t germane most of the time and should be limited to intrinsically historical articles like French Revolution—in which case, the linked dates would be older, like 1794. What the bot is doing that I find really valuable is the de-linking of dates (October 21). If someone was born on that date in 1982, no one gives a damn if “On this date in] 1600 - Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.” This isn’t not proper technical writing practices. Greg L (talk) 20:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I just want to clarify that just because you don't "give a damn" doesn't mean knowone does. If knowone cared then there would be no need to have a On this day section in the main page.--Kumioko (talk) 20:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Indeed. Maybe some people are interested in who else shared the same birthday, or that an English rugby union star was born on the feast-day of the patron saint of McDonalds. If WP has these pages, I think it's inappropriate to presume that because WP:YOUDONTLIKEIT, nobody else should be allowed to find them. Jheald (talk) 20:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
      • To Jheald: So you cite WP:YOUDONTLIKEIT. That’s sort of a “if it’s blue, it must be true” argument; if there was a WP:I REALLY REALLY LIKE IT AND IF AN ARTICLE EXITS ON WIKIPEDIA, IT SHOULD BE LINKED TO essay, I might “prove” my point. To Kumioko: I have no problem with the “On this day…” on the main page because all readers know what they will be taken to if they click on a link; they aren’t Easter eggs. And to both of you: This isn’t an issue of right or wrong; it’s a grey area centered around the issue of not desensitizing readers to our blue links through excessive linking. These are links to trivia. Too few readers, after they’ve stepped on these date land mines, want to bother with them any more. Greg L (talk) 21:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
        • I agree that date and year links can be land mines and unhelpful to readers. Let's make that clear first. However, I seriously doubt that links that are clearly birth and death years will mislead readers in your "land mine" sense. Take this example: "Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British ..." In my view, people may wonder what the links are, but when they click on them will realise "ah, an article on the year, that makes sense". They will then know this when they see it on future articles, and either click through as desired, or ignore them. What they won't do, in my opinion, is click on the link and think "oh, I was expecting an article on this person's birth" or "oh, I was expecting an article on this person's death". i.e. when clearly linked in a specified and limited context (birth and death years), year links are not Easter egg "land mines", and they are not excessive linking (two links per biographical article). Carcharoth (talk) 04:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support - While I believe that most dates should not be linked, I believe that, in biographical articles, dates of birth and death would serve as helpful links. We link to the biographical articles of persons born on a particular date on that date's article, so why not link back to the date from the biography? – PeeJay 20:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - I don't see the value of linking the dates of birth and death. The previous objections to all date linking still seem to apply. Day-of-the-month linking is still trivial even when the date is someone's birth date EdJohnston (talk) 21:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - extremely low value links. If someone is interested in the "context" of who else was born on September 12, they can type those few characters into the search box themselves. These are trivial connections that clutter articles needlessly. Ground Zero | t 21:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - I have yet to see any argument that comes close to convincing me that these date links provide any sort of relevant context. Yes, they provide context, but the context is so general that it seems useless to me. And yes, I have heard the argument that "just because it seems useless to you, doesn't mean it's useless to everyone." This is a valid argument, but only to a point. Linking every word in every sentence to Wiktionary would probably be more useful than this, in my view. And I don't think that one would get any massive rash of support, either.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 22:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose That would just makes everything more complex. Besides, I have yet to read a convincing argument on why date-of-birth and date-of-death links are necessary to aid the reader's understanding of the article's subject matter. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support linking of birth and death years once at the appropriate place in an article (with the second option being a formal written support in the manual of style for using the birth and death year categories). Oppose linking of dates as these are, in my opinion, trivial links. This was my position in an earlier thread quoted above, though I may not have made it clear enough. I obviously disagree with those who think birth and death year links are trivial in biographical articles - it is my opinion that birth and death years are integral metadata information for biographical articles. Currently, such information is found either as: (a) plain text in the lead sentence, with some articles still having the dates linked; (b) birth and death date categories; (c) entries in the infobox; (d) entries in the Misplaced Pages:Persondata metadata information. Until the Manual of Style specifically mandates that the information for birth and death years needs to be in a form that can be analysed by computers (ie. metadata - and yes, linking is a form of metadata when used correctly), then delinking birth and death years without checking for the existence of the other metadata is a destructive process. I support reduction of overlinking, and avoiding a sea of blue links, but also support the retention of some form of clickable links to take the reader from biographical articles to our chronology categories and articles. Carcharoth (talk) 03:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• I'd only support this as a reversion to the policy of all date linking, in other words linking dates of birth and death are no more or less valuable than any other date links. Either the standard should be to link all or to link none. - fchd (talk) 05:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  • How so? Can you provide an example? I think the article with wikilink dates, eg. "He was promoted to Captain on 1 March xxxx ..." shows that THE date has only has relevance within the article itself, not to the world events at the time.
    At the moment, the issue with much of the discussion is the value judgments rather than relevance or usefulness. Many say it is of low-value where it means it is of low value to them. Whereas many of those supporting, say they find it useful, and they find it is of relevance for their research. I understand my biases, I would like the nay sayers to consider that it this is about relevance and perspective, not their values. --billinghurst (talk) 08:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Firstly, we already have consensus that wikilinking of dates is deprecated, so having this as part of the guideline would be a seriously retrograde step, and make a mockery of it, IMHO. Secondly, I would would be somewhat horrified at extensive wikilinking of birth and death dates: the vast majority of biographies I have come across have had these dates linked, and I just feel that these links add nothing to any of the articles. What I am talking about includes EIIR, where the only date I would probably retain is the date of coronation; I might also consider linking the dates of death of Mao Zedong and John F. Kennedy and other leaders who died in office, or other world figures who died at the height of their influence - for example John Lennon. However, we already have articles on the Coronation of the British monarch, Assassination of John F. Kennedy, and Death of John Lennon, which renders the linking unnecessary in the examples given, also proving Tony's point. I would say that even Albert Einstein's birth and death dates are but biographical facts which add little significance to the world if linked to date and year articles. If somebody really wants to look up 18 April 1955 for a context surrounding Einstein's death, they can just as easily type it in the search box or the address bar. It seems to be rather bureaucratic to oblige editors to add wikilinks to these whilst removing all the other wikilinked dates, when there is so much to do here on WP. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Consensus was only reached after being repeatedly opposed. Tony simply kept resumbitting it until it reached consensus. I have been editing for a couple years on WP and I have never seen any change that has been so hotly contested as this. Your right though in that consensus was reached, now it is up to all of us to refine the details of the decision so that it best supports the project overall. I can live with the decision that dates should not be linked (although I don't agree with it per se) but I do think that certain key dates such as birth and death should be allowed.--Kumioko (talk) 18:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support I use birth and death links all the time , as well as links in other key dates to get an historical context to what I am reading. Misplaced Pages year articles give a continuous timeline of what else was going on in the world at the time an event happend. They provide useful context and background and allow the reader to get immersed into a particular historic point in time. They are an invaluable resource unique to Misplaced Pages. Removal is a retrograde step. Lumos3 (talk) 12:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Weak support. Clearly some readers do find these useful, and the wide support for doing it can be seen in the fact that it has been so widely done. (If it had been introduced by bot, of course, this would not follow, but I see no sign that it has been.) We encourage multiple ways of linking articles together; categories and nav templates and links; this is merely another. I would much more firmly support weaker wording; but it is already established that normally means most people do, but you don't have to even for FA and GA, which should be weak enough. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support, in the cases described by Carcharoth above. A less obvious way I have found links useful is to use them to see what is linked to a given article & the birth/death dates are one important way this works. Further, until this latest push to delink all dates, no one ever raised the issue that linking birth/death dates was unnecessary. I believe it deserves an exception -- & the spirit of ignore all rules more than justifies us to make an exception to any rule when the exception improves the encyclopedia. -- llywrch (talk) 18:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Qualified oppose. I don't have a strong opinion on the autoformatting question. Personally, I've always thought that our readers were smart enough to correctly read a date whether it was presented as 19 Jan 2008, Jan 19, 2008 or 2008 Jan 19. But I know that others disagree and I don't feel strongly enough about it to argue.
  On the more important question of whether the links are useful as links, I think they should pretty much all be removed. Linking a birth or death day to a page about that day of the month is invariably trivia. While many books publish such trivia, I do not consider that to be a proper function for an encyclopedia. There is nothing encyclopedic about the subject of the biography that the reader can learn by following the link to a page of other trivia that happened on all the other 19 Jans in time.
  The argument for linking years is better but still not strong enough in my opinion. The general argument for it (repeated by several people above) is that it provides historical context and can provide a path to the events which influenced the subject of the biography. I consider this a weak argument because the degree to which a newborn can be influenced by events outside his/her immediate family is trivially low. Child-development specialists will tell you that influences in the first 5-8 years are almost entirely domestic or, at best, highly local. The appropriate link for developmental context would be to the appropriate decate article covering the ages somewhere between 10 and 30. Likewise, a link to a death year tells almost nothing about the person's life except in the rare case where the death itself was a cause for notability.
  My opinion is also influenced by the observation that the "year" pages are massively overlinked. The odds of finding anything useful either on the page itself or by following "what links here" is miniscule. I've never yet followed one of those links and learned anything useful. Rossami (talk) 19:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support - It's clear that not everyone finds these links useful, but it's equally clear that some do find them useful to a degree, myself included. Jheald's proposal seems like a fair compromise. I'm confident that linking a date or two in the lead won't turn the rest of the article into an indecipherable sea of blue. --Bongwarrior (talk) 19:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Bongwarrior: OK, “some” find the links useful. Is that the test you think should be used here: (“some”)? Or do you think it is more than just some, and that the body of readers who would actually want to read through lists of trivia in “year” article are sufficiently numerous to merit yet more blue links in our articles? Greg L (talk) 22:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• My impression from the above is that those who find the year links useful are coming more from the metadata side of things, rather than the trivia side of things. It would also be nice to have some acknowledgement that birth and death years are less trivial (though some people do clearly see them as still trivial) than a random mention of a year in a random article. And also that linking birth and death years does not contribute to a "sea of blue (links)", but is actually limited to a specific place (at the start of the article) and to two specific links. To expand on the metadata side of things, I'd be happy if a sustained effort were made to bring biographical articles into compliance with some standard style, ensuring that all the articles had Misplaced Pages:Persondata (currently woefully limited in its application - to respond to Kaldari's point below), that all biographical articles had birth and death year categories (or the 'unknown' equivalents) and the "biography of living people" tag (where applicable) and that all biographical articles had {{DEFAULTSORT}} correctly applied (to aid the generation of a master-index, as well as categorisation). If half as much effort went into that as into whether to link birth of death dates or not, then some progress might be being made. As it is, biographical articles account for around 1 in 5 of Misplaced Pages's articles (and, I suspect, a significant fraction of newly created articles), but only a small fraction use Persondata, thousands and thousands of biographical articles are not sorted correctly in the index categories, and many lack birth and death year categories. Many biographical articles also lack the {{WPBiography}} tag on their talk pages. This is one reason why I feel as strongly as I do about not just removing birth and death year links until a proper audit of the biographical articles has been carried out (you can, if you like, think of it as the "date audit" clashing with plans for a similar "biographical audit" and the "date audit" removing metadata links that might have been parsed by the "biographical audit"). To take that one step further, I wonder if the contributions log of Lightbot can be analysed to reveal how many birth and death years were delinked on biographical articles where no birth and death year categories were present? I presume such an analysis would be possible? Carcharoth (talk) 23:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Please re-markup dates

