Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM

Meta-discussion

I've put this in its own subsection for the sake of clarity. Tony (talk) 15:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Tony, I'm not sure what you are trying to do with this; the separate RFC is within 24hr of being ready to go (its language tweaking), and I have it queued up for a watchlist-notice to gain maximum input when it does start. Furthermore, being as impartial as possible, the wording of these questions is improper for the RFC: for example, the "addition" of the deprecation to the MOS is what needs to be considered, as that's the point of contention on the page. --MASEM 14:19, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Masem, I'm sorry you say that—the discussion above has been going around in circles for some time, and I'm sure we can be forgiven for assuming that it would come to nothing. There is nothing "improper" about the wording of the current RfC—it is a plain and simple set of precisely worded proposals for change, and you are encouraged, like everyone else in the community, to engage with it. Tony (talk) 14:31, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Again, from trying to be an impartial POV here, it is improper: the change that is in question is the deprecation of DA (what started all the heated arguments here); you and a few other editors here added it, it was challenged, and thus via WP:BRD, the starting point for any further discussion should be that first addition, your change to make DA deprecated. Furthermore, simplifying the when-to-link-dates question to "always" or "never" misrepresents the discussion to a great degree. Being aware of the discussion on this page, the tone and the "reversal" of the questions raises several "in bad faith" concerns (that is, I know what your stance is on the MOS issues and your stance on those that have spoken out against it, and this seems to throw it back at them in a ill-behaved manner). I'm not trying to stop getting DA deprecated - I agree with all your reasons - however, it is the manner that this entire process has been approached that raises many many many concerns, and when something has hit WP:AN/I several times for editwarring, blocks, and the like, we need to have an RFC set up in the most appropriate manner to conclude this issue once and for all (or at least until consensus changes). This RFC does not do that, because although you'll get the answer to the DA question, there's many more issues that have been raised that also need to be discussed that go hand in hand with DA, and not addressing them fully means we'll be back here once again ifwhen this RFC is complete arguing those points. --MASEM 14:49, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The overriding problems in your draft are that it is huge, complex, and cumbersome. I do not believe that it will solve anything, and many or most users will be discouraged from participating when they confront these problems. You are attempting to raise fine-grained issues that jump the gun, in my view; the first thing to establish is whether the community wants to go back to these practices (1 and 2) and takes seriously the calls for bots to have to gain special permission at the talk page to help editors to comply with each point. These are the implications of some contributors here, and they need to be tested. Please do not obstruct a process that all WPians are allowed to initiate and participate in, and do not accuse me of bad faith in my launching of a significantly more practical, simpler set of proposals for change than I now see in your draft (I had in fact not paid much attention to it after I realised it would be so complicated). There is no "reversal"; it is simpler and entirely proper that an RfC propose changes to a style guideline. That yours does not do this is impractical, I believe. I'm sorry to speak plainly. Tony (talk) 15:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the fact it may seem bulky - other editors have said that and I agree that it's bit heavy; I'm trying to be practical to answer all questions that have been raised (both DA and when date linking should be done), but there clearly seems to be those that think it should be trimmed out, which I can see as a reasonable step. That's why I raised the points and sought input before making the RFC live, and I wish I had your input earlier for that.

My RFC does propose a change to the MOS in question #1, but it is the question of the change you and the others here did about a month or so ago, the change that accounts for 90% of the volume of this talk page. That is the change that is contested and thus is the one that needs to be asked. Now, for all practical purposes, the first question here and the first question on the RFC will end up at the same point, but the problem with your statement is that you are starting on the assumption that deprecation of DA had wide consensus to be part of the MOS - this never happened, viewing this discussion as impartially as possible. That's why Locke Cole and the others are asking and contesting, and is the main reason why we want some type of RFC. That's why, even if it is aiming to the same result, and even though the "change" is to remove the deprecation statement from MOOS, starting on the assumption that deprecation has been a consensus-agreed part of the MOS and the change is to revert it is not correct.

I will point out the question on the bot issue should not be part of this. This is the one question that, at least to me, emanates "bad faith", due to the known negative feedback that Lightmouse and others got when they started to change articles per the MOS. The issue is not whether bots should have to have the blessing of a MOS page before they make changes - that is part of the bot task approval system and should not be up to the MOS. Instead, what is important is that the parts of the MOS that the bot is cleaning up have consensus before the bot does its job, and/or the bot is stopped of that task when the issue of consensus is raised for that particular MOS section. And that's true for any bot, and thus that's still an issue on the bot approval page. The only discussion on the MOS talk page in regards to this issue is resolved the parts of the MOS that the bot is enforcing that are in question. In this current situation with DA, the resentment against Lightbot and others cleaning dates and how bots are to behave is a red herring, the core issue is still if DA should be deprecated or not.

The question of when to link dates is not cut and dried as you are trying to make it to be. Obviously without any change from the devteam to MediaWiki, if the community wants to go back to DA, then the second question is moot, since we have to link dates anyway. If the community agrees that DA is a dead horse, dates can still be linked (without invoking DA), but I don't think the only choices are "all dates" or "no dates", and painting that black and white masks the fact that we can be selective. Now, in my RFC, I agree the last questions on Year-in-Field links can probably go, but by asking for input specifically "Month day" and "year" links, we can find that middle point and go from there. The black-and-white options are still possible outcomes, but this is getting us the "C" part of RFC that is needed to figure out what we do ifwhen DA is considered a dead horse. --MASEM 15:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I have seen so many proposals and RfCs come to nothing (some of them launched by my friends) because they try to do too much at once and try to determine shades of decision-making and subtleties without determining the really big (simple) issues. I don't do things that way. I'm sorry I didn't realise yours required my input; I think I'd have advised to do something like this one above if I'd commented. I did hint at that above on this page, when I said, twice, that I simply had no idea what the wording meant in several cases. There seemed to be no response. I'm off to bed. Tony (talk) 15:46, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Disagree with Masem above, saying "That's why, even if it is aiming to the same result, and even though the "change" is to remove the deprecation statement from MOOS, starting on the assumption that deprecation has been a consensus-agreed part of the MOS and the change is to revert it is not correct." That is turning the whole WP system on its head, and is tantamount to the laws of evidence being reversed to saying that a person is guilty until proven innocent. The consequences such a precedent would far reaching, and the polarise debate will continue here and may well spill over into other parts of the realm. Therefore, IMHO, it is advisable to go for the simple question of deleting the sentence which appears to be disputed by some to see which side we all stand in the world. That will be the genuine moment of truth. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC

To be completely truthful, the situation that has arisen is as follows:

• 2 years prior to August 2008, Tony et al have been discovering numerous issues with DA and have been asking for its use to be discouraged (but still up to individual editors to complete).
• August 2008, locally the change to deprecated is discussed here and agreed to, and the language is changed to what is reads now. Tony and others push this change to various Wikiprojects, at FA, and so forth, but this is after the language was decided to be this
• August-October 2008, there is some, but not a lot of pushback to this change. Most of the changes are done by automated scripts.
• October-November 2008, with Lightbot now performing these changes as well as more uses with automated scripts, some people become very vocal about the status of this change looking for where the larger consensus was obtained.

Now, even though this doesn't necessary look like a Bold Revert Discuss cycle due to the time (August to November), it should be handled like one: the bold change to the MOS being the deprecation of the dates, the rather vocal objections being equivalent to reverting, and this RFC (Tony's or mine) being the Discussion. The point in question in not whether we want to go back using date autoformatting, but whether the deprecation of autoformatting had consensus to be added to the MOS, even though it sat there for 2-3 months, simply because when it was added there wasn't a wide discussion on the matter. It is a fine distinction from how Tony's RFC presents it, because it gives the impression that DA decprecation was the norm, which, as soon as there was discontentment with the change after it was made, would not have been the case.

That said, if people think this version of the RFC will complete the job, I'm not going to put any more resistance against it - I'd recommend writing over the subpage I made for the RFC with this so that this page doesn't get too long and so that the watchlist-notice can still point here. I feel it doesn't go as far as we soon when one is seeking a wide audience, but it will resolve the AN/I issues for the short term. --MASEM 20:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely that this is a BRD cycle (albeit a long one). I also believe this RFC fails to state the questions with any background (in fact I'd go so far as to say that Tony intentionally left background out because it harms his position). Background which is useful to people unfamiliar with the subject (or familiar, but unable to keep up with the day to day changes/developments). Specifically that a dev has already said that one of the major problems with the existing date auto formatting can be easily fixed (that IP users see various date formats). It's telling that some of the people opposing date auto formatting still cling to the idea that it's "broken" and "unable to be repaired" (which is simply not the case). I strongly urge the closure of this RFC and the opening of the RFC you created. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:18, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Locke Cole, I see that date autoformatting may be able to be fixed to everybody's satisfaction, but I don't understand why it is even necessary in the first place. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

(undent) on another front, this RfC still isn't listed at WP:RFC/A - could that be due to a collision with the RfC about birth/death-dates? either way: could that earlier RfC be archived, please, so that it doesn't distract newcomers to the discussion? Sssoul (talk) 17:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• To Masem et al.  Some bullshit flew onto my “fairness & free speech” radar and that tends to make me put my SAMs on high alert. Your RfC that is in the works is not somehow undermined when Tony advances an RfC of his own. Talk forums on Wikipedia are a purely-democratic marketplace where ideas are exchanged. This is why professors at universities are granted tenure: so that minority viewpoints and dissent can be raised without fear that there can be personal financial repercussions. The views of others are protected here on Wikipedia from the excesses of the majority. Tony will not be shouted down and please don’t question his intentions. I strongly urge you to desist from suggesting that Tony’s providing options here for me to vote on (ones that make a shit-pile of sense to me) is in any way improper. You are perfectly welcome to work on your own RfCs. Though you are trying to be “as impartial as possible,” you do not  have unilateral authority to define the scope of what will be considered here. Please get that through your head. Greg L (talk) 20:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Greg, we cannot just hide this behind a claim of "fairness and free speech". It was well-known to everyone here - including Tony - that an RfC was in development, was actively being discussed here, and was nearly ready to go. Launching a second one without any discussion shortly before the one that has been under development here is supposed to go live does not help the process. How can you claim the original one is not undermined, unless you are seriously proposing that we run two RfCs concurrently on the same topic? --Ckatz^chat_spy 20:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, well… Why didn’t you just say so!! Other editors (you included, apparently) were working on the only wording that I can consider. So the proper thing to do is tell Tony to shut the hell up and be quiet because someone died and made Ckatz a “thought god.” Sorry, my mistake. Greg L (talk) 20:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• P.S. Just for the benefit of the galactically clueless, I was being facetious above. The only part of your above post, Ckatz, that was correct is that Tony knew full well that another RfC was being worked on. Have you ever considered the possibility that Tony might not have liked the wording of your RfC? Perhaps he thought it was watered-down baby pablum wording, which often happens with the work product of committees. What part of “don’t tell others what they may think and how they may express their thoughts while trying to influence others” don’t you understand?!? Greg L (talk) 20:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• P.P.S. “[Tony launched] a second [RfC] without any discussion.” OMG. He didn’t even consult with you and get advance permission to do this?!? Bad Tony. BAD. Greg L (talk) 20:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, I don’t think Tony cares. Greg L (talk) 21:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

  You say that as though it were a good thing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:40, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

• LOL on the picture. :D Dabomb87 (talk) 02:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Uhhh... Tony, we already have an RFC pretty much ready to go live right here. These questions offer no background and seem (IMO) poorly phrased. Your randomly produced RFC will dilute and damage the results of the real RFC backed by regulars of this page. Please stop being disruptive (WP:DISRUPT and WP:POINT). —Locke Cole • t • c 22:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that Tony's RFC is not backed by regulars of this page - I am a regular, I have commented several times, have commented (albeit minorly on your RFC). Tony requested comment. I gave it. When you request your comment, I will give it too. If I didn't understand the background to Tony's RFC, I wouldn't have voted. His proposals are well-worded, to the point, succinct, accurate... To call your RFC the real one doesn't help either. When yours goes live, I will comment on that too. In any case, why do we need lots of background? If the claims that consensus wasn't reached last time, nicely worded proposals this time will allow any editor to give their views (in order to establish said consensus).—MDCollins 23:48, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying that and that starting this RFC when he knows another RFC is nearing is highly inappropriate. The lack of background information leaves it up to the person joining the discussion to make assumptions or do thorough review of the history/situation regarding date autoformatting. And already you can see the problems this is causing: people are opposing it with the belief that "it's broken and can't be fixed" (when a dev has already told me as little as a month ago that, if we want it fixed, it wouldn't be a very big deal to fix it). This RFC is purely disruptive and serves no purpose when a wider community RFC is pretty much ready to go. And FYI, it's not "my" RFC, I didn't start it and I've only contributed to it a few times, but I do think the format and questions are better phrased and, again, provide more background for those new to the subject. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• So… Locke: It appears you are saying it doesn’t matter much that a number of editors seized at the opportunity to register their opinion on the questions posed by Tony; your wording assumes that A) Tony knew about another RfC that is in the works (he certainly did), B) did this anyway to be disruptive to Wikipedia (a laughable accusation), and C) the editors who registered their opinions here are blind sheep who didn’t know that you guys were going to be soon walking down from the mountain with your stone tablets, and D) we shouldn’t have been afforded an opportunity to express our opinions on issues framed by Tony because Tony’s questions weren’t first vetted by High Party Officials. My Spanish isn’t great, but, el toro poo poo.

  Stop with your whining and get on with presenting a set of RfC questions that don’t look like a bunch of pot-smoking hippies from a 60s commune wrote them. If I think what you guys produced is a bunch of ambiguous, watered-down crap, you can count on my letting you know what I think about it. You can then complain about how I am expressing words that are disruptive to state security and proper social order. Greg L (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• P.S. Locke, so you don’t continue to come across as one of the galactically clueless here, please note that every single one of the editors who expressed his or her opinion in the above three questions, did so after  Masem’s 4:19, 23 November 2008 complaint pointing out that another RfC was in the works. Note MDCollins’ above post. Do you think we are illiterate sheep who can’t read? Has it dawned on you yet that we don’t give a holy damn whether or not you’ve got another RfC in the works(?); we wanted to express our opinions on what were razor-sharp, clear-cut questions.

  Now, I hereby declare this to be a no-whining zone. Post you last sob story about how Tony was being WP:DISRUPTIVE because I won’t dignify such über-nonsense with a response. Goodbye. Greg L (talk) 01:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, personal attacks, assumptions and tons of bad faith. Way to go Greg for finding new lows in behavior on Wikipedia. I won't dignify the remainder of your comment with a response. When (if!) you can conduct yourself in a mature fashion without resorting to conspiracy theories ("red china doesn't run Wikipedia, har har!") you might get a response from me. But for now: this RFC is fundamentally invalid to me, and any results from this will be ignored. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• You just proved that what I wrote above couldn’t be more true. Thanks. Greg L (talk) 02:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Right... —Locke Cole • t • c 02:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Is that an open threat LC? This is a legitimate RFC, filed before yours was assembled in any reasonable form (and it still is not complete, I should note). As every editor has indicated above you, you have no grounds to challenge and dismiss this RFC, and judging from the overwhelming consensus to support de-linking, I predict that your RFC (which you are welcome to post any day) will end up with the same result. Failure to abide by consensus and continue down this path will lead to possible sanctions. seicer | talk | contribs 02:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Has the whole world gone mad? TONY STARTED THIS RFC TODAY IN A CLEAR SHOWING OF BAD FAITH, KNOWING FULL WELL AN EXISTING RFC WAS ALREADY IN PROGRESS. This RFC was not "filed" before mine (which it's not mine, technically it'd be Masem's), it's been in the discussion phase for nearly a week. How hard is it to understand that this is Tony merely being Tony and trying to be disruptive yet again? He KNEW an RFC was being worked on, and he chose to phrase the questions to his liking with no background information at all (again, please look at the existing RFC which is far better and was going to be a community wide discussion). This RFC is inherently illegitimate and your acknowledgment of it is only making the situation worse. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:45, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

"TONY STARTED THIS RFC TODAY IN A CLEAR SHOWING OF BAD FAITH, KNOWING FULL WELL AN EXISTING RFC WAS ALREADY IN PROGRESS."

Your RFC is still in draft as of 02:47 24 NOV. 2008. seicer | talk | contribs 02:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

So? A quick perusal of the talk page would inform anyone that we were going to go live with it very shortly. Whereas this RFC never had a "draft" period and the questions were formed entirely by the people one person in support of the changes. To join Greg in his paranoia campaign, it'd be like politicians creating the ballots and choosing how to present (or not present) their opponents. The other RFC was cooperative whereas this is not. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• (outdent) Now I understand your fundamental message LC: Tony’s words dirty bad; Locke Cole’s words good clean. I didn’t understand the issue was so simple! Greg L (talk) 02:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Your maturity never ceases to amaze me. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• No Locke, it is not, as you rhetorically suggest, “Has the whole world gone mad?”; the problem is the emperor has no clothes. You get too excited. I also find that your arguments—which you curiously persist at even after being warned by an admin—lacks that certain necessary attribute of *truthiness*. I think the opinions being expressed by very many editors in Tony’s above RfC speaks quite clearly to the facts here. Happy editing. Greg L (talk) 03:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• I feel that the more RFCs there are on this issue, the better. On another note, could we please archive some discussions? Dabomb87 (talk)

• If I didn't have to sleep past night, I would have launched a very similar RfC myself. I sensed I wasn't getting anywhere, nor was the RfC. There was much too much dilly-dallying and refusal to ask straight questions that I seriously disbelieve the alternative RfC was anywhere near ready for launch. And even if it was, so what? I said on the other talk page I thought it would have set off a perpetual discussion with little end in sight. Now we have a clear and concise RfC which is written in plain English, and easy to understand. Everyone who has been here more that a few weeks knows how things work around here - there is no monopoly on seeking opinions. Like Greg said, it's part of the 'democratic' process, just like anyone who musters enough deposit can stand for parliament. If Locke remains sore after this vote and cannot accept this result as a valid consensus (a more valid consensus you will never find), it'll just prove that previously claimed lack of consensus has nothing to do with his obstinacy - That will make him a terrorist, not a freedom fighter in this game. It's high time for Locke Cole and his Merry Men to stop all the talk page spamming which he has been indulging in. BTW, I agree that the RFC should be closed - I have never seen such overwhelming decision here on WP. The RfC is beginning to show that it's not even a consensus any more. The discussion is headed for a landslide, and can be wound up per WP:SNOW. Excellent work, Tony! Ohconfucius (talk) 05:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• I would so like to agree with you Ohconfucius, as we see eye-to-eye on links. But, as of this writing, the RfC has been active for only 14 measly hours. Opponents of this consensus will no-doubt claim that it is invalid if it has only run for 14 hours—citing how too few editors were given a chance to respond. And once Lightmouse lets loose his bot, a small army of editors will come here complaining about how their blue dates are now black and how civilized society will now collapse because they weren’t somehow consulted. We need to be able to point to a clear and convincing consensus. I suggest we let an uninvolved admin like Seicer help guide us as to when to archive the RfC.

  And thank you SWTPC6800 for reverting LC’s curious attempt to archive the RfC so early. After I saw, on my wife’s iPhone, what LC had done, I was coming here to do so myself when I saw that you had already beat me to it. Indeed, let the “snowball roll”. Funny. Greg L (talk) 05:56, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• That action is totally inexcusable, disruptive and anti-democratic. Although his actions before may not have been so obvious to the casual observer, there cannot be a clearer sign now that has not been acting in the best of faith from the very start. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:31, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

My last words on this is that given the discussion on this page, there are more points that made sense to get global consensus on at the same time (eg so right now the first point, that dates should not be linked, is going to hold, but the "when appropriate" question still remains) - that was the whole point of my separate RFC was to resolve as much as possible that needed global input. I'm not thrilled with the tone of the questions, but they are asking the technically right questions and they are getting the input that is needed. As such, there's some type of RFC going, that's about 100 times better than the heated discussion in the last two months, so I'm not pushing for the alternate version any further.

That said, I strongly recommend subpaging the RFC as the alternate was, such that there's a easy archive link that you can point to a month from now, when the bot delinkers are active again and someone complains, asserting that you did get global consensus for the change. This also helps to serve getting it on the watchlist-notice as to avoid weighing down WT:MOSNUM since its clear a notice for this RFC would be appropriate. --MASEM 06:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment This "RfC" has completely ignored the fact that the developers have already prepared a software patch that addresses most (if not all) concerns raised about autoformatting. As outlined in this Bugzilla discussion, the latest of four patches developed by Bill Clark since September works as follows:

"It uses the current date markup ([[ ]]) and will reformat dates according to user preferences, but WITHOUT making them into links. Dates that should be linked can use the [[:]] format and they will be linked and left in their raw format (same as now.) Users with "No preference" or anon users will either see marked-up dates in MDY format (if the string "en-US" appears in the "Accept-Language" header sent by their browser) or DMY format (aka "International format") otherwise."

