ArbCom, unfortunately, but at least now with good intentions, is making another mistake on the BCE/CE arbitration. It appears to be about to declare that the MoS (or at least an extract of it) is policy. My understanding is this is not the case, and that the MoS is just a non-binding guideline.
This understanding comes from a recent discussion, initiated by SlimVirgin, who argued that the MoS had never followed the correct procedure to become policy. I argued that it had - as it was followed generally by WPians and had been effectively accepted as such by the community. However, SlimVirgin, supported by others, argued that it would need a consensus vote. I didn't persevere in countering this argument for too long, and the designation of the MoS as "policy" was removed.
It seems the ArbCom is about to reverse the effects of that discussion and declare a basic guideline as policy. As there is nothing in the general wording of the MoS to separate out the bits on BCE/CE notation from the rest, it leaves open the possibility that users not complying with the MoS (and most don't from time to time at least in some respects) are leaving themselves open to complaints.
Kind regards
Jguk
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1) Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the "purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format," see [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Eras). The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent within an article."
Fred
On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:56 PM, Jon wrote:
ArbCom, unfortunately, but at least now with good intentions, is making another mistake on the BCE/CE arbitration. It appears to be about to declare that the MoS (or at least an extract of it) is policy. My understanding is this is not the case, and that the MoS is just a non-binding guideline.
This understanding comes from a recent discussion, initiated by SlimVirgin, who argued that the MoS had never followed the correct procedure to become policy. I argued that it had - as it was followed generally by WPians and had been effectively accepted as such by the community. However, SlimVirgin, supported by others, argued that it would need a consensus vote. I didn't persevere in countering this argument for too long, and the designation of the MoS as "policy" was removed.
It seems the ArbCom is about to reverse the effects of that discussion and declare a basic guideline as policy. As there is nothing in the general wording of the MoS to separate out the bits on BCE/CE notation from the rest, it leaves open the possibility that users not complying with the MoS (and most don't from time to time at least in some respects) are leaving themselves open to complaints.
Kind regards
Jguk
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If I may weigh in on the BC/AD BCE/BC debate, it seems that the best way to handle this is similar to how we deal with British/American English spelling: if an article already has BC/AD and is consistent, there is no need to change this to BCE/BC.
In addition, I would think that articles on history (especially articles baesd before the BCE/BC notation) should keep the BC/AD notation.
Fred Bauder wrote:
- Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the
"purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format," see [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Eras). The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent within an article."
Fred
On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:56 PM, Jon wrote:
ArbCom, unfortunately, but at least now with good intentions, is making another mistake on the BCE/CE arbitration. It appears to be about to declare that the MoS (or at least an extract of it) is policy. My understanding is this is not the case, and that the MoS is just a non-binding guideline.
This understanding comes from a recent discussion, initiated by SlimVirgin, who argued that the MoS had never followed the correct procedure to become policy. I argued that it had - as it was followed generally by WPians and had been effectively accepted as such by the community. However, SlimVirgin, supported by others, argued that it would need a consensus vote. I didn't persevere in countering this argument for too long, and the designation of the MoS as "policy" was removed.
It seems the ArbCom is about to reverse the effects of that discussion and declare a basic guideline as policy. As there is nothing in the general wording of the MoS to separate out the bits on BCE/CE notation from the rest, it leaves open the possibility that users not complying with the MoS (and most don't from time to time at least in some respects) are leaving themselves open to complaints.
Kind regards
Jguk
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On Thursday, June 23, 2005 7:57 PM, Jon thagudearbh@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
[Snip whether the MoS is policy]
SlimVirgin, supported by others, argued that it would need a consensus vote.
I truely hope that this is not in fact what SlimVirgin and the others meant, as, if so, it shows a distressingly great misunderstanding of what policy is; the result of votes it is not. A few examples at random would be No Personal Attacks, No Original Research, the Deletion Policy, the Sockpuppet policy, amongst others. Oh, and this little one called "NPOV". None of these started as consensus polls, nor were not considered 'policy' until they had managed to muster such support.
And, BTW, you probably meant "consensus poll"; votes are binding, and we just don't /do/ binding polls, a.k.a. votes, on Wikipedia (even in the case of the selection of members of the Arbitration Committee, it is, in the end, just appointment by Jimbo as he sees fit, whether guided by the results of the poll of users or not).
Yours,