Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:45, 27 March 2023

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style/Dates and numbers page.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Shortcuts WT:DATE WT:MOSDATE

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Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Misplaced Pages's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Misplaced Pages policies of Misplaced Pages's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

Archives

General 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, vote, 6, 7, 8, 9 (AD/CE), 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14a, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 49a, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161 Binary prefixes B0, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10, B11, B12, B13, B14, B15, B16, B17 Years and dates D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D9, D10, D11, D12, D13, D14 See also Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Dates Misplaced Pages talk:Date debate Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (calendar dates) Misplaced Pages talk:Timeline standards Misplaced Pages:Measurements Debate Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date autoformatting Complete rewrite of Units of Measurements (June 2008) Dec. 2008 RfC on Date linking/autoformatting (three proposals) Dec. 2008 RfC on Date linking/autoformatting (detailed)

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

It has been 1379 days since the outbreak of the latest dispute over date formats.

Era: Use of Common Era as preferable to Anno Domini?

This is NOT an RfC... yet. I am doing the pre-work of determining if we could finally come down on one side or the other in most cases, if not all, and use the Common Era dating system which makes use of CE and BCE as preferable to AD and BC? I believe that in academia today, CE/BCE is seen as more neutral, and is pretty widely used and seems to me to be used more by the day in the english speaking world at least when it comes to non-Christian material. I would love to seek community input, and if there seems to be a clear enough consensus, to then more forward to a formal RfC, and then from there, the policy recommendation to be implemented in the MOS. TY — Moops 22:34, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

No, this won't happen. You should have realized this by now from the various attempts you've made to change individual articles. Johnbod (talk) 22:39, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

We have come down on a consensus. You're not really interested in "community input", there's been plenty of that. When I read "I would love to seek community input, and if there seems to be a clear enough consensus..." I hear "Please support me I want to push this through to fit my personal preference". BTW, the language is "English", not "english". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Assuming you are unaware of the history of this discussion, I recommend using the search function to learn what has transpired in the past on this page. In short, we have a consensus that perhaps no one likes very much, but too many people have too strong opinions to come to a new consensus. It's not worth the time or bother of bringing this up again, unless something dramatic like the Second Coming has happened to change views (and eras). SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Of course in my opinion CE is the better system, not merely for secularism reasons but also because Christ seems to have been born several years "Before Christ". Even so, there is no conclusive policy argument one way or another - and not only is there no consensus to mandate CE, even if there were it would undoubtedly cause a kerfuffle of great magnitude on and off Misplaced Pages, get dragged into the culture wars, interpreted as an attack on religion, etc. We can simply not get into it and it will save time and energy to work on articles.

Perhaps the time to standardise on CE will come some decades hence if it gains broad cultural acceptance over the AD system - who knows? But for now this is probably as it should be. CharredShorthand (talk) 12:10, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

It has gained such acceptance in academia as well as in the English speaking world with two notable exceptions, Brits (oddly cling to old customs maybe?), as well as Christians. — Moops 18:29, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Really? I see it as the flip side of that. BCE/CE has gained some traction in academia but very limited use in general society. Strangely, it is use in both Christian and non-Christian academia. But ask random people off the street what BCE/CE means and you will get a blank stare. So, it's not just a Brit thing and not just a Christian thing.  Stepho  talk  11:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Not my experience in the United States. — Moops 17:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

That's ok, every country does things differently. Experiences also change depending on which social circles you move in (eg academia vs rednecks vs engineers vs hairdressers, etc).  Stepho  talk  23:24, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

At Talk:Ancient Roman units of measurement#Era, I suggested you look at the now archived Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 161#Article titles for years: BC/AD or BCE/CE as a recent example of the strength of feeling around this subject. What in that WT:MOSNUM discussion makes you think we could finally come down on one side or the other and would do so in favour of your preferred usage? NebY (talk) 12:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I completely support you Moops. The BC/AD nomenclature is clearly Christian and should not be used for any dates on Misplaced Pages. It is not our place to use Christian terminology in what we are trying to make an unbiased encyclopedia. The argument that BC/AD is "known by more people" is ignoring the fact that Misplaced Pages is global-not US or Euro-centric. Millions of people all over the world read English Misplaced Pages (among other language of course). For example-in Kenya, English Misplaced Pages is more widely read than any other language Misplaced Pages. Anyone who is arguing that BC/AD should be kept because it's some kind of status quo is arguing from a biased standpoint. Religious dating systems should be kept out of Misplaced Pages unless they are germane to the topic being written about. Eupnevma (talk) 19:46, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

