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

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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.

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

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)

  Thanks. BilCat (talk) 16:30, 28 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 our 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)

• Agreed - drop.  Stepho  talk  05:53, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
• Long ago in the mists of time the US National Institute of Standards and Technology had officially recommended that people in the US should use L rather than l as the symbol for liter. According to the most recent version of Special Publication 811, page 8, Table 6, footnote b, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) has adopted L as an alternative symbol for the liter to avoid confusion with the digit 1. So I would say it used to be an ENGVAR issue, because the guidance to use L came from the US, but now that the main international organization, CGPM, endorses L, it is no longer an ENGVAR issue.

  I could go further and suggest that the English Misplaced Pages adopt L as the preferred symbol. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:04, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

  That's already what the first row of the table (above) says -- for the symbol standing alone i.e. without (for example) an m for milli. The question is the second row: what forms should be used for milliliter: ml or mL or it-depends-on-ENGVAR? AFAICS the outcome of the RfC I linked didn't support an ENGVAR angle -- I don't see where the closer got that -- so we should drop the text as guided by ENGVAR. If you want L to be used in all cases -- L and mL -- you'll need a new RfC, but please in the name of Jesus do not do that, at least not now. For now I'd really like to just get this odd bit of text dropped. EEng 17:17, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

• I also see no relevance of WP:ENGVAR. The closing 4 words (if engvar counts as a word) add nothing. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:50, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
• Go straight to "L". Drop the ENGVAR bit. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 18:42, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
• The Australian style manual says that either is acceptable but the capital L is preferred to avoid confusion. So I support dropping the ENGVAR bit. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Now that I've had my coffee, I realize that (I think) we have (A) a solution that then leads to (B) a new problem. The solution (A) is to change

Derivative units of the litre may use l (lowercase "el") as guided by WP:ENGVAR.

to

Derivative units of the litre may use l or L (lowercase or uppercase "el"), with in-article consistency.

Are we all together on this?

But then here's the other problem: (B) Is "milliliters per liter" ml/L? or ml/l? -- or are both acceptable? (And now that I think about it, mL/L is a possibility too. But mL/l makes no sense at all, obviously.) I'm just previewing this (B) thing. Can we all agree on (A) above before we start debating (B)? EEng 02:09, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• Let's just go for L everywhere (including derived units). Removes the complications altogether.  Stepho  talk  02:40, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Please, please, please, pretty please, let's just start by agreeing on (A). You can raise the idea of "L everywhere" later. EEng 03:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Yep - already agreed to (A) dropping mention of ENGVAR.  Stepho  talk  03:44, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. Support A. And "in-article consistency" rules out ml/L. Somebody please keep EEng away from the coffee before we get to "Y for Gaw'd sake" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:10, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• No, the WP:ENGVAR text should not be removed, because there is a real-world WP:ENGVAR component to this. In Europe, including the UK and Ireland, the lower case l is the standard symbol for the litre. Having a capital L on UK- and Ireland-focussed articles would be almost as jarring as insisting on spelling it "liter". Kahastok talk 07:14, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
• Support (A) dropping the ENGVAR wording for the millilitre. Support (B), use consistently within article. Support eventual (C), explicitly standardise on only using the upper-case symbol L as the symbol for litres and all derived units (mL, cL, dL, ML, GL, and so on). The fact that the upper-case symbol was explicitly approved by the CGPM for the reason of avoiding ambiguity is sufficiently compelling for me to overlook the ENGVAR issue, especially given that this has already been done in the MOS for the litre itself. XAM2175  11:03, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
• No; I would agree with Kahastok that since there is an Engvar angle to the variations in usage, then the reference should stay. Having in-article consistency sounds fine (and is of course also achieved by Engvar) until we end up with a big argument over an article that has American or British usage but the opposite usage for the measurements within the article. That doesn’t sound particularly sensible, and simply sows seeds for unnecessary in-article misunderstanding and debate in the future. If the reason for supporting a change from ml to mL is simply because editors from the US are more familiar with the latter, then it’s clearly an Engvar issue and the sort of thing that WP:ENGVAR is intended to avoid or resolve. MapReader (talk) 12:02, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  At the moment, however, we don't have consistency – the MOS mandates "L" regardless of ENGVAR, meaning that articles using both litres and millilitres can end up using "L" alongside "ml". As to " the reason for supporting a change from ml to mL is simply because editors from the US are more familiar with the latter"; that rationale appears to be entirely absent from the discussion so far. XAM2175  12:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Not entirely absent, I’d suggest. However, more pertinently, on my visits to the US I haven’t seen any evidence that the litre/liter or measurements derived from it such as centilitres or millilitres are in common usage, or even understood, with food packaging and recipes referring to ounces and cups. As the WP article on the metric system says, “the United States is the only industrialised country where commercial and standards activities do not predominantly use the metric system”. Whereas ordinary people in other English-speaking countries are used to seeing metric measurements written on the things we buy from the supermarket and in recipes and countless other commonplace settings. Why would US editors want to impose onto the wider English-speaking world their own format for abbreviations of measurements that most of them never use? MapReader (talk) 12:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  You're swinging a very broad brush with US editors, very broad indeed. Of the editors who have !voted in support and given their location in their user pages, one is in the US, one is in Scotland, and two are in Australia. Hawkeye7 has already noted that the Australian Government Style Manual explicitly prefers upper-case L for millilitres. I further note that the Canadian Government does as well. Even the UK Metric Association do, though I recognise that they're a campaign group rather than an official body. XAM2175  13:05, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  • ml/L is completely unacceptable; ml/l is acceptable in principle but violates the principle of the close.
  • I support EEng's proposed edit.

  Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  The close definitely does not support the claim that "ml/L is completely unacceptable", and I sharply disagree with that claim. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  I was not referring to the close. It is unacceptable because it is against the spirit of the MOS, the aim of which is to "promote clarity, cohesion, and consistency". Use of ml/L achieves the opposite of that. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 06:30, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• Since the idea of English Misplaced Pages preferring "L" in all cases, including with prefixes, is getting more attention than I expected, I will quote The International System of Units (V2.01, December 2022, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, pdf with English text), page 145, Table 8, footnote d

The litre and the symbol, lower-case l, were adopted by the CIPM in 1879 (PV, 1879, 41). The alternative symbol, capital L, was adopted by the 16th CGPM (1979, Resolution 6; CR, 101 and Metrologia, 1980, 16, 56-57) in order to avoid the risk of confusion between the letter l (el) and the numeral 1 (one).

Jc3s5h (talk) 12:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• No, it is an ENGVAR issue. For example, UK consumer packaging continues to use "ml" and "cl", in accordance with UK regulations (which remain aligned with European regulations).This proposal springs from a request at Template talk:Convert#Liter that {{Convert}} default to "L" rather than "l", which raised concerns that {{Convert}} would be in conflict with MOSNUM. NebY (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  NebY and Kahastok, the UK law is that both ml and ML are allowed. Same for the other derivatives of litre. See https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1987/1538/made . Bizarrely, that official document says that "1 or L" are allowed for the litre - they use the number one instead of the letter lowercase letter el. However, I do recognise that all their examples and general usage in Britain use "ml", so this is a bit like Commonwealth English strongly preferring "realise" but allowing "realize".  Stepho  talk  15:33, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Just so. "mL" would be in accord with UK regulations - see also The Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) Regulations 2006 - but "ml" is too and is the norm. NebY (talk) 16:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly. And my point is that seeing these abbreviations in lower case is commonplace in Europe, including the UK, whereas for Americans it is mostly of academic (both literally and figuratively) interest how they are abbreviated, since outside the narrow scientific community no-one there uses them. MapReader (talk) 17:56, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  In America most groceries are labelled in metric by law. You may well find some items labelled only in metric. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Soft drinks/sodas (1 and 2 liter bottles are very common) and alcoholic beverages (using both 'ml' and 'ML'), off the top of my head. Donald Albury 20:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  I have a British education, have lived all my life in Europe, and was taught to spell "litre" (never "liter") and "metre" (except for the measuring instrument, a "meter"), and that "L" and "l" (and by implication "mL" and "ml") are equally valid alternative symbols. Engvar is a red herring. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:29, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  This is the case in Australia and New Zealand too. "L (lower case l is permitted but is better to avoid)" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:54, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

