Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Patrick Name (b. 1969), an American musician

In a list with people named Patrick, may I just put

Patrick Name (b. 1969), an American musician,

or can't the word born be here replaced with b.

Patrick Monahan (born 1969), an American musician.

Because for the abbreviation, there is no b. in this wiki, but a. or c. See Patrick (given name), --Schwab7000 (talk) 17:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The exhibits are confusing because they are not lists. "(born " is appropriate in the lead sentence of a biography such as this exhibit. If we do have a list of people (full names) whose first name is Patrick, then neither "born" nor "b." may be necessary after the first instance or first two instances establish a pattern.

Compare "illustrated by Charles Keeping" for the first instance of a named illustrator in a list of some author's works, followed by "illus. by Keeping" or "ill. Victor Ambrus" or whatever in subsequent listings. In my opinion, abbreviate in a way that is clear and consistent within the article. Eg, if the list of author's works is very long with only a few illustrators, don't abbreviate. If every line is the listing for another person with firstname Patrick then extreme abbreviation will be appreciated. --P64 (talk) 18:29, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Aside: If we have a template {{circa}}, for c., I wonder why we can't have one for b.? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:14, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Your idea, so you get to make the template. Roger (talk) 09:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

• Here, this is just what I wanted to know:

b. (also b British English)

• the written abbreviation of

born
// with an example: // Andrew Lanham, b. 1885 // at: http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/b- /just that simple.--Schwab7000 (talk) 11:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

a template {{born}} for {{born}}, I would use it. Thanks Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing) --Schwab7000 (talk) 11:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

A proliferation of templates, a drag on server performance, for something so utterly simple seems pointless to me. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:55, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to remove fractions from Edittools

There is a proposal citing MOS:FRAC at MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Proposal to remove fractions. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:43, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Centuries format

I propose adding the bullet point below between the current first and second bullets of the Centuries and millennia heading at WP:CENTURY.

• Centuries not in quotes or titles should be written with Arabic numeral(s) in the format 8th century.

or

• Centuries not in quotes or titles should be either spelled out (eighth century) or in Arabic numeral(s) (8th century). The same style should be used throughout any article.

or

• Centuries not in quotes or titles should be spelled out for centuries one through nine (eighth century) and Arabic numerals should be used for centuries 10 and above (18th century).

Reason: There are frequent uses of spelled out century numbers and occasional uses of Roman numeral century numbers in Wikipedia. My perception is that the first option is best because it is most concise and most common now in Wikipedia. I look forward to your thoughts. SchreiberBike (talk) 18:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The first option is what we had years ago, and only a few Manual of Style experts could remember that WP:ORDINAL didn't apply to centuries. I derided it as the "sixth sentry, 6th century rule". We also had a separate version of the guideline at the main Manual of Style, which resulted in contradictions; Roman numeral centuries were explicitly forbidden at the main Manual of Style, but they weren't mentioned here, at the guideline the main Manual was supposed to be summarizing. But that problem has been fixed; if we want to change the rule, we only have to change it here. Art LaPella (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Based on the small amount of comment, I don't want to assume that there's consensus on option one. Option two is more inclusive and more typical of the MOS. I did see that WP:ORDINAL does say "Centuries are given in figures or words using adjectival hyphenation where appropriate: the 5th century BCE; nineteenth-century painting. Neither the ordinal nor the word "century" should be capitalised." That would have to be modified also. Perhaps it should read the same in both places; adjectival hyphenation is a general rule for English and capitalization is covered by MOS:CAPS. Or perhaps it should be eliminated from WP:ORDINAL as duplication. It does seem to me to belong under WP:CENTURY. Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 01:33, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I see no real need to mandate here. Some people like to spell the words, and many are trained to use "6th-century", & beyond mandating consistency within an article I see no need to make a change that would involve changing thousands of articles (do a search on "nineteenth century"). I don't mind banning "XIIth century" though it is very common in many European languages. Of those given, 2 is the least bad option; 3 is wierd, as "6th century" is just as common as "eleventh century" (ie very common) in sources covering those periods. Johnbod (talk) 01:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

This hasn't appeared to be controversial and I think, being bold, that the MOS would be better with option two above added. I'll go ahead and make the change. The adjustments to WP:ORDINAL can wait until later. Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 03:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

• If something is to be mandated, it should be option 1 which is what most articles already have. And the purpose of MOS is a guideline across all articles, not the trivial exercise of a single article. Hmains (talk) 03:50, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Google shows numerals (option 1) are about 6 times more common than words for centuries in Wikipedia. WP:ORDINAL already specifies option 2. Art LaPella (talk) 05:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts it says "Centuries and millennia are written using ordinal numbers, without superscripts and without Roman numerals: the second millennium, the 19th century, a 19th-century book". I suppose that allows for spelled out or Arabic numbers. We do have references to centuries in at least three different places in the MOS. SchreiberBike (talk) 23:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Mya and bya

This MOS seems to recommend that "science-related" articles use SI units Ga for "billion years ago", and Ma for "million years ago". Let me discuss three quotes from this MOS, and make some supported recommendations.

