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Date format

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There is nothing wrong with the month-date-year date (i.e. American-English) format being used in the article. The article was created as stub by Ish ishwar using this format. Ish ishwar also subsequently added an infobox using the same date format. Ish ishwar was creating lots of stubs for shogi professional at the time and I was then following along and trying expand them as much as possible. Both the American-English and British-English ways for formatting dates are widely used in Japan; so, there's really no claim to one particular format over the other due to MOS:DATETIES. There's also no reason to change the date format per MOS:DATERET or MOS:DATEUNIFY; so, it's not clear why three separate editors (Jkaharper, Normantas Bataitis and Lugnuts) have tried to do so over the few days. If there's a strong policy- or guideline-based reason for making such a change, please clarify. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Marchjuly:, Japan actually uses Year > month > death (please see Date format by country for more info). However, because we don't use this particular format on English language Wiki, an alternative is used. Because neither of the other formats (MDY or DMY) are typically used in Japan, most non-U.S. based users will automatically resort to DMY, because MDY is only ever really used in the U.S., Canada (except Quebec), Puerto Rico, Micronesia, and the Philippines (though they also use DMY), and hence DMY is the most prevalent norm. I hope you can therefore understand why the other users you've mentioned above are not wrong. I will not revert your wish to use MDY in the article, because frankly I really just don't care and as I said, there isn't a standard in Japan for either DMY or MDY, but you may wish to consider using DMY as a standard in the future for the reasons I've outlined above. Thanks --Jkaharper (talk) 11:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No disrespect intended here Jkaharper, but I've been living in Japan for quite a long time and both formats are readily used. I've seen both formats taught at various different levels in Japanese schools. British English is widely used in Japan, but so is American English as well (for obvious reasons). I don't know where the information came from on the Date format by country, but that's a Wikipedia article and the relevat information could've been added to it at any time by anyone for any reason. This is the website for the Prime Minister of Japan and the date format used on the very first page in Month-date-year. This is the date format for the Japan Times, one of the major English daily's in Japan, and the date format they use in the paper is month-date-year. The same goes for the Daily Yomiuri, the Mainichi Shimbun, the Asahi Shimbun, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, the University of Tokyo, Waseda Univeristy, etc. Now, for sure, the other format is also used in Japan as can be seen here, but I don't think neither format is considered a preferred format nationally over the other. Please look at this April 6, 2014, 11;42 am version for Date format by country and the only listing given for Japan was "YMD". The very next edit to that article made here by an IP address with only a handful of edits reorganized the table adding color and other formatting tweaks. It appears that the IP basically added {{No}} for all the empty fields in the table and {{Yes}} for those that had entries. No justification or sources were provided for any of "No" entries that were added. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No disrespect intended but as I already said, I don't particularly care so you're wasting your time typing all that out. If you believe that article to be in error then raise it on the respective talk page. Thanks --Jkaharper (talk) 12:40, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My issue isn't that I think the DMY format is wrong, but rather that you and the others seem to think that the MDY format is somehow "wrong", and that at least you seem to be basing your reasoning on what's in a Wikipedia article instead of what's in MOS:DATE. I think British English is fine and I will use it when it's clearly the established national variety of English being used in an article per WP:ENGVAR. I wouldn't switch to a MDY format for dates in an article which appears to be written in British English since that would be inconsistent and stylistically undesirable. Similarly, if an article is written in American English, then I will stick with that and not try to change it to another variety of English. If I thought there was an issue, then I would follow WP:RETAIN and seek a consensus for the change. It seems that MOS:DATEVAR is quite clear that there is not one acceptable date format for all Wikipedia articles and that the established format should be retained unless there's a good reason to change. There appears to be nothing in MOS:JAPAN that states that one format is preferred to the other like there is in WP:MILDATE. There are articles like Japan, Tokyo and Public holidays in Japan that seem to be written in American English and thus use the MDY format. There are other articles about Japan like 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami written in British English that seem to use the DMY format. There are FA-class Japan-related articles written in British English and there are FA-class Japan-related articles written in American English; so, there seems to be no preference for one variety of English over the other when it comes to Wikipedia and Japan. If there's truly a good policy- or guideline-based reason for preferring one over the other in this article, then perhaps you or one of the others can clarify what it is. -- Marchjuly (talk) 15:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the above is not relevant to the decision of what date style to use in a Wikipedia article. Japan is not an English-speaking country (though of course some in Japan speak English), so MOS:DATETIES is not a factor. The decision of which date style to use would be based on MOS:DATEVAR, which says (in full):

  • If an article has evolved using predominantly one date format, this format should be used throughout the article, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page.
  • The date format chosen in the first major contribution in the early stages of an article (i.e., the first non-stub version) should continue to be used, unless there is reason to change it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page.
  • Where an article has shown no clear sign of which format is used, the first person to insert a date is equivalent to "the first major contributor".

