The vexed question may be solved by technical means!
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk Date: 05-Sep-2006 08:41 Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] BC vs BCE era names To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@wikimedia.org
Bill Clark wrote:
I've added the ability to specify a preference (or no preference) for era names in dates (BC vs. BCE). I've also fixed a couple bugs in the regular expressions that match for dates, that were preventing the parser from recognizing (and converting) dates that ended in BCE or which were written in ISO format and fell between -999-01-01 and 999-12-31 (i.e. had a one-, two-, or three-digit year).
I'm not an actual committer so I'm submitting this as a diff -ru to the mailing list. I'm sure that's the wrong procedure and I'll be scolded for it, but hey I'll learn.
I've tested this and it works on my local version (checked out of svn a few hours ago) but I imagine it should be tested more.
-Bill Clark
That's a great idea. It might also be useful to make the code also switch 'AD' and 'CE', for dates such as, for example, 4 AD / 4 CE.
-- Neil
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Oh yes, please stop that eternal useless bickering! I have never seen the use of adding another E to BC and give it another name when in fact you count with the same year numbering. But if we can have a technical solution so we can have both I'd go for it.
Mgm
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The vexed question may be solved by technical means!
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk Date: 05-Sep-2006 08:41 Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] BC vs BCE era names To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@wikimedia.org
Bill Clark wrote:
I've added the ability to specify a preference (or no preference) for era names in dates (BC vs. BCE). I've also fixed a couple bugs in the regular expressions that match for dates, that were preventing the parser from recognizing (and converting) dates that ended in BCE or which were written in ISO format and fell between -999-01-01 and 999-12-31 (i.e. had a one-, two-, or three-digit year).
I'm not an actual committer so I'm submitting this as a diff -ru to the mailing list. I'm sure that's the wrong procedure and I'll be scolded for it, but hey I'll learn.
I've tested this and it works on my local version (checked out of svn a few hours ago) but I imagine it should be tested more.
-Bill Clark
That's a great idea. It might also be useful to make the code also switch 'AD' and 'CE', for dates such as, for example, 4 AD / 4 CE.
-- Neil
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On 9/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes, please stop that eternal useless bickering! I have never seen the use of adding another E to BC and give it another name when in fact you count with the same year numbering. But if we can have a technical solution so we can have both I'd go for it.
Mgm
Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, but I'm sure there will be "bickering" over the default setting of any UI option we come up with. After all, the default will determine what those who are not logged-in or who have not modified their preferences will see.
-Rich [[W:en:User:Rholton]]
On 05/09/06, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, but I'm sure there will be "bickering" over the default setting of any UI option we come up with. After all, the default will determine what those who are not logged-in or who have not modified their preferences will see.
As with the present date format settings, I assume the "default" will be "do nothing."
- d.
Shouldn't the default be neutral (i.e. 'BC(E)' / 'BC|BCE' etc.) anyway? There's not much of a choice there. Then again, if users have a problem with the mere use of a 'BC' instead of 'BCE' when BC has been widely accepted for so long, then so be it.
On 9/5/06, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes, please stop that eternal useless bickering! I have never seen the use of adding another E to BC and give it another name when in fact you count with the same year numbering. But if we can have a technical solution so we can have both I'd go for it.
Mgm
Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, but I'm sure there will be "bickering" over the default setting of any UI option we come up with. After all, the default will determine what those who are not logged-in or who have not modified their preferences will see.
-Rich [[W:en:User:Rholton]] _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Shouldn't the default be neutral (i.e. 'BC(E)' / 'BC|BCE' etc.) anyway? There's not much of a choice there. Then again, if users have a problem with the mere use of a 'BC' instead of 'BCE' when BC has been widely accepted for so long, then so be it.
It eventually came down to a US vs UK argument, which is why the MOS says "whatever it is now, leave it kthx." The Arbitration Committee has had to penalise people for edit-warring on the subject.
(Wikipedia! No stakes too insanely small for a battle to the death!)
- d.
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :) ArbCom should penalise people. WP:NOT :: i.e. people shouldn't choose one or the other because they feel like it. Add it to an article, leave it as it is is the simplest way.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Shouldn't the default be neutral (i.e. 'BC(E)' / 'BC|BCE' etc.) anyway? There's not much of a choice there. Then again, if users have a problem with the mere use of a 'BC' instead of 'BCE' when BC has been widely accepted for so long, then so be it.
It eventually came down to a US vs UK argument, which is why the MOS says "whatever it is now, leave it kthx." The Arbitration Committee has had to penalise people for edit-warring on the subject.
(Wikipedia! No stakes too insanely small for a battle to the death!)
- d.
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On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not. However, you have a point, NPOV means BCE. Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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Hold on... if BC is the commonly accepted version, then wouldn't differing from the norm and adopting BCE assume that we are disregarding any potential existence of Jesus?
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not. However, you have a point, NPOV means BCE. Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not.
While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV. The problem with accepting a POV in dating systems is that we would have to support ALL dating systems. Only supporting BC/AD and BCE/CE is to codify systemic bias. However, adding other dating systems isn't easy, because lunar calendars (for example) don't match precisely with solar ones. So if we allowed a user to pick a preferences of say, the Islamic calendar or the old Russian calendar, many year-only dates would become ambiguous.
However, you have a
point, NPOV means BCE.
BC means "Before Christ", and that (obviously) refers to Jesus of Nazareth. So if you say "before Christ" in reference to him, you are asserting that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ is the Greek version of the word). Similarly, if you say "in the Lord's year" and the reference is unequivocally to Jesus, then you are asserting that Jesus is Lord (which, in this context, has come to mean God)
Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the
Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
As above, Christ means Messiah, so you can't separate the two. On the other hand, BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) meet the requirement of NPOV by describing the current state of affairs in which the dating system is based around the birth of Jesus, without actually asserting that he is the Messiah or God.
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
violates
NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what
the
NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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On 05/09/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV. The problem with accepting
Except that it was verging on neologism when applied to topics outside the US.
- d.
I'm one of the Christians who feels that BCE is more appropriate (though I still use BC/AD in common conversation). My reason, however, is that if one looks at the historical context of Jesus' life (things like the reign of Herod), you'd find that he was actually born approx. 4-6 BCE, which if we use BC/AD convention means that Jesus was born a few years "Before Christ." So, I support BCE more from a standpoint of language precision. By using (B)CE for the date convention, it removes tying the dating system to a specific event, such that any evidence which might effect the actual timing of events does not invalidate the system.
Carl
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not.
While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV. The problem with accepting a POV in dating systems is that we would have to support ALL dating systems. Only supporting BC/AD and BCE/CE is to codify systemic bias. However, adding other dating systems isn't easy, because lunar calendars (for example) don't match precisely with solar ones. So if we allowed a user to pick a preferences of say, the Islamic calendar or the old Russian calendar, many year-only dates would become ambiguous.
However, you have a
point, NPOV means BCE.
BC means "Before Christ", and that (obviously) refers to Jesus of Nazareth. So if you say "before Christ" in reference to him, you are asserting that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ is the Greek version of the word). Similarly, if you say "in the Lord's year" and the reference is unequivocally to Jesus, then you are asserting that Jesus is Lord (which, in this context, has come to mean God)
Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the
Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
As above, Christ means Messiah, so you can't separate the two. On the other hand, BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) meet the requirement of NPOV by describing the current state of affairs in which the dating system is based around the birth of Jesus, without actually asserting that he is the Messiah or God.
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
violates
NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is
the
Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does
what
the
NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings)
shouldn't
go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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(sorry for once again diving into this debate)
And I'm one of those non-Christians who feels that BC/AD is more appropriate. We use BC/AD in normal conversation. This is one of those things where, if the typical Wikipedia reader were to see "BCE", he would wonder "what the hell is BCE?". I certainly wondered that the first several times I saw it. I see it as a sad sign of political correctness that is creeping into our content, but I'm in the minority (and yes, I'm also aware of the fact that Jesus was likely actually born between 4 and 6 BC).
BC/AD has been in use for centuries. Why wipe out history in the space of a year or two? I don't even know who, when, or how BC/BCE came to replace BC/AD, and it's certainly not in widespread use.
On 9/5/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm one of the Christians who feels that BCE is more appropriate (though I still use BC/AD in common conversation). My reason, however, is that if one looks at the historical context of Jesus' life (things like the reign of Herod), you'd find that he was actually born approx. 4-6 BCE, which if we use BC/AD convention means that Jesus was born a few years "Before Christ." So, I support BCE more from a standpoint of language precision. By using (B)CE for the date convention, it removes tying the dating system to a specific event, such that any evidence which might effect the actual timing of events does not invalidate the system.
Carl
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not.
While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV. The problem with accepting a POV in dating systems is that we would have to support ALL dating systems. Only supporting BC/AD and BCE/CE is to codify systemic bias. However, adding other dating systems isn't easy, because lunar calendars (for example) don't match precisely with solar ones. So if we allowed a user to pick a preferences of say, the Islamic calendar or the old
Russian
calendar, many year-only dates would become ambiguous.
However, you have a
point, NPOV means BCE.
BC means "Before Christ", and that (obviously) refers to Jesus of Nazareth. So if you say "before Christ" in reference to him, you are asserting
that
Jesus is the Messiah (Christ is the Greek version of the word). Similarly, if you say "in the Lord's year" and the reference is unequivocally to Jesus, then you are asserting that Jesus is Lord (which, in this context, has come to mean God)
Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the
Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
As above, Christ means Messiah, so you can't separate the two. On the other hand, BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) meet the
requirement
of NPOV by describing the current state of affairs in which the dating system is based around the birth of Jesus, without actually asserting
that
he is the Messiah or God.
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
violates
NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is
the
Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does
what
the
NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like
MoS
anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings)
shouldn't
go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too
much
content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
> "whatever it is now, leave it kthx." > that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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Well, thought you passioned debate you have all convinced me!
Technical solution anyone?
SKL
Death Phoenix wrote:
(sorry for once again diving into this debate)
And I'm one of those non-Christians who feels that BC/AD is more appropriate. We use BC/AD in normal conversation. This is one of those things where, if the typical Wikipedia reader were to see "BCE", he would wonder "what the hell is BCE?". I certainly wondered that the first several times I saw it. I see it as a sad sign of political correctness that is creeping into our content, but I'm in the minority (and yes, I'm also aware of the fact that Jesus was likely actually born between 4 and 6 BC).
BC/AD has been in use for centuries. Why wipe out history in the space of a year or two? I don't even know who, when, or how BC/BCE came to replace BC/AD, and it's certainly not in widespread use.
On 9/5/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm one of the Christians who feels that BCE is more appropriate (though I still use BC/AD in common conversation). My reason, however, is that if one looks at the historical context of Jesus' life (things like the reign of Herod), you'd find that he was actually born approx. 4-6 BCE, which if we use BC/AD convention means that Jesus was born a few years "Before Christ." So, I support BCE more from a standpoint of language precision. By using (B)CE for the date convention, it removes tying the dating system to a specific event, such that any evidence which might effect the actual timing of events does not invalidate the system.
Carl
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not.
While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV. The problem with accepting a POV in dating systems is that we would have to support ALL dating systems. Only supporting BC/AD and BCE/CE is to codify systemic bias. However, adding other dating systems isn't easy, because lunar calendars (for example) don't match precisely with solar ones. So if we allowed a user to pick a preferences of say, the Islamic calendar or the old
Russian
calendar, many year-only dates would become ambiguous.
However, you have a
point, NPOV means BCE.
BC means "Before Christ", and that (obviously) refers to Jesus of Nazareth. So if you say "before Christ" in reference to him, you are asserting
that
Jesus is the Messiah (Christ is the Greek version of the word). Similarly, if you say "in the Lord's year" and the reference is unequivocally to Jesus, then you are asserting that Jesus is Lord (which, in this context, has come to mean God)
Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the
Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
As above, Christ means Messiah, so you can't separate the two. On the other hand, BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) meet the
requirement
of NPOV by describing the current state of affairs in which the dating system is based around the birth of Jesus, without actually asserting
that
he is the Messiah or God.
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
violates
NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is
the
Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does
what
the
NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like
MoS
anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings)
shouldn't
go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too
much
content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: > On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote: > >> "whatever it is now, leave it kthx." >> that must be the most concise decision ever :) > > I am simplifying greatly ;-) > > > - d. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Technical solution anyone?
Well, there is the patch I submitted that started this whole argument..
The only issues I can see are:
1) What to do about AD/CE, and wikilinked dates with explicit display text in general, e.g. [[July 4]], [[1776|AD 1776]] -- the existing code won't reformat such dates according to user preferences as it is, so this isn't just a problem with the patch.
2) What to do about the non-English wikipedias. That's something I didn't think to test on my local installation (to be honest I'm not even sure how to change the language.. I assume it's just a value in LocalSettings.php but since I've never tried it...) and I'm not sure that my patch behaves nicely if the appropriate values aren't defined in languages/MessagesEn.php.
The default setting in my patch is to simply leave BC/BCE as they are, i.e. "No Preference." If people think it'll become a point of contention, then we can simply wait a while and look at the statistics of what preferences people actually set. If 90% of the English Wikipedia users set their preference to BCE, well then that would be a good argument in favor of making that the default. At least we'd actually have some numbers to go on, rather than just arguing about whether BC is religious POV or BCE is Political Correctness run amock or an Americanism or what.
-Bill
Bill Clark wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Technical solution anyone?
Well, there is the patch I submitted that started this whole argument..