• Comment IRL masters matters preclude substantive participation on this matter, though I delight in having managed to spark a lively debate. What I suggest y'all do is start by reviewing the RfC I l linked above, to decide (1) whether the close was faithful to the discussion, and (2) whether the edit made to the guideline was faithful to the close. After making any corrections there, THEN start debating new ideas like "let's all go to L". Just my thoughts. EEng 14:41, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  You're studying for a(nother) master's? But seriously, this is not a good way to challenge or overturn the close of an RFC. A recent close can be challenged by discussion with the closer or at WP:AN per Misplaced Pages:Closing discussions. Two years later? Launch a new RFC. NebY (talk) 16:55, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Before getting all formal, let's see if we can agree on what happened. To some extent the question is whether the close was flawed, but as much or more is the question of whether the edit reflected the close. I don't see at all where the ENGVAR text comes from. (But I've been run ragged recently so maybe I'm just not seeing it.) Fixing that wouldn't be challenging the close, just implementing it properly. EEng 17:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  It's a good implementation that follows the reasoning of the close (which was good too) by applying the second of the three arguments against B analysed and assessed by the closer, the first having been rejected outright and the third being inapplicable given that there's no consensus re "ml". NebY (talk) 18:05, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Here's the actual text that you seem to be talking about in the close:

  As Option A is the status quo, this leaves Option B as the potential change to assess. The numerical vote is roughly 12-8 in favor of B (with two votes for option D and one vote for option C). The argument for B is primarily that it will avoid confusion with uppercase "I" and number "1". The arguments against B are threefold. The first is an argument against MoS guidances at all. The second is an ENGVAR argument. The third is that while "l" for litre should be discouraged, other abbreviations such as ml should be used. Regarding ENGVAR, capital L is not just an "Americanism", but is permissible everywhere and widely used outside of Europe; furthermore editors can still spell out litre in running text. As the third argument notes that lowercase "l" is confusing (as well as the voters for C and D), I find there is consensus to stop using a standalone "l" for litres.

  As I read this, the first two rationales are rejected, and only the third is partially affirmed. I don't see any support in the close for mentioning ENGVAR in the guidance. --Trovatore (talk) 23:28, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

  Right. That's my reading as well. Somewhere between making the close and doing the edit, the closer seems to have swept ENGVAR into the mix accidentally. I'm hoping we can all recognize that and get rid of the EMGVAR big, after which the floor is open for further refinement, and hopefully a final settlement of this accursed matter. (That further refinement might even include someone proposing that there should be an ENGVAR angle after all, but to repeat, that doesn't seem to have been any part of the outcome of the original RfC, so it's only fair to return to that base before opening the floor to new change proposals.) EEng 05:49, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  Followup: My conjecture is that the closer was working on that row of the table, his eye fell on the left cell reading millitre / milliliter (US), and the idea popped into head that there's an ENGVAR issue (which there's not, because that row is about unit symbols, not unit names). EEng 16:58, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, if all we are doing here is debating A, then I still support it. I am not convinced by the ENGVAR arguments of Kahastok and MapReader. In an extremely non-rigorous (or non-rigourous), non-scientific study, I painstakingly entered "irish liquid containers" und scanned through the images listed as a result. Of those large containers on which I could actually read the label, the very first was this one, which uses "2.5Ltr". I must confess I was confused momentarily by the "tr"; I was looking for "L", found it, and guessed "tr" meant something Irish. Guess I need coffee, too. I found no other large containers with this search. Small containers invariably use small "el", as in "70cl" or "450ml". But on I forged, with "british liquid containers": This sales image also uses 25L, although that's not exactly an RS. This wasn't scientific or extensive, but I'm not cherry-picking; I actually found few readable large-container labels. My findings are nevertheless that British and Irish usage probably tends toward writing out litres, or using "Ltr", but I'm not convinced the use of "L" would be "jarring", so I support A without mention of ENGVAR. The B part might be trickier. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 09:13, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  As an aside, your gesture (or non-rigourous) is appreciated, but not actually necessary – Commonwealth and US spellings have come to align where the "-ous" suffix is concerned; thus it's acceptable that rigour becomes rigorous, valour becomes valorous, etc etc. Separated by a common language indeed! XAM2175  10:39, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  As I mentioned above, there is no consistency in the US. Looking at an assortment of wine, liquor, and liqueur bottles, those of less than a liter use either "ml" or "ML", while those of one liter or more use "LITER(S)", either on the label or molded on the bottle. Both domestic and imported brands use either "ml" or "ML", but the labels, and often the bottles, of imported brands are produced in the US. Of the two bottles I have that were purchased in Europe (both with labels printed in English), the one from Greece uses "ml", while the one from Denmark uses "ML". There certainly is no consistent form in commercial use in the US. Donald Albury 15:56, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  For the avoidance of doubt here Donald, ML, as opposed to mL, is the symbol for the megalitre; 1 ML = 1,000,000 L (264,172 US gal). A rather significant difference!

