Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Copy edits to Year numbering systems

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Suggested corrections and stylistic changes:

• Split Year numbering systems → Era style and Periods of time.

  Reason: They don't number years. That's what "1955" does. There are two independent topics here.

• Conventional terminology pairs "AD" (Anno Domini) with "BC" (Before Christ), or it pairs "CE" (Common Era) with "BCE" (Before the Common Era). The latter is common in scholarly and religious writing, but is less traditional. Either is an appropriate choice.

  → Conventional terminology pairs "AD" (Anno Domini) with "BC" (Before Christ) and "CE" (Common/Christian Era) with "BCE" (Before the Common/Christian Era). The latter is common in scholarly and religious writing, but is less traditional.

  Reason: Should include both meanings of "CE". (It was originally an abbreviation of 'Xian Era'.) Last point doesn't need mentioning.

• Use a non-breaking space between the number and the unit. Terms like "14 mya BCE" will require two, or use {{nowrap}}.

  Reason: Forms like the ungrammatical example are never used.

• A set of abbreviations indicating a long interval of time depends on the audience. For scientific and academic subjects and where long time intervals are mentioned frequently, spelling-out "X years ago", or "X years" can become trite, although the British Museum has allowed the spelling-out of the many. If abbreviations are chosen as content for an article, they will be one of two sets:

  → For academic subjects and where long time intervals are mentioned frequently, abbreviations may be preferable to repeating "X thousand/million years ago". There are two sets of abbreviations; an article should use one or the other:

  Reason: Poor grammar, style. British Museum should be relegated to a fn if mentioned at all.

• ka, Ma, Ga (annum "year") are the Greek and Latin abbreviations "kilo-annum" (10³), "Mega-annum" (10⁶) and "Giga-annum" (10⁹) quantity of years; "years" is implied, but "ago" must be made explicit in the text, The Cretaceous started 65 Ma ago and ended 145 Ma ago, lasting for 80 Ma, so do not use the three-letter Gya, Mya, or kya forms. This set is compact and efficient, for use in the more obscure topics.

  ka, Ma, Ga are abbreviations for "kilo-annum" (10³), "Mega-annum" (10⁶) and "Giga-annum" (10⁹), from annum "year". These indicate simple quantities of years. "Ago" is sometimes implied, but is best stated explicitly: The Cretaceous started 65 Ma ago and ended 145 Ma ago, lasting 80 Ma.

  Reason: Ungrammatical; years is not "implied". Not true that 'ago' "must" be made explicit; it is often implied. Last sentence: we don't choose conventions based on how obscure a topic is, and it's bizarre that we would recommend such a thing.

• kyr, myr, byr (years), kya, mya, bya (years ago) abbreviate thousands, millions and billions of years ago; nothing need be implied, and it is in English. These six abbreviations are for either plain or scholarly exposition. (Berkeley has allowed them.) For increased readability prefer two or even four of these, even when the other set's one or two abbreviations might suffice for the entire article.

  → kyr, myr, byr (years), kya, mya, bya (years ago) indicate thousands, millions and billions of years ago: The Cretaceous started 65 Mya and ended 145 Mya, lasting 80 Myr. These are used in both lay and scholarly exposition.

  Reason: Berkeley should be in fn if mentioned at all. Last sentence ungrammatical and nonsensical.

Any objections? — kwami (talk) 04:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, I have no comment on the issues you are discussing here, but would you be willing to remove the {{copyedit}} tag from the section, please? While there is active discussion of something on the talk page, copy editors should not simply weigh in on the page itself. Regards. --Stfg (talk) 10:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it is easier to deal with the points one by one. Perhaps we could concentrate on the first point before moving on to the rest. What do others think? Michael Glass (talk) 12:30, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

BC/AD and BCE/CE

The first point needs rewriting. I would suggest something like this:

The conventional year numbering system dates events from the beginning of the Christian (or common) era. There are two ways of doing this: BC/AD and BCE/CE. BC/AD is traditional; BCE/CE is more common in scholarly or religious writing. Either is appropriate.

In a footnote I would explain the meaning of the four terms like this: BC means before Christ; AD means anno domini (the year of our Lord). BCE means before the common (or Christian) era; CE, common (or Christian) era.

I think this is a clearer and easier to follow way of presenting the material than the present wording. I believe it is necessary to say that either system is acceptable as some enthusiasts dispute this point. Michael Glass (talk) 12:30, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The most I would be willing to say concerning popularity is that the usage of CE/BCE greater in scholarly or non-Christian religious writing than the usage of CE/BCE is in general writing.* I am not convinced the usage of CE/BCE is greater than AD/BC in any category of writing. I am not convinced the usage of CE/BCE is greater in religious writing if you include Christian writing, when you consider we are considering only the English language and a great deal of English language religious writing is Christian.

* Even though that's my impression, I can't prove it with a reliable source. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:09, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

How about this wording:

The conventional year numbering system dates events from the beginning of the Christian (or common) era. There are two ways of doing this: BC/AD and BCE/CE. BC/AD is the traditional usage; BCE/CE is common in scholarly writing. Either is appropriate.

If this is not satisfactory, could you suggest how the wording could be revised to improve it? Michael Glass (talk) 13:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that's close to ideal. It's very clear, says everything we need to know for writing purposes, and doesn't raise issues that don't need to be raised here. --Stfg (talk) 13:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I am content with Glass' version of 13:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC). Considering the number of unlinked instances of AD, BC, CE, and BCE, I would suggest listing them in the "See also" section in spite of the usual practice of not including items wikilinked in the article again in "See also". Jc3s5h (talk) 13:51, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

"Either is appropriate" is a value claim, and not one that is universally held to be true (nor should it be). To discuss, say, the history of Judaism entirely in terms of what happened "before Christ" and what happened "in the year of our lord" presents a view that the entire religion is a mere prequel to Christianity. To grant blanket appropriateness is both unneeded and improper. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I changed the section on the usage of BC/AD and BCE/CE back to the wording that was hammered out after a lengthy discussion. This represented a consensus, and no new consensus has been established on changing it. The rest of the section seems like a mess now too, but let me state this plainly: do not change the section on BC/AD and BCE/CE without achieving a consensus here first. I promise you, I will immediately report any editor who tampers with that section to ANI as disruptive. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

And please review the last discussion before wasting our time here by covering well-trampled ground. Nat Gertler should recall that one, as he and I were the last to leave comments. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:17, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on era style (BC/AD and BCE/CE)

I'm requesting comment on whether to retain the consensus on the wording of the era style guidelines that was produced by this lengthy discussion. Those guidelines, which I recently restored to the MOS page, are as follows (I've numbered them point by point, however, for ease of discussion):

• Point 1: Years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (also referred to as Common Era).
  • Point 2: AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras. CE and BCE are common in some scholarly and religious writing. Either convention may be appropriate.
    • Point 3: Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era". Briefly state why the style is inappropriate for the article in question. Having a personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change.
    • Point 4: BCE and CE or BC and AD are written in upper case, unspaced, without periods (full stops), and separated from the year number by a space (5 BC, not 5BC). It is advisable to use a non-breaking space.
    • Point 5: AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).
    • Point 6: Do not use CE or AD unless the date or century would be ambiguous without it (e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066" not 1066 CE nor AD 1066). On the other hand, "Plotinus was a philosopher living at the end of the 3rd century AD" will avoid unnecessary confusion. Also, in "He did not become king until 55 CE" the era marker makes it clear that "55" does not refer to his age. Alternatively, "He did not become king until the year 55."
    • Point 7: Use either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE notation consistently within the same article. Exception: do not change direct quotations.

Please comment as Support or Oppose, and propose wording changes point by point. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• Please see especially #Proposed new wording of Points 1 and 2 combined below. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Note. To gather more input, I've posted notices at three Wikiprojects: Religion, because they've had extended discussion of era-style issues in efforts to develop a project MOS; Classical Greece & Rome, because articles within the scope of that project are among those most likely to need to use an era designation (that project generated the "Plotinus exception"); and History, because history articles are also likely to use era designations. Please invite other projects to participate. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I've also notified individuals who participated in the previous discussion linked above, if they haven't already participated here. I've tried to notify everyone, so apologies in advance if I inadvertently excluded any editors: the discussion is dauntingly long. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support but perhaps we should add a point that Astronomical year numbering may be appropriate in articles that involve date calculations across the AD/BC boundary. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

It looks as if the wording pertaining to other ways to designate years has also been altered, but I was never familiar with that section. This RfC applies only to the BC/AD vs. BCE/CE style convention. I would very much encourage someone else to take a look at what may have been done to the rest of the section dealing with scientific conventions and so on. And I agree with Kwami below: I didn't notice what was happening here for so long because I thought it dealt with "year numbering," not the era convention. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:13, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I restored the rest of the section. There may have been some conceptual improvements, but since parts of it were gibberish and even my grammatical corrections were reverted, better just to start over. — kwami (talk) 18:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Astronomical year numbering is inextricably linked to AD/CE because it is identical beginning with AD 1; the only difference is that 1 BC is 0, 2 BC is −1, etc. It would be confusing to discuss it in any other section. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• Looks good to me. (We don't need support, since it's already consensus.) There was no discussion of the title, however, and I think "Era style" would be preferable to "year numbering systems", which suggests a choice between AD and AH rather than how to style AD, especially since we instruct editors to use the word "era" in talk-page headers. — kwami (talk) 16:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Given Cynwolfe's agreement above, I went ahead and changed the section name. When I restored the rest of the old version, I moved the bullet on abbreviations for long periods of time to the section on long periods of time, so that no longer conflicted with the new name. — kwami (talk) 19:11, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support: That was a good consensus; stick with it. Astronomical year numbering will be unfamiliar to most, so I think its use should be restricted to articles that discuss year numbering schemes. --Stfg (talk) 16:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support I'm glad to see this wording restored to the text. Michael Glass (talk) 08:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support, though it needs a few tweaks. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support - This has been the neutral compromise in place to prevent edit wars over this, since at least 2006 (Dionysian), and it should remain in effect. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 17:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support this wording, as modified in the discussions below, except disagree with SMcCandlish's objection under Point 5. Particularly like the fact that these guidelines are generally neutral, and don't imply that one convention is more appropriate than another in certain categories. Previous versions implied that BCE/CE should be used for all articles written about non-Christian topics. P Aculeius (talk) 12:59, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• Not support the current wording: added support and oppose items below, asked for sources. Seems like an invitation for debate later. History2007 (talk) 08:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support Paul August ☎ 19:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose As the wording of point 1 implies to the newcomer who doesn't read carefully that CE is preferred, indeed obligatory. We are bound, sooner or later, to have people acting on such an interpretation. This must be fixed, perhaps just by removing the ref to Common Era, or adding one to Anno Domini. Otherwise, yes the discussion linked to was long, too long to read. What were there, and are here, the issues at stake? I'm in the dark. A summary would be useful. Johnbod (talk) 19:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's my understanding of the issues, which I do not offer as a formal summary. Some editors would like MOS to adopt BCE/CE universally. Some editors would like to preserve the option of using either BC/AD or BCE/CE, and do not want MOS to impose the use of one over the other. Some editors regard the choice between the two era styles as purely cosmetic and conventional, since either designation is ultimately Christian-centric. Some editors would like to prescribe the use of BCE/CE in specific contexts where the Christian connotations of BC/AD strike some users as inappropriate, such as in articles pertaining to Jewish or Islamic studies, or scientific and archaeological topics where predominant usage in scholarship of the last thirty years seems to have shifted to BCE/CE. In the past, it has proven impossible to craft a guideline that describes appropriate contexts. Therefore, Point 3 allows the era-style decision to be made on an article-by-article basis, depending on a consensus of editors who watch the article. It is intended to prevent era campaigning, when a user sweeps through articles changing to his personally preferred style, and drive-by editing of the era in articles in which the user takes no other interest. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:15, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, those are the issues and background, but how does the proposed/current wording differ from the old one? Johnbod (talk) 11:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't. The wording above, which was produced by the long linked-to discussion, was restored after it somehow had become this. (Note that although Kwamigakami appears in the "before" column, the wording was from another editor.) My intention with the RfC was to work from the previous consensus wording patiently and collaboratively toward clearer, more helpful guidelines, point-by-point. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support - except include "anno domini" in point 1 - [from uninvolved editor invited by RfC bot] Overall it looks good, but I agree with the criticism of point 1 that 99.99% of readers will have no idea what "Dionysian era" means. The phrase "anno domini" should be in the first sentence instead of "Dionysian era", particularly if "common era" is going to be specifically named in the first sentence. --Noleander (talk) 20:04, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

