Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Table of units that shouldn't be linked *in conversions*

There's been an extensive discussion above. On the basis of the 80%/20% rule, it doesn't matter if we don't have the table complete and/or don't capture all units. It can be updated as required. But the most common 20% of units that are responsible for most of the overlinking and editors need specific guidance. In the absence of any other proposal, I propose the following table

Quantity	Not obscure in US	Not obscure in UK	Not obscure in rest of world
Length, area, volume		Metre/meter	Metre/meter
Length, area, volume	Inch, foot, yard, mile. Square yard	Inch, foot, yard, mile.
Length, area, volume	Litre/liter	Litre/liter	Litre/liter
Length, area, volume	US fluid ounce, pint, quart, gallon	imperial fluid ounce, pint, quart, gallon
Mass		Gram	Gram
Mass	Ounce, pound, short ton	Ounce, pound, stone, tonne	tonne
Time	Second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium	second, minute, hour, day, week, fortnight, month, year, decade, century, millennium	second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium
Speed	Mile per hour	<not-obscure unit of length> divided by time	<not-obscure unit of length> divided by time
Temperature	°F	°C	°C
Power	Watt, Plus prefix kilo	Watt	Watt.
Power	Horsepower
Energy	Kilowatt hour	<not-obscure unit of power> multiplied by time	<not-obscure unit of power> multiplied by time
Energy	Calorie.	Calorie.	Calorie.
Voltage	Volt	Volt	Volt
Frequency	Hertz	Hertz	Hertz
Information	Bit, byte.	Bit, byte.	Bit, byte
Other		Prefixes milli, centi, kilo, mega, giga applied to <not obscure SI units>	Prefixes milli, centi, kilo, mega, giga applied to <not obscure SI units>
Other		Square and cubes of <not obscure units>	Square and cubes of <not obscure units>

I've tried to encapsulate all comments. I think it's time to document consensus for adding a table like that, or even a trimmed down version. Lightmouse (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Support I don't mind if it's modified, as long as there is something where editors see *actual* units listed. Lightmouse (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Conditional support We should target the list at reasonably educated users who have not done science. The user I have in mind is my wife, aged 60, started university but never studied science at school. In deference to her, and thousands like her, I think that we shoudl remove units of energy, power, frequency and information form the list. Martinvl (talk) 12:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't your wife ever use domestic appliances or pay electricity bills? :-) I mostly agree with your point, though; also, I'd list compound units individually, as it wouldn't be immediately obvious to people like your wife how fast 12 m/s is, and some prefixes are really uncommon with some units. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 23:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. This is complete rubbish; most UK youngsters have no idea about any of the Imperial Units and plenty of UK oldsters will never be conversant with the metric system. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 12:39, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Not in my experience; even assuming that by any of the Imperial Units you actually mean ‘excluding miles and pints’, I've met plenty of people in their late teens/early twenties from the UK and Ireland who routinely use feet, inches and stone and have no idea of how tall someone 1.70-metres-tall is (or a 15-centimetre penis, or a 88-kilo person). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:55, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

MC Price, these are for conversions: why does a UK old person need a link (not helpful anyway, IMO) when they have two equivalents? And as for young people, if they don't know what basic units are, they should learn them before looking at WP, or type the unit into the search box (again, not much help the way our unit articles are framed). Tony (talk) 10:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

And yards? And Fahrenheit? -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 16:15, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Conditional support: I have no problem with the majority of units not being linked in general, so long as the first instance remains linked for those whom it would benefit. I see no reason to provide the maximum benefit to readers while still maintaining some measure of style, and I think that does it. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:51, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Huntster, you saying that all units should be linked at least once per article, even routine units like "6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg)"? Lightmouse (talk) 18:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support in principle, and probably in details. Which time units would need to be linked, then? Tony (talk) 10:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Something definite has to be done, and Lightmouse's scheme looks rational to me. There have to be limits. In Australia we might have a sense of "6 ft tall", and be less sure about "183 cm tall"; but we generally get by with unaided metric really well. I struggle to picture how big a man of 168 lb (12 stone) would be. Metric gets easier year by year. If people didn't move on we'd still be talking cubits, furlongs, and pennyweights. Imagine if those had continued to be "linked" or converted, in an earlier technology. We'd eventually have multiple expressions for every measurement, and never achieve the sort of clarity that an encyclopedia should aspire to. Noetica^Tea? 11:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I agree with the principle and idea of a table such as this; I more or less agree with the classifications. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose as textbook instruction creep. The decision on linking should be made on a case-by-case basis in each individual article, based on factors that can't be distilled as simply as this proposal implies, by editors that are situationally aware of the effect of that link. If there's a disagreement about whether a term should be linked, it should be dealt with via WP:BRD and consensus at the article in question like any other content dispute. If editors find that they're becoming frustrated at 'having to rehash the same arguments over and over' on whether or not a term should be linked, it might be valuable for these editors to reconsider whether the presence of a link on a unit of measurement in an article is worth getting into disputes over, and whether removing the link is going to have a noticeable impact on the quality of the article for the general reader. If it won't, why expend such effort on it?