• In science-related articles: generally use only SI units and non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI.
• Use symbol a for year Only when SI prefixes are used e.g. "540 Ma old"
• The tya/kya, mya and bya symbols are deprecated in some fields such as geophysics and geology, but remain common in others, such as anthropology. [See contrasting quotes concerning "geology" below.]

I think we should take out that last sentence, for the following reasons, and instead make explicit support the use of mya and bya for "science related" articles. Please see Year#Symbol (and subsections) for the following quotes.

• In English, the abbreviations y or yr are sometimes used, specifically in geology and paleontology, where kyr, myr, byr (thousands, millions, and billions of years, respectively) and similar abbreviations are used to denote intervals of time remote from the present. [It's followed by three citations.]
• In astronomy, geology, and paleontology, the abbreviation yr for "years" and ya for "years ago" are sometimes used, combined with prefixes for "thousand", "million", or "billion". [It's followed by two citations.]
• They are not SI units, using y to abbreviate English year, but following ambiguous international recommendations, use either the standard English first letters as prefixes (t, m, and b) or metric prefixes (k, M, and G) or variations on metric prefixes (k, m, g). [The SI has no unit for year.]
• Use of "mya" and "bya" is deprecated in modern geophysics, the recommended usage being "Ma" and "Ga" for dates Before Present, but "m.y." for the duration of epochs.[13][14]This ad hoc distinction between "absolute" time and time intervals is somewhat controversial. [Note the two citations.]
• Year#SI prefix multipliers, bullet Ma, says that the SI Prefix Multiplier Ma has as an alternative "mya" but that "mya" is deprecated (period) (i.e. in general).

The the last bullets on the above two bullet lists are related: the phrase mya is depricated in this MOS has seemingly had support from this last bullet, which, by the one above it shows it to be misleading.

Some other points supportive of removing the dismissive sentence, and adding an accepting sentence for mya and bya in this MOS:

• If an issue is notably ambiguous—whether to use mya or Ma, bya or Ba—we clarify the ambiguity for use on Wikipedia in the MOS. I say the current clarification in this MOS to not use mya (because it's "deprecated") should instead be reversed. Ga was deprecated the day the U.K. switched to the short scale to make "billion" and "giga" the same. (Wikt:billion says the long scale billion is obsolete.)
• Bya is a short piece recommending bya and mya by "convention" and "widespread use" among scientists: "gigaannum" is equivalent to "billion years ago" except aesthetically; Ga has been deprecated since 1974 when U.K. switched the meaning of billion to 1×10⁹ from 1×10¹²
• Ma and Ga don't make the list at Template:Val/unitswithlink/test
• Since the SI doesn't define a symbol for year, and since this MOS says to use SI/SI-accepted units for scientific articles, and since the SI-accepted units have neither bya or ga, the MOS will have to undertake to clearly define "science-related" (could it mean "science", could it mean "academic", or could it mean "expert" articles.) Yuk yuk yuk. And all for the sake of that sentence I'd replace; all for the sake of Wikipedia steering clear of those ghost (uncited European) geologists controversies because their MOS overrode the ghosts' notability. Who are these pre-1974 modern geophysicists?
• This MOS say "generally" use SI... which is a perfectly reasonable because it leaves room for using mya and bya.

As for Ma and Ga, I'd like to note that

• They are case sensitive, whereas bya, b.y.a. or BYA are all clear
• A is for Ampere, so GA is for gigaAmpere, MA is for megaAmpere
• a is also for Hectare#Are (but SI prefers ha)
• Gya can also refer to a new unit of radiation exposure called the gray.
• Most readers won't think "Ga, let's see... gigaannum?" or even "G, hmmm ... giga? Let's see, that's 10⁹, which is... a billion."