See proposed wording below that combines Points 1 and 2 more informatively. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I like that wording: "By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (traditionally designated with AD and BC), also referred ..." --Noleander (talk) 01:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I have two criticisms. First, the common calendar system used today is most commonly referred to as the "Western calendar", not the "Dyonsian era", and second, if we introduce designations in Point 1, it would be clearer to show both types of designations. Here's my suggestion: "Years are numbered according to the Western calendar and are designated with either AD and BC or with BCE and CE." Then the subsequent points clarify usage. In particular, Point 2 follows very nicely from Point 1 if we use this wording. Coastside (talk) 18:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose We already discussed this exact issue only a few months ago and the result was absolutely nothing; the Manual of Style was unchanged. Suggesting exactly the same thing again with the same arguments is a waste of time and obviously doesn't justify changing the MoS. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 00:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC))

Add point 8 on other systems

Include a statement about other systems, such as AH? Year-0 systems? Suggestion (examples taken from existing articles):

• Other era systems may be appropriate in an article. In such cases, dates should be followed by a conversion to Dionysian (or vice versa) and the first instance should be linked: Qasr-al-Khalifa was built in 221 AH (836 CE).
  • Astronomical year numbering is Dionysian and does not require conversion, but the first instance should still be linked: The March equinox passed into Pisces in year −67.

I doubt the latter is any more unfamiliar than the former, and in any case it's pretty obvious what is meant. — kwami (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

As this doesn't modify the text under RfC, and there have been no objections, I'll add it in. — kwami (talk) 20:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support but with modification - The context in which AH years are most appropriate is when only the AH year is known, and as is most often the case it does not correspond to a particular AD/CE year, but span parts of two. The example should reflect this: Qasr-al-Khalifa was built in 221 AH (835/6 CE). Agricolae (talk) 21:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe there should be a couple of examples, including one for when the CE year is known. (A large construction project could span several years, in any case: perhaps events that are more precisely datable should be chosen.)—Odysseus1479 (talk) 23:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Point 1

Minor rewording, acknowledging that Dionysian is not the only system we use:

• By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (also referred to as the Common Era).

— kwami (talk) 18:48, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• "By default" seems like a good qualifier. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

No objections, adding. — kwami (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• Support. That is the obvious way. History2007 (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose totally. This is terrible, and will lead some to think that ONLY CE is allowed. needs a total rewrite. Johnbod (talk) 19:57, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Johnbod that most people are unfamiliar with the phrase "Dionysian era"; in fact, if so erudite an editor as Johnbod doesn't know that "Dionysian era" means BC/AD, then perhaps we should combine Points 1 and 2. Could we look at specific ways to rephrase/combine? Discussion starts following. I've also added a phrase that proved controversial in earlier discussions, but I'm offering it as a starting point. It should be considered with regard to the implications of Point 3. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:01, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposed new wording of Points 1 and 2 combined

• By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (traditionally designated with AD and BC), also referred to as the Common Era (CE and BCE). Either convention may be appropriate, depending on context.

That wording is unclear, because the "conventions" referred to in the second sentence are mere parentheticals in the first, not cited as conventions. Alternate suggestion:

• By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era. These dates may be referred to using either CE and BCE designations or CE and BCE designations. The context of the article may suggest which designation is more appropriate.

More words and verbal repetition don't usually produce greater clarity, and your proposed guideline omits BC/AD. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The version above also omits BC/AD, but that has to be a typo. Art LaPella (talk) 02:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

How about:

• The default is to represent year dates in one of BC/AD and BCE/CE (Common Era) styles, both of which use the same Western Dionysian era numbering. The context of the article may suggest which style is more appropriate.

Johnbod (talk) 15:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Please don't use the word "styles". When dealing with western calendars, "style" may be used to indicate whether the year begins on January 1 or March 1. It may also be used to indicate whether the Julian or Gregorian calendar is being used. The word is far to busy to give it another role. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I prefer Johnbod's to my earlier suggestion. "Designation" or "nomenclature" instead of style? --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I must say I would regard the use of "style" to cover either of the things Jc3s5h mentions as distinctly odd, but I am no specialist. I'm open to rewriting, and one could do so to omit any term at all. "Designation" or "nomenclature" don't work for me, & "convention" doesn't seem quite right, but might be possible. Johnbod (talk) 16:45, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Johnbod on "style": as used in connection with a "Manual of Style," "style" just means what variations of orthography, punctuation, and so on are adopted for the particular publication or organization. I think "convention" crept in because the choice between BC/AD or BCE/CE can be a matter of custom or convention (see the point in the summary above about some editors regarding the choice of era style as a mere 'cosmetic' convention, rather than a meaningful assertion of religious affiliation or antipathy). I like "more appropriate" rather than the implied either-or of "appropriate". Cynwolfe (talk) 17:10, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

See Old Style and New Style dates. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, words can have several different meanings depending on context. The context here is a "Manual of Style." Cynwolfe (talk) 17:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• Trying again, with no style:

• • The default is to represent year dates by one of BC/AD and BCE/CE (Common Era), both of which use the same Western Dionysian era numbering. The context of the article may suggest which is more appropriate.

Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• Tweaked it a little: The default is to represent year dates by either BC/AD or BCE/CE (Common Era), both of which use the same Western Dionysian era numbering. The context of the article may suggest which alternative is more appropriate. Mojoworker (talk) 02:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's less terse. Johnbod (talk) 03:01, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Support Mojoworker's wording of the first sentence, though we may not have a consensus on including a context advisory. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

What is "The context of the article may suggest which alternative is more appropriate" supposed to mean? In Australia especially there was a liberal push to use BCE for everything in all their schools a few years ago and it resulted in a larger outcry and backlash rejecting the change. So would BC be "more appropriate" for Australian topics? There is something about that tweak I don't like. The best solution I have seen is, go with the first-used format for most cases, stick with it, and if necessary put a "page note" above the editing box advising which one that is. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 03:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm inclined to think this can't be resolved. As soon as we introduce the element of "appropriate context," the guideline seems to be making a suggestion about which it is unhelpfully vague. (I'm the one who opened this can of worms, I confess, but I wanted to know whether the old consensus was still current consensus.) What would you think of The default is to represent year dates by either BC/AD or BCE/CE (Common Era), both of which use the same Western Dionysian era numbering. Either alternative may be appropriate, period? To my mind, Point 3 takes care of articles in which a change of era style may be desirable, allowing the decision to be made case-by-case through consensus among editors who watch the article. BTW, TIl Eulenspiegel, the guideline hasn't prescribed sticking to the original era style in a long time. That's what got me involved in the issue here. It used to be easy to deal with era crusaders by just pointing to the earliest diff in which an era designation had been introduced to the article, because the guideline said simply not to change from the original era style. At some point, "original" was changed to "established," which opened the door to arguing whether a style was established if it had existed for three months, or three years, or what. So here we are. Would anyone mind if I notified editors from the previous discussion about the current one? Some are perhaps not aware of it this time, and it may save us trouble to hear from them now. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Point 2

We should strike the "the" from " AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras", as they are not the only traditional ways (with the formal "In the Year of Our Lord" coming to mind as an obvious exception). Also, we can likely strike the "some" from "scholarly", as we are only claiming they are common, not uniform or even majority use, and across the wide category of scholarship the ones they are obvious in use in - history and religion - are primary ones for being concerned about dates. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

"Year of our Lord" isn't "formal", it's simply an increasingly archaic raw translation of "anno Domini". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

How about (the) traditional abbreviations of for these eras ?

Agree about striking 'some'. — kwami (talk) 04:51, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I would be fine with abbreviations for; abbreviations of an era would involve reducing the Common Era to 1983 through last Friday. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I endorse the deletion of the, but am wary of deleting some, for the obvious reason that some editors will start arguing about which style is more common, or pointing out that not all scholarly and religious writing uses BCE/CE, and so on. The some does no harm, despite its slight stylistic and logical ineptitude, and prevents that kind of pointless bickering. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

What about saying "used in some" rather than the awkward "common in some"? — kwami (talk) 22:22, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

What about: "In some scholarly and religious writing, CE and BCE are used instead"? Mojoworker (talk) 23:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the topic should be fronted. Makes for better flow; easier to follow. — kwami (talk) 00:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, might be better to get rid of the word 'common', and just say 'is used in some' etc. Agree with Kwami. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think removing "common" while keeping "some" waters the statement down too much. Much like "Lake Michigan–Huron is considered one lake in some hydrological senses", if you catch my drift Kwami. Maybe "the norm" instead of "used". Mojoworker (talk) 02:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Also true. I wouldn't use "the norm," though, because "norm" isn't really the right word when you're talking about style. How about "CE and BCE are standard in some scholarly and religious writing"? I'm not really comfortable with that diction, as I myself would say something more verbose like "BCE/CE has become standard usage in a significant body of scholarly and religious writing." Cynwolfe (talk) 13:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that "standard" is an improvement. The longer version seems fine as well, if a bit verbose. It might not be possible to be concise and still have the proper nuance to the phrasing. Mojoworker (talk) 16:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I like Cynwolfe's wording too. And do we really need to say "Either convention may be appropriate"? What does that add? Can we reduce "scholarly and religious" to "academic"? So,

AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras. CE and BCE are common in some scholarly and religious writing. Either convention may be appropriate.

might be,

AD and BC are the traditional abbreviations for the Dionysian era. CE and BCE are standard in a significant body of academic writing.

Or something like that. — kwami (talk) 19:26, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Are we still deleting "the"? Or was that a different "the"? If I understand the history of this issue correctly, the phrase scholarly and religious (which predates my involvement) was specified because BCE/CE can be found also in some non-secular writing by Christians for Christians. Which leads us to Either convention may be appropriate (notice that it's very deliberately may be, not is): this is related to the principle of "don't change without justification," defined as what's appropriate for the specific article. For a new article, the creator can choose either of these era conventions, because MOS doesn't prescribe the use of either one. In an existing article with an established era style, editors may raise the question of whether the chosen style is "appropriate," as defined by consensus achieved on the talk page. Justifying an era change requires an argument based on context, not a personal or general preference. We considered giving examples of acceptable justifications, and did some "test runs," but ultimately decided that it didn't matter. Either editors would work together with collegiality and arrive at a consensus to make a change, or they wouldn't. Defining "appropriate" or "justification" will always have to be specific to the article. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

"Standard" is wrong. Every field has, within English language publications, multiple books, journals, magazines, and often, audio-visual works. There are competing and overlapping scholarly societies. There are publications aimed at various audiences, from post-docs to elementary school students, with different styles. No one is in a position to set a standard. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

You may be confusing "standard" and "standardized". This is "standard" in the sense of "standard English," meaning "not something an editor would correct as illiterate or ungrammatical or an instance of bad usage; acceptable; not incorrect." Not "standardized," something that's been compelled to conform to a particular standard. A publisher generally has a stylebook: some academic publishers use BCE/CE as their standard usage; others might prescribe BC/AD; others might choose between the two, depending on the book or the author's wishes. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I could see that the work "standard" could be used to mean "not sub-standard English" but I don't think the context establishes that as the meaning. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between "standard" and "the standard", which suggests a more formal set of guidelines. Having said that, "standard", while I think ultimately accurate, is more arguable than "common". (And the keeping of "some" to avoid other arguments fails to reflect that you would and in fact have end up in arguments over "some".) --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:35, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

What if our work to survey the field results in a discovery that "some", "most", "many", "standard", or "normally" happens? It expires, and the MOS-compliant articles dutifully change style? Or what if our work to survey and poll then changes in another sample of texts later? Take more samples? Where could be the fruit of such (hard-earned) discovery of "the state of the literature out in the world"? That more articles are MOS-compliant? I think MoS compliance is wishful thinking, not critical thinking. — CpiralCpiral 01:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

BCE/CE's first sentence says "... is an alternative naming of the traditional calendar era" which it says is AD, so we don't risk much not saying anything. How about the second bullet this section just say

• Conventional usage in scholarly or religious writing, is either "AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ)", or "CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era)".