Frankly, this seems to be a case of attempting to legislate to fix an extremely minor issue that some editors perceive to be bigger than it really is. This kind of prescriptive language isn't necessary and is likely to be used as ammunition to try to win a dispute, rather than assessing the merits of the individual case. I'm generally opposed to this kind of overuse of rules and guidelines. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 07:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a guideline, and editors want guidance. Making decisions on a case-by-case basis is possible, but general guidelines are essential, or we're all in the dark. Tony (talk) 07:09, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

As I said, I don't believe that this issue is generic enough for a broad guideline to be of any value. There are a lot of factors influencing the decision to link something and oversimplifying things in a table like this will only lead to it being pointed to in a dispute, instead of being discussed normally. As far as I know, we don't have a guide on specifics of when to use new paragraphs or what threshold of topic difference to use to create new subsections, because these things similarly can't be encapsulated effectively in a general sense. Instead we use very broad language like 'not too long, not too short' and so on. I think a table of this nature is on the 'too specific' side to be useful. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that we need to consider whether guidance is needed. I think guidance should:

• document consensus on a wikipedia wide issue that gets discussed frequently at local level
• define how to fix a common and significant problem that wouldn't be fixed by the wiki
• make a difference to what editors actually do

On the basis of at least one of those bullets, if not more, specific guidance is needed. Over the years, well-meaning editors add excessive links due to their own personal interpretation of what 'obscure' means. These rarely get challenged until the article gets put up for review at FA or something like that. If anyone else challenges an excessive link, the generic guidance is inadequate to resolve a difference of opinion between two editors. You can see here that it has taken many days and many comments and we still haven't documented consensus whether there should be links in:

• "6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg)"

This isn't a new thing. Sample specific units have existed in the guidance for years. We just haven't discussed it at length. Lightmouse (talk) 09:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that linking the first instance of a unit of measurement, as our other guidelines recommend, could be considered excessive. If units are being linked repeatedly throughout the article then we already have guidelines for how to deal with overlinking. I don't see any fundamental benefit in removing informative links on the basis that a subset of the intended audience believes their meaning should be obvious. I agree that the current reference to 'obscure' is vague, but I'd prefer to remove that reference and link the first instance of any unit of measurement (subject to context), rather than to simply not link certain units at all.

The link being present on the first instance provides a benefit to people interested in learning more about that unit. What benefit is gained from removing that link? TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The benefit of removing irrelevant links is that the relevant links become more prominent. If the unit is relevant, I'm all for linking it. JIMp _talk·cont 00:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think that we'll get a consensus as we each have our own different ideas as to what units are commonly know and which aren't. I think that we should respect the individual editor's decisions on this issue unless they're overlinking, but I will say that I'm inclined to link more often than not to remove any ambiguities.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

People are talking as if this is a new thing. It isn't. The following units were specified previously:

• 18 °C (64 °F)
• 12 oz (355 mL)
• millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year
• metric units of mass (milligram, gram, kilogram), length (millimetre, centimetre, metre, kilometre), area (mm², etc.) and volume (millilitre, litre, mm³)
• inch, foot, yard, mile
• m/s, ft/s

The table doesn't have to be complete. It just has to name the top 20% units responsible for 80% of excessive linking e.g. "6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg)". Lightmouse (talk) 19:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: date formats in reference sections

Perceived problems of the current guideline as I understand it, excepting for dates within titles and quotations :

• the guideline permits the use of up to two different formats in the reference section in various permutations

1. dmy (i.e. 12 August 2011) or mdy (i.e. August 12, 2011) for publication, access and archive dates
2. dmy (i.e. 12 August 2011) or mdy (i.e. August 12, 2011) for publication and archive dates and yyyy-mm-dd (i.e. 2011-08-12) for access dates
3. dmy (i.e. 12 August 2011) or mdy (i.e. August 12, 2011) for publication dates and yyyy-mm-dd (i.e. 2011-08-12) for access and archive dates
4. yyyy-mm-dd (i.e. 2011-08-12) for for publication, access dates and archive dates

I propose that henceforth we stipulate that all dates in the reference sections are uniformly consistent, as provided in this version (click on "show" to see it):

Date formats may be the same as prevailing in the body of the text – and may be abbreviated if there are space concerns, or they may be in the yyyy-mm-dd format --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I would like to see if a new consensus exists based on the following premises:

1. there is no consensus to eliminate ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd date formats from articles, in particular the reference sections
2. a mix of date formats in the reference sections is aesthetically unattractive and difficult to parse
3. there is little reason to insist on ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd formats for access dates whilst leaving the publication date in dmy or mdy format
4. there is little reason to disallow ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd formats for publication dates whilst allowing this for the accessdates
5. there is little reason to insist on ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd formats for archive dates should be treated any differently from publication or access dates
6. dmy or mdy format using abbreviated months can be equally concise as the yyyy-mm-dd format; the only thing we care about is consistency
7. 'reference format' remains undefined and its meaning is unclear.
8. tabular form of presentation where examples of dos and don'ts are juxtaposed is starker and more easily comprehended by the reader.

• Should I make this into RfC? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:18, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Support

1. as proposer. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
2. Making this consistent makes a lot of sense. We should be making things consistent for our readers and the scripts that run on our articles. GFHandel ♬  10:04, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
3. I'm all for consistency generally. Nearly always it helps readers, even if it's just a matter of not slowing them down. I see no reason for an exception here. Noetica^Tea? 00:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
4. Internal consistency within an article is important, but I do stress that the consistency in the article text should not be taken as the required date format for references. --MASEM (t) 13:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   So, in other words, you oppose this "proposal", which would require that all dates in references match the article body, unless all dates in refs are done in yyyy-mm-dd. (And I put quotes around the word "proposal" because the user "proposing" has ensconced his text in the MOS and has refused to remove it.) Gimmetoo (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   Your over-vivid imagination is getting the better of you. You want to see this proposal defeated, because you imagine that it amounts to removing all yyyy-mm-dd dates from reference sections. It doesn't, and Masem realised that his comment is spot on with the proposal. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

   Hmm, my imagination must be equally over-vivid. "all dates in references match the article body, unless all dates in refs are done in yyyy-mm-dd" does seem to match "Date formats may be the same as prevailing in the body of the text ... or they may be in the yyyy-mm-dd format" and the "Correct"/"Incorrect" table, better than it matches "removing all yyyy-mm-dd dates from reference sections". However, Masem's "consistency in the article text should not be taken as the required date format for references" is compatible with the proposal, which makes yyyy-mm-dd references the only allowed exception to that consistency. Art LaPella (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

