Folks,
Would someone help me here? What is the current policy regarding linking dates such as Birth and Death in biography articles?
Thanks,
Marc Riddell
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.netwrote:
Folks,
Would someone help me here? What is the current policy regarding linking dates such as Birth and Death in biography articles?
Thanks,
Marc Riddell
Basically, don't link unless absolutely needed. I suggest you talk to User:Tony1, who I know has been a big part of the changes to the Manual of Style regarding this.
2008/10/8 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Folks,
Would someone help me here? What is the current policy regarding linking dates such as Birth and Death in biography articles?
You're as surprised by it as the rest of us :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DATES#Date_autoformatting
The old "link all dates" is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
on 10/8/08 7:02 PM, Andrew Gray at shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/8 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Folks,
Would someone help me here? What is the current policy regarding linking dates such as Birth and Death in biography articles?
You're as surprised by it as the rest of us :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DATES#Date_autoformatting
The old "link all dates" is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
Thanks, all, for your input. I do almost all of my editing in biographies and wondered from the beginning why it was necessary. Now, my next question is, when going in to edit an existing Article that has the dates linked, should they be routinely de-linked?
Marc
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 12:14 AM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.netwrote:
Now, my next question is, when going in to edit an existing Article that has the dates linked, should they be routinely de-linked?
Yes.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:17 PM, Al Tally majorly.wiki@googlemail.comwrote:
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 12:14 AM, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86@comcast.net
wrote:
Now, my next question is, when going in to edit an existing Article that has the dates linked, should they be routinely de-linked?
Yes.
-- Alex (User:Majorly)
The one point I have a bit of an issue with the mass delinking of dates and years that has been going on is that I've seen year links being deleted from historical articles that would be useful for providing chronological perspective to an event. It can be quite useful when reading about a person or event from 1761 to get a quick summary of what else was going on in the world during that same year. I don't see why the usual rules of linking don't apply here- that is you get to link a relevant article once (or maybe again in a distant section or in a list/table).
Don't get me wrong, I've always thought the autoformatting feature was silly anyways- people who are all hung up on which variation is "right" in terms of spelling, dates, idioms etc. is the source of such stupidities such as the first Harry Potter book being renamed for the American market to "the Sorcerer's Stone" (a meaningless term) from "the Philosopher's Stone" something that "real" in the sense that alchemists were really looking for the thing.
That's my two shekels...
2008/10/9 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
Thanks, all, for your input. I do almost all of my editing in biographies and wondered from the beginning why it was necessary. Now, my next question is, when going in to edit an existing Article that has the dates linked, should they be routinely de-linked?
Insamuch as they should routinely have been linked before, yes. :-)
(In other words: you can if you want to, but if you leave them as is someone will come along and do it in time. There's certainly no compulsion.)
Andrew Gray wrote:
The old "link all dates" is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the "wrong" format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing.
-Mark
2008/10/9 Delirium delirium@hackish.org:
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the "wrong" format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing.
Really? I've seen a good bit of date-format changing in my recent stuff, but this is because I tend to write two or three different formats in the same article without realising, and someone usually comes along afterwards to fix it.
I've not noticed much in the way of retroactive changes, though. I suppose it'll settle down a bit, like colour/color...
On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 9:26 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the "wrong" format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing.
Our donations at work.
on 10/9/08 6:26 PM, Delirium at delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
The old "link all dates" is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the "wrong" format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing.
-Mark
I have noticed that too, Mark. Another thing, when I began editing several years ago the Birth and Death Dates consistently, and reliably, followed the Full Name of the person. This not only appeared well, but also gave the reader an immediate indication that this is, indeed, the person they were looking for. It also appeared on the first line of a Google or Yahoo! search. Now, in more are more Articles, these dates are scattered, sometimes appearing in later paragraphs. I realize the use of info boxes is useful in this regard, but the lack of consistency in the body of the Articles detracts from the professionalism of the encyclopedia.