I'm leaving out "tradition" because it's in the link's first sentence for easy discovery. Similarly, I leave out the categorization of "era" because that point will be made somehow (probably) clear to our readers before this section's teaching of styles is over. By comparison we would risk the less-curious editor's missing things like that AD means "in the year of our Lord" (ala point 5), because it's deeper down in that BCE/CE article and relegated to a footnote. WP "featured content" demands the proper understanding so that e.g. "AD 106" is appropriate to context and end's discussions quickly; we are responsible for risking which important points to omit. — CpiralCpiral 01:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

That works for me. My only quibble is that CE doesn't really mean 'Common Era'. It's just 'Christian Era', the English translation of AD, and was coopted for 'Common Era'. So if we're going to expand the abbreviations we should give both: "CE (Common/Christian Era)". — kwami (talk) 03:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Since this is a style guideline, not an encyclopedia entry, we don't need to explain the eras and what they mean—we don't rehearse the history of the comma to provide MOS guidelines for its use. That's why elements are linked: those who want the encyclopedic explanation or historical background can follow the links to the articles. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

While technically true by logical parsing, that statement is too easily misinterpreted. If that wording is adapted, there needs to be an additional clause so that it reads something like: Conventional usage in scholarly or religious writing, depending on the religion, is either "AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ)", or "CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era)". Otherwise, an editor following those guidelines might mistakenly interpret that using BC/AD is an accepted style for writing about Judaism or Judaic history for example. Mojoworker (talk) 16:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not convinced that the use of AD is not accepted for writing about non-Christian religions, nor am I convinced the use of CE is not accepted for writing about Christianity. Editors have been looking for definitive guidance for years and not finding it; if you can prove your point, please do so. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

"Eras"

• The words "these eras" conflict with the reference to a single "era" in Point 1. I'm not sure what the correct noun is for something like the BC period, but we don't want the terminology to change from one sentence to the next. It also seems a odd to mention AD and CE ahead of BC and BCE when the rule is that you only always use BC/BCE where applicable, but only ever say AD/CE when it would avoid confusion. However, any attempt I make to rewrite it without doing that seems to come out worse. --142.205.241.254 (talk) 22:00, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Point by point conclusions by virtual committee tend to miss things like that for a day. Thanks. — CpiralCpiral 01:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Something like " AD BC and BC AD are the traditional ways of referring to these eras dates before and after the epoch" would be more in line with E. G. Richardson's treatment on page 589–590 of "Calendars" in the Explanatory Supplement to the Nautical Almanac (3rd ed., 2013). But if anyone wants to know exactly what we mean by epoch, the answer is rather hazy. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The proposed wording Conventional usage in scholarly or religious writing, is either AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ), or CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era) doesn't make sense. This needs to be several sentences if we do anything like this, e.g. While traditional usage has long been AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ), and this remains the convention in Christian religious writing as well as some current scholarship in that field, CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era)", as used in most other academic fields today, are preferred for all scientific, technical and academic topics on Wikipedia, and recommended for general usage here, including non-Christian religion articles, to avoid systemic bias. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I concur with the goal of this edit. I would simplify the opening sentence to While the traditional AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before Christ) remain the convention in Christian religious writing and are used in some current scholarship in that field[...] --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

"CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era)", as used in most other academic fields today, are preferred for all scientific, technical and academic topics on Wikipedia, and recommended for general usage here"? Are preferred by whom? Authors at large in the English speaking world? I challenge that idea; prove it. By Wikipedia editors? If that were true, we wouldn't need this guideline. As to avoiding systemic bias, there are a range of views on that, from the idea that few people think about the etymology of AD & BC and just think of them as a utilitarian way to designate years from the distant past, to the view that the use of the beginning of the life of Jesus as the epoch is so biased that no change in terminology can disguise the bias. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Any time MOS says "preferred" or "recommended" it means by MOS (i.e., consensus at WT:MOS). This is obviously implicit in how MOS is written. WP is not bound by what the average American or New Zealander or whoever does, so there is no need to "challenge" the imaginary straw man that anyone has suggested that CE/BCE are the most common usage. They are the most common usage in modern academic writing, which is incidentally what WP is on an important level, and they were adopted for several reasons, Christian bias (offensive to many non-Christians) being one of the most obvious (among others like relevance of one religious figure's supposed birth date to anything other than that religion, the fact that the actual birth date of Jesus is unknown to begin with, etc.) Per WP:SOAPBOX (and WP:DGAF), WP is not the place to make any case, pro or con with regard to the idea that the Western a.k.a. Gregorian calendar has to be abandoned because of its ultimately Christian derivation. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 01:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I do not believe "They [CE/BCE] are the most common usage in modern academic writing" and request proof. I also do not believe that Wikipedia editors as a group prefer CE/BCE for use in Wikipedia articles. Putting forward the idea that Wikipedia editors prefer CE/BCE for use in Wikipedia articles changes the nature of this discussion from the best way to word the existing consensus to establishing a new and different consensus. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:37, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I would also need serious proof before I believe that. In fact I do not believe that is the standard, and no proof has been offered at all. History2007 (talk) 19:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

A simple Google Scholar test prefers "100 BC" to "100 BCE" by 18,000 hits to 2950. Art LaPella (talk) 20:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Google ngrams does wonders. http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=BC%2BAD%2C+BCE%2BCE&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share= , BC and AD still dominate current usage by a substantial margin.

That is an ineffective search, because BC and AD can both show up for many other reasons besides year dating - initials, showing combinations and permutations, for example - and being closer to beginning of alphabet, more likely to show up for combination use than CE and being used for initial use less than the longer BCE. (this chart suggests that false positives are likely substantial in the results). Also, you've cut the end date at 2000; by including dates in this century, one finds that BC+AD has peaked and is dropping, BCE+CE is still rising. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Search terms are exact and case sensitive, and I'd be willing to bet that the instances of BC and AD showing up in a single book together and not representing the eras are statistically insignificant. And the fact that it is declining doesn't change the fact that it is still by far the predominant style. ReformedArsenal (talk) 15:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You may want to avoid doing much gambling, then. Ngrams shows that the majority of recent volumes that have BC and AD also have AB and AC. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:37, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose saying "CE/BCE are the most common usage in modern academic writing" given that no reference has been provided for it. History2007 (talk) 19:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support saying "AD and BC are the traditional ways of referring to these eras" History2007 (talk) 19:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose saying either format may be appropriate with no qualifier. That is no guideline if it does not give a guidance and an invitation for unending debate and reverts. Context will be needed, e.g. reflecting that articles on Judaism prefer CE, those on Christianity AD, etc. History2007 (talk) 19:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

In the discussion that produced these guidelines, I proposed adding may be appropriate, depending on context. Even that much failed to find consensus. Before that, there had been additional wording along the lines of BC/AD has Christian connotations that may be inappropriate for some topics. (Or something like that; I don't recall precisely.) I thought this was sufficient to sensitize editors to the issues without arriving at unprovable conclusions about "most common" usage and such. Eventually, I realized that Point 3 took care of this by allowing editors to make an article-by-article judgment, and that any effort to generate a guideline that could cover all conceivable scenarios was misguided. And of course, most articles won't need an era designation at all. My reason for participating here is simple: I work mostly in classical antiquity. Articles in that topic area are among the most likely to need an era designation, because the period "straddles" the era divide (see what I refer to as the "Plotinus exception"). Editors who contribute regularly within that content area were mighty tired of drive-by editing, when users campaigning for one style over the other used articles on classical antiquity as a battleground. These users often took no other interest in the articles, and were there only to make general arguments about creeping atheism or Christian dominion—none of which improved the articles a bit, while wasting time, energy, and goodwill. Hence my approach: what problems are we trying to solve? Let's locate the problems, and craft wording to address them. Where are the discussions in which obstinate users are preventing an editor from changing from BC/AD to BCE/CE in an article about (for instance) the history of a Muslim nation? From my perspective, based on the nearly 3,000 articles I watch (most dealing with classical antiquity), the current guidelines have prevented silly drive-by era edits that were intended only to "make a point," and don't prevent editors from saying "hey, this is an article about Jewish studies, is it OK if I change the era style to BCE/CE?" Cynwolfe (talk) 14:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - SMcCandlish, you're wrong about the popularity of CE/BCE. It's not "standard", "preferred" or even the majority in any field. Furthermore, the false assertion that AD/BC has been relegated to articles about Christianity would encourage the absurd misconception that BC/AD is the Christian way of writing dates rather than the English language way. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 01:02, 18 November 2012 (UTC))

Point 3

Re: "Having a personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change." Categorical preference is just fine in other situations, such as that American-themed articles get American spelling rather that British spelling. This comes across as saying that AD, with its specifically Christian connotations, should not be used on articles specifically about the Jewish religion would be categorical and thus not be a legitimate argument in discussion, when it seems quite appropriate. Thus, I suggest we eliminate the "and categorical" part of this statement. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. And delete 'Having' while we're at it. — kwami (talk) 23:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. (Except that deleting "having" is good.) The example given is not a categorical preference: it's specific to the article. It says "this article pertains to Jewish studies, and it would be more in keeping with scholarly usage to avoid AD/BC." A categorical justification is "BC/AD should never be used with Jewish subject matter." Omitting "categorical preference" would mean that someone could argue that all articles about classical antiquity should be changed to BCE/CE because the time material predated the use of BC/AD, and then could go about disrupting hundreds of articles where active contributors prefer to use BC/AD. That's what we're trying to avoid in emphasizing consensus among those who watch the article. The guidelines were a response to campaigners who went around saying "I'm changing this to BC/AD as a protest against atheist creep" or "I'm changing this to BCE/CE to protest Christian dominion." Those kinds of time-wasting, draining arguments have stopped since the implementation of these guidelines, at least in the articles I watch. An editor who wants to make a change has to make an argument specific to the article, such as "This article deals with the history of a Muslim country, and BC/AD is not used in mainstream scholarship from the last 30 years that's cited here. It would be more appropriate to use BCE/CE." DItto with "personal" below: you can't say "Jesus Christ is not my lord, so I'm changing this to BCE/CE." Discussions in which participants say things like that have not proved fruitful in the past. The exclusion of "personal and categorical" is meant to keep focus on the content of the article at hand. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with having a categorical preference. Our guidelines code in many categorical preferences. The statement "this article pertains to Jewish studies, and it would be more in keeping with scholarly usage to avoid AD/BC" is a categorical statement because the BC/BCE is used in the category of Jewish Studies. Statements that things are being done in protest are already against other guidelines. We would do better to forestall such conflicts by creating common-sense guidelines within the style guide than by taking a "whatever was put first was right" question and pretending it really makes no difference when to many, it does. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what problem you're trying to solve. Are there raging discussions out there right now involving editors who want to change BC/AD to BCE/CE in articles pertaining to Islamic or Jewish studies, but who can't because other editors refuse consent? And if there are, have the participants made an RfC, or sought any outside input? As I say elsewhere, since the current wording was established, I haven't seen any of these era wars breaking out on my watchlisted pages. The pages I watch often use era designations because of the "Plotinus exception"—that is, they deal with classical antiquity, and switch back and forth a lot between BC/BCE and CE/AD. I used to see long and pointless discussions that got nowhere because they didn't focus on the good of the article. They were about imposing categorical or personal preferences. That's how I got involved in this. If you open a discussion on the era style, and nobody responds within a reasonable amount of time (I'd say a week), then you have tacit consensus to change to an era style you feel is more appropriate. But if you can't even find consensus within a single article, you're far less likely to find consensus on universally applicable guidelines. There is no consensus that BCE/CE should universally replace BC/AD. You know that from previous discussions. The guidelines allow you to make changes based on the content of the article. What's stopping you from doing that? Sincere question. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