It doesn't have to be as links, but leaving dates in the wikicode as "plain text" makes life extremely hard for any automated parsing of those; plain text should be plain text, and dates are, I think, still being reformatted.

Seriously, this is, IMHO, an incredibly wrong thing to do: plain text should be passed through unchanged all the way to HTML; only marked-up section are changed. Plain-text-like dates just don't fit nicely into that: the markup isn't recognisable, it's unclear what the effect of <nowiki> would be, and we lose a lot of those links that are most useful, to me, at least, in parsing articles.

Can we please find some way of leaving in that useful information? I'm sure a date-matching regexp would run into things that look like dates but aren't meant as such quite often. Template syntax would work, and the main criticism of the Blue Sea would be avoided by, uh, not colouring date links blue. 5-minute change to the code, avoid millions of changes to the articles?

RandomP (talk) 20:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I oppose the concept of a "5 minute change to the code". Quick and dirty code changes are what got us into this mess to begin with. I think proper date markup would include the following elements:

• The ability to set defaults by article, for example,
  • All dates in a certain article are AD but "AD" is not to be displayed
  • Any date after 14 September 1582 in a certain article are Gregorian, earlier dates are Julian.
  • For a certain article, dates are displayed in the format day-month-year.
• The ability to override the article defaults for a particular date.