  (The discussion here would suggest that a British megalitre would have the symbol Ml, which I confess to my eyes looks exceptionally odd.) XAM2175  16:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wow, one slip of the shift key and suddenly ... . EEng 16:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)<>/del>

  Yes, it is a shame that merchants and customers don't pay attention to official definitions. Should I sue the distributor because the bottle of wine says 750 ML on the label, but only holds 750 ml? I wonder if I could find a court that would allow me to pursue that case. Donald Albury 18:11, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  I once saw a pharmacist in the US label a prescription in "Mg" rather than "mg"... XAM2175  18:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Donald Albury: Be sure to check the settlement is paid in MUSD, not mUSD. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  Note that the text in discussion is specifically about derivative units of the litre, particularly the millilitre. As such, the only piece of evidence you cite that is actually relevant to this discussion is Small containers invariably use small "el", as in "70cl" or "450ml". i.e. confirming the preference for lower-case ml and cl in Britain and Ireland, a preference that is not shared elsewhere. Hence, an WP:ENGVAR issue. Kahastok talk 18:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  From my (American) perspective, mL comes off as a bit pedantic, though it does seem to be used in a majority of the bottles I checked around the house. I also found ml and ML. On the other hand L is pretty much obligatory, not for any nationalistic reasons, but because of the original sin of Misplaced Pages, namely choosing a sans-serif typeface as the default. --Trovatore (talk) 20:42, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

  Update on the last point: I tried editing my CSS to default to a serif font, and it turns out that lowercase ell still strikes me as looking too much like a numeral one to be usable for "liters". --Trovatore (talk) 20:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

• Coming a bit late to this, but FWIW my !vote is to support the proposal to drop the ENGVAR reference (I am not sure whether mathematical symbols can even be considered part of English, or any natural human language) as it seems pedantic and unnecessary. There's no reason we can't be consistent in recommending the use of "L", which (as pointed out above) is what most standards orgs do in any case. I don't recall seeing any authoritative body prescribing the use of "l" over "L", come to think of it. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to expect an editor coming to MOSNUM for advice on such usage to find it a bit confusing that they are instead referred to ENGVAR, which does not discuss anything related to units of measurement (nor should it). Archon 2488 (talk) 14:31, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  For the record, I also support deprecation of the lower case "l". That would promote increased coherence within and between articles. I am not advocating a mass change from "ml" to "mL" in existing articles, but suggesting that a change in the other direction would be discouraged. Evolution, not revolution. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Given that IEC allows both, I would go with upper case, since it is easier to distinguish "L" from "1". --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:49, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

  We're not talking about L vs l now. EEng 01:30, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

OK, just to count heads: Unless I'm missing something, only NebY objects to the proposal on the table -- which (to repeat) is to replace

Derivative units of the litre may use l (lowercase "el") as guided by WP:ENGVAR.

to

Derivative units of the litre may use l or L (lowercase or uppercase "el"), with in-article consistency.

NebY: before I unleash the mob to pummel you into submission, is there any possibility that Trovatore's response to you above (see #anchor) has convinced you to go along? And anyone who does object, but I missed, please speak up now (after considering, as mentioned, the above). EEng 01:30, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Crore

MOS:CRORE currently provides this advice (emphasis added):

• Provide a conversion to Western numbers for the first instance of each quantity (the templates {{lakh}} and {{crore}} may be used for this purpose), and provide conversions for subsequent instances if they do not overwhelm the content of the article. For example, write three crore (thirty million). When converting a currency amount, use the exchange rate that applied at the time being written about; the {{INRConvert}} template can be used for this purpose.

But WP:ICTF#Films says that there is consensus that {{INRConvert}} should not be used in list-type articles or in infoboxes (at least for Indian film-related articles).