Marc Riddell
on 10/9/08 6:26 PM, Delirium at delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
The old "link all dates" is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the "wrong" format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing.
-Mark
on 10/9/08 6:45 PM, Marc Riddell at michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
I have noticed that too, Mark. Another thing, when I began editing several years ago the Birth and Death Dates consistently, and reliably, followed the Full Name of the person. This not only appeared well, but also gave the reader an immediate indication that this is, indeed, the person they were looking for. It also appeared on the first line of a Google or Yahoo! search. Now, in more are more Articles, these dates are scattered, sometimes appearing in later paragraphs. I realize the use of info boxes is useful in this regard, but the lack of consistency in the body of the Articles detracts from the professionalism of the encyclopedia.
To follow-up on this earlier thread, I would like to propose the following for first-line entries in a biography:
Example: [[Ursula Oppens]] (born February 2, [[1944]]. The day of birth would not be linked, but I agree with those who feel that linking the year gives the reader (if they desire) an opportunity to see what else was happening in that year. The format, according to taste may be February 2, or 2 February; I don't see where that would be a problem. Any thoughts on this?
Marc Riddell
On 10/13/08, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Example: [[Ursula Oppens]] (born February 2, [[1944]]. The day of birth would not be linked, but I agree with those who feel that linking the year gives the reader (if they desire) an opportunity to see what else was happening in that year. The format, according to taste may be February 2, or 2 February; I don't see where that would be a problem. Any thoughts on this?
What if readers are curious as to with whom Miz Oppens shares a birthday? Fuck 'em?
—C.W.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/13/08, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Example: [[Ursula Oppens]] (born February 2, [[1944]]. The day of birth would not be linked, but I agree with those who feel that linking the year gives the reader (if they desire) an opportunity to see what else was happening in that year. The format, according to taste may be February 2, or 2 February; I don't see where that would be a problem. Any thoughts on this?
What if readers are curious as to with whom Miz Oppens shares a birthday? Fuck 'em?
What if readers are curious which other people have names which, when converted to numbers, sum to the same value?
You have to draw the trivia line some place, the only question is where.
There are many hundreds of thousands of date related articles in Wikipedia. The number of articles mentioning February 2 is enormous. To answer trivia such as "who else was born on the same day" you're no worse off searching. (The date article can't hope to list all the people born on that day, and whatlinkshere will be no more informative than a search).
2008/10/14 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
There are many hundreds of thousands of date related articles in Wikipedia. The number of articles mentioning February 2 is enormous. To answer trivia such as "who else was born on the same day" you're no worse off searching. (The date article can't hope to list all the people born on that day, and whatlinkshere will be no more informative than a search).
Interestingly, when I was wondering "what value does a date link have" the other night, the only particularly "useful" circumstance I could think of, beyond the obvious case of "articles about holidays etc", was people's birthdays.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/14 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
There are many hundreds of thousands of date related articles in Wikipedia. The number of articles mentioning February 2 is enormous. To answer trivia such as "who else was born on the same day" you're no worse off searching. (The date article can't hope to list all the people born on that day, and whatlinkshere will be no more informative than a search).
Interestingly, when I was wondering "what value does a date link have" the other night, the only particularly "useful" circumstance I could think of, beyond the obvious case of "articles about holidays etc", was people's birthdays.
But is a birthday really significant? Or a deathday? Thomas Jefferson and his mate dying on the same day is of some interest, I guess, but it's really trivia rather than encyclopaedic.
What IS useful is a link to a year for birth and death dates, so as to get a person's life in some sort of context.
Realistically, linking all dates and years in wikipedia just makes articles confusing and overlinked. You really want to know what happened on a specific day, do a search. That's not hard.
Peter
2008/10/14 Skyring skyring@gmail.com:
But is a birthday really significant? Or a deathday? Thomas Jefferson and his mate dying on the same day is of some interest, I guess, but it's really trivia rather than encyclopaedic.