The only issues I can see are:
- What to do about AD/CE, and wikilinked dates with explicit display
text in general, e.g. [[July 4]], [[1776|AD 1776]] -- the existing code won't reformat such dates according to user preferences as it is, so this isn't just a problem with the patch.
While I do not like the idea of someone using AWB to go through and change one to the other. If the feature works well enough in the preferences they could go through and rewikify the dates to make the feature detect them (leaving the displayed version alone). I think that is what is currently done when someone wikifies [[June 22, 2005]] a bot of some sort comes and changes it.
The default setting in my patch is to simply leave BC/BCE as they are, i.e. "No Preference." If people think it'll become a point of contention, then we can simply wait a while and look at the statistics of what preferences people actually set. If 90% of the English Wikipedia users set their preference to BCE, well then that would be a good argument in favor of making that the default. At least we'd actually have some numbers to go on, rather than just arguing about whether BC is religious POV or BCE is Political Correctness run amock or an Americanism or what.
-Bill
Well outside of defaults and policy I think the data itself would be interesting.
SKL
On 9/8/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
While I do not like the idea of someone using AWB to go through and change one to the other. If the feature works well enough in the preferences they could go through and rewikify the dates to make the feature detect them (leaving the displayed version alone). I think that is what is currently done when someone wikifies [[June 22, 2005]] a bot of some sort comes and changes it.
The problem is that AD/CE are only supposed to be displayed (according to the manual of style) if you're dealing with a span of time that crosses the BC-AD (or BCE-CE) boundary. In other words, this is proper:
[[July 4]], [[1776 BC]]–[[July 4]], [[1776|AD 1776]]
...and this is proper:
[[March 21]], [[1974]]–[[October 16]],[[1975]]
...but this is not:
[[March 21]], [[1974|AD 1974]]–[[October 16]],[[1975|AD 1975]]
...and this is not:
[[July 4]], [[1776 BC]]–[[July 4]], [[1776]]
Now, it would certainly be possible to include this level of context-awareness into the parser, but it's probably not a good idea. So we're left with trusting the editors to provide the correct display text in wikilinks, in the manner appropriate to the situation.
If we're going to keep using display text in wikilinks to provide the AD/CE (as opposed to BC/BCE, which is mandatory and thus easily parsed) then whatever date display mechanism we use, whether it's the current one or my patched one or some other one, will have to deal with this situation.
I'm leaning toward having the parser just rewrite the display text as well as the link itself, since the other "reasonable" alternative is to leave the display text alone, and (assuming we put in place my BC/BCE rewriting patch) this could result in aesthetically unappealing situations where BCE and AD are mixed in a date range, if the user has BCE set as their preference (or BC and CE mixed for users who prefer BC).
The display text is already provided automatically for users who set a preference and for wikilinked dates that don't already include display text, so there's already an expectation that dates won't necessarily display according to the regular rules of interpreting wikicode. Rewriting display text would make it impossible for editors to specify something other than what users prefer to see, but I can't think of any situations where that would be truly disasterous.
-Bill Clark
On 9/8/06, Bill Clark wclarkxoom@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is that AD/CE are only supposed to be displayed (according to the manual of style) if you're dealing with a span of time that crosses the BC-AD (or BCE-CE) boundary. In other words, this is proper:
[[July 4]], [[1776 BC]]–[[July 4]], [[1776|AD 1776]]
...and this is proper:
[[March 21]], [[1974]]–[[October 16]],[[1975]]
...but this is not:
[[March 21]], [[1974|AD 1974]]–[[October 16]],[[1975|AD 1975]]
...and this is not:
[[July 4]], [[1776 BC]]–[[July 4]], [[1776]]
I'd like to point out that this aspect of the style guide needs to be
applied intelligently, not slavishly. Especially in the lower years, like 5, just having a stand-alone number may lead to some confusion for a reader. Note the difference between:
"In 5 BCE, Julius went to Napoli, and in 4, he went to Roma." and "In 5 BCE, Julius went to Napoli, and in 4 CE, he went to Roma."
If you _know_ what the rule is, the first is clear; if you don't, you could draw the wrong conclusion. Of course, it's possible to rewrite to follow the MOS and avoid confusion, but just removing all AD/CE designations that aren't explicitly in a range is not the answer.
--Rich [[W:en:User:Rholton]]
When you put it that way, it seems that BCE/CE is the only option. So how do we implement this, an AWB bot run changing every BC to a BCE?
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but at the same time we must respect that everyone has varied religious beliefs, and I wouldn't be surprised if around about half of users supported BC, while the other half did not.
While this is true, the division was not solely along religious lines - many people who identified themselves Christian, myself included, feel in the half that supported BCE/CE on the basis of NPOV. The problem with accepting a POV in dating systems is that we would have to support ALL dating systems. Only supporting BC/AD and BCE/CE is to codify systemic bias. However, adding other dating systems isn't easy, because lunar calendars (for example) don't match precisely with solar ones. So if we allowed a user to pick a preferences of say, the Islamic calendar or the old Russian calendar, many year-only dates would become ambiguous.
However, you have a
point, NPOV means BCE.
BC means "Before Christ", and that (obviously) refers to Jesus of Nazareth. So if you say "before Christ" in reference to him, you are asserting that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ is the Greek version of the word). Similarly, if you say "in the Lord's year" and the reference is unequivocally to Jesus, then you are asserting that Jesus is Lord (which, in this context, has come to mean God)
Then again, must we assert that Jesus is the
Messiah/God? We must merely assert that he is christ and that the calendar is based around his birth (which it certainly appears to be, if he existed when he supposedly did).
As above, Christ means Messiah, so you can't separate the two. On the other hand, BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era) meet the requirement of NPOV by describing the current state of affairs in which the dating system is based around the birth of Jesus, without actually asserting that he is the Messiah or God.
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
violates
NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what
the
NPOV policy asks.
On 9/5/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Go figure :) I suppose thats all you can put in an article like MoS anyway. I personally think any policy article that doesn't change regularly (i.e. no voting pages, no listings and relistings) shouldn't go over 10kb for readability's sake. Anything more is just too much content for one page. And there's the added advantage that mailing list users don't need to abbreviate policy :)
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
"whatever it is now, leave it kthx." that must be the most concise decision ever :)
I am simplifying greatly ;-)
- d.
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On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
Falls appart when you considder the islamic calender and the like cuases simular problems for CE.
But isn't that taken for granted, that we must blindly accept, while accepting as little as possible, that Christianity is the dominant religion?
On 9/5/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
Falls appart when you considder the islamic calender and the like cuases simular problems for CE.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Akash Mehta wrote: [fixed top posting]
On 9/5/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
Falls appart when you considder the islamic calender and the like cuases simular problems for CE.
But isn't that taken for granted, that we must blindly accept, while accepting as little as possible, that Christianity is the dominant religion?
No. It accepts the historical fact that Christianity was the major influencing religion in Western Europe (and from there, the "Western world") for the better part of 1700 years.