   You're reading something into the proposal that's not there. It basically boils down to 4 cases: (assuming no pre Gregorian source dates are in player)

   1. Article body uses dmy, references use dmy
   2. Article body uses dmy, references use yyyy-mm-dd
   3. Article body uses mdy, references use mdy
   4. Article body uses mdy, references use yyyy-mm-dd

   The choice of dmy or mdy depends on the nationality of the topic and/or the decision of the first author, while the choice to use that format or the ISO-like one is left to first author. --MASEM (t) 12:06, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

5. Strong support. Logical, professional. Gimmetoo, your predilection seems to be for inconsistency and date formats that you find easy but our readers won't understand. Tony (talk) 12:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
6. Support. I think it's important that inconsistency in dates be eliminated. For example, in the case of 1996-7-4, an inconsistent Wikipedia could cause ambiguity as to whether or not the date was July 4 th or April 7 th. Even if this isn't the order that ends up being used, I support an effort to standardize the smaller things that have the potential to cause confusion, and can only echo Noetica and GFHandel. Tutleman (talk) 18:29, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
7. Support. As others have said: makes sense, logical, professional. Having ref dates consistent already comes up almost always as a condition for FAC/FLC. I would maybe just suggest toning it down a bit. Copy the line which reads, "Dates in article body text should all have the same format". If some people still think this is too much, you could even add "generally" to the proposed line...? Nightw 11:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
8. We should be using the same date system throughout the entire article, actually, but that's beside the point. I'm just not sure why some people insist on using YYYY-MM-DD in only part of it. Consistency is a minor detail but makes us look more professional in the long run, as opposed to a bunch of different pieces cobbled together. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
9. Strong support Regardless of what format the rest of the article is using, all of the references should be using a single format. Ideally, the same format used in the body of the article should be used in the reference list. Using two, three or more date formats in the references alone is unprofessional and sloppy. Imzadi 1979 → 19:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
10. Support. I have no idea how we developed the trend of putting most of the dates in one format and all the access dates in another format. I'd hazard a guess that people only do this because they've seen it elsewhere. It's nonsensical, just as mixing British and American language would be. Any date format is fine, but there's no reason to use more than one within an article. The "Oppose" votes seem to boil down to "Our watchlists will be flooded with ugly edits" which isn't a rationale for leaving the articles in a weird state. Get a bot to do it so you can hide it. —Designate (talk) 06:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
11. Support It’s not about what makes wikipedians happiest (“I get to see my preferred date style salted throughout the bottom of this article!”); it’s about our readership. Consistent date formats within an article are better so consistency should be encouraged. Greg L (talk) 22:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
12. Support. Consistency is as key in an encyclopaedia as the information it presents. 21655 ^T/₀₁ 22:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
13. Support. It looks more professional to have a consistent date format in the references section. Jenks24 (talk) 22:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
14. A reference section that is inconsistent on something as simple as date format, and looks as if it was cobbled together by various people who did not take the time to check what others had done, appears unprofessional. And while many articles are written by multiple editors acting separately, this fact should not be so blatantly apparent in the product that we present to readers. I care little which date format is used in a reference section, but I abhor those which alternate between date formats like drunken square dancers. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
15. Support. Full support to ISO format. --Dch (talk) 10:27, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
16. Support. I thought this was already the guideline, to be honest. Certainly inconsistency across the references sections of articles just looks untidy and gives the impression that Wikipedia is disorganised and less trustworthy. Ideally, of course, software would be handling date preferences properly, but that seems to be surprisingly complicated (for reasons I've never quite bothered to understand). Whilst it would be good for the references section to have a consistent date format with the article, I think itnernal consistency across the references would at least be a good start. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
17. At the risk of supporting another date/MOS war I'd say that consistency in dates is generally a good thing. Protonk (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. There is no real problem that needs to be solved. Nothing is wrong with a mix of date formats in the references and notes as long as each date is unambiguous. −Woodstone (talk) 10:21, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
2. oppose - although I follow the arguments I don't see this as a problem either: the reference sections I've seen look nothing like the above examples and tend to have so much formatting diversity that whether dates are consistent gets lost in the noise. Making this a guideline will lead to a series of trivial and inconsequential edits as editors 'fix' this. And what is the format that should be preferred? It's more than a simple binary like EngVar, there are a number of variations, so it can't be just the one in the majority. How to decide what to change them to? Looking at the article isn't enough as many articles have no dates in them.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
3. oppose - by indiscriminately referring to "yyyy-mm-dd" and "ISO-8601" the passage implies two falsehoods, that these are the same thing, and that Wikipedia has taken a position about the use of ISO-8601 in any part of articles. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   In addition, one format, APA Style, calls for publication dates to be in the format YYYY, Mmmmm DD and for the inline parenthetical citation to be (Surname, YYYY). Note that the month and day are omitted, even if they are present in the publication date. If the article does not add some form of hyperlink between the citation and the bibliography, or if the article has been printed, having the year first in the date format makes it easier to find the bibliography entry. This illustrates that style guides may use a peculiar date format for a functional reason, not just a preference. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

   Actually, the proposed guideline text doesn't mention ISO at all. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 09:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

   It did at the time I made the comment. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:31, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

4. Oppose. This has been discussed before, and there has never been a consensus to either forbid different ref styles in the text and article (because APA style, for one, does that), nor to forbid putting different types of dates in the references in different styles. OhCon's proposal would result in articles like [1] (97 refs, almost entirely with publication dates in mdy and accessdates in yyyy-mm-dd) becoming [2] (all dates in refs changed to mdy, when AFACT no ref had mdy for both types of dates). These sort of changes are bad. They make it difficult for the article's regular editors to read diffs over the edit, and they make the references themselves harder to parse for at least some people. Gimmetoo (talk) 19:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   Incredibly, OhCon made [3] just recently. Before, the 107 references were nearly all yyyy-mm-dd, but after, everything was changed to mdy. That sort of edit goes contrary not only to the MOS prior to OhCon's "proposal", but is even contrary to OhCon's own proposal here. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   Yeah, he does that. This older gem also included a date format change to a quote from a printed source as an extra bonus. Quale (talk) 05:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