I should have been clearer, I think - when I said "useful", I meant in the sense that someone following the link might possibly get something they expected in the page at the other end...
As you note, with year articles, you always get some contextual benefit (even if trivially small) to linking the year something took place, even if it's just the ability to quickly check whether the Renaissance had started yet or not.
You don't get any such contextual benefit from linking the "day of the year" something took place, unless you want to know something that happened on exactly the same date. It's very unlikely you want to know what happened on the same day a century before or after - the only circumstance that I can think of that happening with any frequency is people's birthdays, hence why it seemed worth mentioning as an exception.
I'm not arguing we need to link birthdays, but I do think there's usually slightly more merit for linking [[6 January]] in the context of a birthdate than there is for doing it anywhere else in the article. (This may, indeed, be taken as a demonstration of how useless the rest of them are...)
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/13/08, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Example: [[Ursula Oppens]] (born February 2, [[1944]]. The day of birth would not be linked, but I agree with those who feel that linking the year gives the reader (if they desire) an opportunity to see what else was happening in that year. The format, according to taste may be February 2, or 2 February; I don't see where that would be a problem. Any thoughts on this?
What if readers are curious as to with whom Miz Oppens shares a birthday? Fuck 'em?
What if readers are curious which other people have names which, when converted to numbers, sum to the same value?
You have to draw the trivia line some place, the only question is where.
There are many hundreds of thousands of date related articles in Wikipedia. The number of articles mentioning February 2 is enormous. To answer trivia such as "who else was born on the same day" you're no worse off searching. (The date article can't hope to list all the people born on that day, and whatlinkshere will be no more informative than a search).
Also, the year articles, by contrast with the date articles, often have non-list background information relevant for the article they're linked from. See, for example, the excellent article on [[1345]].
-Mark
on 10/15/08 4:20 PM, Delirium at delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/13/08, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Example: [[Ursula Oppens]] (born February 2, [[1944]]. The day of birth would not be linked, but I agree with those who feel that linking the year gives the reader (if they desire) an opportunity to see what else was happening in that year. The format, according to taste may be February 2, or 2 February; I don't see where that would be a problem. Any thoughts on this?
What if readers are curious as to with whom Miz Oppens shares a birthday? Fuck 'em?
What if readers are curious which other people have names which, when converted to numbers, sum to the same value?
You have to draw the trivia line some place, the only question is where.
There are many hundreds of thousands of date related articles in Wikipedia. The number of articles mentioning February 2 is enormous. To answer trivia such as "who else was born on the same day" you're no worse off searching. (The date article can't hope to list all the people born on that day, and whatlinkshere will be no more informative than a search).
Also, the year articles, by contrast with the date articles, often have non-list background information relevant for the article they're linked from. See, for example, the excellent article on [[1345]].
-Mark
It just happened again. I went in and edited a biography article, made some corrections as to the Date of Birth, and left the month and day unlinked but linked the year. One minute later someone else came in and de-linked the year with the edit comments, "(unlink yob per WP:MOSNUM)". Is this the present policy? And if so, how came we change it?
Marc Riddell
2008/10/16 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
It just happened again. I went in and edited a biography article, made some corrections as to the Date of Birth, and left the month and day unlinked but linked the year. One minute later someone else came in and de-linked the year with the edit comments, "(unlink yob per WP:MOSNUM)". Is this the present policy? And if so, how came we change it?
Marc Riddell
Yes it is present MOS and you change it in the normal manner. However this would what be the third time the debate has happened in a few months so I doubt you would get very far. See for the most part what happened in the year of someone's birth is of little interest unless the event dirrectly impacted them. You might be able to make a case for the years where they did whatever makes the noteable but even then a case could be made that you would do better linking to say 1860s in engineering.
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 9:16 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/16 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
It just happened again. I went in and edited a biography article, made
some
corrections as to the Date of Birth, and left the month and day unlinked
but
linked the year. One minute later someone else came in and de-linked the year with the edit comments, "(unlink yob per WP:MOSNUM)". Is this the present policy? And if so, how came we change it?
Marc Riddell
Yes it is present MOS and you change it in the normal manner. However this would what be the third time the debate has happened in a few months so I doubt you would get very far. See for the most part what happened in the year of someone's birth is of little interest unless the event dirrectly impacted them. You might be able to make a case for the years where they did whatever makes the noteable but even then a case could be made that you would do better linking to say 1860s in engineering.
-- geni
It seems to me that linking someone's birth year would give a reader easy access to a listing of an individual's contemporaries via the list of people born in that year and adjacent years. Having an idea of the other people who were alive and working at the same time can give a lot of context when reading a person's biography.
2008/10/17 Elias Friedman elipongo@gmail.com:
It seems to me that linking someone's birth year would give a reader easy access to a listing of an individual's contemporaries via the list of people born in that year and adjacent years. Having an idea of the other people who were alive and working at the same time can give a lot of context when reading a person's biography.
No. Oh it might sort of work if you were working with the ancient world and you assume wikipedia maintains it systemic bias but even there it isn't that significant that Moctezuma I and Zhu Zhanji (Xuande Emperor) were born around the same time. Their civilisations had no contact.
As you move to more recent events you hit problems with shear numbers Harry Houdini and Winston Churchill were apparently born in the same year. I doubt this has any significance to either of their lives.
Worse still when you consider that it is possible that a 20 year old man of adventure may be have an impact in the same area as an 80 year old diplomat. So unless you work your way through 60 odd years of articles you would miss that completely.
So if there is a significant contemporary you mention them in the article about the person.
Consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jessop
It mentions John Smeaton someone more than 20 years his elder. It covers Rennie and Telford. The people who either directly influenced Jessop or were influenced by him. It mentions Brindley the other very high profile British canal engineer.
If you want to see who else was around you can look to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Canal_engineers (which for some reason appears to suffer from rather limited coverage of non brits) or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_civil_engineers
Clicking through to dates is not a very effective way of trying to get or trying to represent the information. Consider the year in question:
February 18 - Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist (d. 1827) February 20 - Henry James Pye, English poet (d. 1813) March 4 - Charles Dibdin, English composer (d. 1814) March 10 - John Gunby, Maryland soldier in the American Revolutionary War (d. 1807) April 6 - Thomas Peters, Dutch supercentenarian (d. 1857) July 13 - Robert Calder, British naval officer, (d. 1818) August 20 - Francis Asbury, American Methodist Bishop (d. 1816) September 16 - Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, Russian field marshal (d. 1813) November 23 - John Treadwell, the fourth Governor of Connecticut (d. 1823) December 15 - Johann Gottfried Koehler, German astronomer (d. 1801) date unknown - Danwon, Korean painter (d. 1806)
None of these are of much importance to Jessop's life.
2008/10/16 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
It just happened again. I went in and edited a biography article, made some corrections as to the Date of Birth, and left the month and day unlinked but linked the year. One minute later someone else came in and de-linked the year with the edit comments, "(unlink yob per WP:MOSNUM)". Is this the present policy? And if so, how came we change it?
Marc Riddell
on 10/16/08 9:16 PM, geni at geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Yes it is present MOS and you change it in the normal manner. However this would what be the third time the debate has happened in a few months so I doubt you would get very far. See for the most part what happened in the year of someone's birth is of little interest unless the event dirrectly impacted them. You might be able to make a case for the years where they did whatever makes the noteable but even then a case could be made that you would do better linking to say 1860s in engineering.