So, this patch - ready since early November - removes the links on dates, allows for preference-based autoformatting, and also extends this feature to IPs. There is also discussion under way to allow for an option in preferences to see raw date formats, to assist in article clean-up. I've added a note at the top of this "RfC" to this effect. --Ckatz^chat_spy 09:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment. This "RfC" also has ignored the fact that the consensus for the "current" version is disputed, so that none of these questions really relates to the status quo. The status quo is the previous "autolinking recommended" version. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Note re the status quo. The real dispute is to whether the consensus guideline included the deprecation in the first place. This RfC assumes facts not in evidence. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Date auto-formatting is still a rather useless feature, even if it's less annoying it stops looking like links. It will take a long time before any software change is implemented and actually reaches us. The bug has been open for almost three years. Also, how do they intend to make this work through the Squid caches that handle readers not logged in? Will the caches keep separate versions of the articles for IPs with different locales? --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually I've seen some software changes done in as little as a week (and that was for things far more complicated than this). No, the real issue with date auto formatting is that the community (I suspect largely thanks to Tony1 and the MOSNUM brigade) haven't settled on how they want it to work. Developers don't like wasting time, and working on a solution without some sort of specification in hand of what's expected is a recipe for disaster. Personally I think the best solution is one that keeps the current syntax (wrap dates in brackets) but formats the output differently depending on what the community wants (linked/unlinked, formatted or unformatted, etc). Which seems to be what the solution is right now. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:27, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Since you seem to be one of the keenest supporters of date autoformatting, can you explain why you think it serves any useful purpose? I'm genuinely bemused as to why anyone would consider it something worth spending time over. At least, unless it were to be an add-on to a more general system of autoformatting that deals with spelling and semantic differences between UK/US/... English. Why this obsession with dates?--Kotniski (talk) 11:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

As Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia it shouldn't be limited to the formatting options of a typical printed publication. While I have a deep respect for style guidelines, with things like CSS for example, editors and users can change Wikipedia to appear however they like. Similarly with something simple like dates we should provide a simple way for people to see dates however they prefer (not necessarily how you or I would prefer). And that's the big thing to me: this is such a simple thing, development wise, that it wouldn't take more than a couple of days (if that) to work something up. So "spending time" isn't really a problem, it's not a waste of time as it would take hardly any time at all if we could just agree on what would work. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

But why dates, that was my point. Why not give people the "choice" between color/colour, football/soccer, etc.? It would be just as easy to do, development-wise, and there would seem to be some point to it. Date formats are so trivial that I doubt any significant proportion of readers could really care about them, but I would expect more of them to care about resolving trans-Atlantic differences in spelling and vocabulary.--Kotniski (talk) 12:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Because dates are what is currently being argued. I agree that it might be worth working on ways to solve UK/US spellings as well, but when you expand a discussion to include things like that it gets more difficult to gain consensus (at least that's been my experience, YMMV). —Locke Cole • t • c 12:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The addition of the big green box at the top of the RFC is inappropriate for an RFC that is already in progress. It is also not germane to the questions at hand and appears to be an attempt to wikilawyer and confuse the very clear questions: Should dates be linked? Should dates be auto-formatted? It makes no difference about which is the status quo and discussion of possible new software features can occur afterwards or elsewhere. DOUBLEBLUE (talk) 12:27, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The box was to make it clear the comments were separate from the RFC description concocted entirely by Tony with no input from other editors. (Which actually is also my personal justification for leaving the comments at the top: Tony phrased these questions explicitly in a way that leaves anyone unfamiliar with the subject lacking crucial information). —Locke Cole • t • c 12:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. If removal results in a revert war, we need to ask for arbitration. Lightmouse (talk) 12:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll be clear here. I reverted the deletion of comments by another user, which is clearly vandalism. I have no problem with moving or reformatting (within limits) the comments of other users, so long as messages are left about the move (is "text removed to discussion section". AKAF (talk) 12:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

okay, i've moved them to their proper places according to the timestamps. Sssoul (talk) 12:52, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:TPG. Moving comments is inappropriate. —Locke Cole • t • c 13:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The comments in the big green box were added at/after 0852 on 24 November. Consequently, those comments should not be above any comment prior to that timestamp. Lightmouse (talk) 12:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

That's nice. There was also an RFC already prepared with these questions more thoroughly discussed, but Tony decided he alone should phrase the questions and frame the debate. What to do about that? Oh right.. common sense only applies to people you oppose. —Locke Cole • t • c 13:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

And for you as well. WP:TPG, there's nothing there that says comments must be sorted by timestamp. And in fact the page discourages moving out of place comments. —Locke Cole • t • c 13:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

WARNING: The addition of the partisan/irrelevant/obstructive comments at the top of the RfC, and the continual reversion of attempts by a number of users to remove them, fits squarely into WP's definition of vandalism. Specifically:

"Vandalism is any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia".

RfCs are an integral part of WP's processes, and the additions that are now in a large green box at the top compromise the integrity of this process by (1) changing the text on which many people have already declared an opinion, (2) introducing commentary that is partisan and/or irrelevant, and (3) apparently being a deliberate attempt to confuse editors who have arrived to provide input. I believe that this has been done in bad faith, and the multiple reinstatements against removals by a number of editors makes the transgression more serious. If the vandalism is not removed promptly, I will report the signatories and anyone else who has reinstated the comments as having committed vandalism, and will seek to have them blocked. Tony (talk) 15:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh for goodness sakes. What I objected to was the deletion of another user's talk-page comment, without moving. It does seem to me that highlighting a new code development which directly impacts the discussion was not obviously bad faith, just as your starting this RFC with another similar RFC running was not obviously bad faith. Contentious in both cases certainly, but not bad faith. May I suggest that you take a deep breath, accept that the RFC seems to be agreeing with the side which you support and ignore the noise. You're welcome to report my actions, but I will never accept outright deletion of an informative talk page comment because of its formatting. AKAF (talk) 15:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you've just acted unwisely. Your name doesn't come to mind, but that of Ckatz, who has at least once reverted my relocation of the text down to the meta-discussion, where it clearly belongs. This move was explicitly marked. Tony (talk) 15:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, who cares? The RFC is going 50:1 your way, so why risk your blood pressure. It's just not worth the stress. AKAF (talk) 15:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

My edit summary said "tell us why it belongs here and not in the meta??" I objected to your revert not because I objected to someone commenting - everyone is welcome to comment, but the box placed where it was was just one in a series of attempts to derail a legitimate discussion. It started with an attempt by User:Locke Cole (or perhaps one of his allies) to delete this guideline, then it was a highly incorrect non-admin closure of Tony's RfC (by Locke Cole). We've had to put up with a lot of vandalism and harassment from User:Locke Cole and User:Tennis expert and cohorts, so your actions were treated as hostile. Apologies for that. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

when i moved the boxed comments to the appropriate places in the commentary sections, Locke Cole reverted that change, claiming that per WP:TPG "moving comments is not appropriate". in fact WP:TPG states that wrongly formatted text can/should be reformatted and moved to an appropriate spot. my blood pressure is fine, and big green boxes are not correct formatting for RfC-participants' comments. Sssoul (talk) 16:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• All: This is about providing a forum for others to express their voice. After something has been voted upon, it is highly improper to change the wording of the proposal after-the-fact. After only 14 measly hours of voting, it is improper to green-box it and declare it to be an archive. They tried that crap at black precincts in the South for a long time (sorry, your precinct closed at 4:00 PM). It is breathtakingly childish to simply delete the whole damned thing  (I’m talking to you Tznkai ) because you and Ckatz have disagreements with Tony. You two full well know the proper ways to deal with this sort of stuff. If someone here doesn’t like the current RfC in its current form, go start you own; the proper response to bad speech is better speech. Greg L (talk) 19:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I heartily endorse Greg L's actions and comments here. DOUBLEBLUE (talk) 19:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I and Ckatz have nothing to do with eachother. I was responding to an AN/I report from another admin who said that this whole conversation was spiraling out of control, which it obviously is. Making remarks about Black dominated precincts in the American (Deep) South is way out of line, as is your assumption that I'm dealing with Tony1. I am quite seriously addressing all of you. I'll say it again here: You must assume good faith and discuss your opinions in a civil and collegial manner. Please note, the alternative to simply blanking this RfC and everyone here trying it again with civility is asking the admins to pick through carefully and revert or block users as warranted.--Tznkai (talk) 19:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• No it is not  out of line. That is exactly what the end effect was: silencing others who were queueing up to express their opinion on an issue by shutting down the voting venue. I will repeat the most important part from my above post. Unless words incite violence or cause a clear and present danger to others, in all  cases where there is debate, the proper response to bad speech is better speech. If your knee-jerk reaction to that statement begins with “But…”, then get off of WT:MOSNUM. If you *get* this concept but disagree with *what* is being discussed or *how* it is being discussed, go start your own RfC and argue with intelligent, reasoned speech that influences others to your way of thinking. I guarantee you I will take this to the next level if people here can’t act like grown ups. When my son-in-law was here over the weekend, he asked me how old some of these players are. I told him I didn’t know. But I have a guess. Greg L (talk) 19:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

This may surprise you, but I completely ignore WP:MOSNUM, because I, among with probably most of the community, don't care about it. I do however, care about uncivil disruption, as in my remit as an administrator. I'm not totally sure what the "next level" is you're promising to take this too.--Tznkai (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• There is a perfectly splendid way for you to find out. The proper answer to disruption by users isn’t nuclear-level disruption by admins. That much is rather obvious, isn’t it? Greg L (talk) 20:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Greg, please actually look at the edit history before you revert. I certainly did not remove the discussion, despite your initial mistake. Nor did I add a green box. The only text I added was a neutrally worded note about the availability of a software patch that addresses the concerns raised about autoformatting. I'd think that, instead of attacking me, you would seek to ask Tony why he completely ignored the patch while posting his RfC. (It's not as if he didn't know about it; he participated in the discussion on Bugzilla, and the developer was quite specific in rejecting Tony's arguments against autoformatting.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:52, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• I don’t want to go through the history and figure out who did what. All I know is the entire voting process was shut down (God-damn deleted) and it appears it was because you two can’t manage Tony and Locke. Just make sure the wording of what is being voted upon isn’t changed by Locke and make sure the voting stays up until there is a clear, fair, unambiguous consensus that can be defended when other editors come here to complain about dates being de-linked. Greg L (talk) 19:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
• Ckatz, Add your comments to the discussion like everyone else did then. You could have simply stated that in your answer to the questions or made a comment on the RfC itself down here. There is no need to confuse the simple direct questions: Should dates be linked? Should dates be autoformatted? Discussion about the desirability of feature requests belongs elsewhere. DOUBLEBLUE (talk) 20:07, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• To Ckatz: I endorse what DOUBLEBLUE said. Being an admin does not entitle you to embolden your speech by writing a hat statement at the top. That sort of stuff belongs—as DOUBLEBLUE says—in your vote statement (or in another RfC of your own). Greg L (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• This has nothing to do with being an admin; any user could do exactly the same edit, so please do not try to connect the two. (FYI, I've purposefully made a point of avoiding admin-related functions on these pages because of my involvement in the discussions.) As for the note, I fail to see how a neutral mention of the developer's solution, which is at the core of the issue being discussed, is in any way confusing. I would again point out that it is more confusing - and detrimental to the process - to omit such information, especially given that one of the most frequent arguments against date autoformatting was the lack of a solution. If you object to my name being on the text, that was only due to Tony1's comment about it being unsigned. If you can think of better wording that does not require a signature, then by all means please say so. --Ckatz^chat_spy 21:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Admins certainly get away with more WP:BOLD than regular users. They should resist this temptation when they are involved admins. Some wise person once said this regarding religion: “The hardest part of religion is differentiating between God’s will and personal interest.” Involved admins have a similar problem: Differentiating between “keeping things neutral and balanced” and “pushing one’s point of view.” As you are an involved admin, you elected to drag in Tznkai. His remedy (deleting—not moving—the entire thing) to Tony’s flouting your will was profoundly unwise and was not at all in keeping with the behavior expected of admins. If you need help, I suggest you go find an admin who exercises better judgement. I’ve now moved all this hat-statement business to below the voting, where it belongs. It had degenerated into a debate-fest. Note too, that I also moved some POV business from Tony’s original hat statement. Greg L (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• Again, I'd ask that you get your facts straight before hitting the save button. As I've already stated, I'm not here as an admin - and as as editor, I have exactly the same rights as you in terms of contributions. Further to this, you are completely incorrect (again) in saying that I "dragged in" Tznkai. As Tsnkai has already stated, we don't know each other - and I never asked anyone to step in. --Ckatz^chat_spy 03:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

…and in the last half hour since I’ve undeleted the entire RfC, two more users have stopped by to vote or change their vote. Need I say more? Greg L (talk) 20:29, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I did so because at Village Pump it looked like there was a controversy. Oooh, controversy! By the way, date linking sucks. Tempshill (talk) 20:57, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

How long to run the RfC?

