Daniel-
No - that's not what I wrote. I wrote that whatever date style that is already in an article should, in general, be respected
Oh, so there's also a firstborn rule. OK, that makes things even more complicated for editors.
1) Check: article has dates in it? Yes: Use that style - No: Proceed 2) Check: article is about a British subject? Yes: Use British style - No: Proceed 3) Use "American" style
This is a compromise since there was no clear majority supporting either style as absolute policy. So we must tolerate both.
As I said before, this is an illogical conclusion. Many of the same people who voted FOR either of the existing options have already REJECTED the other options that were listed. Nowhere was it made clear that if no "clear majority" (whatever that is) could be determined, one of the other listed options would be used. Nor have you been invested with the authority to decide which option that would be.
If we do not then whatever side losses is going to /very/ pissed and many of them may leave or fork the project based on such a minor difference.
That can always happen, with all of our policies. Whether it is worth it should be decided by the Wikipedia community at large, not by a few members of it. I personally think it is, but maybe many others agree with you. So far it doesn't look like it.
Of course, no similar rule exists for German style if I wrote "17. June" in an article about a German subject, I would be called a vandal after three reverts.
German style? Why the straw man? We are talking about two competing /English language/ styles. What the Germans do is their own business and has no bearing on the subject at hand.
The underlying logic between the British/American split is to accommodate the feelings of different users. Well, there's a third group of countries that adds a dot after the number. One of these countries is Germany, others are Denmark and Norway. Should we now, according to the same logic, use this style in articles about Danish, German, and Norse subjects?
My point is: Giving stylistic privileges to one group of users working on one segment of articles does not seem to be in the spirit of a neutral, consistent encyclopedia to me.
The distribution of opinion is that a large group of people want to have the International style be the absolute standard and another large group want to have the American style be the absolute standard. Both sides should be able to live with a compromise that allows both.
Then let them vote for it, please. If they think the "compromise" (which heavily favors the British user segment of Wikipedia) is worse than the danger of losing some contributors, I don't think you have the privilege to enforce another solution.
* US-style spelling in all articles * British style dates in all articles
And then World War III starts between American and non-American Wikipedians.
If so, hopefully one side will win and we can carry on with our business.
I don't buy the argument that we look unprofessional by tolerating variant spelling and date formats. We /would/ look unprofessional if we lost a large segment of our users because we made an absolute policy to use one or the other style though.
Personally, I don't think that will happen. Sure, there are always absolutists. But if we agree on a style as a result of an open community process, most people will probably be able to accept it.
What we do not want is a cabal. Agreed?
Regards,
Erik