Monetary conversion templates such as INRConvert should not generally be used in list type articles or infoboxes per this consensus and this discussion. The prevailing attitude was: 1) Converting to US dollars is arbitrary. 2) Default conversion templates create problems with inflation, Ex: where the gross from a 2008 film is converted to the present year's US$ rate. 3) The inflation adjustment option in the template results in infobox clutter.

I had started using {{INRConvert}} in Indian film articles based on MOS:CRORE. It wasn't until later that I saw WP:ICTF#Films and realized what I was doing was counterproductive.

So, I wonder we should add something to the current writeup at MOS:CRORE to acknowledge or note this "consensus" about avoiding {{INRConvert}} in list-type articles and infoboxes?  — Archer1234 (t·c) 16:01, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the provisions at MOS:CRORE override the WikiProject consensus, per WP:CONLEVEL. It might be possible to alleviate the infobox clutter concern (number 3) by footnoting the conversion, and the problems with inflation concern (number 2) is already addressed by MOS:CRORE where it says use the exchange rate that applied at the time being written about.

That just leaves concern number 1, which MOS:CURRENCY leaves open to lower-level consensus: in non-country-specific articles, such as Wealth, use US dollars (US$123 on first use, generally $123 thereafter), euros (€123), or pounds sterling (£123). XAM2175  01:41, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

MOS:DATEUNIFY and MOS:DATEVAR should be more explicit about template parameters

There are various editors running around changing all of the «YYYY-MM-DD» date formats in citation template parameters to e.g. «D Month YYYY» format (e.g. using the script User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates). At best, this is in my opinion a pointless waste of attention, because these templates already have logic to render dates into whatever desired human-readable format, so these edits do not affect the output seen by article readers in any way, but only change the source markup.

But in my opinion these changes are actively harmful, because the whole point of these templates is to be a structured format which is accessible to both human readers and to automated tools. The clear, concise, lexicographically sortable, unambiguous, standardized «YYYY-MM-DD» format is an international standard (ISO 8601) for machine-readable metadata for good reasons. Many existing bots emit this format in these template parameters, the same or similar formats is widely adopted outside Misplaced Pages (for example, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has dates in «YYYYMMDD» format as part of archive URLs, making it trivial to copy-paste into the "archive-date" parameter and just add hyphens) and anyone trying to do anything with the template markup, either manually or using a computer program, benefits from having a numeric «YYYY-MM-DD» format, which is much easier to work with than alternatives when dealing with many dates at a time as metadata per se.

At the very least, the MOS should directly state that «YYYY-MM-DD» dates in template parameters should not be changed by script to the same format as plain-text dates in article body copy / plain wiki-markup dates in citations. In my opinion it would even better to explicitly nudge editors to change other date formats to «YYYY-MM-DD» format in the context of template parameters; but I don’t care strongly enough about this to try to make any kind of site-wide policy about it. –jacobolus (t) 18:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Seconding this. While other formats can be allowed if they are in line with the article's format, YYYY-MM-DD should be listed as the preferred format, and scripts should not change this.

These edits (eg, changing date=2023-04-03 to date=3 April 2023) actively harm translation efforts by making it more difficult to translate citations. Wracking 18:20, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Dates in the YYYY-MM-DD format may be false for dates earlier than 1923; the further back, the greater the likelihood of a falsehood. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:53, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)This should be a non-discussion, MOS already specifically permits YYYY-MM-DD:

* Access and archive dates in an article's citations should all use the same format, which may be:

• • the format used for publication dates in the article (see above);
  • the format expected in the citation style adopted in the article; or
  • yyyy-mm-dd

— and it is really annoying when a fly-by bot changes date formats and triggers a watchlist entry just for an unnecessary date change. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:28, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Why wouldn't this equally apply to any other date format? –jacobolus (t) 21:22, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with articles that consistently use either MDY or DMY in prose and consistently use YYYYMMDD in the references. I don't think I've ever come across such an article, and the fact that RefToolbar, the default source editing citation tool, defaults to DMY means that many articles are inconsistent. When faced with an inconsistent article, I think using the available script to unite the style across the prose and references is an improvement. Editors are already discouraged from doing so in a bot-like manner if the changes are only cosmetic (i.e. only to the references). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:39, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I am extremely annoyed by editors who use the date unification script to change numeric dates to spelled-out dates in articles that use the |cs1-dates= parameter of the date format template to specify that the dates should be numeric. The script to unify these dates is broken, because it cannot handle this standard numeric format even when the article explicitly specifies it as the format. But despite years of complaining about the script being broken, editors persist in using it and riding roughshod over WP:DATEVAR. I don't care whether you think it is an improvement. Unless this long-broken script can be properly fixed, it needs to stop. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:11, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