— CpiralCpiral 09:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Mya and bya: arbitrary subsection

At Earth#Formation we can comfortably sling "model", "theory", and "hypothesis" and there I want to change the use of Ga and Ma to bya and mya. But a browser-search of this MOS page is misleading concerning the state of affairs outlined. So I propose a move in this MOS, towards the orientation outlined. How? Well, at the Abbreviations indicating long periods of time ago bullet, mention BP and modern geophysics in the first sentence. Pair up the BP sub-bullet with a new "modern geophysics" bullet explaining ka, Ma and Ga there. Then use the remainder of the main bullet to say something like Combine the abbreviations yr for "years" and ya for "years ago" with prefixes for "thousand" (kya, kyr), "million" (mya, myr), and "billion" (bya, byr).

— CpiralCpiral 06:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

As I think I mentioned somewhere, it seems to me that in nuclear physics and cosmology at least the symbol for the year is almost always y or yr, so I disagree with the MoS recommendation of only using a. (Searching for "y", "yr" or "a" and excluding irrelevant stuff seems infeasible to me, so I don't know how to even begin making this observation into quantitative data.) I'm not familiar with the academic literature about geology or palaeontology so I don't know what they use. — A. di M.  11:13, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm a physicist who has published on paleoclimate and geology, so I've touched a lot of it. I think the use of "yr" (kyr, Myr, Gyr) is still widespread in many areas, while geologists in particular have gone over to "a" (ka, Ma, Ga) for many things. Out of curiosity I pulled out a major geology text from 1989 and it was already using the "a" notation. However, my impression is that "ya" notation ( kya, mya ) is widely disfavored in academic circles at this point. You still see it in popular culture stuff, but I wouldn't generally encourage its use here. I would especially avoid use of "b" to mean billion, as in "bya" or "byr". I'm not sure I've ever seen those used in academic literature (though I'm sure someone could find an example if forced). Of course one could argue about whether we want to be "scholarly" (e.g. "yr", "a") or "popular" (e.g. "ya") in our choice of units and abbreviations. Personally, I would favor writing out "billion years" if it is only going to be used occasionally, and adopting scholarly prefixes (e.g. "Gyr", "Ga") if an abbreviation is really unavoidable. Dragons flight (talk) 13:33, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The word "billion" is fine, as you say, thank you, for infrequent use. This MOS says to intro. the first unit appearance with a worded parenthetical explanation. My topic is is for featured articles like Earth with frequent need for the unit bya or Ga editors need. The prefix giga (or symbol "G") is probably what a featured article on Accretion disk would need. But how about the article on Earth?

The article Earth, being a topic about the place we all live, needs a "featured" phrase "billion years ago", because it's on stage for everyone in the world who can read "you are here", not just "scholars" like myself who know and like "giga annum". So I'm advocating that the MOS should aim for a style, featured article style, for a topic most likely because of greatest probable interest, much the way WP:redirect bypasses WP:disambiguation for what is most likely intended. Thus this MOS should in general redirect editors to use bya because it's most likely a common-reader featured article, and not a scholarly-reader featured article. Ga is fine for scholarly geophysical geography, but not for common geophysical geography. So the issue becomes a simple matter of pragmatics, (because the common-scholarly reader must soon-to-be applying the information there scientifically, expertly, or scholarly) and a matter of probability, because the readers of Earth, a featured article, are probably not scholarly. They are probably third graders, applying a lesson given to them. As it stands, the MOS is misleading for what would be an improvement (we seem to agree upon, almost) of section in a featured article that I'm working on: Earth#Formation . — CpiralCpiral 20:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

So I boldly made the edit. But is it just geophysics? Probably not. Probably needs refinement of that exception, maybe a list. And is it the policy of the British Museum spell out "years ago", "billion years ago" and "thousand years ago". Almost certainly. Should Wikipedia advocate that for common-reader featured articles? I say No. — CpiralCpiral 21:07, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Disagree - just write it out - neither form is sensible or easy to follow, and leads to abominations like Ga -0 (Galdolinium). Incidently, the gray is NOT a new unit, and is not a measuremeant of radiation, but of absorbed dose, and the symbol is Gy, not Gya.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

But units are needed sometimes, not only in the numbers of math and science, but in the general prose too. This MOS has those three paragraphs because the British Museum example you recommend is an exception WP doesn't make. Please note that I said I have (somewhat boldly) edited them already, hoping to get the discussion completed. Thanks. — CpiralCpiral 23:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

• Just as long as if a non-intuitive abbreviation is used in an article, it is glossed in parentheses on first occurrence. Tony (talk) 01:37, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely, and I would say that all the ones mentioned above are non-intuitive and sufficiently unfamiliar to our general readership that first-time glossing should be mandated here for the lot. Johnbod (talk) 15:45, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

We should bear in mind that some fields only study the past, so any phrase or abbreviation involving thousands of years, or more, can be assumed to refer to the past, not the future. But that is not the case in other fields, such as general interest articles or astronomy, so editors will need to take care to clearly distinguish between past and future. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Mya and bya: summary

This above discussion was interesting but easy to ignore, like a lovers quarrel in the park.

