steven l. rubenstein wrote:
I am posting this on different talk pages, and want to inform the mailing list. I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate]] for the detailed proposal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/BCE-CE_Debate
There has already been a long and contentious discussion on the Jesus talk page, and it has gotten cumbersome. It might get cumbersome to discuss this proposal here, too. Anyway, in the very early stages of the debate, someone told me that rather than argue on the Jesus talk page, I should propose to change the policy. Thus ....
Steve
Ultra-short summary of previous debates:
Pro-CE) AD = "Year of Our Lord" thus is POV. Use CE. Pro-AD) No AD is more widely used and WP is not a vehicle for advocacy for change, so stick to AD. Pro-CE) But that is ignorance. We should be correct and neutral, not sheep-followers of the majority. Pro-AD) I am not Christian nor ignorant, but still use AD as the "standard". Adovacy is a bigger POV problem than origins of common terms being POV.
Rinse and repeat with minor variations.
Result: Weak argument to agree to disagree and have the Manual of Style say that both styles are acceptable and it should be decided on a page-to-page basis.
Now I am going to read the new debate and see what's new has been said :).
Pete/Pcb21