You and I are not talking about the same cases. I also would oppose the changes you're talking about. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:20, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

What cases are you talking about? I'm a bit confused. Wracking 21:42, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I provided an example below in reply to jacobolus. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Examples of four different users incorrectly changing consistently-formatted numeric access dates into spelled-out dates using a script: Special:Diff/947500508 (2020), Special:Diff/1032832144 (2021), Special:Diff/1117477199 (2022), Special:Diff/1145374634 (2023). I'm not sure these are all using the same broken script but at least some of them are Misplaced Pages:MOSNUMscript, exactly the same broken script that you (Firefangledfeathers) have linked to in your own recent script-date-change edit summaries. The script talk page indicates that the developer has refused to fix the script when this issue is raised and instead thinks of it as a user error. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:46, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I looked at your first diff. First, it was not tagged with the cs1-dates parameter, so it doesn't seem aligned with your use case. Second, since no "use XXX dates" template was present, the page was displaying different formats for the date= and accessdate= parameters. I don't see that as a good thing, and it wouldn't have occurred to me that the date style was consistent. If there's a reason to stick with that sort of consistent inconsistency, I'd be glad to know about it and will change my practice moving forward. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The "first diff" in question here could have limited itself to only adding {{Use mdy dates}} at the top of the page and the effect for readers would have been identical; changing numerical dates to spelled out «Month D, YYYY» format was unnecessary. –jacobolus (t) 23:04, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps the MOS should directly recommend that all pages include a "use XXX dates" template with cs1 parameter set on it, to be added any time someone wants to make a significant modification to date formatting. I doubt anyone would have a problem with an edit setting |cs1-dates=XX on a page where the templates are currently rendering dates inconsistently. –jacobolus (t) 22:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

When I created the auto-date formatting for cs1|2, it was my intention that there would not be a need for a script to fiddle with date formats in cs1|2 templates because those templates would follow the format specified in the {{use xxx dates|cs1-dates=<format>}} templates. If I recall correctly, for a time, the script did not fiddle with cs1|2 dates; it reformatted dates in the prose and left the cs1|2 date formatting to cs1|2. Editors did not like that so now we have the situation where the script ignores |cs1-dates=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The second and fourth examples are definitely bad edits. In both cases the {{use xxx dates}} templates had valid |cs1-dates=ly parameters indicating that the correct formats for cs1|2 templates in those articles is long-form format for publication dates and YYYY-MM-DD format for access and archive dates as allowed by MOS:DATEUNIFY. The script should not be ignoring |cs1-dates= when it has a value so I concur: for these edits the script is broken. The other two examples are correct edits in that a {{use xxx dates}} was not present before the script edited the articles so the script could not know to preserve YYYY-MM-DD access and archive dates unless the script operator instructed it to do so; I don't know if the script has the ability to accept that sort of instruction from the operator; if it doesn't, it should.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:25, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

What advantage specifically do you see in having the template markup for a citation say e.g. … |archive-date=2 September 2022 |… instead of … |archive-date=2022-09-02 |…, assuming that the reader is going to see "2 September 2022" either way? Why is this an improvement? –jacobolus (t) 21:30, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any advantage to that change. One where I do: assume the article is tagged with Template:Use mdy dates. The first ref has ...title=ref1 |archive-date=2 September 2022 ... . The second ref has ... |title=ref2 |archive-date=September 10, 2022 .... I would favor a change to unify the date styles, just for the very minor benefit of code readability. Since it's a cosmetic change, I wouldn't make the edit unless bundled with an edit that actually changes the displayed page for readers. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:45, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

If the article has {{use mdy dates}} at the top, then this change will not affect readers, because the template will already standardize the output. But to make the markup most legible/useful I would personally recommend switching these to … |archive-date=2022-09-02 |… and … |archive-date=2022-09-10 |… , respectively. –jacobolus (t) 23:09, 3 April 2023 (UTC)