2008/10/9 <WJhonson(a)aol.com>om>:
delinking dates means the flag that we put in to allow
standard viewing of
the dates in British or American format ceases to work
This is, it seems, a major point as to why the linking system was
abandoned - the date-standardisation wasn't proving to be more trouble
than it was worth.
The discussion is exceptionally long and involved, and as I haven't
been following it I can't comment in detail, but from a quick skim
through it seems there was a general, broad, consensus that the
dynamic reformatting of dates caused more problems than benefits. This
sort of major change isn't done lightly, after all.
A summary list of the major known problems with date-formatting is
here, and generally seems to make a pretty sensible case for
deprecating it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Duke_of_Waltham/Auto-formatting_is_ev…
"All in all, the auto-formatting of dates is a feature that negatively
affects the appearance of articles and complicates their maintenance,
with relatively minor benefits enjoyed by a very small percentage of
Wikipedia's users."
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk