On 08/02/2009, Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
2009/2/8 White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com:
Hard coded in the context of my message is when dates are typed out. Like January, 20 1956 rather than soft coded [[1956-01-20]]. Ideally all dates should always be soft coded and be modified by users preferences. In reality the exact opposite of this is done.
So your "hard coded" to use American dates is something that can be got around by, er, the editor not writing American dates? I am not seeing this as quite the catastrophe you are, and you could equally present it as the wiki being "forced" to use non-American date styles...
All White Cat is saying is that the wikipedia needs markup(s) to handle dates. And in fact, right now there are multiple markups available, including American-style ones.
As for the underlying debate, we have thrashed out the date-linking issue before at great length, and your "ideal" is certainly not one shared by many other users.
I've been seeing this argument a lot on the wikipedia lately. I've never been able to see it as other than a call for straight voting to determine issues rather than consensus; and that seems to be harmful. I've frequently found that even what are initially minority opinions can turn out to be the adopted position that consensus takes, indeed that is probably usually the case, ideas are usually invented by somebody and spread.
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- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk