Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

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Manual of Style

	This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, vote, 6, 7, 8, 9 (AD/CE), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14a, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 49a, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161

Binary prefixes

B0, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, B17

Years and dates

D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D9, D10, D11, D12, D13, D14

MOS:DATETOPRES in infoboxes

Does MOS:DATETOPRES apply to infoboxes, tables or just prose? If it applies to infoboxes a number of sport projects will need to change their documentation (and many articles) Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players is one example. If not, then this should probably be reverted. Either way, the section on this project should probably make the scope clear. Not watching here, so please ping me if you would like me to respond. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:39, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Any reason there should be exceptions? Particularly, it states that ...tables and infoboxes where space is limited, pres. may be used (1982–pres.)—Bagumba (talk) 00:37, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Walter Görlitz: Forgot to ping.—Bagumba (talk) 00:38, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I cannot speak for those projects. I raised it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#Infobox style update and so far it appears that they plan to ignore the MoS. Feel free to raise the issue there, and the issue was raised 2019-08, and the handful of editors decided to ignore it then as well. They also suggest to raise it WT:SPORTS. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:38, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect someone would need to be bold and start the changes, citing the MOS. If any conflicts arise, a notification here would be appropriate for a broader discussion on whether consensus has changed or an exception is warranted.—Bagumba (talk) 02:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was bold and have been reverte4d several times. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Javain_Brown&oldid=prev&diff=1075800824 is the most recent. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:22, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from User talk:Walter Görlitz

– Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are trying to change how an entire WikiProject operates, and has done with no issues for 16+ years, affecting tens of thousands of articles. Giant Snowman 19:31, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that opinion. I am not trying to change the consensus project; I am trying to follow the consensus of a manual of style. This has been raised before and has always looked odd. It took a great deal of effort to get flags removed from infoboxes by this project (and other projects still don't give a toss). You made your position clear in the discussion. Now, change the manual of style. The football project is again out of step with the project as a whole. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:34, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

MOS is not compulsory. Giant Snowman 19:35, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nor is WP:LOCALCONSENSUS Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:36, 7 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:DATETOPRES and the broader community consensus seems pretty clear and specifically states "Do not use incomplete-looking constructions such as 1982–", which appears to be what this is all about. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:51, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And a second revert here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Egbo&curid=68051344&diff=1075846609&oldid=1075791962

I am not interested in an edit war, and would appreciate support form the broader community. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I give up. Let's remove this MoS as no one is interested in supporting it and edits like this https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Javain_Brown&oldid=prev&diff=1081002691 are causing me grief. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It would have been nice to have been notified about this discussion given I was quoted, but it's not the kind of courtesy I expect...regardless, I agree with Walter that the MOS should be amended to reflect widespread and long-standing usage (and not the other way around). The 'incomplete-looking constructions' are fine in infoboxes and tables. Giant Snowman 18:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the baseball, basketball, American football, and ice hockey sports projs use "–present" in its infoboxes. Randomly, so does FA Paul McCartney. I wouldn't remove it for one project.—Bagumba (talk) 19:06, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have no issue with keeping it generally, but allowing an exception for the literally tens of thousands of articles which ignore it and have done, unchallenged, for decades. FAs such as Steve Bruce don't use it... Giant Snowman 19:15, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@GiantSnowman: you were encouraged several times, first in the project's talk page, and each time I reverted you, to come here yet you and your expectation of courtesy was essentially to say that the football project has given the manual of style the middle finger, and for me to fall into line with the project and ignore this prohect. Also, you were not quoted, your actions were linked. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rugby Union ([1][2]), Rugby League ([3][4]), Aussie Rules ([5][6]) and GAA ([7][8]) amongst others don't seen to use the 'present' bit. I'd support scrapping the rule for infoboxes as it doesn't appear to be something that is universally used or supported. Number 5 7 19:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It seems clear that the projects should meet the MoS's requirement rather than a requirement to change the MoS because a few sports projects object to implementing it. Is this worth an RfC? Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:19, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is people didn't know it existed. If it's going to be enforced, then someone will need a semi-automated way to do it, as we're talking about tens of thousands of articles. I agree that there should be an RFC about it, though just saying "yes, do it" is completely useless unless a method for doing it is worked out too. Nobody should expect this many manual edits to be carried out. Joseph2302 (talk) 06:37, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There aren't tens of thousands of active players with a page, the only ones who would be affected.—Bagumba (talk) 10:14, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There aren't tens of thousands of active players with page- almost all current association footballers, which itself would be thousands of articles I imagine. And then there's at least 4 other sports listed (albeit I imagine they have fewer articles, as the sports have not as many countries with professional leagues). Joseph2302 (talk) 10:25, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As long it's clear that it's only active players that would be affected (whatever that number is). —Bagumba (talk) 10:43, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And current managers! Giant Snowman 18:16, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear if the resistance to -present is because of the perceived effort involved, or that it's a fundamental problem with –present.—Bagumba (talk) 10:14, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For me, it's the issue of effort- I believe the most sensible way to do it would be via a bot, but that would need to go through the strenuous bot approvals process. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:25, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For me it's the use of "–present"; it's unnecessary clutter IMO. Number 5 7 16:23, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It is extremely cluttering DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 18:50, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I have been using –pres. as this MoS suggests and it is actually narrower than a four-digit year and it makes the construction complete, which is the goal of this MoS. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, how is '2021–' narrower than '2021–pres.'? Giant Snowman 18:16, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think they mean