G'day Alphax,
Akash Mehta wrote: [fixed top posting]
w00t!
But isn't that taken for granted, that we must blindly accept, while accepting as little as possible, that Christianity is the dominant religion?
No. It accepts the historical fact that Christianity was the major influencing religion in Western Europe (and from there, the "Western world") for the better part of 1700 years.
1700 years? I've got a note here saying the "Common Era" has lasted 2006 years ... but I admit, your number is far closer to what my history and religion teachers all told me.
How strange!
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Alphax,
Akash Mehta wrote: [fixed top posting]
w00t!
But isn't that taken for granted, that we must blindly accept, while accepting as little as possible, that Christianity is the dominant religion?
No. It accepts the historical fact that Christianity was the major influencing religion in Western Europe (and from there, the "Western world") for the better part of 1700 years.
1700 years? I've got a note here saying the "Common Era" has lasted 2006 years ... but I admit, your number is far closer to what my history and religion teachers all told me.
How strange!
The /Anno Domini/ system was actually first invented in 525 CE, so it's been in use for 1481 years so far. Of course, the epoch of the era defined by that system was backdated by 525 years, so we can still be in the 2006th year of an era that has only been meaningfully defined for less than 1500 of those years.
-- Neil, on Seshhanbeh, 1385 Shahrivar 14.
I thought it was original research (or perhaps revisionist history) to claim that Christianity was not (at least sufficiently) dominant for BC/AD to be the norm for a very long time and thought out most of the world?
As to Arabic, Chinese etc. calenders. I thought just assumed that those would be used on the wikipedias in those languages. Is using English POV, what about the norms (the result of history) of the English speaking world?
SKL
Akash Mehta wrote:
But isn't that taken for granted, that we must blindly accept, while accepting as little as possible, that Christianity is the dominant religion?
On 9/5/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
Falls appart when you considder the islamic calender and the like cuases simular problems for CE.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 05/09/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
That's not an "issue", it's an "assertion". Plus the common assertion that BCE is standard in academia, when that doesn't apply outside the US.
- d.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD
violates
NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what
the
NPOV policy asks.
That's not an "issue", it's an "assertion". Plus the common assertion that BCE is standard in academia, when that doesn't apply outside the US.
The "assertion" was the major "issue" in the debate. So yes, it's the issue. Leaving aside the people who claimed religious persecution, the major ISSUES in the debate were, on one side, that BC/AD violated NPOV and on the other a mixture of "well so does BCE/CE" or "common usage trumps NPOV". And, as a result, an exception was voted to NPOV.
As to the second argument - did anyone ever provide any evidence to back up the assertion that BCE/CE in academe was a US thing, with non-US academics using BC/AD? I don't recall any evidence provided (ok, I don't recall anyone providing evidence to back up their position except Steve, who provided pages and pages of it)
Ian
On 05/09/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
As to the second argument - did anyone ever provide any evidence to back up the assertion that BCE/CE in academe was a US thing, with non-US academics using BC/AD?
Er, I could dump piles of UK academic papers on you and you could fail to find much usage of BCE in them. You're demanding positive proof of an absence here.
- d.
On 05/09/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
major ISSUES in the debate were, on one side, that BC/AD violated NPOV and on the other a mixture of "well so does BCE/CE" or "common usage trumps NPOV". And, as a result, an exception was voted to NPOV.
And this shows the major WTF assertion. "Before Christ is a violation of NPOV, because it speaks in terms of Christ, whereas Before Christian Era ... hold on, I'll come in again."
- d.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
major ISSUES in the debate were, on one side, that BC/AD violated NPOV and on the other a mixture of "well so does BCE/CE" or "common usage trumps NPOV". And, as a result, an exception was voted to NPOV.
And this shows the major WTF assertion. "Before Christ is a violation of NPOV, because it speaks in terms of Christ, whereas Before Christian Era ... hold on, I'll come in again."
- d.
You know, if you want to find out what an abbrieviation stands for, there is this great online encyclopedia ;)...... CE doesn't stand for "Christian Era", it stands for "Common Era" (which is why geni slyly tried to make a joke using VE, or "Vulgar Era", but everyone missed it). More to the point however, it's not the BC that people have a problem with, it's AD. AD stands for "Anno Domini", so "2006 AD" means literally "in the year of the lord, 2006".
I think that the NPOV argument is rock-solid, it isn't NPOV to refer to years as AD. I remember hearing a debate a while ago that people had on the Arabic wikipedia. I don't know if it was a big thing, or if it was even that big of a deal, but I think it serves well to put some perspective on why people might not like AD. The thing was that on the Arabic wp, people tended to write PBUH in Arabic everytime a martyr or prophet was mentioned. Incase somebody doesn't know, PBUH means Peace be upon him. One could argue for allowing that under NPOV using basically the same argument that's used for AD, saying that it's "common practice" and using that convention less people will be confused/offended /whatever.
Again, I don't really know anything about that dispute, it might be completly resolved, or not much of a problem to begin with. I just think that it serves as a way to get perspective on NPOV, viewing a very similar issue but in a different culture.
I say, no silly religious conventions should be used! Who's with me?!
On 9/5/06, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I think that the NPOV argument is rock-solid, it isn't NPOV to refer to years as AD. I remember hearing a debate a while ago that people had on the Arabic wikipedia. I don't know if it was a big thing, or if it was even that big of a deal, but I think it serves well to put some perspective on why people might not like AD. The thing was that on the Arabic wp, people tended to write PBUH in Arabic everytime a martyr or prophet was mentioned. Incase somebody doesn't know, PBUH means Peace be upon him. One could argue for allowing that under NPOV using basically the same argument that's used for AD, saying that it's "common practice" and using that convention less people will be confused/offended /whatever.
There's a huge difference here. Use of PBUH is limited to Muslims. Use of AD is not limited to Christians (anyone who says it is needs to check which orifice they are speaking from).
The problem really is that making a policy here requires us to make a decision. Yes, *us*. This is enormously different to normal article writing, where we just report what others have said. We have to make a decision about which is correct, yet we can't, because to do so would be to break our principle of neutrality (though not NPOV, which is related but different).
In short, we're stuffed.
On 05/09/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
The problem really is that making a policy here requires us to make a decision. Yes, *us*. This is enormously different to normal article writing, where we just report what others have said. We have to make a decision about which is correct, yet we can't, because to do so would be to break our principle of neutrality (though not NPOV, which is related but different). In short, we're stuffed.
Oh, I dunno. I understand there's a technical solution^Wworkaround on offer ...
- d.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
The problem really is that making a policy here requires us to make a decision. Yes, *us*. This is enormously different to normal article writing, where we just report what others have said. We have to make a decision about which is correct, yet we can't, because to do so would be to break our principle of neutrality (though not NPOV, which is related but different). In short, we're stuffed.
Oh, I dunno. I understand there's a technical solution^Wworkaround on offer ...