There are editors currently who are reluctant to try to make changes because of the long discussions that would result due to the lack of clear guidelines. I see the guidelines on American vs. British spelling and how that cuts down the hassle involved in aligning such articles. Consensus can and does change, and if the main argument for not categorically endorsing BCE/CE is that there was not a previous consensus for it. A decision in discussion here can simplify discussions in hundreds of other places, and I think make for a better encyclopedia. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

So in other words, you can't identify any problems the current wording might be causing. Who are these editors? How do you know of their existence? What articles do they want to change? Cynwolfe (talk) 22:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

First off Cynwolfe, if you wish to try to move things forward, may I suggest that you drop the smug and condescending tone? Pretending that I hadn't identified a problem and then asking me for more details about the problem I noted does not serve matters. I am among those editors, and have heard similar views from others. I cannot point you to all the articles that I wished to change, I did not maintain a list, I have danced the BC/BCE dance in various ways in the past, sometimes successfully, but it is tiring and discouraging even in those instances. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You misread my tone. These are sincere questions. I honestly don't know what problem you're trying to solve. I haven't seen a single example of an editor who's requested an era change and been shouted down after the adoption of the above guidelines. Can you identify one or two articles that you feel should have the era style changed, so that we can see why the change can't be made? That will help us understand how to craft wording that addresses the problem. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

While we're waiting for examples to the contrary, I would point to Talk:The Exodus#Era as an indication that the current guidelines are effective in promoting civil discussions that can lead to a consensus for a specific article. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Except that that entry is not largely where the discussion took place, it was primarily in s/Archive_7#BC_vs._BCE an earlier entry that is referred to there, where you will see there is genuine (if civil) question as to what the appropriate way to decide this was because there was not guidance in the guidelines... and the closest that the entry you point to comes to invoking the guideline is discussion of what was the earliest version, and that was clearly not what ultimately formed the decision to change. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Right: the participants were able to engage in a civil discussion and arrive at a consensus for changing the era style to the convention that editors thought was more appropriate to the article. That's the goal. The guidelines assume that editors are capable of thinking through the connotations an era style might have in context and of arriving at a reasonable consensus. The guidelines are meant to support a collegial environment of collaborative editing aimed at what's best for the article. They are not meant to provide fodder for wikilawyering. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That said, I didn't feel the process was finished last time, and I personally felt that the last sentence (under Point 2) should've read Either convention may be appropriate, depending on context. But I couldn't get support for that, even though I didn't want to dictate to anyone what "context" might mean. So that's why I would like to see current examples of unresolvable era debates: I'm simply unaware of any that have been rancorous under these guidelines, or where good arguments for change have been shouted down because other disputants are on a campaign for one style over another. I'm happy to revisit wording to address actual problems. If no problems exist, I oppose changes that may restart the wars. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:15, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I simply don't agree that absence of rancor and civility are the goal; they are certainly fine things, but the guidelines exist for more than civility. Reasonable goals for these guidelines include to help generate a quality encyclopedia, and to help answer editors questions and thus simplify their effort. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Nat, that is not what I said. I said editors were able to reach consensus about what was appropriate for that article. That's the goal. That they were able to do so civilly contributes to the overall collegial environment that makes consensus and collaboration possible. Again, if you can show examples where editors are currently unable to reach a consensus about what which style is appropriate, then we can see why the current guidelines don't work. But we have to be fixing a problem that actually exists. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:26, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

And again, you're insisting that whatever you say is the goal, and acting as though any other concerns should be ignored. I happen to think that guidelines that actually give guidance that can spare editors some effort is a good goal. I happen to think that quality in some various forms is a goal. I happen to think that uniformity on some level actually has a value. And you point to one discussion in which the decision was made on a criterion of dubious propriety, which was only effectively used because the person who put it forth was counting on it favoring his side (or at least no one noticing that it hadn't), in which the resolution was made by my having to put the effort in to research the content of a string of references, and which likely only ended in its second round because one of the previous objecting editors was just disappearing from Wikipedia, and in which you cannot show that the extant guidelines provided the least bit of help, where help from a guideline might have been both expected and desirable. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:51, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

And again, it seems to me the guidelines worked because the change was made. Collaboration and consensus can indeed be cumbersome, but that's the nature of the project, isn't it? Anyway, if you can't find any active era debates we could look at, could you perhaps provide three or four articles where the style needs to be changed? Above you said there are editors reluctant to try to change era style. I'm not at all reluctant to make appropriate changes. Give me a couple of articles to try, and we'll see what kind of problems arise. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe try Category:Ancient languages. — kwami (talk) 02:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The first one I happened upon needed copyediting: it had an inconsistent style and used an era designation when one was unneeded, so I did this. It also seems useful to keep in mind that era designations can often be omitted. (As I said above, an era designation is regularly needed in overview articles about ancient Rome, because you're jumping around a lot from the 2nd century BC/BCE to the 2nd century AD/CE.) The GA Biblical Hebrew uses the BC/AD convention, as you know. It also straddles the eras throughout, so it needs a designation, but here's what's interesting: on the talk page, editors use BCE/CE, and yet throughout an intensive, brainy, civil discussion, no one proposed changing era usage in the article. I don't know what that means, but it makes it more difficult to find articles that "need" an era change. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:31, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If Biblical Hebrew is a triumph of the guidelines, then the guidelines are in sad shape indeed. The article was in BCE - and if we can say BCE is particularly appropriate for any articles, this would certainly be among them. But it was a victim of one of the "drive-by" edits that this set of guidelines was supposed to stop. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Nat, you need to stop twisting what others are saying. I was wondering why, since participants on the talk page used BCE/CE, the article itself used BC/AD. That's all. The edit you point to clearly contradicts the guidelines, which required prior discussion. I don't know why editors who watch that page didn't object. No guideline can prevent an edit. It can only provide grounds for reverting an inappropriate edit, which that one seems to have been. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:46, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

It's a common chorus and theme best fit into the section as a whole as a footer:

• Do not change an established and consistent style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Maintain article consistency in abbreviating. Seek consensus on the talk page before making many "obvious" corrections. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era" or "eon". Briefly state the reason. Personal reasons are usually not justification.

This covers many related points in a final paragraph that experienced users can ignore at the end of their crash or refresher course. — CpiralCpiral 01:21, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

We don't need "eon" in there. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Violation of this with regard to eras is a common problem & a brief reiteration within WP:ERA will help make edit summaries referring to WP:ERA meaningful.--JimWae (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Personal reasons are never a reason to make an era change: how could they be? Is there any other guideline anywhere on WP that would permit an editor to make a content change based on personal feelings? Cynwolfe (talk) 14:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

"Personal" strikes me as a form of "I don't like it." Cynwolfe (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Also on Point 3 - it should be moved to after point 7, both because we should establish the concept of saying that an article has a style before saying it shouldn't be changed, and because we should be talking about how to do things before we talk about how not to do things (accentuate the positive, as it were.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• The purpose of Point 3 is to forestall era campaigning. Editors requested that it be made prominent, because one of the goals was to stop drive-by editing of the era by users who otherwise contributed nothing to the article and took no further interest in it. It was intended to support content-generators and maintainers from having to deal with era warriors. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm an editor and a content generator, and I'm making a contrary request. But if we are to keep Point 3 toward the top, then point 7 should be moved before it, for reasons stated above. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:55, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Although I'm unclear about the relevance of your self-identification, I agree that Points 3 and 7 are complementary and should appear next to each other. As I said, editors felt that one of the main purposes of WP:ERA was to prevent drive-by era editing, so they wanted Point 3 higher and more prominent in the list. Point 7 could be moved up to follow it directly. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:02, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Cynwolfe, the fact that the people who made the request before were editors does not therefor make the request carry special wait; the people who are suggesting it should be moved to the end are also editors, and we are folks who, working today and looking at the situation as it stands, feel that it should be moved. That a decision was made in the past does not inherently prevent it from being reexamined and adjusted today or in the future; that as an inherent part of Wikipedia. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I have been an editor for some time, & I still want WP:ERA to prominently feature a statement about not changing era notation w/o establishing a new consensus first.--JimWae (talk) 23:28, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree strongly. Paul August ☎ 20:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Me too. Isn't this is the main problem we are supposed to solve here? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Would maintaining the statement in bold, while positioning it further down in the section, serve your desire for prominence? --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Point 3.5?

The implicitly understood and established practice all these years has been that, if someone does do what it says not to do in 'point 3', i.e. changes from one system to another without discussion, then he or she may be summarily reverted to the previous status quo, without prejudice to the reverter.

Should this be spelled out? (To make it more obvious that you can't unilaterally change from one to the other in this fashion, and then accuse those who are reverting you of being the edit warriors) Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 18:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted several era edits since the current guidelines went into effect ("current" meaning the guidelines that are the subject of this RfC), and so far I haven't been confronted after reverting and leaving an edit summary that says something like "Please review WP:ERA and open a discussion on the talk page." The vast majority of editors are simply not aware of the (perhaps unique?) requirement to discuss first, and don't push it once it's pointed out. But I seem to recall that your point was raised in the last discussion, along with the issue of consistency: if two different styles have crept into the article, it may be sticky to determine which is established, but if the editor can do so, there's no obligation to discuss before copyediting for consistency. So when an IP made this edit, I left documentation on the talk page. It may well be that reverting when no consensus has been sought, and editing for consistency, aren't addressed clearly enough. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Point 5

The prefixed "AD 102" format (Point 5) should never be used outside of a biblical context, and not even in biblical archaeology, as the scientific community consistently standardized on suffixed style for all four of these at least 2 generations ago. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

• Disagree with this assertion. Because of its meaning, AD is traditionally placed before the year. The fact that the opposite has become commonplace doesn't make the correct way incorrect, nor should it be grounds for attempting to enforce conformity with what's perceived to be "recent" or "modern" style. Changing point 5 as suggested would change the otherwise neutral tone of the guideline by stating a strict preference for one style. If some change is desired, I'd suggest something along the lines of Cynwolfe's introductory explanation, such as, "traditionally, AD is placed before the year. However, in recent times it has become increasingly common to place it after the year." P Aculeius (talk) 13:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• I can prove this is wrong. The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac 3rd ed. (University Science Books, 2013) was prepared by HM Nautical Almanac Office and the the United States Naval Observatory and uses the style A.D. 1 throughout chapter 15 (in addition to astronomical year numbering. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• Disagree per P Aculeius.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 02:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

• Disagree The "scientific community" are not arbiters of the English language. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 00:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC))

Would this suggested wording improve the advice about units in UK articles?