2021–pres.

is narrower (maybe just a shade) than is

2021–2022.

E Eng 18:41, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But, at WP:FOOTBALL at least, we never display the latter. We leave it open. Giant Snowman 18:53, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Was there a particular rationale? Or it's just been the practice. —Bagumba (talk) 02:42, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I raised it at the project: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 151#Infobox style update. It was first discussed in 2019 (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 127#MOS:DATETOPRES) where they decided to use the full term but no on bothered to act on it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:59, 10 April 2022 (UTC) Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:59, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look, in a church you'll see a tablet:
OUR PASTORS

John Smith 1977-1989

Bob Jones 1989-2006

George Jensen 2006-

Sooner or later George Jensen will die, or get promoted to bishop, or resign in disgrace because of the Boy Scout thing, and at that point the terminating year will be chiseled in. That's why the final entry is formatted that way in the meantime. But that consideration doesn't apply to our articles. "Wikipedia is not chiseled in stone", you might say. E Eng 16:04, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - adding 'pres.' adds nothing to articles. No readers are confused by the open ended dates. Giant Snowman 19:16, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have read my comment backwards. The "open-ended" format is an artifact of situations in which a date will need to be filled in later, on paper or stone; as stated, that consideration is absent here. Furthermore, while no doubt readers will figure the open-ended format out, in infoboxes especially, where a datum may wrap to the next line, it may cause momentary confusion. Pointless confusion. E Eng 23:05, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I fully support the viewpoint made by @EEng that Wikipedia is not a paper (or stone) medium, so antiquated formats are not always as much suited for it as more modern up to date formats. Huggums537 (talk) 19:19, 9 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@GiantSnowman: How can you assume there is an established standard that conflicts with this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Javain_Brown&diff=1083150646&oldid=1083083214 The sooner these lazy~~, hit a few times too many in the head with a ball, an elbow or other body part,~~ projects get on board the sooner you'll stop being the laughing stock of the whole project. Ignorant, arrogant notability criteria were the first to be overturned and soon your approaches to infoboxes will have to follow suite. Stop edit warring over things in which you're simply wrong about. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:22, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You're the one being disruptive - especially as this MOS is not compulsory! Giant Snowman 19:24, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have edited the MOS to make it clear that whilst you should generally avoid open ended dates, some sports do and that's fine. That a) reflects the actual usage of certain sports WikiProjects whilst b) not opening the floodgates for implementation in other types of articles (which should continue to use –pres. Giant Snowman 19:23, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not the one ignoring this manual of style and rewriting it to make you and the projects with which you work seem to be following the manual of style when in fact you're simply too stubborn to actually change your incorrect ways. I will remind you, first it took the projects months to get onboard with MOS:INFOBOXFLAG (and some projects still insist on ignoring it), and WP:OVERLINK. The most recent discussion finally forced you to acknowledge that per-project notability criteria was out-of-step with the rest of Wikipedia, so it will likely take just as long to have you acknowledge your incorrect position on this MoS.