Yes, it's a great workaround... until people say "but this article displays BC[E] when users aren't signed in. THAT'S AN ABUSE OF NPOV."
Neat as this technical workaround is, it's nowhere close to a solution and indeed will not be.
On 05/09/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it's a great workaround... until people say "but this article displays BC[E] when users aren't signed in. THAT'S AN ABUSE OF NPOV."
Yeah, but that's OTRS' problem in practice, and we already know it's equal between them ;-p
- d.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, it's a great workaround... until people say "but this article displays BC[E] when users aren't signed in. THAT'S AN ABUSE OF NPOV."
Yeah, but that's OTRS' problem in practice, and we already know it's equal between them ;-p
"People" was intended to mean "complete idiots who get into pointless debates for the sake of it". I am not majorly concerned about the PR side of things -- I'm sure that can be handled. I just don't think this can change the edit-warring side of things.
On 05/09/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
"People" was intended to mean "complete idiots who get into pointless debates for the sake of it". I am not majorly concerned about the PR side of things -- I'm sure that can be handled. I just don't think this can change the edit-warring side of things.
I'm pretty sure nothing can. "Politics happens with two people in a room. Sometimes less." - me.
- d.
Sam Korn wrote:
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
The problem really is that making a policy here requires us to make a decision. Yes, *us*. This is enormously different to normal article writing, where we just report what others have said. We have to make a decision about which is correct, yet we can't, because to do so would be to break our principle of neutrality (though not NPOV, which is related but different). In short, we're stuffed.
Oh, I dunno. I understand there's a technical solution^Wworkaround on offer ...
Yes, it's a great workaround... until people say "but this article displays BC[E] when users aren't signed in. THAT'S AN ABUSE OF NPOV."
Neat as this technical workaround is, it's nowhere close to a solution and indeed will not be.
Try geolocation on the basis of source IP, and select CE north of the Mason-Dixon line, and AD below?
-- Neil, no, of course I'm not serious, on DIES MARTIS ANTE DIEM X KAL. SEP. MMDCCLIX A. V. C.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Neil Harris stated for the record:
Try geolocation on the basis of source IP, and select CE north of the Mason-Dixon line, and AD below?
I live in California, you inconsiderate clod.
- -- Sean Barrett | Most people who need to be shot need to sean@epoptic.com | be shot soon and a lot. Very few people | need to be shot later or just a little.
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
As to the second argument - did anyone ever provide any evidence to back up the assertion that BCE/CE in academe was a US thing, with non-US academics using BC/AD?
I ran seachers on the journal databases I had acess to. BCE didn't really feature US or otherwise.
On 05/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
As to the second argument - did anyone ever provide any evidence to back up the assertion that BCE/CE in academe was a US thing, with non-US academics using BC/AD?
I ran seachers on the journal databases I had acess to. BCE didn't really feature US or otherwise.
Hah. So those claiming it was the standard practice in US academia should in fact be required to produce their evidence?
- d.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Hah. So those claiming it was the standard practice in US academia should in fact be required to produce their evidence?
The solution we have at the moment appears to work. I see no need to reopen the issue.
On 05/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Hah. So those claiming it was the standard practice in US academia should in fact be required to produce their evidence?
The solution we have at the moment appears to work. I see no need to reopen the issue.
I mean in the event of a reopening. "We must standardise on BCE instead of AD or you're riding with HITLER!!!!" "Set it in your preferences kthx."
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 05/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
As to the second argument - did anyone ever provide any evidence to back up the assertion that BCE/CE in academe was a US thing, with non-US academics using BC/AD?
I ran seachers on the journal databases I had acess to. BCE didn't really feature US or otherwise.
Hah. So those claiming it was the standard practice in US academia should in fact be required to produce their evidence?
Of course one deeds to remember that there are societies, such as the one outraged by Janet Jackson's breast, where political correctness is more important than personal freedom. :-)
Ec
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0. The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed God/Messiah-ness.
Mgm
On 9/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0. The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed God/Messiah-ness.
Mgm
Even if it is based on Christian beliefs, it doesn't require users to believe it to actually use it.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 9/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0. The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed God/Messiah-ness.
Mgm
Even if it is based on Christian beliefs, it doesn't require users to believe it to actually use it.
You cannot understand the Western world without understanding the influence of Christianity. BC/AD is part of that history; people are still free to draw their own conclusions.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0. The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed God/Messiah-ness.
Mgm
Except, of course, that...
...no-one should believe that Jesus was born in year zero, since there was no year zero in the Anno Domini scheme, that no-one used the Anno Domini scheme until the middle of the sixth century CE, that the best known estimates for Jesus' birth put it round about 4 BCE, and that CE and BCE mean "Common Era" and "before the Common Era" respectively.
Perhaps we should just use TAI or JD(UT1), and eliminate all ambiguity.
-- Neil, on Julian day 2453984
On 9/5/06, Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
Perhaps we should just use TAI or JD(UT1), and eliminate all ambiguity.
I'd prefer ab urbe condita.
On 05/09/06, Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0. The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed God/Messiah-ness.
Mgm
Except, of course, that...
...no-one should believe that Jesus was born in year zero, since there was no year zero in the Anno Domini scheme, that no-one used the Anno Domini scheme until the middle of the sixth century CE, that the best known estimates for Jesus' birth put it round about 4 BCE, and that CE and BCE mean "Common Era" and "before the Common Era" respectively.
Perhaps we should just use TAI or JD(UT1), and eliminate all ambiguity.
There was someone who, in all seriousness, wanted us to get around the AD/CE thing by converting to the Holocene Era system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar
(Carnildo's comment was that we should just go with AUC, so as not to "piss off the bible literalists"...)
On 05/09/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
There was someone who, in all seriousness, wanted us to get around the AD/CE thing by converting to the Holocene Era system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar
Time as signed integer in seconds from the Unix epoch! A system nobody uses but the machines do. Then display as date or year per user's options.
- d.
At 15:01 +0200 5/9/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0. The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed God/Messiah-ness.
Mgm _
Yeah, and he was born on the 1st January in that year.
:-)
And the whole world celebrated the millennium one year early, I don't think we will sort this out before the heat death of the Universe!
Gordo
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
That's a disingenuous presentation of the problem. Can you show a single instance where your assertion that Jesus is Messiah/God is required, and that is not a part of someone's argument against BC/AD? The use of BC/AD merely requires that there may have been an historical Jesus who was born at or near a time that is reasonably consistent with the dating system. The idiotic assertion that Jesus was God is irrelevant.
Ec
On 05/09/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
That's a disingenuous presentation of the problem. Can you show a single instance where your assertion that Jesus is Messiah/God is required, and that is not a part of someone's argument against BC/AD? The use of BC/AD merely requires that there may have been an historical Jesus who was born at or near a time that is reasonably consistent with the dating system. The idiotic assertion that Jesus was God is irrelevant.