Thanks for your thoughts, geni. Although I see value in linking the years, what, in the end, I am REALLY looking for is some consistency. I still do not understand fully much of the decision-making process that goes into matters such as deciding on a specific format policy. But what I do see throughout the encyclopedia is an arbitrariness in form and structure that greatly detracts from the professionalism of the Project. A reader is coming to the encyclopedia looking for information on a particular subject. That information should be presented in a consistent, reliable, familiar form. This form becomes the "signature" of the encyclopedia. As the Wikipedia Project matures, it is important that the decision-making processes regarding such basic issues as its very form and structure mature as well.
Be healthy,
Marc Riddell
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Thanks for your thoughts, geni. Although I see value in linking the years, what, in the end, I am REALLY looking for is some consistency. I still do not understand fully much of the decision-making process that goes into matters such as deciding on a specific format policy. But what I do see throughout the encyclopedia is an arbitrariness in form and structure that greatly detracts from the professionalism of the Project. A reader is coming to the encyclopedia looking for information on a particular subject. That information should be presented in a consistent, reliable, familiar form. This form becomes the "signature" of the encyclopedia. As the Wikipedia Project matures, it is important that the decision-making processes regarding such basic issues as its very form and structure mature as well.
Surely the thing you're bringing up - people going around and delinking dates for standardisation - is pretty much guaranteed to bring greater consistency of form in the medium term? There's two and a half million articles, most of which will have some date linking, so it's going to take time to get them all; a transitional period is always necessary for big changes. Nonetheless, I'm sure that in a month or two we'll be a lot closer to our ideal of consistency of style, once the new system's shaken out.
The only real issue, from a consistency viewpoint, is that it decided to rescind a previous standard form. This is not a dealbreaker - yes, consistency over time is nice, but we should never be backed into a corner of continuing with a problematic "solution" simply because it seemed like a good idea five years ago, when the issues were much different.
Changing a previously widely accepted standard should take much wider discussion than this has received, and over a longer period of time. It's very easy at Wikipedia for a few people to move in fast and get something changed; the test is whether it hold up under subsequent scrutiny. And even actual consent ahead of time may change quite rapidly once people truly see the implications on a large scale in the encyclopedia.
On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 8:58 AM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Thanks for your thoughts, geni. Although I see value in linking the years, what, in the end, I am REALLY looking for is some consistency. I still do not understand fully much of the decision-making process that goes into matters such as deciding on a specific format policy. But what I do see throughout the encyclopedia is an arbitrariness in form and structure that greatly detracts from the professionalism of the Project. A reader is coming to the encyclopedia looking for information on a particular subject. That information should be presented in a consistent, reliable, familiar form. This form becomes the "signature" of the encyclopedia. As the Wikipedia Project matures, it is important that the decision-making processes regarding such basic issues as its very form and structure mature as well.
Surely the thing you're bringing up - people going around and delinking dates for standardisation - is pretty much guaranteed to bring greater consistency of form in the medium term? There's two and a half million articles, most of which will have some date linking, so it's going to take time to get them all; a transitional period is always necessary for big changes. Nonetheless, I'm sure that in a month or two we'll be a lot closer to our ideal of consistency of style, once the new system's shaken out.
The only real issue, from a consistency viewpoint, is that it decided to rescind a previous standard form. This is not a dealbreaker - yes, consistency over time is nice, but we should never be backed into a corner of continuing with a problematic "solution" simply because it seemed like a good idea five years ago, when the issues were much different.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
2008/10/18 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
Changing a previously widely accepted standard should take much wider discussion than this has received, and over a longer period of time.
It got discussed over months and by rather a wide selection of people (they kept starting to delink dates and people kept noticing).
It's very easy at Wikipedia for a few people to move in fast and get something changed; the test is whether it hold up under subsequent scrutiny.
It has repeatedly.
And even actual consent ahead of time may change quite rapidly once people truly see the implications on a large scale in the encyclopedia.
We already seen it on a fair sized scale. That you didn't notice doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.