I think the advice on units in UK articles could be improved with a relatively small change in the wording.

• There is no real guidance on when Imperial units can be put first. The phrase in some contexts does not explain what these contexts might be.

Here is a suggested revision of the wording. The changed words are bolded:

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit is generally a metric unit (44 kilogram (97 lb)), but imperial units can be put first when this is the usage in the source documents, for instance:
  • miles, miles per hour, and fuel consumption in miles per imperial gallon;
  • feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight;
  • imperial pints for draught beer/cider and bottled milk.

What do other editors think? Michael Glass (talk) 09:05, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Not sure. Maybe 'especially when'? I worry though that people may take the reason as s.t. that should be done, rather than simple allowance. We don't need to use imperial just because our sources do, unless we'd loose s.t. by conversion to metric. — kwami (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Since geography is a science, (the first sentence in the article Geography reads "Geography ... is the science ...". Therefore under the MOSNUM, US and customary units are not required. There is however a convention that for geography-related artcicles, that imperial/customary units be included. If an article starts acquyiring many statistics, it might be appropriate to drop the conversion, or, as an alternaitve, we could look at using metric units only and having a standard template entitled "Common geographic unit conversions" similar to template:common metric prefixes. Martinvl (talk) 11:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

That change is going to cause arguments over which source documents are to be classed as the more reliable and allow people to selectively choose which source they use to get the units in the order that they think should be placed first. Better to avoid referring to source documents altogether and may be refer to common usage. Also may be good to include some wording to cover the timeframe of the article where you would not use metric first for articles relating pre-20th century UK. Keith D (talk) 11:54, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

If we can identify the units used in the primary sources from which the secondary sources obtained their information, then we should be using the units as per the primary sources. For example, it is common knowledge (and I am not going to try to define that term) that the United Kingdom has using metric unit for surveying purposes since about 1970 and maybe even back to 1938 when the National Grid was introduced, therefore anything that is likely to have been derived from post-1970 surveys should be quoted in metric units. Martinvl (talk) 20:07, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I think this is the wrong way to go. IMO there are two reasons to use imperial: ENGVAR, and because conversion would cause distortions. The era shouldn't matter. — kwami (talk) 20:17, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

UK usage of units is so mixed (and so controversial with some) that there is no easy formula for deciding which unit should go first. Look at the variety of concerns expressed in this thread.

• Conversions cause distortions (so follow the sources).
• Drop the conversions in geographical articles because Geography is a science.
• A rule to follow the sources will lead to source-shopping.
• Better to follow common usage.
• Historical references should use the old units.
• Strictly follow the original sources for information when they use Imperial for ENGVAR rules and also to avoid distortions.

I actually believe that following the sources (whether metric or imperial) would answer most of these concerns, and though there could be some source shopping by enthusiasts I think that this would tend to be self-correcting, as the best sources are usually pretty obvious (and they don't always come down on the side of metrics or of imperial measures). As for the matter of common usage, the best test of usage is to observe what people actually use and follow that.

However, all of this is speculation. I can see that my proposal has not achieved consensus. The present wording might be vague, but at least it has achieved consensus, so I'll leave it at that for the time being. Michael Glass (talk) 23:04, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the proof is in the application, and we wouldn't know that unless we made the change. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Before and after

I feel like there was something wrong that just occurred, but I don't want to rush. Kwamikagami changed the work I had patiently discussed and researched and integrated into the wiki. In a day, Kwamikagami obliterated what is a conservative version five weeks in the making with untold hours of carefully crafted and subtle updates to technology, terminology and news of debates in the field, relevant to past discussions, coordinated with with template val, WP:MOSINTRO, the articles Earth, Mya, Bya and other related articles, with redirects, and on this talk page. I am Cpiral (talk · contribs). Kwamikagami is Kwamikagami (talk · contribs). Please see our styles, our substance, and our contributions, then see the events here and on the project page over the last few days, and help me decide if my biases are unfounded. As always, I am open to discussion and change about the version I crafted, but first, I want it back where it belongs, and I want discussions to proceed a little more carefully. Happy sleuthing! — CpiralCpiral 18:59, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Read WP:BOLD. This is especially important to follow with guidelines.

I tried merely correcting the grammar and incoherence of your version, and you reverted me. It looked as if you didn't even bother to proof-read your edits. It really is important to have good style in a style guideline, whatever its substance. As I said when I restored the consensus version, the substance of some of your changes may have been improvements. Why don't you propose the changes you want here, as we're doing above? — kwami (talk) 20:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Truth be told, I was going with your bold flow. Was, that is, until at some point, it got too fast and furious. And I am thankful to have someone just like you make callings forth. Let's just see how your boldness changes my things in a 'round about way that just works:

Year numbering systems measure age and duration over historic, geologic, and cosmic time. Conventional terminology pairs "AD" (Anno Domini) with "BC" (Before Christ), or it pairs "CE" (Common Era) with "BCE" (Before the Common Era). The latter is common in scholarly and religious writing, but is less traditional. Either is an appropriate choice.

• BC and AD, BCE and CE are written in upper case, no abbreviation points (full points).
  • Where AD is found before the number, the Latin "... in the year of the Lord" is being expressed, Reforms were mandated in AD 106. Placed after the number AD is more like a unit of measurement than an abbreviation.
  • The others appear after the number as in 106 CE, and 3700 BCE, and 3700 BC.
• Use CE or AD mostly to avoid confusion

• in reference: He did not become king until 55 CE, where CE (or AD) clarifies "55" does not refer to his age.
• in context of other calendars and their abbreviations.
• At some point in the timescale of a subject, the date or century may become ambiguous without CE or AD: The Norman Conquest took place in 1066 not "1066 CE" or "1066 AD", but Plotinus was a philosopher living at the end of the 3rd century AD. Dates around the first century are usually ambiguous, and around the tenth are not.

• Use a non-breaking space between the number and the unit. Terms like "14 mya BCE" will require two, or use {{nowrap}}.

A set of abbreviations indicating a long interval of time depends on the audience. For scientific and academic subjects and where long time intervals are mentioned frequently, spelling-out "X years ago", or "X years" can become trite, although the British Museum has allowed the spelling-out of the many. If abbreviations are chosen as content for an article, they will be one of two sets:

• ka, Ma, Ga (annum "year") are the Greek and Latin abbreviations "kilo-annum" (10³), "Mega-annum" (10⁶) and "Giga-annum" (10⁹) quantity of years; "years" is implied, but "ago" must be made explicit in the text, The Cretaceous started 65 Ma ago and ended 145 Ma ago, lasting for 80 Ma, so do not use the three-letter Gya, Mya, or kya forms. This set is compact and efficient, for use in the more obscure topics.
• kyr, myr, byr (years), kya, mya, bya (years ago) abbreviate thousands, millions and billions of years ago; nothing need be implied, and it is in English. These six abbreviations are for either plain or scholarly exposition. (Berkeley has allowed them.) For increased readability prefer two or even four of these, even when the other set's one or two abbreviations might suffice for the entire article.

• For directly quoted abbreviations use a square-bracketed editor's note to match the article style. For example an article that would normally use bya would quote "The galaxy formed 4.5 Ga [billion years ago]".

• BP (years Before Present), means years before January 1, 1950. Do not spell it out as before present, or years before the present or years before 1950. BP implies the date is calibrated. If the date is uncalibrated use the abbreviation ¹⁴C yr BP. We write The varve samples averaged 4.5 ka BP and The varve samples averaged 2.3 ka ¹⁴C yr BP.

The abbreviations used in cosmic and geologic timescales are uncommon, and the Greek and Latin ones are more obscure.

• Introduce each abbreviation as soon as convenience permits in the article. In the lead it is spelled out followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis: 14 billion years ago (Ga); otherwise use the abbreviation directly, but gloss: 100 Ma ago (million years ago). The same glossing is used for either set of abbreviations.
• Introduce once. While text leveling an abbreviation style remember that an abbreviation's original intent is to minimize itself, and that a mouseover can serve to gloss mya, myr, bya, and byr when those are linked by the redirects that are spelled out.
• {{Val}} simplifies the styling of numbers, spacing, and markup, and it can link the abbreviation (and in a way that provides the helpful mouseover information).

Do not change an established and consistent style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Maintain article consistency in abbreviating. Seek consensus on the talk page before making many "obvious" corrections. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era" or "eon". Briefly state the reason. Personal reasons are usually not justification.

Read readability. Tear it up: 31 Sentences, 738 words, 4456 characters. (The current version (taken from Longer periods and Era style is 23 Sentences 689 words, and 4170 characters.) Consider also that the old (too?) civil debates (Categorical BC/BCE standardization and Era-change justification) dragged (patiently?) heavily on for 18,735 lines and were largely unfruitful except for (my take of course): In my opinion this "AD and CE" and all these discussions should become more highly focused than ever about style much more than content. It is a futile (but well-meaning) intension to debate a water-tight and flame-proof extension to guide editors. The old discussions seem mostly about MoS-Jesus and MoS-religion, but shows to be largely unfruitful:

• "either AD or BCE may be appropriate" came out of the embroilment
• all hectoring about "endorsement" and "offensiveness" by Nat Gertler, Kwami and Peter Coxhead and Dougweller were just lost to posterity
• AD means "in the year of our Lord". So what? I'll tell you: know your Greek and Latin when you publish a featured article.
• Mojoworker wanted to "minimize conflict" and "pass the buck" to WikiProjects to decide content. Yes!
• Don't change the article style without discussion. Ahem. That stuck.
• "The topic of the article should be taken under consideration." No! Nope on a visual survival of that.
• Year numbering systems need to remind editors to use non-breaking spaces for the units. (Thanks Art LaPella.)
• Surviving ideas by Cynwolfe, Jc35h and WP editor 2011: they "campaigned" against the inconsideration of those making the article content, and for the contributors original viewpoints of AD or CE, and for the monitoring for the consistency of it there, and for consistency of style everywhere, a pattern, an aesthetic.
• "exploring a test case" (Coastline) was never done, and rightly because we are not politicians taking surveys or polls of world lit. — CpiralCpiral 22:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

There are at least as many more lines I've pondered elsewhere. Final resolution for me: MoS stands as volunteers, and we have no time or place for conferences, committees and bureaus to gerrymander terminology's religio-political course (much less considering every possible edit-war and POV battle of content). Except we can, as publishing the content of a manual of a style, list notable styles and terminology in the most general way fully and creatively packed with ideas and descriptions and explanations, and we can decide on a style that is spacing, glossing, capitalization and abbreviations. I hope I have done that above. And oh, the content of our MoS remember (most of the results of all our talk and it's outcome) has little effect on most of the ground, except to head-off edit-warring. Thanks for reading. — CpiralCpiral 22:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Sports seasons: 1967–68, not 1967/68

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The MOSNUM currently says:

• Year ranges, like all ranges, are normally separated by an en dash, not a hyphen or slash: 2005–06 (unspaced) is a two-year range, whereas 2005/06 is a period of 12 months or less, such as a sports season or a financial year.

Emphasis added. I was rather astonished to see this. In my experience the notation of a hyphen or en dash (according to style) covers both types of ranges. Furthermore, it seems that a majority of Wikipedia contributors agree. Look at all of these, and in many cases, also the titles of every article linked from them:

• List of NHL seasons
• List of NBA seasons
• Cricket season
• Template:1994–1995 in figure skating
• List of Law & Order episodes
• List of The Mary Tyler Moore Show episodes

In searching for lists likely to contain examples, the only places I found the / notation used was some articles about Australian sports, although most seasons there seem to be named by a single calendar year.