Anno Domini. "In the year of the Lord..."
(I don't agree with Guettarda - I feel using BCE/CE is as much making an explicit point as using BC/AD is - but I do suspect the above is kind of his point)
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 05/09/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
That's a disingenuous presentation of the problem. Can you show a single instance where your assertion that Jesus is Messiah/God is required, and that is not a part of someone's argument against BC/AD? The use of BC/AD merely requires that there may have been an historical Jesus who was born at or near a time that is reasonably consistent with the dating system. The idiotic assertion that Jesus was God is irrelevant.
Anno Domini. "In the year of the Lord..."
I'm aware of the etymology, and I don't think that Cicero and Ovid were referring to Jesus when they used "dominus to refer to a husband or lover or to an owner or proprietor. Could one argue that a person who put himself under the control of a _dominatrix_ was receiving his pleasure from God?
Or maybe we should stop using the Gregorian calendar because it was promoted by Pope Gregory, and somehow that would mean that we are expressing a POV in support of the Roman Catholic Church.
(I don't agree with Guettarda - I feel using BCE/CE is as much making an explicit point as using BC/AD is - but I do suspect the above is kind of his point)
Good. I think writers should feel free to use whichever form they prefer without being beset by the obsessives in either camp.
Ec
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
SKL
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
SKL
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
~maru
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
SKL
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
~maru
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
SKL
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
SKL
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
~maru
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
SKL
Are you asking if it's independently verifiable whether in Roman times, Mars was considered the God of War? Certainly it is, pick up any book on ancient roman mythology, and there you will find "Mars is the God of War" somewhere in it.
This seems obvious. Why did you ask?
--Oskar
I think what SKL means is that you cannot assert that Mars is the God of War, or that he/she/it is even a god in the first place. In roman times it may have been common belief, but it doesn't meant that it is fact.
On 9/6/06, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
SKL
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
~maru
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
SKL
Are you asking if it's independently verifiable whether in Roman times, Mars was considered the God of War? Certainly it is, pick up any book on ancient roman mythology, and there you will find "Mars is the God of War" somewhere in it.
This seems obvious. Why did you ask?
--Oskar _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
SKL
Are you asking if it's independently verifiable whether in Roman times, Mars was considered the God of War? Certainly it is, pick up any book on ancient roman mythology, and there you will find "Mars is the God of War" somewhere in it.
This seems obvious. Why did you ask?
--Oskar
No I was just applying the logic that using the AD/BC system implies that Jesus is god means that using the names of the months imply that the Roman Gods were gods as well.
SKL
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
No I was just applying the logic that using the AD/BC system implies that Jesus is god means that using the names of the months imply that the Roman Gods were gods as well.
SKL
Ahh, I see your logic. I apologise for the misunderstanding.
However, I think your logic is flawed. Months have names, given names, that are pretty much universally accepted (I realise that they arn't completly universally accepted, but pretty much), the same as (for instance) weekdays are. I'm writing this here on a beautiful wednesday morning, but by recognizing that fact I'm not affirming the greatness of Odin (see [[Wednesday]]). My own name, Oskar, happens to mean "Spear of the Gods", but unlike most spears, I'm remarkably un-skinny (I am fairly pointy though). These are names, and even do they do mean something, they mean nothing. If you know what I mean.
However, this is not necessarily the case with AD/CE. I understand how someone might look at it that way, but there are some very crucial difference. First, and foremost, is that there are obviously people who do find it offensive. Many people. That's why the whole CE thing was invented (and btw, when I was studying history in English here in northern Europe, CE was all we ever used, so it's not like it's unheard of in academia), because many people find AD to be offensive.
I think a much better PC-analogy for the AD/CE thing than names of months is the introduction of the title (is it a title?) Ms. While it wasn't invented by modern feminists, it was certainly popularized because there is something blatantly sexist in English (and many other languages) titles. So we decided that this was wrong, and thus Ms. was introduced. And now everyone is comfortable with it, it's not in the least controversial at all. I think it's the same with years. There is something deeply eurocentric with using AD, since you are infact affirming the existance of God, so we have a nice little non-offensive alternative. Why not use it? Because people may have difficulty understanding it? Unless you are very thick indeed, it won't take long to understand. And it's not like we avoid using technical language and jargon for other subjects (pick a random non-trivial article on maths or chemistry, you'll see what I mean), so why not for history?
I realise that I may not be convincing anyone, but I this is how I feel. AD is obviously controversial, so why not use CE? It's so neat!
--Oskar
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
No I was just applying the logic that using the AD/BC system implies that Jesus is god means that using the names of the months imply that the Roman Gods were gods as well.
SKL
Ahh, I see your logic. I apologise for the misunderstanding.
However, I think your logic is flawed. Months have names, given names, that are pretty much universally accepted (I realise that they arn't completly universally accepted, but pretty much), the same as (for instance) weekdays are. I'm writing this here on a beautiful wednesday morning, but by recognizing that fact I'm not affirming the greatness of Odin (see [[Wednesday]]). My own name, Oskar, happens to mean "Spear of the Gods", but unlike most spears, I'm remarkably un-skinny (I am fairly pointy though). These are names, and even do they do mean something, they mean nothing. If you know what I mean.
However, this is not necessarily the case with AD/CE. I understand how someone might look at it that way, but there are some very crucial difference. First, and foremost, is that there are obviously people who do find it offensive. Many people. That's why the whole CE thing was invented (and btw, when I was studying history in English here in northern Europe, CE was all we ever used, so it's not like it's unheard of in academia), because many people find AD to be offensive.
I think a much better PC-analogy for the AD/CE thing than names of months is the introduction of the title (is it a title?) Ms. While it wasn't invented by modern feminists, it was certainly popularized because there is something blatantly sexist in English (and many other languages) titles. So we decided that this was wrong, and thus Ms. was introduced. And now everyone is comfortable with it, it's not in the least controversial at all. I think it's the same with years. There is something deeply eurocentric with using AD, since you are infact affirming the existance of God, so we have a nice little non-offensive alternative. Why not use it? Because people may have difficulty understanding it? Unless you are very thick indeed, it won't take long to understand. And it's not like we avoid using technical language and jargon for other subjects (pick a random non-trivial article on maths or chemistry, you'll see what I mean), so why not for history?
I realise that I may not be convincing anyone, but I this is how I feel. AD is obviously controversial, so why not use CE? It's so neat!
--Oskar
Well I still think it should be a preference setting. Especially since, as someone else pointed out, CE is not without controversy. I mean what makes it common? What makes it an era? If you want to remove Christianity from the equation then you are opening it up. I think the "common" era started with the industrial revolution. I also think we may be reaching the end of it and going into a new era. I suspect the black death is an event that changed the world enough to base a date system on it. So what makes that time period about 2000 years ago so special that everything after it is one era and it is common? What unifies those dates? No fair using religious movements which may have started at the time either.