According to our level-headed admin, Seicer (here), “RFC's typically run for 30 days or until such time that an overwhelming consensus can be established.” I suggest that if the current overwhelming consensus stays as clear as it is, that we pre-agree to let the above RfC on date linking and autoformatting run for seven days. Someone can’t claim they were unfairly disenfranchised and denied an opportunity to influence others’ opinions if they can’t stop here within a week. If it’s been a week and the consensus then is as clear as it is now, we can rightly point to Wikipedia:Snowball clause and say “It’s all over.” Are there any other ideas? Greg L (talk) 00:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me; these extremely narrow and tendentious questions were never in much doubt anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Process is important. Regardless, as this RFC is largely invalid due to the actions of one disruptive editor (Tony) this could run for two hours or two years and I wouldn't really have any concern with the result. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:16, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• So your answer is a pout wherein you seem to imply that your reaction, to what you perceive to be a disruptive editor, will be to ignore a clear consensus and edit against that consensus, which would itself be clearly disruptive. Sweet. Greg L (talk) 00:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Poor conduct begets poor conduct. Don't point at me when it's your fearless leader Tony who brought this upon you. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop the personal attacks. The RfC is of historical significance, since it is establishing overwhelming consensus for the three issues. To (re-)establish consensus for these issues appeared unnecessary to me and many others, but the continual accusations by Locke, TE, Kcatz et al. that there was no consensus has made this necessary. People are clearly telling us that we should move on: they are sick of the sniping by those who want to turn back the clock. The process should run until there is no doubt that WPians at large have been given the standard opportunity to participate. I will post messages later today at a few key places, including the VP, alerting users. I certainly don't want to be accused of basing consensus on too small a sample or through too short a process. Tony (talk) 01:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop being disruptive. You knew there was a good faith RFC being constructed. You knew it had contributions from numerous editors. And yet you chose to be disruptive by starting your own RFC with no input (and apparently no ability for others to note fundamental omissions from your RFC without you threatening them and calling it "vandalism" (which it is not)) worded your way with little background for those unfamiliar with the subject. This RFC is invalid, inappropriate and a bad faith effort to gain "consensus". —Locke Cole • t • c 01:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

"Invalid"? Now hang on a moment. Have a look at the enormous proportion of "oppose" to "support" above (46 to 3 for Proposal 1, and 44 to 2 for Proposal 2). Are you suggesting that all of those "opposes" are either Tony's friends, or editors who can't think through simple concepts, or just being bloody-minded? Even if the wording could have been done differently, the comments next to the "oppose" votes above are utterly unambiguous as to lack of desire for linking dates. If you'd like the dead horse to move forward, perhaps you should avoid standing on it while you flog it.  HWV 258  03:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, invalid. Every single person who opposed above was not given any background on the discussion so far and so is largely "voting" blindly based on their own personal understanding. The RFC at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC presents a far more objective case and gives people unfamiliar with the subject the background they need to make a decision. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please don't speak for "Every single person". I voted and understood the issues completely. You have not addressed my point at all about the comments that the "oppose" votes presented to the topic as a whole. HWV 258  03:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear that you do considering you didn't even bother leaving comments with any of your !votes. Do you understand that there's a patch for MediaWiki that removes date links without requiring any editing? Do you understand that the patch also fixes the auto formatting issues presented by Tony and others? If so, what is your objection to date auto formatting? —Locke Cole • t • c 03:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not required to leave comments (it had all already been said). Are you aware that under the current system, putting square brackets around parts of a date has led to date-links on hundreds-of-thousands of existing pages that over 99.9% of WP readers see by default (see: 25 November 2008)? I am (and many others are - see above) against that, and until the means for patches are simply and widely applied, the linking will manually have to be removed. We've all been waiting too long for a technical solution to this problem that never seems to arrive. You have still failed to address my observation that the comments given by the "oppose" people give a very different view of the date-linking world than you would hope it to be.  HWV 258  04:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I never said you were required to leave comments. But you may find m:Voting is evil worth a read. You still haven't answered my question: do you have a problem with auto formatting dates? Keep in mind that a technical solution requires consensus before it can be fully realized. As many editors (notably Tony and a handful of others) seem aggressively opposed to this, they've made it difficult to pursue that technical solution. As far as existing comments, briefly going over the ones who actually left reasons for their !vote you can tell that the vast majority simply don't understand the situation as it exists (that there is a technical solution that does away with the links and fixes the auto formatting). I suspect if they understood this they wouldn't "vote" as they have. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The current technical solution of auto-formatting returns (at best) minor benefits. I (and lots of others) don't want a technical "solution" that is half-baked and only gives minor benefits to the very few readers who are logged-in. When a technical solution of auto-formatting (that is well thought out) is implemented I'll be happy to reconsider the situation. In no way has Tony (or others) made it difficult for the programmers of WP to implement a better technical solution to date auto-formatting. Are you trying to suggest that the current auto-formatting/linking debacle is the way it is due to consensus being reached? As I mentioned before, the problems of auto-formatting have been around for so long that I (and I suspect) many others are completely tired of waiting for a solution from WP. Better to have nothing and then restart the work with dates when WP figures out what it's doing.  HWV 258  05:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused. I thought you said you understood the situation: there is a patch for MediaWiki which fixes auto formatting so it works for all users, even users who aren't logged in. Your reply seems to indicate you aren't aware of this. Will you now reconsider your !vote and encourage others to do the same so this patch can be pursued? And yes, Tony (and those aggressively supporting him) has made it difficult: put yourself in a devs position; you have a problem and you have a possible solution, but you have a group of editors who are working diligently to undermine your solution (by delinking dates en masse and trying to do away with the date linking mechanism that your technical solution relies upon). Would you, as this dev, want to proceed with applying the patch and addressing concerns with how it works? I know I wouldn't because it would seem to be a waste of time with such vocal opposition. I've (personally) urged calm and patience and I've been met with edit warring and disruptive behavior from those who are unwilling to consider other possibilities. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying that I (and many others) are sick of waiting for a solution to be implemented (been waiting years) and would now prefer the less technical solution that turns out to be easily addressed through behavioural means. I'm well aware of vapour-ware and will believe the solution when I don't see blue-links on dates in WP. If a workable technical solution is ever implemented, it won't take long for bots or the thousands of hard-working editors out there to implement the date formatting coding selected. I think you greatly over-estimate Tony's effect on the powers that be at WP. As you have held m:Voting is evil up as an example, I take it that you will be abstaining from the other RfC when it initiates?  HWV 258  05:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry that it's taken this long for this to percolate up to the point where there's a solution available. But there it is. It will obviously be very difficult to convince developers to implement the patch (which wouldn't take long at all) if editors here are performing mass delinkings and saying they no longer want it. Don't you see how that kind of mixed message would cause delay and frustration? —Locke Cole • t • c 06:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Your edit below says "the patch is largely complete", but your edit above says "there is a patch for MediaWiki which fixes...". Apart from the fact that these conflicting points are hard to reconcile, I've worked for long enough in the computer industry to know what "largely complete" really means. Have you considered that the frustration felt by Tony (and others) for this length of time (that has led to the date-unlinking activity) is perhaps the only way forward now—in terms of getting resolution on this issue? If WP really had an appetite for implementing non-linked dates, they would have done it long ago. Perhaps when they see the wholesale lengths being taken now they will be forced to act in a direction that will allow the community to act under the framework of a working technical solution. Hope this gets you closer to understanding why such an overwhelming "oppose" response has happened.  HWV 258  06:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The developer actually uploaded the patch three weeks ago; discussion now centres around what the default view should be, and how best to facilitate a "raw" view for editors. As for the markup, the developer has actually indicated that it is easy to implement with the link formatting in place, and that the mass deletion of links complicates the process. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Locke, please stop accusing Tony of any impropriety, including violations of WP:POINT. If Tony had really done anything in violation of Wikipedia policy, he’d be swinging from the highest yardarm around by now. WP:CIVIL states that false accusations of impropriety and deliberate assertions of false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors are uncivil, which truly does constitute a violation of Wikipedia policies. I personally couldn’t give a hoot about baseless accusations from you or anyone else; you could say “Greg L has stinkier-than-normal poo”; I don’t give a damn. But other editors do care about false accusations.

  If you think someone here has been engaging in flagrant violations of Wikipedia policy, there are proper procedures you can avail yourself of and you know full well what they are. But suitable options do not include tendentious editing here on WT:MOSNUM, nor does it include endlessly wailing away here about how Tony did anything wrong. He didn’t.