5. Oppose Per Woodstone, JohnBlackburne, Gimmetoo, et al. The current section does not lead to any problem, and reflects consensus. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
6. Oppose  I'd go the opposite direction, I'd standardize on yyyy-mm-dd format for access dates, and discourage yyyy-mm-dd format elsewhere in the reference.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

   I don't know why you voted 'oppose', because the proposal is much closer to what you want than happens today. It doesn't preclude what you want to see, just does not insist upon it for every single article. The advantage is that all date formats will be consistent in the refs section, and they might just all be yyyy-mm-dd. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

   The proposal reads, "all dates in the reference sections are uniformly consistent".  I'm opposed to a consistency that in fact makes it harder to tell the difference between the access date and the publication date.  The access date is information about the citation rather than being a part of the citation itself.  For readability, I would prefer that access dates always use yyyy-mm-dd, and that publication dates never use yyyy-mm-dd.  Unscintillating (talk) 10:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

7. Oppose Proposal lacks guideline for a procedure for deciding what format to use when dates are not consistent. Existing scripts are being used to just remove yyyy-mm-dd whenever there is any discrepancy in date format, ignoring WP:DATERET. Proposer's script talk page says:

   "While I will do my best to comply with the minute detail of style guidelines, I will work with what is on the face of the article, and will target articles where I detect a misalignment of formats by a quick scan. I am unlikely, for reasons of productivity, to comb through each article's history to establish whether an article should be dmy or mdy, or whether a the first date included in a reference section was yyyy-mm-dd or not. If you want articles on your watchlist to retain any given format (or for it to have all yyyy-mm-dd dates in the accessdate field), you should ensure that the all of dates are in aligned in accordance with WP:MOSNUM, otherwise I consider them 'fair game'."

   YYYY-MM-DD is one of the three date formats used in Canada, as a Canadian I do not want it obliterated from wikipedia, and this proposal (+ scripts) seems to be a backdoor way of doing that. In the event that this proposal receives community support, no action should be taken on it without first obtaining agreement on a decision procedure in cases of inconsistency. --JimWae (talk) 09:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

8. I'd go with: The main article text, excluding tables, lists, and the section References, should use either 13 August 2011 or August 13, 2011, consistently; the section References, excluding access dates, should use either the format of the rest of the article or the same format with abbreviated months consistently; access dates should use either the format of the rest of the section References or 2011-08-13 consistently. Each table/list should be handled on a per-case basis depending on column width, sortability etc. using the main article text format, the same with abbreviated months, or (provided all dates are Gregorian in the 1583–9999 ranges) 2011-08-13 (but don't mix them in the same table column). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
9. And stop changing articles with scripts. -- Jeandré, 2011-08-14t11:06z

   This is a request for comment. I don't think your entry can be taken seriously, since it contains only a veiled personal attack. Thank you. Tony (talk) 11:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

   Apologies if it looks like an attack, that wasn't my intention. I meant that I oppose the proposal, as explained on the linked talk page, and that date changes should not be done with scripts. -- Jeandré, 2011-08-15t12:50z

10. Bad idea. I'm not sure even the unification in the current guideline is appropriate. It would make sense for publication dates of weekly magazines, weekly newspapers, or daily newspapers to be MDY for US sources and DMY for UK sources (or with the abbreviations suggested by User:A. di M.. The access date format (and archive date format) should be consistently (1) the article date format, (2) the date format appropriate to the reference, or (3) YYYY-MM-DD. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

    I don't get... are you suggesting that for any given article, that publication dates for all US sources take up the mdy format while if there are citations to The Times or The Guardian that they be in dmy? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

    It seems to me to be a preferable style, but certainly should be an acceptable style; the format of the publication date (if dmy or mdy; my is the same in either case) should be set by the publication. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

    Just curious... If you were citing an article in a Russian journal, would you write the publication date in Russian? ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 09:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

11. Oppose - Don't think inconsistent date formats within the reference section are a problem. Especially accessdate versus publication date. Rlendog (talk) 15:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
12. Oppose. CITE says that editors may use any citation style they want, including styles that use different date formats to signal different styles of information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
13. Oppose - I think decisions on date formatting in references should be done by humans on an article-by-article basis, with the degree of uniformity needed decided by humans, not scripts or bots. There are valid arguments for the accessdate and publication date to be different formats for readability and for readers to be able to visually distinguish them, and there is also a valid argument that it is best to use the publication's own style for publication date (if necessary, a hidden conversion to Wikipedia publication date style can be included, but the original "untranslated" date style should be recorded somewhere to allow checking for errors in transcription). Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
14. Oppose There is no real, demonstrable ill effect from this inconsistency, just more MOS nit-picking. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
15. Oppose. According to OhConfucius, if you write "Jones, J. (20 May 2008)" you can't then write "Retrieved 5 Sept. 2008" - you have to write S-E-P-T-E-M-B-E-R out in full. I agree with Beeblebrox and Herostratus - this discussion isn't going anywhere, and provided you don't write things like 7-9-1981 anything goes.86.166.112.241 (talk) 13:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
16. Oppose. Per Headbomb and JimWae. Nanobear (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