Rather than change a large number of articles, I think the MOS should be changed to accept either notation in cases such as a sports or TV season. (I have little experience with fiscal years; perhaps they should follow different rules.) --142.205.241.254 (talk) 21:27, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a good convention to follow. — kwami (talk) 22:09, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Which "it"? Are you advocating changing a large number of articles? --142.205.241.254 (talk) 22:14, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Per the MOS. There was some discussion of this, and it was generally agreed that a slash was more appropriate here. However, it looks as though it was never implemented. Not sure what would be the best way forward at this point. — kwami (talk) 22:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

It is also used in all of the football articles. Personally I think that the MOS should be revisited as there is no distinction between the two meanings in practice. May be someone could give links to previous discussion on the subject. Keith D (talk) 00:47, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason for the difference is, how else would you indicate a span of football seasons? A slash is the prescriptions in New Hart's and CMOS. For example, "The fiscal years 2005/6–2009/10 were encouraging in several respects." You wouldn't want to write it "years 2005–2006–2009–2010"! You could of course spell it out "years 2005/6 to 2009/10", but it would be confusing with dashes as "years 2005–2006 to 2009–2010". — kwami (talk) 04:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The MOS makes sense, for the reasons given here as well as there. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Greetings from WP:FOOTBALL - our last discussion on the matter is here and I doubt much has changed since then. GiantSnowman 12:57, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

That discussion is about xxxx–xxxx vs xxxx–xx, not about whether dashes or slashes should be used for seasons (apart from an aside by one editor). — kwami (talk) 18:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Look more closely... GiantSnowman 18:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

"You wouldn't want to write it "years 2005–2006–2009–2010"!" No, and you wouldn't. For sports seasons you could write it "2005–06 – 2009–10", or "from 2005–2006 to 2009–10" or in some cases just use the relevant calendar dates. The en dash is better because the the slash implies "one or the other" instead of "from...to". Is there a strong need for financial years and sporting seasons to have the same style? If not, financial years could retain the slash, while making the en dash the recommended style for sporting seasons. --Jameboy (talk) 13:36, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI, American professional basketball, college basketball, and professional hockey seasons overlap calender years. WP:NBA, WP:College basketball, and WP:NHL uniformly use the "1998–99" format to represent a single season in main body text. Articles for most other American college sports, few of which are represented by their own active WikiProjects, follow the American college basketball precedent to the extent the sports have seasons that overlap calender years. American professional football and college football play their entire regular seasons within a single calender year, although their playoffs and bowl games are often played in January and February of the following year. WP:NFL and WP:CFB uniformly reference American football seasons using the year of the regular season and do not employ the "1998–99" format. When player tenures are referenced in infoboxes in shorthand text, the player tenure spans are formatted as "(1998–1999)," where 1998 and 1999 represent two different seasons, not parts of the same season overlapping calender years. As for the problem of referencing multiple season spans in text where the seasons overlap calender years, the proper way to reference such a span would be "1998–99 to 2010–11"; something like "1998/99–2010/11" is inconsistent, awkward and confusing. This latter example should provide a cautionary anecdote supporting the basic rule that one should never attempt to do with a dash what is more properly done with a preposition. Shorthand notations such as "Eisenhower served 1953–1961" are almost always better written as "Eisenhower served from 1953 to 1961." As usual, the better solution is to simply write out fully the intended meaning in main body text, rather than relying on abbreviated notation and creating unnecessary and confusing rules to interpret the unclear meaning of the abbreviated notation. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I might also add that this should serve as yet another red flag to editors who make such changes to the MOS without widespread consultation with the editors and WikiProjects who use such notational conventions on a daily basis. Very few editors monitor MOS for these sorts of changes. In this case, we now have an MOS section which contradicts the actual consensus usage of the overwhelming majority of editors. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:54, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe the use of the slash in dates is pretty rare in the US. If this is convention in Australia and Europe, then I would support amending MOS to allow either. Rikster2 (talk) 14:25, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The slash is not used in my neck of the woods either - and I'm a Limey. We use dashes over at the Brit/Euro-dominated WP:FOOTBALL. GiantSnowman 14:31, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec)Yeah it was my understanding that 1967/68 was a European convention. I would treat it as an ENGVAR type situation in the policy. -DJSasso (talk) 14:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Side comment (by the original poster at a different IP address): actually, "the use of slash in dates" is pretty common in the US, just not this use. A date like July 20, 1969, is quite commonly written 7/20/69 or 7/20/1969. Obviously that's irrelevant to WP style, but it might be a reason why some people react badly to 2005/06 meaning 2005–06. --50.100.189.5 (talk) 09:54, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I don't disagree slashes in that context are common. However, in discussing split years/seasons it is not common at all (which was the context of the discussion, so I didn't try to spell that out). Rikster2 (talk) 14:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

As Rikster said completely agree that slashes in that context are common in North America. But that is a completely different situation than what is being described here. -DJSasso (talk) 14:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't see ranges of seasons as a big deal; they come up rarely enough that one can write "from 1998–99 through 2010–11" or similar forms if a simple "1998–2011" is insufficiently clear in the context. I still feel that the dash should be allowed, with ENGVAR type rules as Djsasso says. --142.205.241.254 (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

There's Yogi Bear, which ran in 2 yrs, 1961–1962, and for 2 seasons, 1961 and 1961/62. — kwami (talk) 05:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Kwami, I'm not sure if you are attempting to make light of this messy situation or make a serious point. A quick review of Yogi Bear and The Yogi Bear Show articles does not support your somewhat vague assertion. There are no season-specific article for any of the multiple incarnations of the Yogi Bear cartoons. Even if there were, (a) there would be no problem identifying those two seasons as the "1961 Yogi Bear season" and "1961–62 Yogi Bear season," (b) a singular instance of the Yogi Bear cartoon's single split season would be a very odd precedent to cite for the naming of literally hundreds of American and British sports articles.

MOS works best when it tracks the established majority/consensus practices of Wikipedia editors. The use of the slashed dates is a virtually non-existent practice in the United States, and appears to be a decidedly minority practice elsewhere (perhaps most commonly used in financial reports to represent fiscal years split between two calendar years). Establishing a local consensus at an obscure MOS talk page, or worse yet, changing an obscure MOS provision with no real consensus, either of which impacts the established names of literally hundreds of articles which have real consensus on their side, is just goofy. Once again, we see evidence of someone attempting to impose "English as they wish it to be" at MOS, not "English as it actually is." MOS is not intended to be a mechanism for the reform of standard stylistic practices, even though some MOS regulars seem to believe otherwise. The guidelines of WP:CONSENSUS specifically state:

"Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.

"Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of articles. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change. Changes may be made without prior discussion, but they are subject to a high level of scrutiny. The community is more likely to accept edits to policy if they are made slowly and conservatively, with active efforts to seek out input and agreement from others."

The emphasis above is mine. This little noted change to MOS regarding slashed dates is now receiving that "high level of scrutiny" mentioned above in WP:CONSENSUS. Here, we have another example of an obscure MOS change, with potential wide-ranging impact on hundreds of article titles and contrary to established practices, made without any real discussion of the consequences and without notice to the editors and Wikiprojects most knowledgeable and most impacted. By its very nature Wikipedia consensus is a bottom-up concept; however, there are regular participants at MOS who believe that consensus is a top-down process. This is a very real problem. You cannot expect voluntary compliance with minority practices imposed on the majority. This only leads to further inevitable controversy. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with most of the above, but would like to add a comment on scale. I'd conservatively estimate that tens of thousands of article titles would be affected if the use of slashes were enforced. Conceivably as many as 100,000. The Football season task force alone has 14,000 articles, most of which would have a relevant title format. Hockey probably rivals football in terms of the number of season articles – and I have yet to even consider other sports and non-sporting articles. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 16:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The various basketball projects have about the same. Just a side note, I went looking for examples of the use of the slash to denote split years/seasons (fiscal, television, sports) outside of Wikipedia and have found very, very few examples of this usage (largely American sources). No way this should be the de facto standard, and I am coming to the place where I want to see its consistent usage somewhere in the real world to think it should be kept at all. Rikster2 (talk) 16:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

@ Dirtlawyer: Yogi Bear was an example I threw out there for consideration. It's not alone. There are shows with a 1971 season, a 1971/72 season, and a 1972 season, for example, so that 1971–1972 shows covers three seasons, but 1971/72 shows covers one. Whether you see that as notable is up to you, but I thought it should be mentioned. — kwami (talk) 18:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The overwhelming consensus for American sports and academics, both on Wikipedia and in reliable outside sources, is to use an endash, not a slash. The MOS should be amended to reflect that. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:16, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The same consensus exists for all relevant association football articles - as stated earlier, in thousands of article titles. GiantSnowman 20:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposed wording

This is the original poster at a different IP address.

Okay, it looks to me as though there is sufficient consensus here to change the MOSNUM to allow both styles. To repeat, the existing wording is:

• Year ranges, like all ranges, are normally separated by an en dash, not a hyphen or slash: 2005–06 (unspaced) is a two-year range, whereas 2005/06 is a period of 12 months or less, such as a sports season or a financial year.

I suggest:

• Year ranges, like all ranges, are normally separated by an en dash (unspaced), not a hyphen or slash: 2005–06.
• A slash may alternatively be used to express a period of 12 months or less that spans two calendar years, such as a sports season or financial year: the 2005/06 season. One style should be used consistently within an article, and also within a series of articles whose titles each incorporate a season. An established style should not be changed without consensus.

Does that cover it?

--50.100.189.5 (talk) 04:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

No, it definitely does not. The present consensus of actual usage throughout Wikipedia is that "2010–11" is used to signify a sports season spanning two calendar years. A little known, and little discussed change was introduced into the MOS regarding the use of slashes to signify one sports season overlapping two calendar years. This is a minority practice in the real world, largely limited to financial reports in some regions of the English-speaking world. Its use for sports seasons, and most other circumstances, is practically non-existent. Your proposal and the editor who introduced the original change are trying to solve a problem that does not exist. The overwhelming majority, both in this discussion and in actual usage throughout Wikipedia, is that the words "2010–11 season" mean exactly that. No slash is needed, nor does its introduction serve to clarify anything for the reader. If the use of "2011–11" is not sufficiently clear in context, then the full expression "2010–11 season" may be used. We are not going to change the titles of tens of thousands of sports season articles, with perhaps hundreds of thousands of instances of the existing usage in athlete biographies, team and championship articles, simply because one or two MOS editors think that it would be a better idea to introduce the decidedly minority practice of using slashes instead. Frankly, given the complete lack of evidence of the usage of slashes in the real world, I don't even think that slashes should be permitted as an alternative for anything other than (perhaps) financial reports—and how often do they form the basis of an article title on Wikipedia?

The needed change to the MOS must reflect that "2010–11" is the existing consensus practice for defining sports seasons. We do not need to sanction the minority practice for such usage, even as a permitted alternative; that will only introduce a potential flashpoint for future controversy in contradiction of the well-established consensus usage for the naming of sports articles. The sports Wikiprojects don't use it and don't want it. Frankly, I'm not even sure any reference to the slash usage in other circumstances should survive at all, and that's the only thing that has kept me from editing the applicable MOS provision myself. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:02, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

User 50.100.189.5, I have changed the MOS provision to reflect the talk page consensus here and the consensus of actual usage in sports articles throughout Wikipedia, i.e., the form "2010–11" is used uniformly to denote sports seasons that span two calendar years. Despite my personal misgivings, I have retained the option of using the slashed format "2010/11" for fiscal years and similar circumstances if that is the convention actually used in reliable sources. This leaves open the possibility that certain governments, businesses, and reliable sources regarding television series may use this convention. I am not wedded to the exact wording of my change, but the final version must reflect (a) the consensus regarding sports season usage on this talk page, and (b) the consensus of actual usage to denote sports seasons throughout Wikipedia. As I said above, MOS should not force tens of thousands of stable sports article titles to be changed, contrary to established consensus and real world usage, simply because one or two MOS editors believe the slashed format is a better idea. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Non-Roman B

The MOSNUM currently says:

• Roman prefixes are not used (M for 10³, MM for 10⁶, B for 10⁹). Use SI prefixes instead.