  Finally, your assertions that Tony has done anything wrong is tantamount to suggesting that you are uniquely a *Big Picture* sorta guy with *Unique Wisdom* and are one of the only editors around who knows what is *really* going on, whereas the scores of editors who have voted in Tony’s above RfC are just clueless sheep. Just pardon me all over, but I’m not buying it. Your never-ending posts here in the face of the obvious reality that virtually everyone who is voting above simply doesn’t agree with you amount to nothing more than a big hearty bowl of unbleached, vitamin-fortified whine. Lighten up please. Greg L (talk) 03:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• The accusations are not false:
  1. Tony was well aware of the other RFC.
  2. Tony chose to ignore that RFC and take matters in to his own hands.
  3. Tony chose the wording of this RFC on his own with no other input.
  4. Tony has aggressively fought against attempts to inject balance to this discussion.
  5. Tony has made unsubstantiated and patently false claims of vandalism (please see WP:VAND).
  6. Tony continues to behave as if this RFC is valid and binding (when given the nature of its creation, the conduct during it, etc., it clearly is not).
• Your other personal attacks on me not withstanding, it's quite clear you're either unwilling or unable to see the problem here. But the above list is fairly exhaustive and is, frankly, impossible to refute. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, well… Why didn’t you just say so! Now that you have carefully enumerated your grievances against Tony, your persuasive arguments over how his entire RfC is totally bankrupt should certainly sway the opinions of the other editors and dissuade them from voting on it. *Let’s watch*… Greg L (talk) 03:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• I suspect !voting will continue because, as noted before, people rarely seem to read entire discussions. Which was kind of my point: this was not the way forward people here were seeking (even if they think it is). The other RFC presented a brief background for people and allowed them to discuss. This provides no background and provides little opportunity for discussion. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:35, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Just because people don't agree with you doesn't mean you should assume they don't understand the issue. DoubleBlue (talk) 04:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Can you explain why your !vote seems to assume that there's no solution that will work for those who aren't logged in? If you understand the issue why would you formulate your oppose this way? Note also that "inappropriate mixing of date formats" would be irrelevant with the patch fix enabled. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• The current situation is that is only good for those logged in and that is the first half of my response. The second half says "surely no one is shocked to see date formats different than their own preference anymore than seeing ENGVARiations of spelling" by which I mean there is no significant benefit to autoformatting in any way. I do not think the patch is a good idea as it would be a waste of time and resources to do nothing of consequence. Presumably, editors will have to mark dates (last I read they would be marked like links but not function as links unless preceded by a colon) and I think this is just another complication in what was intended to be the wiki easily editable by anyone. DoubleBlue (talk) 05:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Significant benefit, perhaps not, but as Wikipedia is not a printed encyclopedia (hence all the links and formatting options available) wouldn't it make sense to expose functionality for readers to make the encyclopedia appear as they want it to appear? As for the time and resources, the patch is largely complete according to the bugzilla discussion (and another dev uninvolved with the bugzilla patch has said a fix for this would be "simple" (I can provide a diff of the brief talk page discussion if you'd like)). I'm confused by the last part of your comment: you mention editors would have to mark dates, but then note that the current patch actually requires no change in wikitext at all (but instead adds a colon modifier if you really want a date link plus auto formatting). The wiki would still be easily editable as I don't think adding a colon will be a big deal (especially considering date links are apparently bad). This MoS page could certainly serve as a guide for editors who might be confused by it. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:18, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• In itself, not a huge complication but there is a pile-on effect here. What's next, shall we mark all spelling variations so that users can avoid seeing the word spelt in their non-preferred style? Anyway, back to topic, my point is that your assumption that people take the time to come to this page and present their opinion without any forethought is not a good thing. DoubleBlue (talk) 06:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• US/UK spelling differences aren't something that this discussion covers, but if it were technically feasible with little difficulty I would support it. Again, this is not a paper encyclopedia and we should provide formatting options that take advantage of nature of this medium. (Just as we provide ways for editors to customize the appearance of the site through cascading style sheets and javascript, we should provide ways for editors/readers to customize the appearance to suit their preference). And to your original topic, this is why I provided the diff of your !vote: you seemed to not be aware that there is a patch that fixes the majority of the concerns with date linking/formatting (which is kind of my entire point). —Locke Cole • t • c 07:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• And yet, I was and still oppose, whether you can understand that point of view or not, which is my point. DoubleBlue (talk) 21:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• That's just being stubborn, which is unfortunate. It's incomprehensible why someone would oppose something if they know there's a solution for their problems with it. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• (outdent)I also understand that there is a patch that formats dates without linking them which would solve the current problem. My point is, why does it matter? Countless hours have been spent on the trivial matter of the order of the day and month. Editors and the developers both could have spent that time on more useful things. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:07, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I suggest 2 weeks only because of the Thanksgiving holiday. I agree if the !votes continue as such, it clearly can be closed by then. --MASEM 02:47, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• I hear one week and two weeks. Any other thoughts? Greg L (talk) 03:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• At least through 30 November to provide for those who only have time to contribute on weekends. Obviously two weeks would be compatible with my view. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Much goes wrong when proceedings are concluded too fast (see WP:ANI). At least two weeks given a major holiday in a major 'en' venue. The people who are 'certain' are sick of it already, yes, but others who have heard of the shouting here are yet to acquaint themselves. Especially as several people have mentioned the need for anti-nausea medication before perusing these discussions. (I'm still looking in my medicine cabinet) Shenme (talk) 06:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Then, assuming that the consensus is pretty much as clear cut after two weeks as it is at this point, we will call it after two weeks (at 15:01, Saturday 7 December). If the consensus is less clear by that time, we can extend it to 30 days. All in agreement? Greg L (talk) 07:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Arrghh, what are you guys talking about? The RfC isn't running at all. It has been removed from the RfC list by Tznkai. I am posting the next one right now. They will be together and no one's input from the previous attempt will go to waste. Gimme a sec...--User:2008Olympian_chitchat^seemywork 07:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Notwithstanding that you can do impressive feats such as generate pirate noises, you may not interfere with the ongoing RfC. It doesn’t matter in the least what Tznkai thinks and did or didn’t do; his judgement and actions here have demonstrated that he can exercise exceedingly poor judgement. You are perfectly welcome to post your own RfC. If you carry through as you seem to have promised to do, you will clearly be disrupting Wikipedia to make a point and should, IMO, be blocked. I am going to bed now; I will leave it to others to deal with you. Greg L (talk) 07:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• • I'm glad I can so easily impress. But what Tznkai did does matter, the RfC is no longer listed, for all intents and purposes to the larger community, it is closed. That matters if we want to get wide input. And I have posted the RfC that a bunch of editors worked on. I had very little to do with it. But how can you say that I am "perfectly welcome" to post it, and then in the next sentence, claim I should be blocked for doing so. Methinks you need the sleep.--User:2008Olympian_chitchat^seemywork 07:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• I was responding to your vague pledge (threat) of “[The votes] will be together and no one's input from the previous attempt will go to waste.” That came ominously came across as if you intended some sort of merge. As I said, leave the ongoing RfC alone.

  To all: Please ignore any statements from other editors here that the RfC you voted on is invalid and that your vote has been disenfranchised. Such assertions don’t pass the “grin test” and are, of course, absurd. Keep on voting. If anyone disrupts you voting, they will be dealt with accordingly. Greg L (talk) 08:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• P.S. With regard to your statement, “I have posted the RfC that a bunch of editors worked on…” (my emphasis), yeah, we were just laughing about that! It certainly does appear to be the work product of a committee. Your RfC has multi-level options (Lots, sorta, none) that would require yet another round of voting to settle anything. I don’t seem to have the stomach for all the complexity that you do, nor do I perceive the need to drag this out any further. The editors in the above RfC seem to have spoken clearly enough; I’m rather surprised that you are so unwilling to accept the reality of the situation. Greg L (talk) 08:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah consensus is hilarious. The prior RfC was not given from the freaking burning bush, so I fail to understand your hostility to this one. I voted on both, I suggest you do so too. And I didn't do anything other than what I actually stated I was going to do. The new RfC is right down there and the votes on both are together on this page as promised. I have no beef with Tony's RfC, actually I liked it, and have made no aversion that my or anyone else's vote on it "is invalid [or] has been disenfranchised," nor have I "disrupt[ed]"...voting." You can "deal...with" your straw man in your dreams tonight. I am trying to bring to an end any arguments against the prior RfC, to which I had none, and ensure that this question is taken care of in total. This is "the reality of the situation": I voted with the majority on all of the above questions, so my biases are pretty apparent. Ask User:Locke Cole or User:Tennis expert and they will tell you I am fully with the fiendish date delinker crowd. But what I want to avoid is another round of complaints from those that there is debate about the consensus. And if that crowd is complaining about the process so far, why not just put up the new Rfc thta they support? What can it hurt? If consensus is such as you (and I) perceive it to be, then there is nothing to be lost and everything in terms of hushing the dabte to be gained.--User:2008Olympian_chitchat^seemywork 08:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

(undent) the RfC above is still listed at WP:RFC/A, as it should be. there are now two MOSNUM-related RfCs listed there. but why is the RfC below listed on this page *and* on its own separate page?? that's not good. Sssoul (talk) 08:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Transclusion. I and others would prefer it be kept on the subpage for archival purposes, but it has been transcluded here to make things easier to follow. Rest assured that when an edit is made here it is reflected at the subpage and vice versa (edits will appear in your watchlist separately too, which is nice). —Locke Cole • t • c 08:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It is transcluded here from its own page. Feel free to post your comments at either place.--User:2008Olympian_chitchat^seemywork 08:39, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of flaws in the RfCs

Note. Comments about the flaws of both RFCs go in this section. - SWTPC6800 (talk) 02:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Note. The premise of the RfC, that the present text of WP:MOSNUM ever had consensus, is disputed. Also, the question of proposing "changes" which the proposer does not support is questionable, at best. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Note. This poll should be read only as addressing the three specific changes of language proposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

And the changes proposed are an extreme version of that position. One may oppose linking all dates without supporting linking no dates; it would be regrettable if this were cited as supporting the latter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

It is curious that you apparently cannot see the logical inconsistency in your position. Let me paraphrase it for you, so that you may understand it better. "One may oppose linking all words without supporting linking no words." Why have you singled out dates, in other words? What's special about dates? --Malleus Fatuorum 22:33, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Nothing. I propose treating dates exactly as we would treat other words and phrases; this RFC happens to discuss only dates. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Then at least you and I are agreed. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum 22:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• There are two significant flaws which should cause the outcome of this RfC to be only considered relevant to the exact wording as written. The one I noted above, that there is a dispute as to whether the current version of WP:MOSDATE ever had consensus, and the fact that Tony doesn't believe these should be in place. There should be no implication that the "present" wording of MOSNUM is appropriate. (And the bot question should be phrased; if there are circumstances in which date links are appropriate (which is not covered by this RfC, so the answer is still "yes"), then should a bot remove them. The clear answer is no under existing policies. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This comment, and probably some of the replies, were originally located elsewhere in a more central place in the RfC. I wasn't just repeating my comment at the start of the section. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• It’s not complex, Aurthur. If the consensus is as clear cut on December 7th as it is today, then the wording in the below RfC—which is said to represent our current wording—shall be retained. If, on Dec. 7th, the “current” MOSNUM wording isn’t in perfect agreement with what the below voting assumes it to be, then it will be made perfectly compliant. If you want to make it more complex than this, then we’ll take it up your issues then. If we get to that juncture, I expect we can embrace common-sense and jettison wikilawyering. The beauty of the below wording is it is clear, succinct and precise; even I can figure out what it means. Greg L (talk) 07:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, I quite disagree. All the proposals are flawed; not only do they improperly reflect the status quo, leading editors who believe that they are supporting the status quo to vote "oppose", but they are written as if the "status quo" banned all date links, while not even the disputed wording of the MOS can support that. It says "there must be a reason to link". The separate debate as to what such reasons might be is not discussed here. In fact, I changed my !vote on question 1 to "oppose" as the existing wording, read by a resonable person, might allow one or two year links per article. Obviously, Lightbot is not a reasonable "person". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
• If the consensus is clear that this specific wording is opposed, then it might be so considered, even with the false "status quo" assertions. Although I think that autoformatting is a good idea, if consensus is otherwise, that could be established. Even if this RfC goes the way it appears to, it still wouldn't mean that autoformatting is always inappropriate, only that there must be a specific reason for it. If Tony had written the RfC in a relatively balanced manner, it could have established that. This RfC does not. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Aurthur: It doesn’t matter if you think the RfC is flawed; the will of the editors who voted on it is clear and the outcome will be implemented on MOSNUM when it’s over. My son at age 13 had more maturity than some of the editors here. I didn’t vote for Bush (the “deciderator”) either time and it would have been wonderful if I could march around and declare the vote invalid (Florida fiasco) and try to do a citizen’s arrest on his cabinet members. But I don’t seem to have the necessarily ultra-high self-esteem you must have that emboldened you enough to wade in here and declare that what scores of other editors are doing is somehow invalid and only you, Aurthur, posses the *Unique Insight* necessary to pull off a proper RfC.