I took out The tya/kya, mya and bya symbols are deprecated in some fields such as geophysics and geology, but remain common in others, such as anthropology because

• "deprecated" scares the kids who associate it with old or insecure software
• it's an unsupported statement
• there's support against the statement
• the debates could be endless and fruitless or ignored: bya or Ga? Science? SI-acceptance? Acedemic? Popular? (That the article be "science-related" to determine whether to use bya or Ga? Perhaps the MOS meant to say "academia-related" articles to use SI? (Again, Dragon flight) Perhaps it should say neither?) (See below.)

I esp. like the one relevant counter-assertion "Dragons flight" made, (concerning units) that the MOS recommend Ga in order for Wikipedia to be "scholarly" (e.g. "yr", "a") rather than "popular" (e.g. "ya"). But the scholars could be 3rd Graders using Earth in a school assignment. Let them write "mya" to discuss Earth, not "Ma". Their playground need not distinguish the complicated reasons "geophysicists but not anthropologists" have different initialisms or acronyms, discern "absolute" verses "duration" time, or have contentious variations amongst themselves, just because of the ad hoc nature of reality on their "playground". — CpiralCpiral 07:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Prior discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_78#MYA_or_mya and Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_96#Ga, Ma, ka preferred to bya, mya, tya should be considered. I'm still in favour of the modern terminology Ga vice bya, if only because its use in graphs on commons does not have to be translated for other language wikis. Do we really want to have a situation where an en-only version is to be required, driven only by the unit representations selected in MOS? LeadSongDog come howl! 22:08, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The two extremes are "spell it out" and "use universal units". Assuming the number of mental translations relate to accessibility, lets compare the compromises: universal units verses English acronym:
Ga -> giga-annum -> 10e9 years -> Billion years ago = six steps. V.S. Bya-> Billion years ago = three.
The later is more accessible, but less scholarly. If someone wants to work on Earth, they should realize the audience is potentially very widely everyone who can read the lingua franca. For Earth it should probably use mya, and let the scholars adjust downward, as they are used to doing all the time.

GA and FA used to have accessibility as a criterion, but not any more. Any featured article can obviously use either Ga or Bya. Now, each article has an audience. The MOS should not say to use mya, as it does now, but just list styles, then give many good reasons explaining when and how to match the target audience. (Please see below why we can do this without taking surveys, and how by being as creative as WP:FNNR.) Let's try to come up with a MOS proposal that does not commend or mandate as it does now. — CpiralCpiral 03:57, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Mya and bya: observations into quantitative data

A quantified explanation for A.di M. as to my qualitative experience with this MOS, resulted in a meta-philosophy I'll try on for any future edits to this MOS. (Where I say "this MOS" or "that MOS" I refer to obvious sections of the MOS.)

More generally, "science related" articles means those that work with a global terminology: one language of numbers and units describing one (scientific) method, which involves conferences, committees and bureaus. Editors have only the MOS, and the MOS has only ad hoc discussions that just happen to happen. So the scientific institutes may deprecate terms (e.g. kilobyte), whereas we should not. We should mention and mandate styles and terms, but not commend them. The line between scholarly and popular, science-related or not science-related, etc., should be purposely undefined, because the definition of the line would have to be either very complicated, or simple enough to become ignored. Undefined lines are the best real-life "utterances": subtle when no longer confused.

