Regarding the dates issue: 2 points.
(1) d/mm/yy is used worldwide and understood (and indeed regularly used) in the US. mm/dd//yy is used in the US.
(2) Contrary to Cunctator's assertion, everyone who voted for the dd/mm/yy version is NOT British. The world does not simply consist of the US and Britain. There are other countries who use it, and people from other countries who voted to use it. Whereas dd/mm/yy is used worldwide (even by Americans), mm/dd/yy simply isn't. So if Wiki wants to use a dating system that is instantly recognisable to people in 200+ countries, it should use dd/mm/yy (or at least enable it to be used). It it wants to have a system that is exclusively used by one, it should require everyone else adapt and use the US mm/dd/yy.
JT
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On 3/3/03 12:38 AM, "james duffy" jtdirl@hotmail.com wrote:
Regarding the dates issue: 2 points.
(1) d/mm/yy is used worldwide and understood (and indeed regularly used) in the US. mm/dd//yy is used in the US.
(2) Contrary to Cunctator's assertion, everyone who voted for the dd/mm/yy version is NOT British. The world does not simply consist of the US and Britain. There are other countries who use it, and people from other countries who voted to use it. Whereas dd/mm/yy is used worldwide (even by Americans), mm/dd/yy simply isn't. So if Wiki wants to use a dating system that is instantly recognisable to people in 200+ countries, it should use dd/mm/yy (or at least enable it to be used). It it wants to have a system that is exclusively used by one, it should require everyone else adapt and use the US mm/dd/yy.
I didn't say everyone who voted for dd/mm/yy is British. Please don't misconstrue my statements.
Discussion of the merits of proposals should remain on the appropriate page: [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)]]
Discussion of how, in general, decisions to implement policy, should be made here. It is also appropriate to announce to the list the discussion of policy changes (or to announce the act of policy change).
Please, folks, take the hysterical claptrap and stuff it.
Both "3 March" and "March 3" are unambiguous in interpretation and are acceptable for use on the wiki, just as both US and non-US spellings and word usages are acceptable on the wiki.
It is *not* true that Americans will be confused, or will think it's "Yoda-speak", or will have their poor little brains fried like pancakes upon encountering the day written before the month. It is likewise *not* true that Europeans, Canadians, and others will have their poor little brains fried like crepes upon encountering the month written before the day.
It simply doesn't matter which is used in any given case. It doesn't matter if every date in the encyclopedia is or isn't in the same order. Do try to keep them consistent _within_ an article for aesthetics' sake, but between articles *it doesn't matter*. If some article has the date in one or the other format, *that's fine*. If someone changes some dates to the other order, *hey, no big deal*.
If I see another post wasted on this subject, I will be sorely disappointed. I'm sure most of you have better things to do, as do I.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
WikiKarma: I have little time to work on the wiki right now, and it just got wasted wading through dozens of whiny posts about date formats. Thanks guys.
james duffy wrote:
(1) d/mm/yy is used worldwide and understood (and indeed regularly used) in the US. mm/dd/yy is used in the US.
I think it's pretty clear that dd/mm/yy and mm/dd/yy should be avoided, because both are weird looking to a significant number of people. 4/3/2001 -- what's that? April 3, if you're American. March 4, if you're not.
On the other hand, 'April 3, 2003' and '3 April, 2003' are both at least non-ambiguous. The second one looks funny (to Americans), but can be deciphered at least.
--Jimbo