  I see that you childishly tried to call the validity of the RfC in question [1]. Curiously, you botched the placement of the {dubious - discuss} tag (putting it inside of another tag) and it didn’t show, so I don’t know if you were just trying to tweak Tony’s nose or if your placement was simply inept. Either way, this would have had the effect of putting a chill on users’ interest in voting (many would think that their votes might be meaningless). The next time you or anyone else here tries such a stunt, I’ll file an ANI against that party and take this to a Crat as well. Now you go right ahead and rail against me here (I couldn’t possibly care less). You are perfectly free to state your “opinion” here. But the next time you vandalize the RfC in some way: any “open letter” statement in that states the RfC is invalid or re-post a {disputed} tag on the above RfC, you will answer for it. I guarantee that. You may not  disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. Greg L (talk) 17:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• It doesn't matter if I think the RfC is flawed; it matters that almost everyone thinks the RfC is flawed and is flawed in ways which have resulted in RfCs being rejected in the past, but wants to go ahead. RfC's where the poster opposes the changes only provide limited consensus, at best; although I voted to support changes 2 and 3, it's a near thing, because the phrasing of Tony's proposal is almost as absurd as the so-called "orignal", also added without consensus. The other RfC seems to be going the way you would like, rather than the way I would like, but I think any attempt to claim the results of this RfC as consensus, except possibly as to the specific wording of the proposals being rejected, would lead to chaos. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Accepting what life throws at you with grace and dignity

• “…it matters that almost everyone thinks the RfC is flawed.” Arthur, that’s one of those “but mom… everybody at school has a body piercing.” No they don’t. And I dare say that most of the editors who voted in the above RfC are quite satisfied with the MOSNUM wording it will produce. More specifically, I can tell you with some confidence is that “everyone” who voted oppose in the above RfC expects that the wording asserted in the RfC as representing the current contents of MOSNUM will stay in MOSNUM (or go to MOSNUM if there is a difference) when the vote is over.

  What is clear is that you and a small group of advocates of date linking and proponents of the below RfC think Tony’s RfC is flawed. Doesn’t matter. If the vast majority of editors here wanted to amend Wikipedia’s Constitution and elect a nincompoop-for-life to run this place, you might be absolutely convinced they are making a big mistake—and you certainly might be right. But you simply have to accept the majority decision and agree, with grace and dignity, to abide by it. You are certainly welcome to try to change their minds; consensus can change. But you don’t see Tony or me trying to vandalize the below RfC, archive it after only 14 hours, completely erase it, declare it invalid, or pull other such stunts. I ask that you afford Tony, me, and the scores of editors who voted in the above RfC the same courtesy; that is not too much to ask. Greg L (talk) 20:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• • What is clear is that, since Tony doesn't approve of the "changes", consensus here is not relevant to related proposals, only to those which make the changes exactly as indicated. The lies misstatements about the premise of the RfC and the premise behind the RfC might be relevant, but probably not, as I would be willing to assume that most editors read this section if it was above the !votes. In its present position, I'm not sure. People are lazy.
  • In any case, even if consensus opposes the changes, that does not indicate a consensus against autolinking or day/date linking, only against it being essentially mandatory, as was the previous consensus on autolinking. The questions here don't encourage indications of comments against autolinking and date linking, although, again, the closing "admin" (if there is a formal close) might be able to determine if a consensus exists, although it would have been easier if Tony had accepted the disputed tag on the "current" MoS and accepted proposals which were someone's "best choice".
  • Q1 and Q2 of the other RfC seem as if they might establish a consensus on autolinking, Q3 on day-of-year linking, Q4 on year linking, and Q5 on the related year-in-subject. This RfC, if it reaches an apparent consensus, couldn't rationally be considered to override even a "no consensus" finding of the other one. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think Tony was necessarily violating WP:POINT, but proposing a "straw man" RfC is always a mistake. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• Do you even try to take an objective look at what you write, Aurthur? Arguing with you is like shooting fish in a barrel. Tony’s proposal asks readers three simple binary questions: “Do you want {this} exact wording or {that} exact wording. It asks other editors exactly what words they want to see on MOSNUM. It treats these editors as if they actually have a mind possessing an understanding of the issues. You describe that approach as straw man arguments that isn’t relevant. Yet what you are defending is a series of ‘how do you feel’ questions like “Year links should never be made”, “Year links should always be made”, or “Year links should be made in certain cases”. Nothing in the way of specific wording for MOSNUM. And the outcome of all that voting? A small group of editors who seem to never ever  tire of this crap would have to integrate what all those all-over-the-map opinions mean and (again) cloister themselves and come back with another round of wording to vote on. Have you noticed that—even at this late hour—no one has even bothered to vote on some of these ‘how do you feel’ questions? And you’re criticizing Tony’s to-the-point RfC as flawed. Ha! Greg L (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm going to pause for a while before replying to this violation of WP:NPA and WP:POINT. Please bear with me. Suffice it to say that this RfC effects nothing except the precise wording of MOSDATE; it does not support Tony/Greg/Lightmouse's bizaare interpretation of the disputed current wording. The other RfC seems to address some of the issues there. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Arthur, Greg is one of our most experienced and insightful editors here at the style guide talk pages, and (at least in my view) is an authority in some of the areas they cover. I think most people would appreciate it if you engaged more positively with his posts. Flinging accusations of NPA et al. are unhelpful at this stage, especially given that you've been prolific in those departments lately. I don't know why the bickering persists: there are two RfCs—so what? Let's allow them to proceed in peace. Tony (talk) 14:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I still say that Greg is acting in bad faith, but be that as it may. We all need to deal with the question, if it is ruled (and I'm afraid it requires a ruling) that this RfC is running correctly, and that there is a consensus, what does it mean? If a consensus can be determined from the other RfC, it's meaning would be clear. However, as your proposals are to change MOSDATE from one extreme to another, it can't even really be said that it's a consensus that autoformatting should never be used, only that it shouldn't be used as a matter of course. As things are going, I agree that that is the consensus. It does not establish consensus that autoformatting should be stamped out, nor linking dates or years is always inappropriate or always should be removed.

As for the bot issue, remember User:Betacommandbot? It was claimed to be editing according to a Wikipedia policy mandated (in part) by the Foundation, but it was found that it was not editing correctly according to that policy. (It was still allowed to run, but its operator was banned from running it (!)) Similarly, even if there is consensus that year (or even day-of-the-year) links require a specific reason, there's no requirement that the reason be specifically stated near the link, nor that the reason be machine-readable, so link-removal bots have a (possibly significant) false positive rate, and should require specific approval by the community at large, not just the bot community. On the whole, you've been reasonably civil (in spite of provocation from Locke), although making clear ;) misinterpretations of policies and guidelines, but I don't really think I can work with Greg.

I think it would be simpler if you rescinded this RfC and reissued it with the lead and premise only containing (1) undisputed statements and (2) clearly stated opinions. It would still suffer from the flaw that you oppose the changes, but the metadiscussion as to whether there are false statements (and changes in those false/disputed statements affecting !votes) would no longer be necessary nor likely. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, your note as to whether some links may be autoformatted is clearly wrong, also. It would imply that, if any dates were linked, then all dates should be linked, which was clearly never the intent. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with much of what you said. Tony (talk) 16:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oh… come now Arthur. With regard to your 4:37, 26 November 2008 post, all you did is cite some Wikipedia policies and link to them in an “if it’s blue, then it must be true” fashion. Neither Tony nor I tried to archive your below RfC after 14 hours, nor did either of us delete your RfC. Yet both these childish stunts were pulled by opponents of Tony’s RfC.

  Everyone here can see your accusing me of “disrupting Wikipedia to make a point” (“WP:POINT”) for what it is: a metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Nor am I making a personal attack against you (“WP:NPA”). I think you must be a perfectly splendid person. I just think your written arguments are absurd and full of holes, that’s all. Sorry; we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Happy editing. Greg L (talk) 05:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• I accidentally removed it from the RfCList, although I still think a rational person would think it invalid, for the reasons I specified; the premises for the RfC were disputed, include the questionable note Tony added during processing that linking birth/death dates would violate another guideline not under discussion, and that Tony is proposing things he doesn't believe in. I'm afraid I agree that Cole is disruptive, but your WP:GANG seems disruptive also. The history at WP:AN is almost undisputed, and shows that your repeated attempts to deprecate autoformatting do not consist of new arguments, but of continually proposing the same arguments in different fora until the people who wanted autoformatting weren't present.
• A rational person would also expect disputes as to the validity of an RfC to appear above the content, but I only attempted to do that twice. (For what it's worth, whoever moved it to the new section didn't do it right. It's not worth trying to refactor, though.)
• There's clearly no consensus that years should never be linked, and a bot which unlinks years is therefore inappropriate. (Unlinking the broken [[year in X]] links does seem supported by consensus in RfC2, but there's no hurry in removing them.
• And this RfC doesn't address any of those issues. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
• The admin who actually intended to remove the RfC was an idependent decision, not based on contacts from "enemies".
• It's clear that your conclusions from the apparent consensus are not clear. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Peace, brother. Let the people speak. We’ll figure out what to do with all that input after it’s over. I believe we’ve agreed upon closing out Tony’s RfC at 15:01 UTC on Sunday, December 7. If we need help in resolving ambiguity between the two RfCs (there is a lot of common ground between them) we can always elicit help from an uninvolved admin such as Seicer. Greg L (talk) 06:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

• Sadly, I'm beginning to suspect that you'll need an RfC to figure out what to do with all that input after it’s over. If a hypothetical editor decides that (in their opinion) the above RfC is invalid; and if they then decide the RfC below is "no consensus" on 'When to link to Month-Day articles?' and 'When to link Year articles' (ignoring the fact that most commentators supporting "sometimes" actually said "very rarely"), then I guess we're right back where we started. It's a pity the committee didn't ask the question, "Should date links be treated exactly like any other link to an article?" *Sigh* --RexxS (talk) 06:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, RexxS; that’s what I’ve been saying all along. In my 01:19, 26 November 2008 post above in Discussion of flaws in the premise for this RfC, I wrote “[After this ill-advised RfC is over], a small group of editors who seem to never ever  tire of this crap would have to integrate what all those all-over-the-map opinions mean and (again) cloister themselves and come back with another round of proposed wording to vote on.” What a fiasco; they’ll no-doubt come back with yet another round of wording suffering from committee-itis. Tony was spot-on in recognizing where that fiasco was headed when he posted his own, much-superior, RfC. He had to endure a crap-pile of flack and get blocked for 12 hours simply defending letting his RfC exist in peace on this page. But, he knew what he was doing. Greg L (talk) 21:34, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• It's only superior if you want to find out what those people think of that exact wording and not on the larger issues of linking and formatting. Besides, at the end of the day nothing excuses Tony from going off on his own and ignoring the work that was done by other editors. It's unhelpful and purely disruptive in what was working out to be a reasonable consensus seeking project. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:38, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• I've been scanning all the questions and responses, and this is the consensus that I see has formed:

• Dates should not be linked for the purposes of autoformatting.
• Month-day fragments should rarely, if ever, be linked.
• Using hidden links to link to year-in-field articles is the wrong method of linking to such articles.