2008/10/18 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com
Changing a previously widely accepted standard should take much wider discussion than this has received, and over a longer period of time. It's very easy at Wikipedia for a few people to move in fast and get something changed; the test is whether it hold up under subsequent scrutiny. And even actual consent ahead of time may change quite rapidly once people truly see the implications on a large scale in the encyclopedia.
Just the usual problems with any decision making at Wikipedia. The paradigm is inherently flawed, and the word consensus is completely abused and given a non-standard definition at Wikipedia.
Most decisions made on Wikipedia are *not* by consensus, according to the proper definition.
Usually a majority of discussion participants, or a dedicated group of individuals, get their way just through force, persuasiveness, bullying and wikilawyering. There are even hinderances to broadening discussion, you might be "canvassing".
Zoney
2008/10/18 Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com
Just the usual problems with any decision making at Wikipedia. The paradigm is inherently flawed, and the word consensus is completely abused and given a non-standard definition at Wikipedia.
Most decisions made on Wikipedia are *not* by consensus, according to the proper definition.
You don't say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Genbox_Family_H...
Usually a majority of discussion participants, or a dedicated group of
individuals, get their way just through force, persuasiveness, bullying and wikilawyering. There are even hinderances to broadening discussion, you might be "canvassing".
No, really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2008_October_17#G...
Hard not to grow weary, at times.
Michel
2008/10/18 David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com
Changing a previously widely accepted standard should take much wider discussion than this has received, and over a longer period of time. It's very easy at Wikipedia for a few people to move in fast and get something changed; the test is whether it hold up under subsequent scrutiny. And even actual consent ahead of time may change quite rapidly once people truly see the implications on a large scale in the encyclopedia.
on 10/18/08 11:30 AM, Zoney at zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
Just the usual problems with any decision making at Wikipedia. The paradigm is inherently flawed, and the word consensus is completely abused and given a non-standard definition at Wikipedia.
Most decisions made on Wikipedia are *not* by consensus, according to the proper definition.
Usually a majority of discussion participants, or a dedicated group of individuals, get their way just through force, persuasiveness, bullying and wikilawyering. There are even hinderances to broadening discussion, you might be "canvassing".
Yep to all of this, Zoney. But there are those who like, and take full advantage of, the lack of a more stable process. It is going to take some strong leadership to change this.
Marc
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Thanks for your thoughts, geni. Although I see value in linking the years, what, in the end, I am REALLY looking for is some consistency. I still do not understand fully much of the decision-making process that goes into matters such as deciding on a specific format policy. But what I do see throughout the encyclopedia is an arbitrariness in form and structure that greatly detracts from the professionalism of the Project. A reader is coming to the encyclopedia looking for information on a particular subject. That information should be presented in a consistent, reliable, familiar form. This form becomes the "signature" of the encyclopedia. As the Wikipedia Project matures, it is important that the decision-making processes regarding such basic issues as its very form and structure mature as well.
on 10/18/08 8:58 AM, Andrew Gray at shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Surely the thing you're bringing up - people going around and delinking dates for standardisation - is pretty much guaranteed to bring greater consistency of form in the medium term? There's two and a half million articles, most of which will have some date linking, so it's going to take time to get them all; a transitional period is always necessary for big changes. Nonetheless, I'm sure that in a month or two we'll be a lot closer to our ideal of consistency of style, once the new system's shaken out.
The only real issue, from a consistency viewpoint, is that it decided to rescind a previous standard form. This is not a dealbreaker - yes, consistency over time is nice, but we should never be backed into a corner of continuing with a problematic "solution" simply because it seemed like a good idea five years ago, when the issues were much different.
I agree with much of what you say, Andrew. And, I agree that the issue of date formatting will settle down in time. (I am still going to press for my preference of year-only dating; I just haven't decided what form of activism to take to pursue it :-)
I was stepping back and looking at the encyclopedia as a whole. A random selection of, say, 50 Articles can reveal many - way too many - different forms in construction and layout. As you are stepping through them it can not only appear as though you were viewing different pages, but viewing entirely different sites. The only consistency is the logo. I wish there were a way to take an opinion poll of the readers, who are not editors, of the encyclopedia. It is for them that the Project exists isn't it?
