Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

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Unofficial anagram of the Manual of Style (First runner-up: A lemony flatus.)

Centuries ranges

I didn't find in the page so I ask it here: which of the two is correct, 7th–5th century BC or 7–5th century BC?-- Carnby (talk) 07:49, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Definitely the former, "7th–5th century BC". The other is only rarely seen in English and I've never seen it suggested in a style guide. SchreiberBike | ⌨  11:37, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Repeating the time zone

TLDR: I don't think we should repeat the time zone designation throughout an article and I can't find it in the MOS. Is it in there? Where? If not, should it be?

Boring content yadda yadda: I've found the guidance on time zones but if guidance exists on repeating them I have not seen it yet – please enlighten me.

What I mean is that I understand that it may be desirable/necessary to specify the time zone when we are talking about an event (or, at least, we like to pretend it is, but that is another debate) but I don't see any guidance on whether it is necessary to repeat it every time we mention a time, when some (I) might argue that it has an annoying choppy effect on the text and is ludicrously unnecessary when the context has already been set. I find this just annoying: At 0830 BST DBaK made some coffee and by 0835 BST was applying milk and yoghurt to some cereal. At 0930 BST he sat down to read about the Queen's funeral and by 0945 BST he was ready to throw the laptop across the room because it said BST twelve frakking times in the one article set in the same few days in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland so it's not like it's going to suddenly change to Pacific Daylight Time halfway through the story ffs. At 1000 BST he talked to the dog for a while then at 1005 BST he made some coffee because meh.

Now I realize that if the MOS doesn't say don't do it then some editors, about whom I am trying not to be too rude, will argue that of course it is right and proper and that the Queen's article is just great saying BST twelve times. As I say, if this guidance does exist then I have sadly failed to find it, and if it doesn't exist then I think it should. Even if it said "yeah you should put the time zone in every time you mention it" then I could sortof live with that because at least it would be there in black and white, but I find the current absence (is it?) of anything on this very unhelpful. And yes of course I wish I could find something that said don't repeat it unless there is a really good reason to, but I haven't yet. Does it exist and if not should it? Help! Thanks and best to all DBaK (talk) 09:39, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Since nobody else has replied.

I don't think there's guidance on this point specifically, beyond a certain dose of common sense and good writing style. Don't keep on telling the reader something they already know. As a rule, I'd anticipate that the reader will infer that times will be local time unless told otherwise. Now, it's probably useful to clarify what that is at first instance, and obviously clarity is needed if multiple time zones are used in the same article or where the local time is not obvious. But you are allowed to assume that the reader is reading the article and you don't need to keep making the same point over and over again. Kahastok talk 18:58, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

An article needs to give a time zone exactly to the extent it needs to say AD for AD years: probably at most once, and maybe not at all. As mentioned, the reader will assume that times are local to the events described, and unless there's some international influence, specifying how the local time relates to Greenwich (which is what you're doing when you give a time zone) is superfluous -- that's what I mean by "maybe not at all".

All of this, of course, assumes there isn't a mixture of time zones involved. EEng 20:09, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

P.S. And in most cases you won't have an RS telling you what the time zone is anyway, in which case we'd be indulging in OR to give it. EEng 05:54, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Most articles do not need time zones but some do. Military articles often deal with multiple time zones. The times when World War I and World War II began were set according to particular time zones and diplomatic efforts occurred concurrently in multiple time zones. It is quite common for the two sides to be using different time zones, sometimes neither being local time. This occurred, for example, in the Falklands War. It's also possible for events to occur on different days depending on the time zone. Pearl Harbor was bombed on 8 December here in Australia. And the Battle of Midway was fought across the international date line. I suggest that when relevant we use the NATO format eg 07:12K Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:11, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

That article, Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, attracted many editors eager to help by adding something and a few editors working to keep the article in shape, with about 90 edits on the day you posted here. Some may have copied other's poor choices, thinking them the norm, and it must have been hard sometimes to take an overview and correct it. Happily, when you did correct it, your correction seemed to stick. Sadly, I don't imagine editors specifying BST yet again would have checked the MOS first. NebY (talk) 22:04, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you all so much for the exceedingly helpful and clued-up replies. I can't remember when I saw so much common sense all in one place! What I see above here is a pretty fair summary of what I feel is about right – use it if you need to, repeat it if you have to, then shush. Sounds good to me. Thanks, all DBaK (talk) 22:19, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

  so much common sense all in one place! – We like to purge ourselves of our monthly quota of required common sense as quickly as possible. Now we'll return to our usual menu of half-baked drive-by comments, parochial backbiting, and long-term score-settling. EEng 05:54, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  Aha! Thanks, @EEng#s, for the clarification. That all makes perfect sense now. Cheers DBaK (talk) 07:38, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  I should have mentioned that this exhausts our reserve of sense-making as well. EEng 13:44, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

MOS:RETAIN confusion

There's an interesting discussion at Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet). As far as I can see, the article was started in British English, was peer-reviewed in 2007 in that dialect, but has recently drifted to using US English. There seems to be some confusion about date formatting versus spelling variants there. I don't have the patience to argue it out, having made all the points I can. It might be helpful to have some input from folks with experience of MOS:RETAIN and how it works there. The worst of it is that this is in danger of derailing an otherwise positive FAC for this otherwise pretty good article. Thanks for any time you can spare. John (talk) 22:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:COMPUNITS and Template:Quantities_of_bits, et al

Main discussion: Template_talk:Quantities_of_bits#New_proposal:_Legacy

There is currently a discussion at the linked talk page above about the heading for the binary versions of kilo/mega/giga/etc. Separate from the ongoing disruption, which will need to be dealt with at AN/I most likely, there is currently an attempt to defy our sources and this guidance in the MOS by referring to the units as "Legacy" (which is both unsupported by the sources, original research, and the only attempts to justify it are done by misattributing a JEDEC standard quoting an IEEE statement). —Locke Cole • t • c 20:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

There is currently an edit war over the placement of comments. 🤦‍♂️ So the link at the top may only get you part way there depending on when you click on it. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:02, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

YYYY-MM-- for sorting when the day of the month is omitted?

I see YYYY-MM-- could be the alternative to YYYY-MM, because of sorting dates, when the day of month is included you can use YYYYMMDD to sort as ISO 8601 allows both YYYY-MM-DD and YYYYMMDD, but when the day of the month is omitted only YYYY-MM is allowed, but MOS:DATEFORMAT doesn't allow that format at all because of the range of years, YYYY-MM-DD can only be used where space is limited, and cite sources. 2001-07 is not permitted due to the ambiguity of range of years, 2001-07-- could be used in some places.

For an example

When the day of the month is included.

American article - {{sort|20010902|September 2, 2001}} - September 2, 2001
European article - {{sort|20010902|2 September 2001}} - 2 September 2001

When the day of the month is excluded.

{{sort|2001-07--|July 2001}} - July 2001

Although there is {{date table sorting}} as well, you can use when the day of the month is omitted. 98.31.29.4 (talk) 00:04, 4 October 2022 (UTC)