Using B for the English word Billion is not a "Roman" prefix. Suggestion:

• Do not use the prefixes M for 10³ and MM for 10⁶, based on Roman numerals, or B for 10⁹, based on "billion". Use SI prefixes instead.

--142.205.241.254 (talk) 22:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Is MM Roman? — kwami (talk) 22:28, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

MM is Roman, but it means 2 thousand, not one million. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it meant "a thousand thousand" is s.o.'s mind. Just wondered if it was appropriate to call that "Roman". — kwami (talk) 23:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

It's based on Roman numeral M times Roman numeral M, with the multiplication implicit just as it is implicit between the M and whatever we're being not allowed to attach it to. Perhaps the wording should be

• Do not use the prefixes M for 10³ and MM for 10⁶, based on the Roman numeral M, or B for 10⁹, based on "billion". Use SI prefixes instead.

--142.205.241.254 (talk) 21:41, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I would like to just remove MM unless a reliable source can be found that shows the use of MM to mean one million. In the absence of such a source, I'm inclined to think some MOS editor just made a mistake and nobody noticed. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:18, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

While the M comes from Latin-derived languages' "mille" (thousand), neither MM nor B are in the "Roman Numeral" system. I'd remove the Roman reference. I've seen MM and B used in financial documents as late as the mid-90s, but remember it seeming old-fashioned then. It may still be around in other countries or specific industries, and deserves the cautionary note. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

(Original poster at a different IP address) I like the idea of shortening it. Why not just this?

• Do not use the prefixes M for 10³, MM for 10⁶, or B for 10⁹; use SI prefixes instead.

--50.100.189.5 (talk) 09:58, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello? B is not a Roman numeral, so the existing text is wrong. Can someone please fix it, perhaps the way I proposed above? --50.100.189.5 (talk) 04:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I suggest again:

• Do not use the prefixes M for 10³, MM for 10⁶, or B for 10⁹; use SI prefixes instead.

--50.100.189.5 (talk) 05:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Could "Conversion errors" be improved?

Proposal 1

This:

Conversion errors may be introduced in secondary sources, in which case the figures of the primary source should be used. For example, reports state that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)", when the actual design speed is 300 km/h. This had been converted to 186 mph for the benefit of the British public and then back to km/h in the secondary source.

could be copy edited to this:

Conversion errors may occur in secondary sources, so figures from primary sources should be used. For example, a secondary report states that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)", when the actual design speed is 300 km/h. (The speed had been converted to 186 mph and then back to km/h in the secondary source.)

I think this is shorter and clearer. Any comments or concerns? Michael Glass (talk) 00:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Over all an improvement, except now we say that people should (always) use primary sources, which might be difficult given our 2ary-source policy.

Not sure about the change to the sg in the ex, but maybe "one 2ary source"? — kwami (talk) 01:00, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The abbreviations have me puzzled. What do you mean by the "change to the sg in the ex"? Also, what do you mean by the secondary source policy? Here's a revision of the wording that changes one plural to a singular.

Conversion errors may occur in secondary sources, so figures from the primary source should be used. For example, a secondary report states that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)", when the actual design speed is 300 km/h. (The speed had been converted to 186 mph and then back to km/h in the secondary source.)

Does that answer any of your concerns? If so, do you have problems with my suggested revision that you do not have with the present text? Michael Glass (talk) 08:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, 'sg' = 'singular', 'ex' = 'example'.

All you did was add a 'the'. You're still saying that data from 1ary sources *should* be used, as a general process. That's probably a good idea; we don't want to play telephone with our data. However, wouldn't that conflict with our 2ary-source policy? — kwami (talk) 18:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, the policy you refer to is about avoiding original research. I don't think it's applicable in deciding between original and derived measurements or measurements from authoritative and less authoritative sources. Perhaps this wording would answer your concern:

Conversion errors may occur in some general reports, so figures from an authoritative source should be used. For example, one report stated that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)". However, the actual design speed was 300 km/h. (The error crept in because the original speed had been converted to 186 mph and then back to km/h in this report.)

Mentioning an authoritative source is important. We don't need to go back to the original cubits for the measurement of the Great Pyramid, but we might want a more authoritative source than our sixth grade primer or the local tabloid newspaper. This is, after all, an encyclopedia. Michael Glass (talk) 23:08, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

But that's just RS, which we already have. Most people would consider NASA to be an authoritative source, but they're not adequate. I think 'primary' is the way to go; I just worry that this may spark an argument down the line if we don't ensure that it doesn't conflict with our 2ary-source policy. As long as that's not a problem, I prefer your earlier wording. — kwami (talk) 00:36, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem with NASA is that it is caught between two aims: writing for a general audience (who are more familiar with US customary measures) and reflecting their research work (in SI). Hence the inconsistency in their presentation. However, if the policy says to go for the original measure you run into other problems. Many things in Australia were designed and built to imperial specifications, including land surveying and many public buildings. However, most of this information is now available in SI. See http://www.sydneyharbourbridge.info/. In the UK, the latest buildings are designed and built to SI specifications while older buildings were constructed to imperial measures. When a modern report is written about these buildings, the description may well be in metric measures, as with Buckingham Palace. See http://www.royal.gov.uk/theroyalresidences/buckinghampalace/buckinghampalace.aspx Here's another proposal:

Conversion errors may occur in general reports, so use the most authoritative sources available. This can help avoid rounding errors, like this: a general report stated that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)". However, the actual design speed was 300 km/h. (The error crept in because the original speed had been converted to 186 mph and then back to km/h.)

Sometimes policy wording can have unintended consequences. That's why it's important to take our time working out what to recommend and how to express our ideas. Please look carefully at the proposal above. Michael Glass (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Not knowing where the errors entered from, I wonder how many editors are aware of the {{convert}} 'disp=flip' parameter. So you can use the 300 number as the input and get this displayed, 190 miles per hour (300 km/h). Vegaswikian (talk) 02:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is how:

• Enter 300km/h to mph into Google and you get the answer: 186.411mph
• Round it down to the nearest whole number and you get 186mph
• Now enter 186mph to km/h into Google and you get the answer: 299.338km/h
• Finally, round it down to the nearest whole number and you get 299km/h

That's how easily it can happen.

However, I want to ask just one question: Does anyone object to my replacing this:

Conversion errors may be introduced in secondary sources, in which case the figures of the primary source should be used. For example, reports state that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)", when the actual design speed is 300 km/h. This had been converted to 186 mph for the benefit of the British public and then back to km/h in the secondary source.

with this:

Conversion errors may occur in general reports, so use the most authoritative sources available. This can help avoid rounding errors, like this: a general report stated that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)". However, the actual design speed was 300 km/h. (The error crept in because the original speed had been converted to 186 mph and then back to km/h.)

I think the proposed wording, immediately above, is clearer than the present text. It also avoids the trap of referring to primary sources, which may have been superseded, like the cubits of the Old Testament, or Imperial measures in Australia and New Zealand, where they were replaced by metric measures several decades ago. Michael Glass (talk) 08:38, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that really addresses the problem. I don't see the problem with 'primary': if there's no problem with the data in 2ary sources, we don't need to go to primary; if there is a problem with 2ary sources, then it doesn't matter that they're authoritative. — kwami (talk) 10:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

(unindent) There's nothing much we can do about data that appears to be corrupt. All we can do is find better data. Primary data can be outmoded (think pieds du roi from France), of uncertain value (think cubits), unobtainable (think of the original plans for many buildings), no longer used (think land titles in Australia, surveyed in imperial measures but almost universally described by the square metre with the caveat "approx".)

Better to just refer to the most authoritative sources available.

Remember that the issue is bigger than what NASA does. We are making policy for the whole of Wikipedia so we have to look out for unintended consequences for others. Michael Glass (talk) 12:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thus the "not sure". In most cases it's obvious what we need to do, but how to make the point succinctly? — kwami (talk) 18:04, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I thought I had made it succinctly in my suggested revision. If not, could you suggest any changes or revisions? Michael Glass (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You're not happy with 'primary', and I'm not happy with 'authoritative'. Yet if it came to specific examples, I imagine we'd generally agree. That, what we'd base our decision on, is what I don't know how to put into words. — kwami (talk) 22:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

True. What about including both words. Then it would read like this:

Conversion errors may occur in general reports, so use the primary sources or the most authoritative sources available. This can help avoid rounding errors, like this: a general report stated that the Eurostar is designed for speeds of "186 mph (299 km/h)". However, the actual design speed was 300 km/h. (The error crept in because the original speed had been converted to 186 mph and then back to km/h.)

In this case we get the primary sources, which are, rightly, important to you and we also get the freedom to use the most authoritative sources available. This gives editors the freedom to use appropriate data even if it can't claim to be a primary source. Michael Glass (talk) 06:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

As there have been no objections I am including the revised wording immediately above. Michael Glass (talk) 02:23, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

None of these convey the point well, IMO, but I don't have a better suggestion. Maybe we should let your wording sit for a while, and see how people respond to it, and if there are any complications. Sometimes the way forward becomes obvious once you bump into a few walls. — kwami (talk) 02:35, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposal 2

I am concerned about these passages:

Passage one

When common conversion factors are given as measurements, this is a clue that there may be conversion problems. For example, if a number of moons are given estimated diameters in increments of 16 km or 6 miles (implied precision ±0.5 km or mi), it is likely that the estimates in the primary source were in increments of a less-precise 10 miles or 10 km (implied precision ±5 miles or km).

This sounds like speculation to me.

1. We may suspect that information has been changed but we need hard evidence to demonstrate it.
2. With scientific information we may be pretty sure that work was done in metric units. (Geographical information is different, depending on when and where it was worked out.)
3. We already have a good example of conversion errors in the paragraph (about the Eurostar train) so we don't need another.

Therefore I think this passage should be removed.

(1) Of course, we can't just change data on our own. Didn't think that needed spelling out, but perhaps it does. If you see numbers like this, you may want to check the original data to see if its been changed.

(2) This is not true. NASA, for example, commonly presents results in imperial.

(3) Perhaps. This was intended as an example of a common pattern to be aware of, a clue that we might want to look up the original data. — kwami (talk) 01:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Passage two

Straightforward and accurate conversion may not be possible for loose estimates. For example, if the diameter of a moon is estimated to be 10 miles to within an order of magnitude, any simple conversion to kilometers would introduce a significant loss of accuracy or a gross change in precision. That is because an order-of-magnitude estimate of 10 miles implies a possible range of ≈ 3–30 miles, which would be ≈ 5–50 km. A secondary source will commonly convert such an estimate to a specious 16 km.

1. A loose estimate, by its very nature, is uncertain. It cannot be precise.
2. Astronomical work is scientific work, and would be done in SI. According to the rules, conversions are not required for scientific work, so the question is moot.

Therefore I think this passage should also be removed.

What do others think? Michael Glass (talk) 00:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

(2) "and would be done in SI". Except that it's not. You're effectively saying that we can present scientific data in imperial without conversion to metric.