"The sentence removed" (above) contained a helpful list of fields where the surveyed literature is predominately…—wait a minute:

• The MOS job is not to make or report upon surveys, then based on that, categorize a style or term. The MOS doesn't have members that can gerrymander the lines to paddle the boat to some drum. We've participants whose activity just happens to happen, and so we should try only to perfect editor ideals. The vicissitudes of life and the ad hoc nature of reality raise defiance precisely at "battle lines" of ambiguous and arbitrary thresholds.
• The MOS job is to make life bearable on Wikipedia; to list notable styles and terminology. The editors job is then choosing listed terminology using ad hoc notions of aesthetics, which will include audience sentiments towards what style is notable for the article edited. Thus articles work themselves out, in an ad hoc fashion, for all manner of styles and terminology, which we list and explain in a neutral fashion.
• Ideally, all articles are featured. Featured articles are the epitome of the MOS. Therefore the MOS should list what's notable and offer local reasons and associations as the articulation of the list evolves. The external reasons for terminology and style is thus made less relevant here, as we focus on internal rationalizations.
• Ideally, an editor scans the entire MOS and then works-up articles towards featured status. The scan, if absorbing details, should leave style-oriented details, not content-oriented details, in the memory.
• An encyclopedia should be "scholarly", not because it covers lofty ground, but because it covers notable knowledge on all grounds worthy of learning.
• While this MOS requires more mandates than the WP:FNNR MOS, that MOS is par excellence where it says "possibilities include", and how it provides both explanations and reasons for associating them with choices. Even if some of those reasons are over the top, they're a list of internally usable rationalizations and mnemonics, and they are ignorable (in parenthesis) for those simply filling up there memories with a scan. WP:FNNR separates footnote-style-content and footnote-style-title/terminology. FNNR used to say "the most popular title for footnotes on the wiki", just as this MOS used to say "mya is not popular in geophysics".

Thusly, here:

• If mya is notable, it's usable. Whether it's deprecated in the field or not is not notability's entire purview. I've made a reversal of the MOS stance on using mya and bya. I've said the MOS should avoid such stances.
• What is a "Science related" article, in the bya/Ga context? It means an article's audience very likely knows how quickly to associate giga and tera with a number; or that M is both Million or Mega, but that Billion is only G.
• This MOS now lists "SI, SI-accepted, bya, Ga and BP, and spelling-out" neutrally and generally, mandating mya and bya, but offering BP and Ga as alternative methods, and gives associations to consider. The geophysics bullet might better say Acedemic, to better match the style at the top where it says CE and BCE are common in some scholarly and religious writing.
• The 'deprecated' label could have bred obstinance in new editors who naturally avoid such. But it was an understandable mistake to cite external contexts. The mandates coming from the MOS to the editors, should begin in Wikipedia. WikiProject Math has there own MOS; WikiProjectComputing does not, and their CLI-command articles are inconsistent with one another.
• I can generalize this mandate coming into the MOS makers, (into the meta-MOS,) by finding in the MOS-world, where there is a sad state, an army of wanna-be general semanticists, like me perhaps, but no matter how many personal articulations they've perfected, they are often dictating in oblivion "how things are" when it comes to mandating, having no real (because responsive) ownership of the future's practical terrain. Read 'em and weep.

— CpiralCpiral 07:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Two by five chains is no furlong

Two by five chains is definitely an acre.

I'm dragging up an old topic which has been discussed a couple of times with the discussion leading to some positive suggestions which were never carried through with.

The current guideline reads as follows.

When dimensions are given, each number should be followed by a unit name or symbol (e.g. write 1 m × 3 m × 6 m, not 1 × 3 × 6 m or 1 × 3 × 6 m³).

It was argued by some that the repetition of the unit was unnecessary (that, for example, "100 × 100 m" is unambiguously a one-hectare square) and that the rule should be removed. Others argued that, no, this should be treated as a mathematical expression (that, for example, "100 × 100 m" is 10 kilometres). No consensus was reached on this and the status quo remained.

However, there was an alternative mentioned: "by". How could "100 by 100 metres" be mistaken for 10 km? I don't believe it could. It seems to me the perfect solution. Furthermore "by" feels more at home in prose and is therefore, I reckon, more suitable when the units are spelt out; compare "2 feet by 6 inches" to "2 feet × 6 inches".

Here's what I propose.

1. When dimensions are given using the multiplication sign each number should be followed by a unit symbol or abbreviation (as currently recommended).
2. Dimensions may be given using "by", in which case only the last number need be followed by a unit name, symbol or abbreviation (perhaps even "... only the last number should be followed ..." unless there are more than one unit involved).
3. When unit names are spelt out in full use "by" to give dimensions.

JIMp _talk·cont 16:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

"By" is well understood in American English. I'm not sure about other national varieties of English. I suspect it might be an unnecessary burden to those who speak English as a second language. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC) modified 21:12 UT.