But, this is all just for fun at this point. Unless the technical solution is not forth coming, and I also like the idea that the default (as with variations of English spelling) goes to the first significant editor.
SKL
I'd like to note that there were infact a techincal solution implemented a while ago using templates. I believe you posted {{adce|2006}}, and it would pick the right one after how you had configured your CSS.
However, it died a quiet death at TFD.
--Oskar
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
No I was just applying the logic that using the AD/BC system implies that Jesus is god means that using the names of the months imply that the Roman Gods were gods as well.
SKL
Ahh, I see your logic. I apologise for the misunderstanding.
However, I think your logic is flawed. Months have names, given names, that are pretty much universally accepted (I realise that they arn't completly universally accepted, but pretty much), the same as (for instance) weekdays are. I'm writing this here on a beautiful wednesday morning, but by recognizing that fact I'm not affirming the greatness of Odin (see [[Wednesday]]). My own name, Oskar, happens to mean "Spear of the Gods", but unlike most spears, I'm remarkably un-skinny (I am fairly pointy though). These are names, and even do they do mean something, they mean nothing. If you know what I mean.
However, this is not necessarily the case with AD/CE. I understand how someone might look at it that way, but there are some very crucial difference. First, and foremost, is that there are obviously people who do find it offensive. Many people. That's why the whole CE thing was invented (and btw, when I was studying history in English here in northern Europe, CE was all we ever used, so it's not like it's unheard of in academia), because many people find AD to be offensive.
I think a much better PC-analogy for the AD/CE thing than names of months is the introduction of the title (is it a title?) Ms. While it wasn't invented by modern feminists, it was certainly popularized because there is something blatantly sexist in English (and many other languages) titles. So we decided that this was wrong, and thus Ms. was introduced. And now everyone is comfortable with it, it's not in the least controversial at all. I think it's the same with years. There is something deeply eurocentric with using AD, since you are infact affirming the existance of God, so we have a nice little non-offensive alternative. Why not use it? Because people may have difficulty understanding it? Unless you are very thick indeed, it won't take long to understand. And it's not like we avoid using technical language and jargon for other subjects (pick a random non-trivial article on maths or chemistry, you'll see what I mean), so why not for history?
I realise that I may not be convincing anyone, but I this is how I feel. AD is obviously controversial, so why not use CE? It's so neat!
--Oskar
Well I still think it should be a preference setting. Especially since, as someone else pointed out, CE is not without controversy. I mean what makes it common? What makes it an era? If you want to remove Christianity from the equation then you are opening it up. I think the "common" era started with the industrial revolution. I also think we may be reaching the end of it and going into a new era. I suspect the black death is an event that changed the world enough to base a date system on it. So what makes that time period about 2000 years ago so special that everything after it is one era and it is common? What unifies those dates? No fair using religious movements which may have started at the time either.
But, this is all just for fun at this point. Unless the technical solution is not forth coming, and I also like the idea that the default (as with variations of English spelling) goes to the first significant editor.
SKL _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
I'd like to note that there were infact a techincal solution implemented a while ago using templates. I believe you posted {{adce|2006}}, and it would pick the right one after how you had configured your CSS.
However, it died a quiet death at TFD.
--Oskar
Did this thread start with an announcement that a technical solution was forthcoming or am I on crack? As an aside I was not arguing that your points were flawed. I was just saying that both alternatives are legitimately objectionable, and I reject the notion that one of more so than the other.
We do this with date formatting and ISBN numbers you would think it would not be that hard (though I think you would have to wikify them all). See now I have to go back and re-read the start of the thread.
SKL
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
I'd like to note that there were infact a techincal solution implemented a while ago using templates. I believe you posted {{adce|2006}}, and it would pick the right one after how you had configured your CSS.
However, it died a quiet death at TFD.
--Oskar
Did this thread start with an announcement that a technical solution was forthcoming or am I on crack?
You are not on crack (actually, how the hell do I know, you might be), I'm just saying that at one point, there were indeed another technical solution.
As an aside I was not arguing that your points were flawed. I was just saying that both alternatives are legitimately objectionable, and I reject the notion that one of more so than the other.
You are indeed correct, this is hard to argue with.
We do this with date formatting and ISBN numbers you would think it would not be that hard (though I think you would have to wikify them all). See now I have to go back and re-read the start of the thread.
SKL
;)
On 9/6/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
SKL
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
~maru
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
SKL
That some Greeks and Romans believed that he was the god of war is verifiable, yes, but that has nothing to do with what I said.
~maru
ScottL wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
Ec
On 06/09/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
Not to mention all this use of "he" and "she." We have neutral pronouns! Just 'cos they're crap and almost nobody you'd actually want to talk to uses them doesn't mean they don't exist!
- d.
On 9/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/09/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
Not to mention all this use of "he" and "she." We have neutral pronouns! Just 'cos they're crap and almost nobody you'd actually want to talk to uses them doesn't mean they don't exist!
Once upon a time, David was having tea with their wife. They decided that they wanted to have green tea, but they wanted black tea instead. So they decided to flip a coin. They got heads, but since they picked tails, David didn't get what they wanted.
Death Phoenix wrote:
On 9/6/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 06/09/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
Not to mention all this use of "he" and "she." We have neutral pronouns! Just 'cos they're crap and almost nobody you'd actually want to talk to uses them doesn't mean they don't exist!
Once upon a time, David was having tea with their wife. They decided that they wanted to have green tea, but they wanted black tea instead. So they decided to flip a coin. They got heads, but since they picked tails, David didn't get what they wanted.
You may do better with [[Spivak pronoun]]s or perhaps [[Gender-neutral pronoun]].
I can't wait till someone autowikibrowsers this one ;)
SKL
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days, nor do people live in cultures dominated by worshippers of Norse/German/Roman gods. Another is that the names of the days are named after Norse/German/Roman gods, but do not assert that they *are* gods. On the other hand, billions still worship Jesus and assert he is "our God", as does the designation A.D.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days, nor do people live in cultures dominated by worshippers of Norse/German/Roman gods. Another is that the names of the days are named after Norse/German/Roman gods, but do not assert that they *are* gods. On the other hand, billions still worship Jesus and assert he is "our God", as does the designation A.D.
The last comment is a non-sequitur. I would also question the numerical accuracy of your exagerated billions; the United States population isn't that high. The term "a large number" would have sufficed. Be that as it may, the fundamental premise that you and many others assert Jesus to be your God may be true, but that implies nothing about the designation A.D. or those who use it.
I do not accept Jesus as God, but I still use A.D. I think that we all should be free to use whichever form we want, without being constantly besieged by the forces of political correctness.
Ec
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days, nor do people live in cultures dominated by worshippers of Norse/German/Roman gods. Another is that the names of the days are named after Norse/German/Roman gods, but do not assert that they *are* gods. On the other hand, billions still worship Jesus and assert he is "our God", as does the designation A.D.
