Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

It has been 3210 days since the outbreak
of the latest dispute over date formats.

Television seasons and episodes

I have found there is not a consistent way to notate season and episode for television series. Sometimes they are written as 1X19; 01x19; season 01, episode 19; or season 1, episode 19. Which is preferable? (I lean towards the last one.) LA (T) @ 06:15, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

This should be discussed on the talk page of the article in question. I don't see a need for standardization of this across WP. (And if we tried, imagine the yelling and shouting...) EEng (talk) 06:21, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I will take it to Wikiproject Television. LA (T) @ 21:08, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

I wish I'd had the sense to suggest that. Good idea. EEng (talk) 21:47, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

EEng: And done, discussion now at Wikiproject Television. LA (T) @ 23:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Script-assisted conversion of Retrieved YYYY-MM-DD

Recall the September 2013 rendition.

Recall the May 2014 rendition.

User:Walter Görlitz again converts reference date formats massively. At a glance it appears to me that nothing has changed but the edit summary, now "date formats per MOS:DATEFORMAT by script" [1] (and appeal to STRONGNAT in subsequent summary) in place of the previous explicit abuse of MOSNUM. --P64 (talk) 02:19, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

And you decide to edit war over a completely correct date format. The problem is that the tool that used to generate the date formats used the ISO-8601 format, but some bureaucrats decided that because the source code for that was not freely available, it could not longer be used to generate references. The new tool does not use ISO-8601 dates and prefers DMY formats. So either fix the references in the article you appear to want to WP:OWN or update your sense of what's appropriate. Do whatever you want to the article, but except in rare cases (scientific content and others where the date format is preferred) , ISO-8601 should cease to be used for articles dates. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:25, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: ISO-8601 should cease to be used for articles dates is completely against agreed policy in MOS:DATEUNIFY. Using a tool is no excuse for acting against the MOS. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:14, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Peter, unfortunately, there has been and continues to be an on-going and widespread problem in which other editors using various auto-editor programs add inappropriate/inconsistent date formats to articles that already have well established MDY or DMY date formats at the article level. Frankly, it is obnoxious for any editor using an auto-editor program to leave their setting set on the ISO (or DMY) format without consideration to the established date formats of the articles; oddly, I rarely see anyone using an auto-editor program to insert inconsistent MDY dates into articles. I have several very large watch lists -- including those for international athletes written in both British/Commonwealth English and American English -- and hardly a day goes by when I do not have to waste time cleaning up after auto-editors who insert inappropriately formatted dates into these articles. And that thoughtless conduct is certainly no less contrary to the guidelines than that complained of above. As I see the same editor names repeatedly, no doubt some of this is the result of ISO proponents who simply think ISO dates are "cool." MOS:DATEUNIFY is a two-way street, which contemplated reciprocal courtesy for the established date formats of articles, and it was not intended as a beachhead for ISO proponents to insert their preferred style into articles in which it did not previously exist. If this continues to be a problem, there may come a time in the near future to revisit the permissibility of ISO dates per MOS:DATEUNIFY. I will also remind everyone of the final sentence of MOS:DATEUNIFY:

"When a citation style does not expect differing date formats, it is permissible to normalize publication dates to the article body text date format, and/or access/archive dates to either, with date consistency being preferred."

In other words, in the absence of an established citation style with differing date formats, it is permissible to conform dates to the predominant style of the article. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:00, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. And I will say in the absence of a template to inform editors that a style is being used, you have no leg on which to stand. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

@Dirtlawyer1: no-one is arguing about standardizing access/archive dates throughout an article if the article is inconsistent. They should be standardized to the predominant style for such dates. Note that the section you quoted allows access/archive dates to be normalized to "either", i.e. the article text style or YYYY-MM-DD. If the wording is used to allow User:Walter Görlitz to replace consistent YYYY-MM-DD access/archive dates then it also allows any other editor to do the reverse. Neither should happen; the predominant existing style in an article should be respected as per WP:CITEVAR.

Peter, you know me and you know that I am a reasonable person; above all, I strongly support stylistic consistency within an article. When I am writing about an Australian athlete, I honor Australian spelling and stylistic conventions; when I'm writing about an American subject, I use American practices. In my personal experience, the ISO gnomers don't care enough to conform an entire article to their preferred ISO style. They just drop several ISO dates into the footnotes of an article that has a pre-existing and well established citation style and leave it to someone else who cares enough to clean up behind them. And, yes, I'm aware of what the quoted sentence says, but no one gets to insert a handful of ISO dates into an article that already has consistent date formatting and then claim that it's inconsistent, or just leave it for others to argue about later. It is an obnoxious practice, especially when the article has no ISO dates and has been tagged for "DMY" or "MDY" dates; these tags are routinely ignored. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:55, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I hope I'm equally reasonable! I support (of course) cleaning up odd ISO formats for access/archive dates; we are entirely in agreement on that. However, the reverse also applies; odd non-ISO formats in an article otherwise using ISO for access/archive dates should be cleaned up to ISO. If I start a new article, I always use ISO formats for access/archive dates; it's quite against current policy and guidelines to change these, whether or not another editor has added the odd non-ISO format for these fields. If I edit an existing article, I try to keep to the existing format (although I have to admit that I sometimes forget since overwhelmingly I'm correctly using ISO for access/archive dates).

The tag for "DMY" or "MDY" dates is irrelevant; it's clear from the project page and from previous RfCs that these tags do not apply to access/archive dates. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:41, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: a template informing editors of the date style used in the article text is for information only. I'd be reluctant to see yet another such edit notice, but I guess we could have one just for access/archive dates. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Alternately, add a secondary optional parameter to the two existing "use DMY dates"/"use MDY dates" templates that add in the reference style if it is determined to be ISO, otherwise assumed to be the same as the prose style. Avoids extra templates, gracefully grandfathers all existing uses. --MASEM (t) 20:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

And I will say in the absence of a template to inform editors that a style is being used, you have no leg on which to stand.; Translated: "Since I can't be bothered to manually check an article's citation formatting when using my script-assisted tool, I will instead accuse others of laziness." Honestly Walter, there is probably no action that carries less value to this project that a pedantic need to change a date formatting style simply because you don't like what is being used. You do a lot of great gnoming work overall, but this is just a waste of time. Resolute 20:11, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Correct translation: If you can't mark an article it will be modified because it’s a correct action. Actually the only action that carries less value to the rest of Wikipedia is editors who think that they live in a bubble and everyone else on WIkipedia has to read thier minds. If your "project" can't be bothered to communicate with other editors then don't be surprised if wer are WP:BOLD and edit the article according to what your guidelines state. I will say this one more time DO NOT PING ME TO T7HEIS DISCUSSION AGAIN. DO NOT LINK TO MY USER PAGE AGAIN. I DO NOT WANT TO BE ALERTED TO YOUR PEDANTIC WIKILAWYERING. You give Wikipedia a bad name. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

First off, I never pinged you to this discussion, so aim your petulent whining at the right target. Second, if the citation formatting is consistent, or even mostly consistent, we should not need to add more templates for the benefit of lazy bot operators or script users. It should not be my job to clean up after your laziness. Resolute 20:56, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Era system

According to the Era style guidline, "Either [AD or CE] convention may be appropriate." However, I see NPOV issues with using "AD" and "BC" in articles for reasons including:

1. WP:NPOV says:

Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice.

In that case, use of "AD" and "BC" would be direct violations due to the controversial nature of what "AD" and "BC" denote. For example, using a date styled "66 BC" would be a direct violation of WP:NPOV as it is only an abbreviation of "66 years before Christ," which many people would disagree with as not every Wikipedia reader is Christain and would be a violation of WP:NPOV for stating opinions as facts.

1. We have to have to realize that Wikipedia is a global project, and while "AD" and "BC" may be accepted in the Western hemisphere, we have to remember that the Western hemisphere is not the only place English is spoken and Wikipedia should be the most universal as possible, and while weather to use British or American English may have no universal answer, era style does and that system is the Common Era system.
2. The abbreviation "AD" can be translated to "year of our lord," which means if "AD" is used directly on Wikipedia it can violate the First-person pronouns policy, which says:

Wikipedia articles must not be based on one person's opinions or experiences, so never use I, my, or similar forms (except in quotations). Also avoid we, us, and our: We should note that some critics have argued against our proposal (personal rather than encyclopedic).

--Proud User (talk) 00:59, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I see some issues with your proposal.

1. AD and BC are in common use in the English speaking world. Plenty of people do not know what CE and BCE are.
2. Banning AD and BC is hardly NPOV, you are discriminating against those that wish to use it.
3. CE and BCE have removed the religious words but are still based on the same supposed date of Christ's birth that AD and BC are based on. Note that serious scholars do not argue that Christ never existed, only whether his claim to be God was true or not.
4. CE and BCE do not address the global issue. Are you proposing we use dates based on the the current Japanese emperor, or Islamic dates, or the coming to power of China's current government? All these are date systems currently in use.