An unnecessary what? — A. di M.  19:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. — A. di M.  19:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it's well understood in all varieties of English. I'm not sure that avoidance of burdening speakers of other languages should come before good writing nor would this be amongst the greatest of burdens at WP. JIMp _talk·cont 01:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

If we're always concerning ourselves not to burden ESL readers, here's what we end up producing: the Simple English Wikipedia. Let ESL readers either go there use or a dictionary if this site gets to be a burden (though, I'm begining to wonder whether a mathematical symbol in the middle of prose is really significantly less burnensome for ESL readers than a word). Note that as they currently stand the guidelines don't rule out "by" anyway and there already exist instances of its use out there.

Okay, how about dropping point 3 above (the requirement that "by" be used whenever units are spelt in full)? This new proposal would mean that "by" is noted as an alternative (whereas currently is just isn't mentioned) and that where "by" is used repeating the units would be optional.

1. Dimensions may be given using the multiplication sign or "by".
2. When dimensions are given using the multiplication sign each number should be followed by a unit name, symbol or abbreviation (as currently recommended).
3. When dimensions are given using "by" only the last number need be followed by a unit name, symbol or abbreviation (unless there are more than one unit involved).

JIMp _talk·cont 03:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I have added the second (green) version to the guidelines. Excuse me if I'm being overly bold but in light of the fact that this discussion seems to be gaining so little interest I don't think I'm overstepping the bounds in making the call that the currently mentioned concern about burdening ESL readers doesn't outweigh the support for this alternative expressed in the previous discussions which I have linked to. As noted, though, I have weakened the wording such that "by" would be optional regardless of whether the unit is spelt out whereas my preference would have been for the straight-forwardness and consistency of a rule strengthened such that the form used is determined by the form of the units i.e. the following rule.

1. When units are given using a symbol or abbreviation use the multiplication sign for dimensions and follow each number should be followed by the unit symbol or abbreviation.
2. When units are given using (a) unit name(s) use "by" for dimensions and follow only the last number by the unit name unless mulitple units are involved.

JIMp _talk·cont 06:51, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Uncertain birth dates

The following addition to the WP:BORN section is suggested:

• Where an exact death date, and age (e.g. died 18 June 1952 aged 76), are known, but not the exact birth date: (born 1875/1876; died 18 June 1952)

Discussion by the Wikipedia community is requested to determine if this change should be made. Thank you. Truthanado (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

This is only part of the story; which originates with these disputed changes to John J. Mullen (mayor) and discussion on my talk page, in which Truthanado argues:

The changes to the birth dates were made in accordance with the following guideline at WP:BORN (a section in WP:MOSNUM:

When the year of birth is known only approximately: "John Sayer (c. 1750 – 2 October 1818) ..."

Since we know he was born in either 1875 or 1876 (because his age at death is known), "circa 1875" is appropriate.

In addition, a forward slash between dates is used to signify a night, as in this from WP:DATEFORMAT (a section in WP:MOSNUM:

A night may be expressed in terms of the two contiguous dates using a slash (the bombing raids of the night of 30/31 May 1942).

Which is of course, nonsense. 1875/1876 is not "a night"; and we don't only know the subject's birth-date "approximately". We know that it was 1875 or 1876, but not 1872, 1874 or 1877. "Circa 1875" is less precise than "1875/1876" and we owe it to our readers to be as precise as possible. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

When changing guidelines, remember to keep them consistent with each other. WP:YEAR says "... c. is preferred over circa ...". Art LaPella (talk) 20:24, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

How is that relevant to the change under discussion? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Truthanado argued that "circa 1875" can be appropriate, although WP:YEAR recommends c. not circa. Art LaPella (talk) 22:13, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Let me clarify. I used the full word circa to emphasize the point and maker it clear that an approximate date is defined. Of course, the correct text to use in the article should be c. 1875, as defined in the guideline, and as in the edit that was reverted. Truthanado (talk) 05:21, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Long intervals of time

Must see previous discussion "Mya and bya" above.

What I'll call a unit-type is what can get tedious or trite or inaccessible, e.g. byr, or Ma BP, or bya.

Glossing is a parenthetical spelling out of the unit-type on first occurrence.

What I'll call Semi-glossing is linking only. See Template_talk:Val/unitswithlink for this (and see Template talk:Val#Introduction Q&A in general). Units may be added to {{val}} without the need for template-editing's usual sandboxing and testcases, but this is not well-documented.