Beyond that, it is all up in the air. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that it will take too long to cull the rare exceptions that comprise when those links might be used, if at all. And I think that these links are treated like other links in the sense of only being used once in an article.--2008Olympian_chitchat^seemywork 07:15, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• I totally agree with User:RexxS. In questions 3, 4 and 5.2 the b/ choice is an obvious bias which allows fence-sitting. Although opportunity is given to those link-supporters to propose "important" links to random trivia, sorry date/year articles, it remains for them to fully argue the case for linking, and it also remains to be demonstrated just how strong that support for each or any of those cases actually is. Without that acid test of strength of support, it will be impossible to determine, except arbitrarily, to what extent that becomes a 'blocking minority' in terms of interpreting our consensus. Such an arbitrary interpretation may well be used by certain spidermen to dilute the clear meaning reached in the binary poll. Furthermore, this RfC does not propose wording of any sort to be incorporated or removed from the current version of the guideline. The committee created a camel of an RfC all right - this one is sure to ride for months across the desert. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 07:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I changed my input from "Neutral" to "Comment" in two places above. Tony's RfC had the advantage of offering people a straight up-or-down alternative on three specific questions. More importantly, there will be no time wasted afterward on turning the results into MOSNUM language. The second RfC, unfortunately, is much less clear-cut. After the discussion ends, a new discussion begins on how the results should be interpreted. I was not consulted beforehand by either Tony or by the committee that drafted the second RfC, but I doubt my input would have made a difference.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 10:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

By my count, the second RFC asks for !votes in 15 places. It is almost as confusing as the famous the Florida Butterfly Ballot in the 2000 presidential election. Maybe we can get some of those hanging chad election officials to count the !votes for us.

Here is a table of contents for RFC 2. Please correct any mistakes. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 19:32, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

1. Deprecating the current date autoformatting (!vote 1)

I believe (1) above is a mistake: it should read

• 1a (prior to 30 November) Removal of date-links used purely for autoformatting (!vote 1a)
• 1b (30 November onward) Deprecating date-links used purely for autoformatting (!vote 1b)

--RexxS (talk) 03:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I was mistaken. The level 2 title contained the word "deprecating" but I missed it. Unfortunately the question asked therein didn't mention it. --RexxS (talk) 13:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

2. Is some method of date autoformatting desirable? (!vote 2)

3. When to link to Month-Day articles?

3.1 Month-Day links should always be made (!vote 3)

3.2 Month-Day links should be made in certain cases (!vote 4)

3.3 Month-Day links should never be made (!vote 5)

4. Month-Day links should never be made

4.1 Year links should always be made (!vote 6)

4.2 Year links should be made in certain cases (!vote 7)

4.3 Year links should never be made (!vote 8)

5. How and when to use "Year in Field" links

5.1 How to use "Year in Field" links

5.1.1 Hidden links (!vote 9)

5.1.2 Inline links (!vote 10)

5.1.3 Context links (!vote 11)

5.1.4 "See also" links (!vote 12)

5.2 When to use "Year in Field" links

5.2.1 Year-in-Field links should always be made (!vote 13)

5.2.2 Year-in-Field links should be made in certain cases (!vote 14)

5.2.3 Year-in-Field links should never be made (!vote 15)

Cases 3.1/3.2/3.3 are a "select one" option, not three separate things to vote on (as the three choices are discrete from each other). Same with 4.1/.2/.3 and 5.2.1/.2/.3. That makes 5 !votes and then opinioning on 4 methods suggested in the 5.1 question. --MASEM 20:21, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Indeed Swtpc6800, this absurd and needless level of complexity if this second RfC, and the resultant need for a group of self-appointed editors to later wade and try to make sense of it and reach a consensus amongst themselves as to new wording to present in yet another RfC was obviously a major reason why Tony said “phoey” and struck off and did his own to-the-point RfC; he wanted to circumvent this cluster-mess. Tony’s RfC, above, asks voters to weigh-in on the exact MOSNUM wording they desire. It is a much superior method. As regards the edit-view hat statement here on this page stating that an RfC is not a “vote”, we can call RfC's whatever you like; the consensus opinion on how to address some of these questions is clear as glass and will be committed to MOSNUM. Greg L (talk) 21:21, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• That's nice Greg. Next time I see a road worker putting up a speed limit sign I disagree with I'll just run him down instead of talking to him about it. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• “Run over?” I count two RfC’s on this page, Locke. You’ve obviously confused Tony’s disagreement with the “committee-itis” non-solution and striking off on his own with his own, very well-received RfC as some sort of personal affront; it’s not. Greg L (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, run over. "I don't like the way your RFC is going so I'll undermine your hard work as a group by posting my own with no input from anyone and the questions phrased exactly how I'd like them to be". Disruptive and useless is what his RFC is. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Well, about 85 other users didn't seem to find Tony's RfC "disruptive and useless", so he (Tony) must have done something right. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. He got away with it. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Locke, I’m a strong believer in “The proper answer to bad speech is better speech. It is Tony’s right, as well as the right of any editor here, to say “I don’t like the options this editor or group of editors is proposing and will submit my own proposal for others to consider.” I’m sure there are any number of widget manufacturers who just hate some asshole who went and produced a better and cheaper widget and ran the first guy into bankruptcy. WT:MOSNUM is a marketplace where ideas are exchanged. You don’t have much skin in this game and you will survive. Methinks thou doth protest too much. Greg L (talk) 22:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Give WP:NOT (which is official policy) a nice long read. Specifically Wikipedia is not a democracy and it's not an anarchy. Editors have no "rights", and certainly your comment about widget manufacturers is out of place in this environment. The point here is that you do not simply go off on your own in a disruptive and counter productive manner and decide you are better than anyone else at framing the questions (especially when it's clear there are other editors actively working at determine how best to do that). —Locke Cole • t • c 22:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• (outdent) It's not as if Tony was discouraging editors to not comment on the 2nd RfC; as far as I can tell, both are coexisting peacefully and are receiving similar amounts of feedback. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• We wouldn't have needed two RFCs had Tony behaved properly. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• Locke, your right to produce a complicated, confusing RfC that will require yet another level of voting to do any good is not infringed by Tony making a nice, to-the-point RfC that has proven exceedingly popular. Although this move clearly makes Tony look damn smart, he has done nothing to discourage others from adding their 2¢ to your RfC, which, by the way, is a stunt you tried to do to Tony’s by archiving it only 14 hours after it started. Please lighten up and stop acting like a grievously injured party here; it’s getting old. It amounts to nothing more than “I wouldn’t feel all poopy about my work product if Tony didn’t produce something better.” It amounts to nothing more than a big, hearty bowl of unbleached, vitamin-fortified Waaaa. If Tony had really done anything wrong, he would be swinging from the highest yardarm by now at the hands of an uninvolved admin. Clearly, he hasn’t and your endless protests: “Shut Tony up! Shut Tony up! Other editors are agreeing with him for God’s sake!” isn’t getting you what you seek. Greg L (talk) 22:50, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

  P.S. I don’t agree with much of your 22:25, 28 November 2008 post, above, other than WP:NOT is lengthy. And please stop using “you” when you are responding to me and are actually referring to the actions of Tony. Greg L (talk) 22:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• The only thing confusing here is that there's two RFCs. I fail to see how it makes Tony look "damn smart", I think it makes Tony look like someone who will undermine anything he feels threatened by (and in fact his behavior in other matters related to this convince me that is his view). I attempted to archive Tony's RFC because I knew two concurrent RFCs would cause confusion (and that view is justified by the various comments saying just that). I feel quite fine with my contributions to the RFC presented at WP:MOSNUM/RFC, I certainly do not feel "poopy" as you say. Also, please do not take the popularity of the RFC as a tacit endorsement of the methods used to force it on us. That RFC didn't, last I checked, have a question asking if the method used had community approval. And please stop saying he would be hanging from the highest yard arms: administrators block for disruption, but only to prevent it, not to punish for it. Tony has so far ceased being disruptive (though I suppose it could be argued that the existence of this RFC of his is disruptive, but I'm not willing to fight for that). Oh, and linking to childish pictures on the internet doesn't make your argument any stronger. It just makes you look more childish. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• To those editors confused by Locke’s last two sentences (which should have been one sentence separated by a semicolon), please click on “Waaaa” in my above post. Cheers. Greg L (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

While I am firmly opposed to both date linking and date autoformatting, I have to say that I am not happy with this RFC. The three questions all seem like straw proposals: proposals for change written by an opponent of that change, designed to fail by phrasing each proposal in such a way that almost everyone will reject it. Independent of the merits of autoformatting and date linking, this is just not a good way to conduct debate in the Wikipedia community. I would have rather seen a proposal by proponents of linking or autoformatting, that could be debated and rejected on its merits, rather than these three proposals. --Srleffler (talk) 23:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

• The wording in the RfC could reasonably be interpreted that way, Srleffler—though I don’t. It’s not exactly A) Keep present wording / B) Pound sand up your butt. And if one stopped at each “oppose” and read no further, this short, 3-option binary vote wording would reveal little. Fortunately, this is a “Request for comment” and the accompanying views of each editor enable us to discern much, much more information about what the general consensus is. Clearly, the general consensus is that the user community sees extraordinarily little value indeed in linking to the date articles. Greg L (talk) 00:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Bizarre, because I'm getting the impression there's no consensus on the issue of date linking and perhaps even some support for auto formatting. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:37, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Cole, I where is this "no consensus" on date linking from? Are 91 supports against 3 opposes (on Question 1, give or take a couple on both stats) WRT linking not enough for you? I might add that most of the supports have some kind of reasoning, so this is not just another straw poll. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
• Regarding to the current method of autoformatting, the other RfC, which has more background and "more neutral wording", has 98 supports (give or take 2) against 18 opposes on the first question. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• The second question, which is about the desire to maintain some form of date formatting, is much, much closer (29 supporting, 43 opposed as of my post). It has also seen a significant increase in the "support autoformatting" responses since the RfCs were posted to the watchlist notice. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• You are right, I changed my comment above to "the current method of autoformatting". Personally, I still don't see the use of autoformatting, but if it can be done w/o links, I would be satisfied. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
• Autoformatting that works the same for everyone including I.P. users, not just *pretty* results for registered editors who can’t handle (read: stamp their feet and hold their breath until they turn blue) the notion of looking at dates in their non-preferred format, and then a *default* format that 99.9% of our readership looks at. When the developers produce such a thing, let me know and I’ll be first in line. Until then, the whiners here need to grow the hell up; choosing the most appropriate date format suitable for any given article isn’t rocket science and looking at either confuses no one. Greg L (talk) 02:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• I'm looking at the other RFC, not Tony's. Tony's is going to be basically worthless since it's discussing very specific language and not what editors may want. Greg L (talk) 02:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC) And again, we don't vote, and if you start picking through the comments you can note that while people say they oppose (or support) something they may not be strong oppose/supports (because they may think something isn't possible, worth the time, or whatever). At any rate, we're still at less than a week into the RFC (which I would think should run the entire month/30 days), so I'm going to try and curb my commentary on the result so far. We can sort that out afterwards. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• We know what you think. The trouble is, most here disagree with you—Locke Cole • t • c 02:36, 29 November 2008 (UTC). Greg L (talk) 02:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• LOL. There you go; I’m actually beginning to like you! Signing out for the evening. Goodnight. Greg L (talk) 02:48, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
• Gosh, and I thought things had calmed down a bit! What a surprise to wake up this morning to find the section created on the flaws of the other RfC being re-merged back here. More astonishingly, there are the recriminations and mud flying again by the one person which least surprises me in this connection and a considerable amount of fertile organic material from male bovines being spouted that it would rapidly accelerate the wild plant growth of even the most impoverished soil. Those individuals trying to snatch back a modicum of face in view of impending total obliteration. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:29, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The major flaw in this RfC seems to be that the proposer of the three explicit changes opposes all three. The secondary issue is that each is a binary choice, and leaves little room for those of us who think editors are the best judges of what links to make. --Rumping (talk) 15:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Run for 30 days or close?