• I notice you still have not reverted your change. Anyway, I reject your point #2 and also #3,4,5. You claim a mix of date formats is "asthetically displeasing and difficult to parse". For you, a "mix of formats" includes a reference section where all the publication dates are one format and all the accessdates are another - a quite common format on Wikipedia. So apparently, there are other people who do not find it "aesthetically displeasing". Likewise, when different types of information is represented in different formats, I would expect at least some people would find that easier to parse. And that is why publication and access dates are treated differently by some editors, and why we have to point this out during past attempts to change the guideline. But I don't need to convince you; you need to convince everyone else. You're the one making the change. Gimmetoo (talk) 09:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I am not saying the yyyy-mm-dd format is uncommon; I say having such a mix makes the dates more difficult to parse. I am proposing that they should be a single format for all dates. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• To the question of what format should be preferred, it should fall to standard of "first editor choice" as with nearly all other choices of which format to us. I would argue that if the article is tied to a specific nationality and thus has chosen to use US or Int-style dates in the body, then the opposite should be avoided in the reference text. --MASEM (t) 13:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• The newly revised description of the background to the issue states "the guideline permits the use of up to two different formats in the reference section in various permutations". No. The guideline before Ohconfucius' bold change stated "Publication dates in article references should all have the same format." (An exception for archive and access dates followed.) This wording prevents a conflict with WP:CITE, which allows any citation format, and specifically mentions APA style, which uses YYYY, Mmmm DD for publication dates in the bibliography. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I've been watching this page and am unaware that it had been changed. The state of affairs I mentioned above is attested to by this thread. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• OK, now I see what you mean; any particular reference section may have up to two date formats, but collectively throughout all the guidelines-compliant articles in the encyclopedia, there may be many date formats, depending on which citation style was followed in each article. Theoretically there could be a citation style that calls for three different date formats, but that seems very unlikely. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• Question: do the automated citation bots use the style of the publication or do they "translate" it into a preferred Wikipedia style? It would seem silly to have one bot bring in the data and another to tweak it after it arrives here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

As illustrated by this edit, User:Citation bot adds dates without respect to what format is already in use in the article. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• Write out the month, I don't care about ymd/mdy, whatever order, but we should make it policy to write out or abbreviate (January/Jan and not 1/01) the month, as Americans and Europeans generally use different orders (dmy versus mdy) D O N D E groovily Talk to me 23:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Dates without a written-out month are just plain inconsiderate to our international readership. Reference sections with inconsistent date formats are unprofessional. Tony (talk) 01:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree, except it's inconsiderate to all our readership. What does 7-9-1981 mean? September 7 or July 9? There's no way to know. Dates like this should never be used. Everything else is secondary compared to this -- whether it should be August or Aug, or whether it should or must be consistent within the article, or whether it should always be 8 June or always June 8 or vary from article to article. It's important and useful to work all that out (or decide to go with laissez faire), but for God's sake we must never use numbers for months outside of quotations or like exceptions. Herostratus (talk) 03:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

This "proposal" has nothing to do with dates like 7-9-1981, and nothing to do with reference sections where different references are in different formats. It's mostly about a couple points, really. It's about abbreviations in references, and it's about whether reference sections consistently using date formats such as

• Last, First (29 July 2011). Main Page. WP. Accessed 2011-08-28.

(where the publication date and accessdate are consistently rendered in distinct formats) are to be forbidden. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggested modification

I suggest modifying one bullet and adding a new one; additons are underlined:

• Except for titles and quotations, dates in each article's reference section should all have the same format, which may be the format prevailing in the body, the format specified in any style guide the reference section follows, or yyyy-mm-dd:
• The yyyy-mm-dd format shall not be used in any article that is likely to contain dates before 1583 or dates in a non-Gregorian calendar.

Also, change all instances of ISO 8601 to yyyy-mm-dd.

Jc3s5h (talk) 22:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC), modified 23:57 UT

In answer to a question posed on my talk page, "the format specified in any style guide the reference section follows", the MOS does not address itself to references, except to refer to WP:CITE. That guideline indicates any style may be used for citations. At least one citation style, APA style, calls for one format in the body of articles (Mmmm DD, YYYY,) but a different format in the citations (YYYY, Mmmm DD). To disallow following an external style guide in the reference section would place this guideline in conflict with WP:CITE. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Still unsure. You seem to suggest allowing YYYY, Mmmm DD in the refs section, and not to do so would violate WP:CITE. While it is theoretically allowed, I have come across such use in less than a handful of articles, and even so, only one or two instances in each article. I have seen more instances of erroneously used formats – like 18-1-99, 18-1-1999, 18-01-1999, 18-Jan-1999 – than this, so I believe it is quite moot in practice. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)--Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how the second bullet point above can be enforced. Some countries use the Revised Julian calendar, which is identical to the Gregorian calendar from 1 March 1600 until at least 28 February 2400.

Isn't ISO 8601 itself unenforceable because some countries object to having the Gregorian calendar rammed down their throats when they have rejected it for something better? 92.24.110.78 (talk) 10:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC

On further consideration, I withdraw my suggestion and instead offer a counter-proposal below. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Counter-proposal

I suggest removing the text currently in the guideline:

• Except for titles and quotations, dates in each article's reference section should all have the same format, which may be the format prevailing in the body, or yyyy-mm-dd:

Correct	Incorrect
Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved 5 Feb 2009	Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved 5 Feb 2009 Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved Feb 5, 2009
Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved 5 February 2009	Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved February 5, 2009
Jones, J. (2008-09-20) ... Retrieved 2009-02-05.	Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved 2009-02-05 Jones, J. (2008-09-20) ... Retrieved 5 February 2009

I would replace it with the following:

• As with all style issues concerning citations, see Citing sources.