BCE/CE just relabels the Christian era and calls it "common", which it is not ("convenient era" or "Christian era" might have been more appropriate, as it might have gotten rid of the somewhat mystifying "anno domini", although scientists, who seem to favor the change, use latinate words so much that they shouldn't mind). The relabeling might seem appropriate for Roman history, except that so much still valid historical literature uses the old system, as well as Christianity having been born of the religious instincts of the Roman world. The example of Kenya seems inappropriate as that country is 85% Christian, according to religious demographics at its page. Another reason for not changing is that non-native speakers of English would like to be given as-simple-as-possible rules of usage, which BCE/CE just complicates. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:00, 8 February 2023 (UTC) (edited 05:02, 8 February 2023 (UTC) and 07:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC))

Indeed. I used to start new Indian articles using BCE/CE, until I realized that except for a small, very expensively educated minority, most of our huge numbers of South Asian readers were used to BC/AD, as generally used in their schools & media, and many did not understand CE at all. Time to close this thread. Johnbod (talk) 05:12, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

The BC/AD nomenclature is clearly Christian and should not be used for any dates on Misplaced Pages. The BCE/CE era style is clearly Christian, so according to this argument this era style should also not be used on Misplaced Pages. So there are various alternatives, including a dating system based on the presumed date of the foundation of Rome. The Maya also had a dating system…..

The argument that BC/AD is "known by more people" is ignoring the fact that Misplaced Pages is global-not US or Euro-centric. In my experience as a Brit, Misplaced Pages is US-centric and the desire to change to BCE/CE is an example of US-centricity.

Sweet6970 (talk) 11:52, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

• Please, God, not this shit again. EEng 05:15, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

  Perhaps we could add it to Misplaced Pages:Perennial proposals Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:09, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

• Yes please. Tony (talk) 12:01, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks Tony. I'd love to see this happen. Even if it takes a long time. :) — Moops 18:30, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

• If no one has a proposal which stands a chance of being approved (and I'm sure no one does), let's not waste time and energy on this. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:25, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

MOS:DOB

currently redirects here, specifically to:

Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Dates of birth and death

The problem is that nowhere on this page is Dates of birth and death directly discussed. Yes, the section/anchor redirected to discusses date ranges but 1) a policy on "Dates of birth and death" is expected to discuss much more than how to express the range. 2) what to do when the range isn't a range (because the person is still living) is snuck into here, which I feel is out of place.

I suggest MOS:DOB is redirected to a comprehensive policy on how to express people's births and deaths.

For example, I got here because someone made an edit saying effectively "per MOS:DOB we don't specify the PLACE of birth".

But this policy says nothing on that topic. This makes me guess it used to redirect to a much more comprehensive discussion, covering all aspects of the topic "how to express info relating to the birth and death of a person": how to express dates, date ranges, place of death and other details.

It should not be scattered and/or incomplete, but currently, it is. CapnZapp (talk) 11:40, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

@CapnZapp, this is covered in Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Birth_date_and_place JeffUK 13:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

User:JeffUK: I have questions. CapnZapp (talk) 19:59, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Why is MOS:DOB redirecting here instead of there?