The last comment is a non-sequitur.
You must be using some novel definition of the term "non sequitur".
I would also question the numerical accuracy of your exagerated billions; the United States population isn't that high. The term "a large number" would have sufficed.
There are over 2 billion Christians in the world; if you're going to get pedantic, then please get your facts straight.
Be that as it may, the fundamental premise that you and many others assert Jesus to be your God may be true, but that implies nothing about the designation A.D. or those who use it.
Now *that's* a non sequitur, since I never said or implied that said anything about the people who use it.
I do not accept Jesus as God, but I still use A.D. I think that we all should be free to use whichever form we want,
Feel free to use what you want, Ray. In this thread we were talking about Wikipedia's usage.
without being constantly besieged by the forces of political correctness.
They're nothing compared to the "forces of hyperbole".
Jay.
Ray Saintonge wrote: <snip>
I think that we all should be free to use whichever form we want, without being constantly besieged by the forces of political correctness.
Amen to that.
On 9/6/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the NPOV policy asks.
If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days
I know some neopagans who would be quite insulted by that statement.
On 07/09/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
>Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates >NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the >Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the >NPOV policy asks. > > If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days
I know some neopagans who would be quite insulted by that statement.
So, how far deep can we get these headings to go?
And now for something vaguely on-topic, I know some Discordians who would be irritated to be called 'neopagans' just because they worship She Who Resides In That Gland Of The Brain Which Sounds A Bit Like A Tree Found In Norway, And Who Happened To Be Known To The Ancient Greeks (The Goddess, That Is, Not The Gland).
Yours hoping-people-get-the-joke-despite-recent-threads-ly, Sam
On 9/7/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
Guettarda wrote:
>Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates >NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the >Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the >NPOV policy asks. > > If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep using months?
But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days
I know some neopagans who would be quite insulted by that statement.
I doubt their numbers are in the billions, or that they exert a dominating influence on Western culture.
Jay.
jayjg wrote:
On 9/7/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
ScottL wrote:
maru dubshinki wrote:
On 9/5/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
> Guettarda wrote: > > >> Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates >> NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the >> Messiah/God. BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what the >> NPOV policy asks. >> >> > If I am not mistaken the beginning and ends of the months etc were > originally set up based on astrological principals. Would it violate > NPOV (since we would then be making astrological assertions) to keep > using months? > > But those astrological measurements are objective and empirically verifiable in a way that AD/BC is not, and often track significant events, such as the changing of the pole star.
According to [[March]], the month is named after Mars the god of war. The fact that he is the god of war is empirically verifiable?
We also need to abandon our days of the week. It is clearly a breach of NPOV to go around celebrating a barbarian God like [[Thor]] every seven days.
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days
I know some neopagans who would be quite insulted by that statement.
I doubt their numbers are in the billions, or that they exert a dominating influence on Western culture.
Jay.
Why should the size of a group/belief/idea impact NPOV?
SKL
On 08/09/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 9/7/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days
I know some neopagans who would be quite insulted by that statement.
I doubt their numbers are in the billions, or that they exert a dominating influence on Western culture.
Why should the size of a group/belief/idea impact NPOV?
The idea above is evidently that the larger the group, the less their POV should be taken seriously. So therefore we should put into place changes that *no-one wants whatsoever* or we are in violation of NPOV.
- d.
On 9/8/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 08/09/06, ScottL scott@mu.org wrote:
jayjg wrote:
On 9/7/06, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/6/06, jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:
A significant difference being that nobody worships the Norse/German/Roman gods these days
I know some neopagans who would be quite insulted by that statement.
I doubt their numbers are in the billions, or that they exert a dominating influence on Western culture.
Why should the size of a group/belief/idea impact NPOV?
The idea above is evidently that the larger the group, the less their POV should be taken seriously. So therefore we should put into place changes that *no-one wants whatsoever* or we are in violation of NPOV.
Not really. To begin with, the claim that *no-one whatsoever* supports this change is clearly not true. In addition, the argument is actually that use of BC/AD further helps entrench Christian cultural domination, which is already quite dominant based on Western history and the sheer numbers of Christians in the world, and supports, to a degree, an environment which has structural bias against non-Christians. Those who support use of BCE/CE see this as being inappropriate for countries which claim to endorse multi-religious/multi-ethnic/multi-cultural societies, and which strive to create environments which are welcoming to many religions, not just Christianity. And the current risk of a neo-pagan, Norse/Germanic/Roman god worshipping cultural domination being entrenched by use of terms like "Saturday" and "Thursday" is, in my view, pretty low.
Jay.
On 05/09/06, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, but I'm sure there will be "bickering" over the default setting of any UI option we come up with. After all, the default will determine what those who are not logged-in or who have not modified their preferences will see.
As an idle datapoint, complaints to OTRS about AD/CE conventions are about equal either way, generally by people who haven't noticed we use a mix (invariably casual readers).
Well, the E should really be an option for political correctness, but at the same time we can't force it upon users since there must be many Christians out there who believe that 'before christ' is more appropriate than 'before common era'. If there was an option in preferences, and the <bc> / <ad> tags displayed the correct variation appropriately it would be best.
On 9/5/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Oh yes, please stop that eternal useless bickering! I have never seen the use of adding another E to BC and give it another name when in fact you count with the same year numbering. But if we can have a technical solution so we can have both I'd go for it.
Mgm
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The vexed question may be solved by technical means!
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk Date: 05-Sep-2006 08:41 Subject: Re: [Wikitech-l] BC vs BCE era names To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@wikimedia.org
Bill Clark wrote:
I've added the ability to specify a preference (or no preference) for era names in dates (BC vs. BCE). I've also fixed a couple bugs in the regular expressions that match for dates, that were preventing the parser from recognizing (and converting) dates that ended in BCE or which were written in ISO format and fell between -999-01-01 and 999-12-31 (i.e. had a one-, two-, or three-digit year).
I'm not an actual committer so I'm submitting this as a diff -ru to the mailing list. I'm sure that's the wrong procedure and I'll be scolded for it, but hey I'll learn.
I've tested this and it works on my local version (checked out of svn a few hours ago) but I imagine it should be tested more.
-Bill Clark
That's a great idea. It might also be useful to make the code also switch 'AD' and 'CE', for dates such as, for example, 4 AD / 4 CE.
-- Neil
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Akash Mehta wrote:
Well, the E should really be an option for political correctness, but at the same time we can't force it upon users since there must be many Christians out there who believe that 'before christ' is more appropriate than 'before common era'.
There are non-Christians who believe this too, because the claim that it's a "common era" is patently false.
If there was an option in preferences, and the <bc> / <ad> tags displayed the correct variation appropriately it would be best.
You're free to display it however you want.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
That's a great idea. It might also be useful to make the code also switch 'AD' and 'CE', for dates such as, for example, 4 AD / 4 CE.
No VE