Also, I would add a statement to "Citing sources" that all-numeric date formats in which the first element represents the day or month should not be used, regardless of any recommendation in an external style guide, and any article currently using such a system should be corrected. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Initial reaction: I'm not aware nor am I particularly interested in how the two guidelines evolved, but there's definitely a lot more than dynamic tension here. Wikipedia ought to have a house style for citations, and we should only be referring to external guidelines where we don't have one of our own. And when there is a house style, which we seem to have (more or less), we ought to marginalise external guidelines. The tolerance of other styles in WP:CITE appears counter-intuitive to me, and a recipe for a 'free for all'. The disadvantage, of course, is that same external guidelines are usually inaccessible to a majority of editors, as opposed to wide and full availability for in-house guidelines, thus imperfect information as to how they are to be interpreted and used. Arguments cannot be easily resolved by reference to same (due to said unavailability), thus enforcing the tendency to WP:OWN in some cases. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• There are arguments for and against a house style, but adopting my counter-proposal would not promote or retard a house style, it would just prevent conflict between this guideline and WP:CITE. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:42, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm in favor of a house style, or limited set of choices, and agree that for citations it would be better at WP:Citing sources#Dates. Dicklyon (talk) 03:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Conversions of ratios embedded in prose

I recently came across a fine example of what I like to call "misconversions". The Gallons per mile section of Fuel economy in automobiles used to read as follows (with a minor typo fixed, the reference removed and the {{convert}} call written out explicitely).

For example, replacing a car that gets 14 mpg_-US (17 mpg_-imp; 17 L/100 km) with a car that gets 25 mpg_-US (30 mpg_-imp; 9.4 L/100 km) saves 3 US gallons (2.5 imp gal; 11 L) of fuel every 100 miles (160 km). Because 1 US gallon (0.83 imp gal; 3.8 L) of fuel emits 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of carbon dioxide, saving 3 US gallons (11 L) of fuel every 100 miles (160 km) saves 3 short tons (2.7 t) of carbon dioxide every 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of driving.

I took a look at this through a couple of "filters". Firstly my imperial filter yeilded this.

For example, replacing a car that gets 17 mpg_-imp with a car that gets 30 mpg_-imp saves 2.5 imp gal of fuel every 100 miles. Because 0.83 imperial gallon of fuel emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, saving 2.5 imperial gallons of fuel every 100 miles saves ??? of carbon dioxide every 10,000 miles of driving.

It made me wonder what kind of measure 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per 0.83 imperial gal was. 20 pounds per 0.83 imperial gallon. What fancy number is 0.83?

Then I tried on my metric filter. Here's what I got.

For example, replacing a car that uses 17 L/100 km with a car that uses 9.4 L/100 km saves 11 litres of fuel every 160 kilometres. Because 3.8 litres of fuel emits 9.1 kilograms of carbon dioxide, saving 11 litres of fuel every 160 kilometres saves 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide every 16,000 kilometres of driving.

"Wow!" though I. Even more fancy numbers. 11 litres per 160 kilometres times 9.1 kilograms per 3.8 litres equals 2.7 tonnes per 16,000 kilometres. Now, I'm feeling much enlightened. 'Cause here in metricland we always measure things by the 3.8 litre and the 1.6 kilometre.

Another thing we tend to to, here in metricland, is measure food energy density in kilojoules per 450 grams. For example, I like to eat Foobars but I'm getting fat because they contain 420 kJ (100 Cal) per 450 grams (1 lb). I also drink Foozypop which contains 630 kJ (150 Cal) per 355 ml (12 US fl oz).

Well, I rewrote the example to give litres per 100 kilometres, pounds per imperial gallon, kilograms per litre, long tons per 10,000 miles and tonnes per 10,000 kilometres. I also tweaked the numbers for accuracy, tweaked the wording for flow and came up with this.

For example, replacing a car that gets 16 mpg_-US (19 mpg_-imp or 15 L/100 km) with a car that gets 30 mpg_-US (36 mpg_-imp or 8 L/100 km) saves 3 US gallons (2.5 imp gal) of fuel every 100 miles (7 L/100 km). Because the combustion of 1 US gallon of fuel emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (burning 1 imp gal emits 24 lb and burning 1 L emits 2.4 kg), this saves 3 short tons (2.7 long tons) of carbon dioxide every 10,000 miles (1.7 t every 10,000 km) of driving.

This might well be the worst I've see but it's not the first. I wonder whether it's worth adding guidance regarding the conversion of such ratios imbedded in text. Converting the ratio as a whole rather than converting its parts individually seems such common sense to me but I guess it's not so for everyone. What might be a good way to phrase it? JIMp _talk·cont 10:19, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I think guidance can:

• document the outcome of a dispute that may reoccur
• define how to fix a common and significant problem that wouldn't be fixed by the wiki
• make a difference to what editors actually do

Unfortunately, I think guidance on this issue would fail on the last bullet. Lightmouse (talk) 18:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you're probably right. JIMp _talk·cont 02:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: date ranges

At present, the following is given: A closing CE or AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless it is in a different century from that of the opening year, in which case the full closing year is given (1881–1986). Given that I have never seen this requirement in academic works, in fact, the opposite exists, years are normally expressed in full. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC).

This also applies to this paragraph: "Year ranges, like all ranges, are normally separated by an en dash, not a hyphen or slash: 2005–06 is a two-year range, whereas 2005/06 is a period of twelve months or less, such as a sports season or a financial year."

In my opinion, years should always be expressed in full, that is, with four digits (no leading zeros) for years after year 999. This is in accordance with "Write out the full year string instead of using the apostrophe (') to abbreviate the first two digits of the year."

A form such as "2005–06" is highly conflictive, since this is also a valid form in the international date format according to ISO 8601, which is the more or less "official" standard date format in many European countries. Many people would simply interpret this as "June 2005", not as "2005–2006". While this cannot happen with "1881–86", it looks odd (to me) and is in conflict with the rule to express years in full. We should change that accordingly. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 10:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

As an aside the bit you quote is not what happens in practice as sports seasons use the en-dash and not the slash as implied by the quote. Keith D (talk) 11:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that date ranges should be written in full, especially given the potential for confusion with ISO 8601 dates. I'm frankly surprised we don't already recommend this. Kaldari (talk) 16:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Two digits are definitely preferable in most AD/CE instances. Tony (talk) 10:29, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

See above, not a requirement nor preferable in most research and academic work. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 11:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC).