It is you and your projects who are giving the middle finger to the larger project in ignoring the clear advice of this manual of style. Clearly we see who is being disruptive, and I am not in that camp. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:49, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As shown above, several types of sports biographies do not use the "–present"; this is not a football-specific thing. Number 5 7 20:12, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, this "is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply" (my emphasis). If some sports do not chose to use it, that is fine, as long as each topic is consistent. It is not mandated, it is not compulsory. Giant Snowman 20:22, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That several sports ignore this MoS is not a reason that they should continue to do so, as was the case with INFOBOXFLAG, OVERLINK and others. So in ignoring all rules, I should also feel free to ignore the rules of sort projects and apply the MoS correctly, without repercussion. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Changing the MOS to make it appear that your side of the argument is supported by MOS is poor sportsmanship, at best. I have undone these edits. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:43, 17 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The MOS is not compulsory - and it is clear that it is not preferred (and has not been for a long time!) by several sports. So why should we not update the MOS to reflect real-life wide useage, as opposed to now having a 'wrong' MOS that editors use as justification for disruptive editing? Giant Snowman 07:51, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The MOS is not compulsory only in the same sense that high-quality writing or proper sourcing are not compulsory: many of our articles fail to meet these desiderata, but when these problems are encountered they should be fixed, not set in stone with project-specific carveouts like "we've always failed to source our articles in this project so bad sourcing is now declared ok for this project's articles". —David Eppstein (talk) 08:05, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is not nearly the same and you know it. Giant Snowman 08:07, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds the same to me. And please read WP:AGF. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:51, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

sourcing/verifiability is a core policy; whether or not we display 2017— or 2017—pres. in the infoboxes of sports people is not. Unsure why you are suggesting I read AGF - that in itself is ABF. The irony. Giant Snowman 09:31, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Flags in the infobox of sport people are not required, but the littered football, rugby, ice hockey and other sports's infoboxes when GiantSnowman and I started editing many years ago. That is no longer the case. Why? A MoS was created and its correctness was adopted across most projects, including football articles. I cannot recall if GiantSnowman reverted my removal of them when I started that practice over a decade ago, but I have not seen GiantSnowman revert my removal of them recently.

Linking of nations of birth (such as England, Scotland, Germany, France, Spain, United States and other major nations) was done in almost every single infobox at that same time. That is no longer the case. Why? The same reason as the previous example: a MoS.

I have made this point several times and really all that is required is for the projects to recognize the MoS and accept its use or reverse it across all projects. Being on the fence about this or any manual of style is really not an option. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:14, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The intransigence of the sports projects to accept this MoS may require us to follow the precedent set at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability#To those upset with sports coverage on Wikipedia for this issue as well. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:34, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:ERA interpretation dispute

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:ERA: dispute over what "established era style" means. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:45, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is now an RfC on the matter. Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC Preamble. Generalrelative (talk) 17:18, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Commas between digits in comma-separated lists of numbers

Over on Talk:Euclid–Mullin sequence, someone with more MOS knowledge than common sense suggested modifying a comma-separated list of numbers (of widely varying numbers of digits) to add more commas separating groups of digits, and someone else with more MOS knowledge than common sense agreed. I was horrified to see that WP:DIGITS does not warn against doing this. Maybe it should? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's rather amusing to watch (rofl). Thank you for brightening up my morning! To be honest, rather than invent exceptions to a general rule I would prefer to change the rule by replacing the thousand-separator-commas with thin spaces, leaving no ambiguity in the comma-separated list. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 07:44, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest you use {{val}} to display numbers like 12345678. Stepho talk 08:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The point of this thread is not to ask for reasonable alternatives. The MOS already makes that part clear. It is to seek a change to the MOS that explicitly discourages comma-separated digit groups in comma-separated numbers, rather than having to rely on the common sense of Wikipedia editors not to do that. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:00, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Consider this scenario: an article has many single numbers throughout the article as 123,456,789 but no lists. Then we add a list of 10 such large numbers. Do we make the numbers in that list with commas (same as the others but violating the new MOS), make the numbers in that list with spaces (different to the other numbers) or change all the other numbers to spaces (change of style for the entire article)? Stepho talk 21:45, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The passage in the article mentioned by David Eppstein is

