Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll/Month-day responses

Month-day responses

Please indicate your support vote under ONE option, accompanied by a concise explanation for your choice. Your explanation is important in determining the community consensus.

I support #1 (link only relevant dates)

1. Seems the best option of the four. Steve Crossin ^Talk/₂₄ 23:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
2. To reduce link density, I believe in general only the relevant information should be linked, and this should be no different for dates. Rambo's Revenge (How am I doing?) 23:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
3. Please, let common sense prevail. Links are hardly relevant and seldom help deepen understanding of the subject. Ohconfucius (talk) 23:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
4. Per WP:OVERLINK. --John (talk) 23:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
5. Support, the links are almost never relevant. Remember, dates may be relevant, but the date articles that are being linked to almost always aren't. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
6. Absolutely. Even when a date is notable in its own right, e.g. Christmas Day, it may be irrelevant to the passage in which it occurs. --Philcha (talk)
7. Support: The date links are almost never relevant, so this shouldn't need to be done too often. seicer | talk | contribs 23:56, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
8. Support. I hope this provision will be construed fairly narrowly. -- Donald Albury 23:58, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
9. Support, common sense. All links, including links to dates, should only exist when they further the understanding of an article's subject. Raven1977^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 00:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
10. Support Though I have a fairly high standard for relevance. I would rank the options 1,4,2,3. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
11. Support. Common sense suggests to me that option 4 should have almost exactly the same effect. But since not everybody agrees, this is much better, as it settles the question. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
12. Support Dates should be linked like anything else - they should enhance the reader's understanding of the article's topic.Awadewit (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
13. Support This pretty much covers the rare circumstances when dates should be linked. The proposed wording says it all: dates “should not be linked unless their content is germane and topical to the subject.” Enough said. Greg L (talk) 00:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
14. Support Reduces pointless links, allows the odd occasion where strictly useful. Dates need treating separately from "normal links" due to the controversial issues surrounding date linking and autoformatting.—MDCollins (talk) 00:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
15. Support I would tend to support the remove guidance option, but I suspect that past tendencies to link all dates would lead to continued overlinking. Guidance is needed to limit date links to those of notable historical significance. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
16. Per pretty much all supporters above. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 00:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
17. Support I too pondered on the remove guidance option, but I think it is disparity on this issue that got us here in the first place. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
18. Support This is a helpful elaboration of the general guidance on wikilinks. Eubulides (talk) 01:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
19. Support I prefer as few links as possible, and find date links rarely relevant. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
20. Support: reckless linking of dates only serve to disrupt the reading experience; a date clicked about a medieval battle should point to relevant details in that time, rather than showing the day Titanic won record Oscars or such. Jappalang (talk) 01:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
21. Support : I get tired of seeing blue links in articles that take me to date articles that have absolutely no relevance to what I'm reading.SteveB67 (talk) 02:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
22. Per Seicer. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I support Option #2 (commemorative links only)

1. Seems a reasonable solution to allow the month-day articles not to become orphaned. My preference for options is in the order 2,4,1,3. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I support Option #3 (link all on first occurrence)

1. This is how everything else is linked, I don't see why dates should be treated any differently.-Jeff ^(talk) 00:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I support Option #4 (removal of guidance)

1. Strongly support. All links are required to be relevant and helpful to the reader. what more do we need to say about these? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Yes please; take as much as possible out of the hands of the hands of the people who made this clusterfuck in the first place. Mr.Z-man 01:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Other comments

1. • This is the only way to ensure that date links are treated like other links. I observe that, despite the successful campaign to remove this objective from this poll, this equality has received support from support for all forms of language.
   • Even #3 has been read to impose restraints on date links which do not apply to other links, as in These comments. #1 and #2 have been used to justify extreme and sweeeping removals.
   • I therefore strongly oppose #1, Oppose #2 (which at least concedes a major use of these links) and weakly oppose #3. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Septentrionalis originally gave reasons for their opposition to the first 3 options here. Ryan removed them because they should go in the comments section. I've linked Septentrionalis' original opposition diff here as I don't want to refactor their words but feel a history record should be present in canse Septentrionalis does not return to comment further. Rambo's Revenge (How am I doing?)
  • Much obliged. This has, however, succeeded in suppressing my arguments. I am sure this is not Ryan's intention; but those who unilaterally imposed this format have motives not beyond question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• (Without having checked Septentrionaliss comments). Option 4 seems acceptable, but would require additional interpretation to see if it where it would end up fitting in the spectrum from option 1 to option 3. Furthermore, option 1 is mis-titled; it should read "link to only (presently) relevant date articles". Where "link to only relevant dates" would appear in the spectrum from option 1 to option 3 would also be a subject for discussion. For those who wish to quote WP:OVERLINK, this would explicitly amend that guideline, as well. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)