In the hundreds of articles I have checked or edited the dates have always been expressed in full, ie, four digits. This is also what I was used to in years of technical writing. Only recently have I come across an editor who was engaged in changing the four-digit format back to two digits in a great many biographical articles. I commented on this on his talk page (no response, and the practice continued). However, the MoS seems to say that both forms are OK, and I feel that this is inadequate. Hohenloh ⁺ 14:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Google Books searches don't support the claim above. 1941–45, 132,000 hits. 1941–1945, 215,000 hits, not "always", and certainly not always out of "hundreds of articles". 1982–84, 114,000 hits. 1982–1984, 123,000 hits. Again, not always. Art LaPella (talk) 21:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I brought this up recently. The resulting discussion is probably in the archives somewhere. My position is that short date ranges are more commonly written with two closing digits (e.g. 1914-18 and 1939-45), but that writing it out in full is also common. I think that when writing out a person's birth and death years, it is vital to write the death year out in full no matter what the context. This is because these years are so central to identifying people, especially those with the same or similar names. It is also a matter of style. Aesthetically, it looks better if the closing year is uniformly written the same way, not varying depending on the context, so the full closing year is best. Finally, as a reader, when looking for information in an article or list, I often know the year something happened and search for that to find it in the article (often I find people have neglected to name the year and that is something that can be corrected). Similarly, when trying to identify people (often relatively obscure 19th century naturalists) when I have a name and no birth or death year, I sometimes find what might be the birth or death year, and then do a new search including that year, and get the results I need. For obvious reasons, it is best to be able to search on the full year, not an abbreviated version. Carcharoth (talk) 15:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Please see RfC on citation style

Please see WT:CITE#Which Wikipedia guideline(s) should establish citation format? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Where it's being asserted, indirectly, that the advice on this page under Full date formatting insofar as it refers to references, does not represent current consensus. Does anyone have anything to say about that?--Kotniski (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello? Is there any further interest in this question? We need to resolve it - it makes no sense to have two guidelines saying apparently different things and not even acknowledging each other's existence.--Kotniski (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

year range in lede

Per MOS biographies, I added a note that if the full dates are provided by an infobox or in the text of the article, a simple span of years is sufficient in the lede. This follows the general principle of reducing clutter in the lede. Although I have added quite a few pronunciations to biography articles, I would encourage those to be moved to an infobox as well. (This has been done systematically with astronomical bodies.) — kwami (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I strongly agree with moving pronunciation to the infobox. Did you start a thread about that somewhere? —Designate (talk) 15:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The idea that the pronunciation should be moved out of the lede has been in WP:PRON for months. But a thread has been reopened here. — kwami (talk) 22:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I keep arguing to have biographies comply with the same style guidelines as other articles with respect to lead sections only giving context and a notability summary. It was already implied by the "...or days and months would be irrelevant detail" clause but I agree your proposal makes it more explicit. Other editors still often revert to full dates in the lead, alas. My related pet peave is people who put details into the lead or infobox to avoid a citation. Not sure if it needs to be stated here explicitly, every detail in a lead or infobox should be mentioned in the body with a citation. Perhaps not critical for pronunciations, not sure about those, but dates should be in the body too. W Nowicki (talk) 17:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I often see details ref'd in an info box. I mean, as you say, do we really need to repeat the pronunciation in the text? I'm accustomed to astronomy articles, where there are all sorts of orbital and physical details (eccentricity, inclination, semimajor and semiminor axis, major & minor radius, volume, gravitational field) which, if not remarkable, are not mentioned in the text. They're simply sourced in the info box. I know the box is supposed to only summarize what's in the text, but we completely ignore that in linguistics and astronomy articles. For stubs, the box often is the article: A lede to summarize the topic, and a box for all of the actual data. Only when the article is expanded beyond a stub will some of the infobox data appear in the text, but then only if it's noteworthy. It's a lot harder to access it in the text.

I can see leaving in the birth date of, say, Barack Obama, as, although it's not exactly notable, I expect there may be a fair number of people looking for that datum. But it's probably only relevant for living people, and very few of those. Similarly, if someone important just died, I could see leaving the full date in the lead for maybe a year. But once everyone knows they're dead, or in any case it's been more than a year, I can't see how the month and day are particularly relevant. Most of the time, anyway. There will always be exceptions, but IMO we should argue for an exception before adding what amounts to trivia immediately after the bold title phrase in the lede. — kwami (talk) 06:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sure, but I think in general we should avoid people writing unreferenced stubs, as well as stubs with just infoboxes and one sentence. There are way too many already. Assuming "someone else" will expand it in the futureis a bit inconsiderate. If you have the source hand, add the source and type a sentence with the information. Otherwise the source will not be known by the future editor. But of course ened to be practical. W Nowicki (talk) 23:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

We're talking at cross purposes. Of course we need to ref things. But that has nothing to do with whether they should go in the lede or in the info box. There's no way most people are going to create a text that is just a string of statistics. That's much more accessible in an info box, even if there's hardly anything left for the text itself. — kwami (talk) 23:41, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been very concerned at the amount of clutter at the very opening of some bio articles; it's chiefly pronunciation, alternative names, and non-roman script equivalents. When I visit such articles, I tend to put ref tags around this information so the rest of the sentence (after the first-give name) isn't four lines down. Any practice of shifting some or all of this secondary information to the infobox is a great idea. Without an infobox, I'll still ref it. Tony (talk) 02:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, very rarely do we need foreign transcriptions in the lede either. Take Genghis Khan as I found it:

Genghis Khan (English pronunciation:/ˈɡŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/;; Cyrillic: Чингис Хаан, Chingis Khaan, IPA: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ; Mongol script: , Činggis Qaɣan; Chinese: 成吉思汗; pinyin: Chéng Jí Sī Hán; probably May 31, 1162 – August 25, 1227), born Temujin (English pronunciation: /təˈmuːdʒɪn/; Mongolian: Тэмүжин, Temüjin IPA: [tʰemutʃiŋ] ; [Temüjin] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help); traditional Chinese: 鐵木真; simplified Chinese: 铁木真; pinyin: Tiě mù zhēn) and also known by the temple name Taizu (Chinese: 元太祖; pinyin: Yuán Tàizǔ; Wade–Giles: T'ai-Tsu), was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.