2, 3, 7, 43, 13, 53, 5, 6221671, 38709183810571, 139, 2801, 11, 17, 5471, 52662739, 23003, 30693651606209, 37, 1741, 1313797957, 887, 71, 7127, 109, 23, 97, 159227, 643679794963466223081509857, 103, 1079990819, 9539, 3143065813, 29, 3847, 89, 19, 577, 223, 139703, 457, 9649, 61, 4357, 87991098722552272708281251793312351581099392851768893748012603709343, 107, 127, 3313, 227432689108589532754984915075774848386671439568260420754414940780761245893, 59, 31, 211... (sequence A000945 in the OEIS)

I suggest that in this day and age, this passage should not be considered human-readable. Maybe 80 years ago a passage like this might have been considered human readable, because the printing press was almost all we had for disseminating information. But today, trying to retype a passage like this by hand would be irresponsible. So this kind of information should be in some machine-readable format. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:44, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly conveys to me, a human reader, much important information about the subject: the presence of many small prime numbers but also the way it bounces seemingly at random between very small and very large numbers. What it is not, really, is human-writable: it takes so much effort to manually enter the digits and check them for accuracy that we're better off copying and pasting. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:48, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(Late to the party) The point of this thread is ... to seek a change to the MOS that explicitly discourages comma-separated digit groups in comma-separated numbers. Separating list items with semicolons is an established method for text that also includes commas ("Queen Abi; Gordon, professor of punctuation; Eric ....) and may even be becoming more popular. Semicolon-separated number lists are easily imported into eg Excel. Should we recommend semicolons? NebY (talk) 15:32, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For a mathematics article (the context of this specific issue), that would most likely be misinterpreted as a subdivision of a list of numbers into smaller sub-lists. You know, like the rows of Pascal's triangle are 1; 1, 1; 1, 2, 1; 1, 3, 3, 1; ... —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"You know" is generous and I thank you. NebY (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Australian Commonwealth Style Guide recommends using spaces instead of commas for separating digit groups this reason. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:31, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in favor of the comma seperating thousands - I dislike the skinny space - it looks ambiguous. A case like this sequence could separate the terms with semicolons or be put into a table. Also, in the case of this sequence, I would not separate by thousands anyway. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:48, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look at this

Sometimes figures and words carry different meanings; for example, Every locker except one was searched implies there is a single exception (without specifying which), while Every locker except 1 was searched means that locker number 1 was the only locker not searched.

Suppose we change the statement and its variants to being about a locker numbered 128. Suppose we had thousands of lockers and we want to know how to interpret this statement:

Every locker except 128 was searched.

How would we say it to indicate that exactly 128 lockers were not searched??
How would we say it to indicate that locker #128 was the only locker that was not searched??

Georgia guy (talk) 19:01, 26 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but do you have an actual editing situation relevant to this? E Eng 23:03, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph this section starts with is part of this project. Georgia guy (talk) 23:39, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I know, because I wrote it. The question is, what does your 128 thing have to do with any actual article? E Eng 23:41, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's simply the same statements only with a wordier number. Georgia guy (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm going to try one more time: is there an actual article, right now, in the editing of which this issue arises, yes or no? And if Yes, what is that article? E Eng 21:29, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's as well-defined as the "1" thing the paragraph is talking about. It theoretically can come up. Georgia guy (talk) 22:01, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, well, apparently the answer is No. And since I cannot for the life of me understand what you're talking about (though it sounds a bit like this [9]), I guess we'll have to leave it at that. E Eng 22:20, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Where should ISO 8601 date format be used?

I noticed 2001-09-02 is acceptable in some conditions when space is limited, same goes with 2 Sep 2001 and all other abbreviated formats like Sep 2, 2001

Formats like 2 September 2001 and September 2, 2001 are allowed everywhere, in an American article it's September 2, 2001 whereas in a British article it's 2 September 2001

Formats like 2001-09 are unacceptable as it could be mistaken by a range of ranges 2001–2009, and formats like 02-09-2001 are unacceptable as it could mean February 9, 2001 or 2 September 2001, and 01-09-02 could mean January 9, 2002 in MDY format, 1 September 2002 in DMY format, or 2001 September 2 in YMD format

A template like {{FULLDATE|type=mdy|time=2001-09-02}} outputs as September 2, 2001
or in DMY format {{FULLDATE|type=dmy|time=2001-09-02}} outputs as 2 September 2001

--98.31.29.4 (talk) 01:38, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]