And why does "there" say

What "further" information? It is when MOS:DOB lands you here, you need "there" for the further information! If "there" is the one place where all pertinent information is given, why not focus on "there" as the MOS:DOB destination? CapnZapp (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

There's no expectation that there is one place that holds all the information you may be looking for at this particular time. Dates and Numbers covers lots of things you need to know about dates and numbers (including birth and death dates) Biography covers lots of things you need to know about the style of biographical articles, including birth and death dates. I think your question really is 'Why did an editor send me to the wrong one to read about whether or not to include a birth location' the answer to that is that they got it wrong. JeffUK 21:39, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but yes there is. At least, I assume that the "DOB" in MOS:DOB stands for dates of births (and deaths). If this is correct, then yes, obviously a reader would expect that this shortcut leads them to a comprehensive overview, or in your own words, "one place that holds all the information may be looking for at this particular time." Furthermore, the editor that sent me here only operated on the (very reasonable) assumption that a shortcut that expands to "Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Dates of birth and death" would indeed be my one-stop shop in all matters regarding dates of birth and deaths. Wouldn't you agree? CapnZapp (talk) 18:12, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we have a 'persistently recurring style issue' that actually requires any additions to any part of the MOS. Maybe you could draft the section you're proposing to make it clearer what you think is actually missing? JeffUK 10:13, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

all aspects of the topic "how to express info relating to the birth and death of a person": how to express dates, date ranges, places of birth and death and other details that may or may not be considered pertinent in various cases, for bio subjects that are alive, and for bio subjects that are dead. The presence of MOS:DOB suggests the target offers all of this, but it doesn't. CapnZapp (talk) 11:31, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

"all aspects of the topic" and "other details that may or may not be considered pertinent" just begs the question, what do you think is missing? The only thing you mentioned that isn't already here is 'place of birth' which no-one would expect to find under 'Date of Birth'. JeffUK 12:23, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Petition to have dates start with the month, followed by the day

Well, that answers that 🤦‍♂️.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Marino13 (talk • contribs) 08:33, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Clarifying exceptions

In the section Numbers as figures or words, we have:

• Integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words.
• Integers greater than nine expressible in one or two words may be expressed either in numerals or in words...

The exception to this is listed farther down, in the middle of "Notes and exceptions":

• Comparable values nearby one another should be all spelled out or all in figures, even if one of the numbers would normally be written differently...

Can this be moved up closer to the main text? This exception is too far down the page, and it's being missed by editors who haven't read the long exceptions section carefully enough. Thanks. BilCat (talk) 19:20, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• Juggled some stuff. EEng 05:14, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Dates, months, and years / Formats

Why is the YYYY-MM-DD date format not allowed? What's wrong about saying The event occurred on 2004 October 30? :3 F4U (they/it) 22:44, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

There are no professionally edited English publications that use that format ("2004 October 30"), so the format will confuse readers. Our goal is to provide an encyclopedia to our readers without quirkiness that hinders understanding. Indefatigable (talk) 23:17, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Freedom4U: There's nothing wrong with it; it's as valid as any other choice, but Misplaced Pages has made style choices to be as readable as possible and accessible around the world. That's meant that we've compromised and use both mdy and dmy (MOS:DATEVAR). If I were emperor, we'd all use YYYY-MM-DD (2004-10-30) and we'd all get used to it and go on and be a little more logical, but thankfully I am not. There are many compromises in an international encyclopedia and sticking with just two date styles (with a few exceptions) is one of them. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:28, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't asking because yyyy-mm-dd is "more logical" or anything like that, but because it just feels awkward reading DMY or MDY formatted dates when the article has clear national ties to Korea or China or Japan. With MDY, there's at least the month and day lining up, but the year still throws me off. :3 F4U (they/it) 23:44, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from. I lived in China for a few years and I edit a lot of articles about Japanese cars. I love YMD. I'm also one of the most vocal supporters of yyyy-mm-dd being used in references. But even I stop at using it in English prose. It's simply not an English language format and it would be a distraction for the majority of international readers. There will also be many edit wars when Brits or Yanks "correct" it back to DMY or MDY.  Stepho  talk  02:30, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

ENGVAR controls big L or little L for litres/liters?

The one-l lama, He's a priest; The two-l llama, He's a beast. -- Ogden Nash

Right now out units table's got:

The "don't use lowercase ell in isolation" and as guided by ENGVAR bits both originate with this edit , which came on the heels of WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 160#Litre abbreviation RFC. However, I don't see where the closer (who hasn't edited in a year) got the ENGVAR part -- nor do I know what it means.

I believe we should just drop the text as guided by ENGVAR. Thoughts? EEng 05:44, 27 March 2023 (UTC)