A Standalone section: is read for it's own sake, of major interest (either to local or wide audience). It's a Summary article candidate, now or in future. It's Linked from other articles (rarely known!) If it's not a standalone section, and the article uses glossing and abbreviations, the neither gloss or nor link. Standalone is a debatable characterization.

Proposal

Articles that frequently use absolute time locations "X years ago", or durations of time "X years" (accurate forever) where X is a large interval (like the Archeology, Geo-sciences, Cosmology, Astronomy, Ecology, Zoology, and Anthropology articles) have a choice of four (notable) sets of abbreviations, based on the audience for that article.

Header text	Description	When to use
BP	precise forever; mixable e.g. 44 Ma BP	Precision measurements were carried out
BC, BCE, AD, CE	440 BC	Audience expects the consensus reality
Ma, Ga, ka	Used for both absolute-time and duration-time; Use scientific notation for numeral portion.	Audience is international community of scientists
mya, bya, kya, byr, myr, kyr	Has an accessibility aesthetic in a lingua franca	Audience is the global masses, not highly educated

Intensional considerations concerning article consistency and conversion.

• Compact efficient set of symbols (Past & future, absolute & durations; set with fewer units for more meanings)
• Mya and Myr have the advantage where only Ma would be used because M is ambidextrous.
• Choose for the article style, one of the bottom two styles. The top two are mixable.
• Bya and Byr have the advantage where only Ga would be used, because two is accessible.
• Kya and kyr have the advantage where only Ka would be used, for the same reason.
• BC, BCE, AD, and CE are not usually mixed together or with the the other sets.

Choice of unit-types in terms of accessibility. Accessibility is increased when

• educational level of audience is presumed lower, while
• excessive links are distracting and off-putting to some readers
• excessive spelling-out is tedious and trite to some readers

Extensional, practical judgments concerning the article's glossing and unit-type references:

• Aesthetic if six or less used
• Fifth mention per article: gloss and link the first, optionally semi-gloss the second
• Third mention per section: semi-gloss can link the unit-type on second occurrence.
• 4th mention per article: follow glossing/semi-glossing rules, but do not abbreviate.

Comments on the proposal

It's long. It's a rough draft. Here's some more relevant material garnered from LeadSongDog's mention of previous discussions:

• BP is int'l standard for all carbon dating, and for time periods less than a few thousand years.
• Lingua Franca acronyms were used in a U. of Cal. (a rare acedemic exception?)
• Ga is increasingly popular, overcoming bya in areas of science

The audience of WP is everyone, the styles are every notable one; the audience of an article is limited, if only to English readers; the style of an article is consistent. MoS facilitates the raising of an article quality, and the keeping of 'em raised. MoS crew are the brains who produce the no-brainers. MoS tries to think ahead so as to present finished debates so as to limit repeating the same debate at each article, but No article having edit-wars is allows to progress in any way per editors one and all. Civility comes before article quality. We never lose wisdom. Our page-watchers are among the highest awareness. Consistently someone is watching, referring to historical discussions. But article-editors are one level more real because less abstract. There, on more solid, more real ground, surprising, ad hoc, subtle truths are stranger than MoS fictions. There are no definite mandates. MoS'd rather lose face and take notes than to facilitate edit wars. We provide judgments that will dampen-out over-thinking. We have to mandate where we must, and remain cool on the rest. Wittgenstein said, "what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."

But because WP is an institution, sui generis we like money for programmers and administrators, we have marketing and policies. We like vandal whackers, but we don't like biting the newbies. Discussions that reference the MoS have the effect of a sudden lurking-silence or pseudo-disappearance of debaters. We like that. But article-editors are like MoS customers: they are always right; we don't want them to really disappear. The content they might bring is the main purpose, their volunteering the main engine; and so volunteer experience is the main thing to keep in mind. May the best editor lose? Yes, unfortunately. MoS tries to prevent that. MoS is full of reasons, explanations, and creativity, which if grasped, is ever improving righteousness and ever brightening light, garnered from volunteers, forged throughout the annuls of history near and far. — CpiralCpiral 21:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Informing editors about minus signs

Attempts to substitute, by several individuals, with dashes and even non-breaking hyphens were not unseen, but since user talk: Rursus #Misplaced .26ndash; I start to think that something is seriously wrong with this part of MoS. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Incnis Mrsi abt the text. I estimate the base question to be this:

• is minus signs (1) bad for the browsing or (2) good? I interpret the text so that minus signs provoke line breaks, while ndashes (maybe) don't,
• I think the text must be elaborated so it explains why this or that sign is bad,
• otherwise the rule seems ad-hoc,

Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 06:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I got another idea: in many fonts, f.ex. DejaVu Serif, the minus - is half the width of plus +. That might be a reason why editors tend to replace - with ndash –. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 06:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I suggest Rursus to start their typographic education from the article hyphen-minus. Possibly, it's this link what this part of MoS, unfortunately, misses. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Whoops… it neither is missing nor was missing from the beginning (although I made a nasty typo in my edit which was happily fixed by another user). Then, I can't realize at all why MoS does not convince. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Year ranges

At WP:YEAR, it says:

Ranges expressed using prepositions (from 1881 to 1886 or between 1881 and 1886) should not use en dashes (not from 1881–1886 or between 1881–1886).

giving a solution for using the preposition form. What is the suggested language, though, if you want to use the endash range form? Example:

X was the name of Y from 1948–1990

Which of these is it?:

1. X was the name of Y 1948–1990 (seems "naked" without the preposition)
2. X was the name of Y (1948–1990) (it isn't really parenthetical)
3. X was the name of Y during the year range 1948–1990 (ugly)
4. X was the name of Y in the years 1948–1990
5. There is no grammatically correct solution
6. Something else

Also, if you do want to use the preposition form, is "to" or "through" the appropriate conjunction after "from"?:

X was the name of Y from 1948–1990

becomes:

1. X was the name of Y from 1948 through 1990 or
2. X was the name of Y from 1948 to 1990

I would think "through" is more accurate because the original incorrect form would seem to be inclusive of 1990, while "to" is, at best, vague.

—[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

1. You can't use the en-dash form if you have a preposition before the first date, as your examples show. Why would you want to? For dates it's mostly useful parenthetically, as in "There was a period when X was the name of Y (1948–1990), but more recently ..." In other cases it works because the first preposition isn't needed, e.g. "It has has leaves which are 3–5 cm long."

2. There is an ENG:VAR issue with "through"; it's much less used in British English, where "from 1956 to 1980" would normally be understood inclusively.

Peter coxhead (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

1. Yes, awkward.
2. Parenthetical is bumpy in running prose unless in a list or a sequence of contrasts, where it's preferable, I think.
3. Impossible.
4. Bad.

Just use from 1948 to 1990, simple. Peter, it's not all prepositions: during 1990–95 is fine; n seems OK. But between and from seem to gag. Tony (talk) 02:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

"During" and "in" grate on me a bit in this context; if the period has been referred to previously, I'd probably be okay with them, but on first reference "during the years 1990–95" would be better. Powers ^T 15:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It depends on whether the preposition ‘binds’ with only the first endpoint or with the whole range. From 1948 to 1990 is parsed as [from 1948] [to 1990], whereas during 1990–95 is parsed as [during [1990–95]]. — A. di M.  20:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Two-year ranges: dash versus slash

Current advice indicates that "1989–90" indicates a full 24-month period, while "1989/90" is used to indicate a 12-month (or shorter) period that spans two calendar years (as in a sporting league season or fiscal year). While it is laudable to achieve this distinction for clarity, I have two concerns. First, I'm not actually aware of any sporting league/team season articles that actually make use of the slash instead of a dash. Second, I don't know that the slash notation is common enough for its meaning to be immediately understandable to readers. Am I missing something here? Powers ^T 00:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

A more exact statistic is that "2008–2009 season" and "2008-2009 season" together beat "2008/2009 season" by around 8 to 1 on Wikipedia. Art LaPella (talk) 01:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• I must admit to seeing/noticing a greater prevalence of the former (dashed) over the latter (slashed) in my Wikitravels. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Long dash

How is the 'long dash' created, between the birth & death dates? GoodDay (talk) 02:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Dates of birth and death, "Dates of birth and death ... are separated by an en dash". The en dash is a short dash, not a long dash, when compared to an em dash. For creation instructions, see Wikipedia:How to make dashes. Art LaPella (talk) 05:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Those instructions are too confusing. I'm gonna stick with creating '–' type. GoodDay (talk) 22:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Press ALT and hold it down then press 0150 while still holding down the ALT key. -DJSasso (talk) 22:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Too confusing? Darn!! I thought that's why we have the "Short explanation". Art LaPella (talk) 02:30, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Howdy Art. I've tried the ALT & 0150 approach, but it's done nothing. GoodDay (talk) 10:30, 3 October 2012 (UTC)