Basically, it depends on what was used first, unless there is a consensus on the talk page to change it. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:41, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Marchjuly and SchreiberBike. Japan has no official English date format and both common English date formats (DMY and MDY) are in common use in Japan. The Japanese language format of YMD (which I personally love) is not allowed in prose on WP. So, according to the MOS, whichever of DMY or MDY is used first in the article is the one that stays. Consensus may change that but most discussions on this fail to produce compelling arguments. I've been through this on a number of Japanese vehicle pages (always on the "leave it alone" side) and I can't think of a single instance where consensus said change it. The MOS has weathered many storms over this and handles it quite well.  Stepho  talk  23:13, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Marchjuly tagged me & i created many of these articles. I think it doesn't matter. (I do think the first-takes-priority policy is terrible – all content should be merit-based instead of this weird edit-ordering-based.)
If Jkaharper & company don't like it, then just change it. But, changing a single article makes Wikipedia inconsistent. So, if youse guys want to fiddle with the date format, you should fiddle with all articles. There's about 300 of them, which can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shogi_players_by_nationality peace – ishwar  (speak) 01:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Ish ishwar: "first-takes-priority policy is terrible". I agree, but it's the compromise that we have. A lot of things are messy on Wikipedia because we rely on consensus to make decisions. If I were emperor of Wikipedia, things would be different, but I'm not and I shouldn't be. Often times I'd prefer to flip a coin rather than fight fight fight. Anyway, it avoids a lot of arguing and that's worth something. SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:08, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I’m not opposed to a mass changing if there’s a good policy- or guideline-based reason for doing so; however, the reason given above in Jkaharper’s first post seems contrary to both the spirit if not the letter of WP:ENGVAR. In addition to the biographies of shogi professionals, there are other articles as well about competitions, organizations, computer programs, tournaments, etc. that would need changing as well if 100% consistency is desired, and it makes little since to just change date formats if you’re also not going to change the national variety of English used as well per WP:ARTCON. If consistency is desired across all Japan-related articles, then it seems there should be discussion about this at WT:JAPAN. If consistency is desired across all of Wikipedia, then discussion probably needs to take place at WT:MOSDATE. It’s not just shogi-related or Japan-related articles that have been following ENGVAR, but all kinds of article for all kinds of subject matter. The principle behind WP:RETAIN also just doesn’t apply to date formats and national varieties of English; it also applies to things like WP:CITEVAR as well. So, switching to a more merit-based approach might be worth discussing, but it might also be hard to implement project wide. — Marchjuly (talk) 02:31, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
'all content should be merit-based': Actually, it does try its best to be merit based. It the topic is closely tied to the US then we use the MDY format. If it is closely tied to the UK or other countries in the Commonwealth then it uses DMY. Similarly for other countries that have official date formats for English (non-English languages don't count for English Wikipedia). When there is no such official date format, then there is no merit based argument to be made and we use the fall-back of first-come. Anything else eventually turns into massive arguments ultimately based on "that's what I grew up with". Editors in the Canada, US, Australia, UK, etc grew up with different formats, so they naturally think their version is wonderful and all others suck. For places like Japan it often comes down to where the user's teacher came from. Japan had/has both American and British teachers, so students could learn either. Japanese students also studied abroad in America, the UK, Australia and other countries, so again, they picked up different formats. Sometimes the date format is based on who they are doing business with - Americans do not accept any format except MDY - so doing business with Americans means using MDY. Doing business with Europe mostly means using DMY. With all this diversity there is simply no merit based choice that you can make for Japan. In the past we had edit wars where Americans and Brits would flip the format daily - because their version is "better" and your version sucks! So the MOS brought in WP:DATETIES as the first choice (merit based) and then WP:DATERETAIN as the second choice (avoiding edit wars) and talk page consensus as the final choice (for the corner cases). Changing by consensus is usually unsuccessful because it is usually based on user preference, not merit. The MOS team have though hard over this for many years and nobody has come up with anything better that is manageable.  Stepho  talk  11:04, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Stepho, Marchjuly, SchreiberBike, and Ish ishwar. They've all said everything I could say about the topic. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:33, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I'm open to a discussion at WT:MOSJAPAN to potentially select a specific date format for use in Japan-related articles. However, I think it will likely come down to our current way of going with whichever was first used in the article. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:40, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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