(1) That's exactly why we need this passage. A loose estimate cannot be precise, so when a secondary source makes it precise, that's a problem. An estimate of ≈ 5–50 km should not be reported as 16±0.5 km. — kwami (talk) 01:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you might be mistaken about NASA. Take this web page: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20121025.html It mentioned a temperature going "150 degrees Fahrenheit (83 kelvins) above normal" However, the diagrams in the web page were marked only in degrees Kelvin. Another web page http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Sandy.html contains the following quotes: "when rain drops become larger than 3 mm (0.11 inch) in diameter," and "The cloud shield associated with Hurricane Sandy extended well over 1,000 km from the storm center..." However, there were other references like this: "335.5 miles (540 km) " and references to the storm moving in mph, so its use of units of measure was quite inconsistent here.

As for presenting scientific information only in imperial, established policy says it can be presented in SI only, so that is a question that has been decided before you added this particular passage to MOSNUM.

A loose estimate would need to be equally loosely rendered in the other units, whatever they might be. As I said before, non-scientific examples would be more to the point, perhaps like non-US reports of news in the United States, where metric measures have been substituted. Michael Glass (talk) 09:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, SI for scientific articles has been settled, but you inadvertently just argued for imperial only in some cases.

NASA is inconsistent. Siarnaq, for example, is given as 32 km (19 mi).[1] This is equivalent to the Eurostar example. We have only the vaguest idea of its size. Ymir is given as 16 km (10 mi).[2] Thrym, Suttungr, and Mundilfari are all given as 5.6 km (3.4 mi). There's no reason random moons would have the same size: this is an artifact of the conversion. I don't know the history; perhaps "3–4 mi" converted to 5.6 km and then back again? (Arithmetically it could have been 5–6 km to mi and back again, but that's an unlikely degree of precision for these moons.) Paaliaq is 19 km (11.8 mi)—again, there's no way we know the size of that moon to the km.

They have the opposite problem for Telesto, which they give as 30 x 25 x 15 km (19 x 15.5 x 9 mi) rather than (20 x 15 x 10 mi).[3]

Figures like these should be a bright flashing warning that the data has been corrupted. If we go back to the original data and find it was in metric, then we have no problem. But if we go back and find it was in imperial, things are not so easy. Remember, NASA lost a Mars mission just a couple years ago because they did their engineering in imperial and someone made a conversion error.

A non-scientific example would be fine, if you have one. — kwami (talk) 18:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Funny you should mention that, I came across one just yesterday. Kon-Tiki#Construction contains numerous dimensions shown in metric first with a conversion to feet and inches, but the non-metric numbers are generally simpler — most obviously, the diameter of a rope is given in metric to 4 significant digits! — so it seems obvious that it was taken from a non-metric source. However, the source can't be checked because it's also uncited. (I suspect it was an English-language edition of the book. I read it in school, long enough ago that I don't remember what units it used. If so, a better source would be an edition in Norwegian, or the language of some other metric country.) I didn't want to introduce errors like the "299 km/h" example, so I didn't make any edits. I would have tagged the article {{false precision}}, except that that template doesn't exist and I couldn't find one that refers to this issue, so I gave up and left it alone. --142.205.241.254 (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It does now! (I've been using {{fix}} for specious precision, but this is better.) — kwami (talk) 22:22, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! (Previous poster at a different IP address) 50.100.189.5 (talk) 10:03, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: If the {{undue precision}} template meets with people's approval, shall we mention it in this section of the MOS? — kwami (talk) 23:11, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should all keep a sense of proportion with this. There is a small difference between 4ft 8.5in and 1435mm but it is well within the tolerances for rail gauges. Michael Glass (talk) 23:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure. But there's a large difference between 30 miles and 16 km. — kwami (talk) 00:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed! This would have to be a mistake in the conversion. Michael Glass (talk) 02:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC) In cases like the one Kwami pointed to above we are not in a position to say what caused the discrepancy. Even if we suspect that the original figures were in miles instead of kilometres, we can't say that for sure, and even if we are sure that the original figures are derived from other measures this would have to be described as original research, which, as we all know, is the Wiki equivalent of Original Sin. All we can do is to depend on the best information available. Now in this case, NASA's scientific reports might be a better source of information than their press releases or website information. Michael Glass (talk) 08:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:STRONGNAT needs to die a quick painful death

Policy nazis using this MOS guideline to change the dates on articles they haven't otherwise contributed to is frankly pissing off editors who write the articles. I've seen too many discussions on user talk pages of "please don't do this" by people whose edits the last few weeks have consisted almost entirely of date format switches. This is a globalized world...cultural quirks are adopted by other cultures, national patterns dont' really matter much. Sure there is inches vs. centimeters, but when it comes to 11 November or November 11, this isn't important. To assume all Americans use MDY, November 11, is just wrong--I'm an American raised and having lived in Europe, I prefer the European style. Being a policy nazi on this issue is likely to tick off those Americans who hate the aesthetics of MDY, Europeans and others who just happen to contribute to an article on an American subject. Personally, if ever I was notable enough for an article on Wikipedia, I'd loathe seeing MDY format being used. If the article is consistent in one format or the other--irrespective of the nationality of the subject--consistency should always overrule. It seemed to the general policy in the past. And to not abide by it just seems to be inconsistent. --ColonelHenry (talk) 22:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Do you assume that allowing November 11 in a future article about a new British prince, would make date Nazis disappear? It might help and it might hurt, but I'm sure the wars would go on. Art LaPella (talk) 00:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I see your point, but I think consistency should be the goal. Instead of being all things for all people, I wish Wikipedia would just adopt one standard over the other. If there is an article about a British prince and the article's creator started it MDY format, and it was consistent throughout, and then other editors who added to the article used MDY, there's no reason to change it just because one johnny-come-lately editor wants DMY. If that's the case, the matter should be discussed on the talk page and a consensus reached. Editors who have no connection to an article and don't really contribute except for editing thousands of articles to switch MDY to DMY and DMY to MDY should really be circumspect in exercising WP:BOLD to play with aesthetics vis-a-vis the contributions of other editors involved with the article. Right now, the few editors who are exclusively doing the MDY->DMY/DMY->MDY shifts are really pissing people off. It's largely a waste of time and a needless aggravation.--ColonelHenry (talk) 02:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

While the language ("Policy nazis ") is a bit strong, I agree with the sentiment. Consistency should be the key driver, and it appears we have already stepped into the overreaching bureaucracy whose avoidance was an expressly stated objective. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:56, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

• I recall years ago there was a user preference setting where dates were autoformatted based on the user reading the article, independent of how they were written in the article.--ColonelHenry (talk) 02:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Yea, it fucked up the entire system for years, and created a huge mess to clear up afterwards, and we're not done yet. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 03:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. In my decades of international (including US) business and software development experience, people want to see the date and currency formats they have been using since childhood, and feel fairly strongly about it. Like the original poster, I prefer a date format (ISO 8601) which is different than the standard where I live (in the US). Any attempts to convince anyone outside limited technical audiences of the logic and beauty of it, however, were quickly shot down.

I wasn't here for whatever problems there were with custom date rendering per user, and don't know why it should have happened, but I can say that I've developed business software that (necessarily) correctly supports simultaneous users with differing locales (including currency and date formats, language, etc.) – it is certainly possible.

If there has to be just one en wiki, and different locales per user can't be made to work properly, I believe STRONGNAT to be a reasonable solution (as, I'm sure, the original discussion did), in the hopes that most consumers of US-topic articles are US people, and non-US articles are non-US people. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 04:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I prefer ISO too. The century someone is born in is a tad more important than the day. It would also mean neither national convention is forced on the other. — kwami (talk) 05:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

ISO 8601 requires agreement between the parties exchanging data to use any date before 1583, and requires all dates to be stated in the Gregorian calendar. It is obviously unfit for use in an encyclopedia. Also, while it may be possible to express dates in the format preferred by a particular user when the date is isolated in, for example, a timestamp, it isn't possible to do so when it is embedded in prose and correct grammar and punctuation is required. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:12, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I know this is not the original question, but would you explain more specifically where ISO 8601 requires Gregorian calendar? I'm not sure what that means, but Ethiopia and Eritrea both officially use a form based on the Julian calendar, and I am not sure if certain language wikis are able to get their recent changes timestamps to follow the Persian Calendar, or other non-Gregorian calendars that are official in a handful of countries - so that's why I'm wondering. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 19:58, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It is mentioned repeatedly throughout the standard. The PDF version I have states:

3.2.1 The Gregorian calendar

This International Standard uses the Gregorian calendar for the identification of calendar days....

I understand the printed version has somewhat different section numbering. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

How to list out a season year of a TV show

This has came to my attention since a user by the name of Kwamikagami has been making to episode lists of various shows regarding how to organize the years of the seasons (for example, 2003-04 to now 2003/04). Now as I told him on his talk age, it amazed me how now all of a sudden that's been an issue considering we've been listing the years the known way for years now. But as he told me, the correct way of doing it has been on this article since 2007 but hasn't been followed very well. I wanted to challenge this because I liked how the years have usually been listed despite what this paged said about them. I just thought they looked better and now they just look a bit off and I wondered if other users here felt the same way. - Jabrona - 17:10, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Did you really mean "2003-04", or "2003–04"? The former uses a hyphen; the latter uses a dash, which is a little longer. 2003-04 with a hyphen is clearly against our rule at WP:ENDASH. 2003–04 with a dash was just discussed here. Art LaPella (talk) 20:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I guess I was referring to the hyphen though the dash could have came into play here as well. I wasn't aware the dash thing was already talked about above, but as for the hyphen, I've taken a look through the section you linked on it and don't really see where it says it can't still be used in a case like this. - Jabrona - 22:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Right at the beginning of WP:ENDASH: "The en dash (–) has other roles ... Consider the exact meaning when choosing which to use. 1. In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through ... the 1939–45 war". If your point is that a season isn't quite the same as a 1939–45 war, it's still 2003 to or through 2004, and our very long list of examples needs to stop somewhere. In that case, or if your point is that it doesn't say "no hyphens" explicitly enough, "no hyphens" in any kind of year ranges is how we have always interpreted it. Art LaPella (talk) 03:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

"Looking a bit off" is largely a matter of what you're used to. If we had been using slashes consistently since 2007, it would probably be the dashes which look off. It often makes little difference, but I've come across a fair number of shows where we distinguish a two-season run of 2003–04 (two spring seasons) from a one-season run of 2003/04 (one fall season). — kwami (talk) 21:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Heck, even if we've gone by the slash this whole time, I would probably thought they looked off because I've seen the hyphens and dashed used in other places besides here regarding seasons. But perhaps, I can grow onto the slashes in the future. I didn't think there was much I could do about this anyway. It was rather pointless of me making this section in the first place. - Jabrona - 22:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Guys, has anyone looked at the two-week discussion above we just had, and the changes that were made to the MOS as a result? As currently phrased, the MOS permits the use of the "2003/04" date format, but only where reliable sources use the convention in reference to the particular subject. If no published sources are referring to the "2003/04 season" for television shows, don't use it. Let's stop inventing our own "code" that no one outside of MOS contributors understands. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Ordinal dates (of sorts)

In milhist articles, I often come across constructions, which after running my script, gives such as She stopped at Reykjavík for one week, from 10 to 17 September, and reentered Norfolk on the 25th.. I tend not to touch these because of the sometimes complex rewording needed; what's more, the expression "the 25th" seems to me like an acceptable abbreviation for "25 September". But given that advice is to eschew ordinals, I'd like to hear some views as to how one ought to treat these instances of ordinal dates. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 09:23, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I've always done the same: left them. It seems a reasonable exception to the said eschewance. JIMp _talk·cont 11:51, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with Jimp above. "25th" is entirely sufficient in this example.--ColonelHenry (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)