How do we expect anyone to read that? Compare the actual lede text:

Genghis Khan (1162?–1227), born Temujin and also known by the temple name Taizu, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.

Now, the info box of that article is currently overcrowded with all that stuff, but that's because allowance hasn't been made for such things (i.e., no place for birth name, temple name, posthumous name). — kwami (talk) 02:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. If the first sentence doesn't fit into a Google search result, it's unacceptable. —Designate (talk) 03:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

@Tony: I think putting stuff between plain vanilla <ref> tags is a very bad idea, as it's impossible for readers to anticipate that the footnote contains stuff other than a citation of a source. With <ref group="Note">, on the other hand... ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 10:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's often a very good way to do it. Also, refs are often in a small font, which we probably don't want to do with notes. However, anything in the infobox will be near the top of the article, whereas the notes will be at the bottom. So IMO full dates belong in the info box (where we currently have them), but Chinese transcriptions of a Mongol name can probably be safely relegated to the notes. IMO the pronunciation of the name used in the article should be in the box, since it may be difficult to read the article without it, whereas you don't need to know the Chinese (or the Mongol, for that matter).

BTW, some time ago I added {{#tag:ref||group="note"}} to the 'Wiki markup' edit window for just these situations. Unlike <ref group="Note">, #tag:ref allows you to place <ref> tags in the notes themselves. — kwami (talk) 10:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

A couple of points. Firstly, all the discussion about pronunciation and non-MOSNUM stuff should either be discussed at a different location or unified in a single discussion. In other words, if sweeping changes are to be made to the way biographical articles are written on Wikipedia, a discussion should be opened at WT:BIOGRAPHY and possibly notification left at WP:CENT given the massive number of biography articles on Wikipedia. Also, it would help if a preliminary audit gave an idea of the number of articles this would affect, and how many use the current style? A further point is that many biography articles don't use infoboxes, so it is best to leave infoboxes out of the discussion, or state what should be done where there is no infobox. My view is that a discussion should be undertaken to settle on the style used on biographical articles, rather than piecemeal discussion of different aspects in different places (year range in lede at MOSNUM and pronunciation at PRON is a classic example of splitting up a discussion that should be done altogether in one place). But that discussion should take place at the Biography WikiProject pages, not at MOSNUM. Possibly Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies) is a another venue, but it is vital that input is obtained from those who write biography articles on Wikipedia, rather than those who write manuals of style. My view is that having the birth and death dates in the lead is fine, but everything else should be seen as clutter and relocated. The reason I think birth and death dates should stay in the lead? Because if you remove them, the lamest edit wars you can imagine will break out between people who want to write 1832-1895 and those who want to write 1832-95. Seriously (and that is on-topic for this page!). Carcharoth (talk) 01:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Maybe. But let's not conflate the two issues here... firstly, we have the date, place of birth/death, new-/old-style dates, IPA pronunciation clutter; secondly, we have the hieroglyphics, birth/second/courtesy/alternate names and related pinyin most seen mainly in articles about Chinese subjects. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • When I first started editing biographical articles, I think it was commonplace to include place of birth and death in the lead sentence. That has lessened over time. The standard now seems to be: 'Some version of name (birth date and year - death date and year)' followed by varying amounts of other stuff. The standard now seems to be to mention the nationality (if not too complicated) and profession in the lead, but to wait until the first paragraph of the main body of the article before going into details such as place of birth. The full name and date of birth and date of death tend to be repeated in both the lead and the main article, both because the main article should stand independently from the lead section, and because the main body of the article is often a more convenient place to source things like full name and exact dates and locations. The key is not to remove information if it is not located elsewhere in the article. It would help to survey biographical dictionaries to see what different styles exist, though we can't copy the style used by others, we should use or develop our existing style while avoiding clutter. And please can we move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)? I see several earlier comments over there from people who state that they are opposed to removing dates of birth and death from the lead section. So the discussion should really be over there. Carcharoth (talk) 13:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#Style of lead sections. Carcharoth (talk) 15:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Abbreviating the word "number"

Is there a policy on abbreviating the word "number"? In articles concerning rail transport, I often see text concerning individual locomotives. Rail locomotives are normally identified by number, and so this text is usually like "No. 123 was built in ..." but sometimes I see text like "Nº 123 was built in ...". Do we have a policy on whether one of these forms is preferable to the other? --Redrose64 (talk) 18:48, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Number_signs. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 19:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but although that explicitly forbids # and № it doesn't mention Nº - it might help if the MoS explicitly stated that the only permitted abbreviation was "No." --Redrose64 (talk) 21:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps opinions vary, but I usually avoid all abbreviations. My pet peave is "aka" which slips in too many times. Unlike other encyclopedias that are limited by paper, we should have no constraints. On the other hand, there might be some domain-specific styles that use certain well-known abbreviations almost exclusively, the one I think of is HMS or USS for ship names- these are almost never spelled out. You might also discuss at a relevant project page. But when in doubt, spell it out. W Nowicki (talk) 23:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)