This section is to see if we have a consensus to close this RfC since it has now run for two weeks and there doesn’t seem to be a WP:SNOWBALL of a chance that the RfC consensus results will change by going longer. I would throw out the motion that we run another 48 hours from now and close it at 23:59 UTC on Tuesday, December 9.

• Extend for 48 It’s run long enough and the consensus is clear. I suggest that undecided editors get put their 2¢ in over the next 48+ hours. Greg L (talk) 23:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

¶ I want to be reasonable and approach consensus at least on this, so let me change:

• Extend for at least 30 10 days Between the two discussions and the meta-discussion, I'm just totally confused. (I only realized today that I hadn't put the 3 proposals project on my watchlist, although I had put the other RFC there and have followed it moderately closely.) On some ideas my thoughts are fairly settled; on others they're just jumbled. [I can't even work out all the logical chains (if this, then that but not the other unless Z), let alone the consequent pro's and con's. I prepared tax returns for several years, so it's not as if I'm intellectually or temperamentally unsuited to this kind of complexity.] What is clear is that a few people are understandably impatient and occasionally ill-tempered, and seeing many people lined up on one side of an issue naturally leads them to think there's an overwhelming consensus. Had there been only a couple of questions on view, that's would be fairly sound. But (even though things were broken down in an attempt to simplify things), there's so much out there on the two pages-plus that I see no consensus that's sound enough or widely-enough acknowledged to build upon. People might think they've put down their tuppenceworth/2 cents' worth by commenting on proposal 2B on page X without also having put their name in the Support/Oppose column or reacted to proposals 1C, 3B and 4E on page Y. Time won't solve or resolve all of this (in fact the enormous amount of comment is already a problem), but it might help. It would help me to make up my mind on specific details and to offer useful comment. ¶ P.S. this is not a contribution to the meta-discussion elsewhere of whom (if indeed anyone) is to blame for the confusion, just my reasons for needing more time. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• All I can say is that 99.9% of editors could make up their minds in 24 minutes, let alone 48 hours. I suggest you post your vote and comments soon. The questions in Tony’s RfC are clear and unambiguous. Posting one’s opinion on Tony’s need not be tied up with the shortcomings and complexities of another RfC. If you need more time on that other RfC, fine. As regards this RfC, the consensus is quite clear and going any longer has no chance whatsoever (WP:SNOWBALL) of reversing itself; it is a landslide consensus. All we need is WP:COMMONSENSE here. Greg L (talk) 23:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• To avoid any potential argument about which RfC would carry more weight, or avoid any editors who may claim (as above) that they have been underrepresented, I suggest that the RfC should close simultaneously with the second one. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is NOT a bureaucracy nor is it a batleground. What goes on elsewhere does not change the simple fact that the consensus view on this RfC has clearly been established and there isn’t any chance whatsoever that the consensus will reverse if this is dragged out. Further, whether the other RfC closes later or at the same time as this one, does anyone here think for a second that Tony won’t have his hands full with the backers of the other RfC when they’re ready to pronounce what has and has not been decided? I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that grownups will have to step in, lockdown the rumpus room, and separate parties. Absolutely anyone could decide how to vote on Tony’s RfC in fifteen minutes; it doesn’t take weeks to make up one’s mind. I frankly don’t find Shakescene’s arguments credible; they strike me as pure wikilawyering. This, at least, is my assessment of the matter. I’m going to leave it up to Seicer to see if he thinks plain ol’ common sense is good enough here (OMG!) or if we need extraordinary procedures for the playground in order to handle all the second-graders. Greg L (talk) 04:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Seicer has no special standing to decide this dispute, so please don't go looking to him to resolve this. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• No, you are wrong. He is an uninvolved admin. That gives him special standing. Perhaps you would like it if I simply did what you want? While that is a no-doubt simple solution, it fails to pass the *grin* test. We need outsiders with authority to help settle this since the warring parties agree on only one point: that they agree on absolutely nothing else. Greg L (talk) 04:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• He's not an outsider. He has no special authority in this dispute. Do not point to him as your proverbial burning bush. That way lies madness. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oooookaaay… I’m going back Earth now. Goodbye. Greg L (talk) 04:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

(undent) like Ohconfucius, i feel it's a good idea to close this RfC at the same time as the other one. sure it's plain what the consensus is on the three questions, but i don't see what benefits there would be to closing this RfC before the "standard" 30 days are up. Sssoul (talk) 05:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• I’m seeing a consensus forming here. Let’s see how others feel. We have a day-and-a-half for more input. Greg L (talk) 05:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• It's amazing to me all these places you see consensus where I don't. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:27, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• <stammering and backing for the door again> Uhm… Ohconfucius weighed in that—like Shakescene and Sssoul—he too wants this RfC to run for a total of 30 days, so I’m seeing a consensus for that. R-r-right…?? We have over 24 more hours for more input.</stammering and backing for the door again> Greg L (talk) 18:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• My apologies. I thought (incorrectly) that you were seeing a consensus to close it sooner rather than later. BTW, nice use of the ellipsis. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

(1) Ten days is acceptable to me if that helps us approach consensus at least on this small issue (see amendment above).
(2) Since Greg L is so upset that I need more time to consider what to him should take any common-sense editor 24 minutes to decide, let me explain. All these issues on both pages affect each other. I actually see arguments being made on both (or all) sides of many issues that seem worth thinking about. Some of them make me reconsider what I thought earlier, sometimes more than once. I looked again at the three proposals last night, and while 3 was easy to oppose (I don't know if it's really a straw man or not), I stopped in the middle of composing a response to 1, because I found I really hadn't decided enough of the issues. It's much easier if you see other people's arguments as debating points to be shot down rather than something that could affect your own thinking. But that's not how you reach consensus. And I don't like getting into this kind of argument (see above meta-discussion for examples of why), but since Greg has mocked my indecision in at least three places, I have to respond at least once. —— Shakescene (talk) 18:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• That’s fine. You are, without a doubt, a very deliberate thinker. Clearly, with several editors (on both sides of the fence on this issue) wanting it to go the full 30, I believe the big-red-text at the top of the RfC should be revised to reflect 30 days. I’m not holding my breath that the consensus will change in that time. And since that closing time would coincide within a couple of days of the closing of the other RfC, I propose we close both at the same exact time. How say ye all? Greg L (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

as noted above i agree with Ohconfucius that it's probably prudent to close them both at the same time. the other one started on 25 November, right? so we're talking a 25 December closing for both? sounds all right to me. Sssoul (talk) 21:01, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Then we'll all be home for Christmas (if only in our dreams). Is it worth putting a parallel deadline/closing warning on the other RfC? —— Shakescene (talk) 21:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Done. Greg L (talk) 21:27, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

"Proposal 4"

An editor has created a fourth proposal half way through the RfC. While we can continue as a discussion point, I do not feel it would be correct to tag it on, so it is pasted below. Please note that a similar point is being commented on in the second RfC, so it may be a better idea to discuss it there. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:30, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 4: Linking appears to be an issue. What about simply formatting them?

That the following text in MOSNUM:

• Autoformatting: Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting (even though in the past this was considered desirable)

be changed to:

• Autoformatting: Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting, but may be presented in automatic format without an associated link.

Isn't there some way to make a date (much like a measurement) without an associated link? It seems like that would be a pretty simple thing to do and still link it to a user's personal preference. Heck, even IPs could be targeted to change based on the location of the IP address... ...or am I just overthinking this? This would allow for the setup of personal preferences without some sort of overlinking, but would still present a default setting as a writer determines. — BQZip01 — ^talk 09:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support Might as well have one that starts with support ;-) — BQZip01 — ^talk 09:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support but only if the fourth of the Three Proposals is a legitimate topic here (many have already commented above and may overlook this addition) and only if it is technically possible without unfortunate consequences. Certes (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose This guideline should not advocate formats that do not exist. No markup to automatically format text exist except the existing autoformatting system (which is losing in a landslide) or certain templates that can only convert a date to one fixed format. Entering, for example, 2008-12-09, into a template and haveing everyone see 9 December 2008 hardly qualifies as an "automatic format". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry Ashton (talk • contribs)

• Oppose - if/when there actually is a new non-linking method for autoformatting, it can be proposed and discussed and either adopted or not. until then, mentioning in the MoS that theoretically there may someday be such a method is pointless. i also oppose "adding proposal 4" to an RfC in progress, particularly when (as noted above) the issue's already being discussed in another RfC. Sssoul (talk) 06:08, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - both currently used date formats are unambiguous and comprehensible to all users. If readers really feel like customising their wiki-experience, they should go fiddle with their link colours instead, or do it to themselves in the privacy of their own cubicles. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 06:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

New proposals

I have drawn up some new proposals for ammending the existing wording of the date linking policy. Which I hope may be an acceptable compromise for both sides of the dispute. They are currently in draft form at User:G-Man/works in progress.

I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how I could put this to a formal vote. G-Man ^? 22:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

You have already posted this proposal to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Please let's only discuss it in one place. there's enough duplication of discussion already without adding to it. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I was merely attempting to bring it to the attention of more people. G-Man ^? 23:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry if I was a bit tetchy there, but I could I just suggest that any replies should go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#New proposals rather than here, so that we only have one discussion going. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

More discussion about close date

When was this warning posted? I knew something was going to close today, but I wasn't sure what (or on which of the three active pages of discussion on this subject). I certainly haven't made up my mind about all the different choices and valid arguments about them. I don't think there's a consensus and won't be for a month or two. And this may be the wrong place to post my comment, but where else? —— Shakescene (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• With regard to your statement “I certainly haven't made up my mind…”, I suggest you do so soon—others have managed to post their opinion without weeks of staring at a lava lamp, immersed in deep thought. This isn’t general relativity. As to “all the different choices and valid arguments about them”, there are only three simple questions on this RfC and they are not/need not be encumbered by the shortcomings and complexities of the other RfC.

  The close date was discussed (and previously settled) here after Seicer (an uninvolved admin) stated “RFC's typically run for 30 days or until such time that an overwhelming consensus can be established.” Do you, Shakescene, not think an overwhelming consensus has been established? By any stretch of the imagination, do you think there is a WP:SNOWBALL of a chance the consensus will change on this RfC by going any longer?

  I’ve opened a new thread here on this page’s talk page to further discuss this. The proposal is to close it after another 24 hours from now (at 22:07 (UTC), 8 December 2008). Greg L (talk) 22:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• I've removed the notice for now, simply because a discussion about exactly when to end it is in progress; it may be confusing as it states the RfC should be closed already (given the time) yet it is still running. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 22:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• Yes. I think another 48 hours is fine too. Let’s please not grow another pre-vote sub-thread at the top of this page to monstrous proportions. Let’s discuss this on the talk page, here (I updated the link to the new thread). But, applying a bit of WP:BOLD, and going with your suggestion of 48 hours, let’s provide some sort of notice of expiration (to be revised if a consensus develops to do otherwise). Greg L (talk) 23:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

• After discussing the matter here on the talk page, there seems to be support from all sides for going the full 30 days. It is probably best to default to most-conservative practices given the passions on these RfCs. To avoid conflict, the above close date is 30 days after the start of Locke Cole’s and Masem’s Date Linking RFC. Greg L (talk) 21:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)