It seems to me that when half-baked "solutions" are implemented, people go off and write software that depends on the "solution", that software gets garbage as input, and produces garbage as output. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

A template solution works, save for having a single point where the date format can be set in an article, though this can be easily changed by a regex tool (AWB). The only qualification is that the Gregorian/Julian date issue cannot be handled without major template programming; we need to make sure that dates, when entered, followed the above requirement. --MASEM 22:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I would support (and use) a proper date markup system (for the metadata as RandomP says), but I'm unclear why article defaults are needed. The most editors will want to do is either explain what the date is in plain text (ie. write "Julian" or "Gregorian" or "AD" or "BC" somewhere) or use a date template. New editors will invariably use plain text and any date markup system needs to be simple to use, otherwise people just won't use it, or will be discouraged from editing. Article defaults sounds like an extra option that might just make the system a bit less usable for some. Articles that use both Gregorian and Julian dates could have a standard template warning that the article uses both Gregorian and Julian dates. I'm presuming here that the Gregorian/Julian date issue only affects a small proportion of articles, though still a large absolute number. Also, there are more date systems that just the BC/AD and Julian/Gregorian ones - any date markup system would have to incorporate those. Someone mentioned an ISO standard above - would it not make sense to pick a an up-to-date standard and work with that? Carcharoth (talk) 04:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If there are no article defaults, then there must be encyclopedia-wide defaults. In the absence of any defaults, then we must specify everything for every date, and the markup for today might look like {{adate|2008|9|30|AD|disp-era=n|cal=g|fmt=dmy}} which is too much typing.

Also, since we have no effective mechanism to reach an agreement with our readers to use years before 1583, we cannot use ISO 8601 for any year before 1583 or after 9999. Even if we could reach such an agreement, we would always have to use the Gregorian calendar with that standard. That being the case, I have more use for a pile of horse manure than I do for ISO 8601 dates. (This statement is the literal truth.) --Gerry Ashton (talk) 05:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I would like to support keeping date markup as well. From the discussions above and elsewhere it's clear that no consensus for conversion to plain text exists. Perhaps not enough time was given in the poll, or perhaps not a broad enough audience was sought, or perhaps polling doesn't work in the first place, I don't know, but I think the version as it stands now is controversial to begin with and will make changing over to specific date formatting in future MediaWiki versions as well as manipulating dates from user scripts significantly harder. It also ignores the reader's date format preference, even when specifically set, forcing the editor's preference down the reader's throat. Shinobu (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I try to stay out of these continued repetitive debates about date linking out of concern for my sanity, but I can't help feeling what's being proposed is not very good solutions to non-existent problems. Parsers ought to be able to recognise dates when they see them to at least the accuracy you can ever achieve by extracting anything from WP. Primarily WP is written by humans for humans, and we shouldn't be making extra work for editors and complications for readers in order to make some theoretical parsers work better. It would be more helpful for automatic text analysis to write other types of information in a standard way - something like {{capitalof|Paris|France}} would generate "Paris is the capital of France" - but that's clearly not going to happen, and nor should we adopt a similar unnatural policy with regard to dates. Let people type what they want readers to read - with links if there's some real reason for those links, but usually there isn't - and worry about more important things.--Kotniski (talk) 13:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

First off, the parsers aren't theoretical: I have one. Second, we already do have the information you gave as an example (Paris being the capital of France) in an easily-extractable format: templates.

Most importantly, though, if you let "humans" write dates in the variety of formats they use in plain text, you end up with an unrecognisable and unusable mess. There simply is no option of not having a standard form for English dates, because the most common standard forms, month/day and day/month, are often ambiguous. If we're going to have a standard form, why not throw in template markup to make people realise they're writing in a restricted syntax?

RandomP (talk) 14:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

How are "30 September 2008" and "September 30, 2008" ambiguous? It's not like we're advocating numeric dates, we spell out the month. -- Jao (talk) 19:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If I may summarise:

1. clearly, no consensus exists for ripping out all date markup the way bots currently are doing
2. even Misplaced Pages software, in expanding ~~~~, generates dates that are not of the form the mythical perfect parser would have to recognise
3. that parser would have to know the names of the months at least in English (including the common English word "may", the name "april", the somewhat common word "march", and the occasionally-used adjective "august")
4. the parser would have to guess whether numbers are year numbers or not, including small numbers. (] appears surprisingly often in historical articles, for example, and is probably currently being changed to an unrecognisable instance of "70").
5. as evidenced by ~~~~ expansion above, the parser would also have to detect incorrect date formats: those are already quite common, even with redlinks to highlight them. Without redlinks, I see very little to stop a free-for-all as far as date formatting is concerned.
6. year links are actually useful in some instances: 70, 1066, 1453, 1945, September 11 are all occasionally used as shorthand for the event they are identified with. Changing those exceptionally-useful links to plain text that the reader can't even click on, in the standard WP reaction of "this is a term I don't understand, and it's blue, so I'll click it to find out what it means", seems problematic to me.