The existing guideline allows for both forms. Editors wishing to use the supposedly non-religious CE and BCE are free to do so and editors wishing to use the traditional AD and BC are also free to do so.  Stepho  talk  03:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I see what you are saying and have put serious thought into this.

1. Per Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not censored "Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive—​even exceedingly so." Readers that do not know what "CE" and "BCE" means might be offended that Wikipedia is using terms they do not know about, but that doesn't stop Wikipedia from using them. For example, not everybody knows what "circa" means although Wikipedia still uses that term.
2. Per your second argument, why does Wikipedia have any policies if they are "discriminating" against those who do not approve of those policies?
3. The point of "CE" and "BCE" is that they happen to be more neutral and avoids stating opinions as facts. Even though most scholars agree Jesus existed does not mean all scholars agree he exist if and is hence still an opinion and therefore violates WP:NPOV for stating opinions as facts.
4. We have to remember that this is the English Wikipedia and the common era system is accepted in most English-speaking cultures, Simalar arguments include weather Wikipedia should use an English or Japanese term to describe a concept, which because this is the English Wikipedia the English term would be chosen As a side note, "AD" is Latin. --Proud User (talk) 10:14, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I support allowing either the AD notation or the CE notation for all the reasons expressed over tens of thousands of lines of discussion in this talk page since 2004. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:18, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

That particular argument is 20 years, 5 months and 19 days old and between that and other arguments there has been no consensus, which is why we are talking about it now.--Proud User (talk) 18:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The fact that people have brought this up a few times over the course of the last 11 years does not mean that there has not been consensus for the status quo. I would endorse what others have said in support of the current guideline and see little appetite for reviewing this point. Kahastok talk 18:43, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Jc3s5h (even though he removed my "outbreak" counter :P ). In this day and age AD/BC is a convention period. The stupid thing about CE/BCE is that they are still tied to the same beliefs, but pretend not to be. EEng (talk) 02:46, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the first half of that, but just about everything about our calendar is equally “stupid“. By the same token, calling today Thursday, October 29 could be taken to imply belief in Thor, that this is the eighth month of the year, and that a lunation is just ending, but in reality none of those inferences is the least bit warranted.—Odysseus1479 10:22, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Think of it this way: "66 years before common era" sounds way more neutral that "66 years before Christ."--Proud User (talk) 23:20, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Do you truly imagine you're the first to raise this issue? Read the abundant Talk archives on this, and if you have something new to offer let us know. EEng (talk) 02:03, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

There are some new things I want to point out.

1. The word "common" in "common era" means that it is based the Gregorian Calendar, the most commonly used calendar in the world. Thinking of it that way makes perfect sense. Meanwhile, "AD" attempts to be based on the birthdate of Jesus in Christian mythology. However, most scholars believe the if Jesus ever did exist that he was born between 7 BCE and 2 BCE, not 1 BCE as "AD" would make one believe.
2. "CE" is prefersd by most scholars and academics, probably because it is more neutral and universal.
3. These dates are not original to Christian mythology. If you look at Greek mythology, they had something called the age of Pisces which lasted from around 1 BCE to 2012. As you can see, the startdate of the age of the Pisces starts the same time Jesus's supposed birthdate is and ends when Christains thought the world would end (but were wrong). Pisces —like Jesus— was also represented by a fish (just to point something out).

--Proud User (talk) 12:07, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

A quick read of Proud_User talk page reveals several misunderstandings of Wikipedia polices. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 18:35, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

The previous comment was deleted by Proud User, citing WP:CIVIL. I restored it because it wasn't a personal attack, nor did it contain anything vicious or nasty. It's just pointing out that Proud User is a relatively new editor. Which means that he may not understand our complex system and the long history behind it. It also reminds us to keep the discussion civil (which it mostly has been by WP standards).  Stepho  talk  20:06, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

And it's been a veritable miracle of civility by dates-and-numbers standards. By this point in the discussion we'd typically have three blocks, two retirements-in-disgust, one never-darken-my-door-again, an SPI, two ANI threads, and maybe a desysop. See e.g. [2]. EEng (talk) 13:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

shortcut for uncertain dates

I think that a shortcut would be helpful to the paragraph labeled: "Uncertain, incomplete, or approximate dates". What would such a shortcut be named? Hmains (talk) 18:41, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Unless punctuation isn’t allowed, how about WP:DATE? ?—Odysseus1479 04:57, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I think WP:APPROXDATE might be less trouble-prone. EEng (talk) 07:39, 31 October 2015 (UTC)