I propose a solution that's about as simple as it gets for users: ], ] should become {{April 25, 2009}}, a template which usually expands to "April 25, 2009" without any highlighting. No loss of information in wikicode, a couple of thousand template pages would have to be created, we retain warnings for incorrect date formats, and it'll remain relatively easy to extract metadata, either by CSS/JS or by an automated parser. Furthermore, I suggest that ~~~~ start using that template as well.

Dates are not plain text: depending on dialect, at least one of the numbers in them is usually read differently from the standard reading of that number, for example, and many speakers find it more natural to reverse order as well. While the things you can do with a date in an encyclopaedia are somewhat limited, wikicode should be universal: universal for all languages (so "May" shouldn't be a magic word that triggers the parser into attempting to identify it as a date), but also universal for what it's used for: a business wiki used for scheduling meetings would probably want to use dates as metadata quite extensively.

Quotes are going to contain unusual date formats in English and unrecognisable ones in other languages: not having any way at all to mark those up seems an unnecessary loss. Usage examples themselves are another source of strings that would look like dates but aren't meant as such.

Lastly, maybe it's worth remembering that it was the change from implicit, plaintext-like links (based on capitalisation) to explicit marked-up links that allowed Misplaced Pages to become readable, multilingual, and successful. Going the other way for no better reason than "we find it too difficult to assign a subtle link class to links to very-frequently-linked-to articles and there's too much blue on my screen" seems rather ill-advised to me.

RandomP (talk) 14:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Quite - The counter-suggestions seem to do nothing but make the wiki less useful for purely abitrary style reasons or to provide new ways to obfuscate the dates so badly that I was, prior to your post, about to propose that we date everything prior to 1970 in negative Unix time. Please don't, though. Please? MrZaius 15:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

After reading the above, and going back through the various proposals and what seems like a very weak consensus, I'd now be in favour of restoring the auto-formatting of dates (via the user's preferences), and by association, the linking of date/month and year pairs. - fchd (talk) 18:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me also say that going back to the status quo ante is perfectly okay with me. Auto-format dates, including making them black rather than blue if that's what the user wants. But there is no strongly-defended consensus for what is currently happening, at least in this thread, so far. RandomP (talk) 19:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a few points:

1. With the {{April 25, 2009}} solution, are you suggesting that we create these templates separately for all dates in history (and future) about which something can conceivably be known? (We also need a line of {{25 April 2009}} templates.) I'm not saying it can't be done or will cause problems, just pointing out that that's not a couple of thousand templates, but more like a couple of million. Would we also want {{April 2009}} and {{2009}}? What if an editor is writing a plot synopsis for a novel that takes place on April 25, 6009, and nobody had anticipated that? Should that editor create that template?
2. If the markup is invisible to editors (which, for better or worse, are human), then how will we know which dates are correctly marked and which ones need to be fixed?
3. "even Misplaced Pages software, in expanding ~~~~, generates dates that are not of the form the mythical perfect parser would have to recognise", I don't understand? If the parser were capable of recognizing non-marked dates, why shouldn't it recognise "30 September 2008" as a date? That's as regular as it gets.
4. "year links are actually useful in some instances: 70, 1066, 1453, 1945, September 11 are all occasionally used as shorthand for the event they are identified with", this I definitely agree with, and nobody is suggesting the delinking of these. True though, sometimes mass delinking cathes too much, and that is a problem.

Also, could you tell us a little more about how you are using your parser? I understand that this proposal is not about that specific example, but a real example of how automatic date detection is useful to a real person would probably make us understand your points better. -- Jao (talk) 19:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If you are just parsing articles for birth and death dates, that's what the {{persondata}} template is for. What other need do you have for "automated parsing" of dates? Kaldari (talk) 19:58, 30 September 2008 (UTC)