And, I am concerned about the processes by which such issues as form and style are decided in the encyclopedia. These processes may have been appropriate for the early stages of the Project, but, as the Project matures and the encyclopedia becomes more complex, other, more stable ones must be addressed and implemented.
Chaos can be a good thing; it means that change is happening. But organized chaos is better; it means that there is some form of rational planning involved.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
I still do not understand fully much of the decision-making process that goes into matters such as deciding on a specific format policy. But what I do see throughout the encyclopedia is an arbitrariness in form and structure that greatly detracts from the professionalism of the Project. A reader is coming to the encyclopedia looking for information on a particular subject. That information should be presented in a consistent, reliable, familiar form. This form becomes the "signature" of the encyclopedia. As the Wikipedia Project matures, it is important that the decision-making processes regarding such basic issues as its very form and structure mature as well.
So you need to be talking to someone like [[User:Tony1]], an advocate of said type of "professionalism". But of course there is more to be said here.
Naturally since most editors are "amateurs", in all the senses (unpaid, doing it for the love of it, and people with an appreciation of the site), anything that happens to the Manual of Style ought to be compatible with retaining such amateurism (in a good sense). Note that very complex sets of rules for formatting do add a barrier to entry; as your example shows, it may not be so easy to appreciate the current state of the MoS as compatible with "you may edit right now".
In other words, and this has played out on the site, it is not true that the advocates of a "professional approach" have all the answers. It is rather easier to effect changes to the Manual, than to ensure that the consensus about what a Manual page should contain translates into a shared understanding across the whole community. In fact the assumption that it does would rest on either of two assumptions: people are paid and so have a direct stake in following an imposed "house style", or the community is small enough so that everyone can track the debates that will affect them.
Charles
On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
I still do not understand fully much of the decision-making process that goes into matters such as deciding on a specific format policy. But what I do see throughout the encyclopedia is an arbitrariness in form and structure that greatly detracts from the professionalism of the Project. A reader is coming to the encyclopedia looking for information on a particular subject. That information should be presented in a consistent, reliable, familiar form. This form becomes the "signature" of the encyclopedia. As the Wikipedia Project matures, it is important that the decision-making processes regarding such basic issues as its very form and structure mature as well.
So you need to be talking to someone like [[User:Tony1]], an advocate of said type of "professionalism". But of course there is more to be said here.
Naturally since most editors are "amateurs", in all the senses (unpaid, doing it for the love of it, and people with an appreciation of the site), anything that happens to the Manual of Style ought to be compatible with retaining such amateurism (in a good sense). Note that very complex sets of rules for formatting do add a barrier to entry; as your example shows, it may not be so easy to appreciate the current state of the MoS as compatible with "you may edit right now".
In other words, and this has played out on the site, it is not true that the advocates of a "professional approach" have all the answers. It is rather easier to effect changes to the Manual, than to ensure that the consensus about what a Manual page should contain translates into a shared understanding across the whole community. In fact the assumption that it does would rest on either of two assumptions: people are paid and so have a direct stake in following an imposed "house style", or the community is small enough so that everyone can track the debates that will affect them.
Is this an old thread or a new one that I missed? I'd like to read the rest of the thread if it is still available.
Carcharoth
Is this an old thread or a new one that I missed? I'd like to read the rest of the thread if it is still available.
Carcharoth
Oops, I appear to have answered a mail of Marc Riddell's from 17 September 2008 - for reasons best known to my email client. It will of course all be online in the archives.
Charles
On 30 April 2010 19:10, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Is this an old thread or a new one that I missed? I'd like to read the rest of the thread if it is still available.
It's older than usual, yes :-)
Those wanting to follow the original discussion can find it in October 2008:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2008-October/thread.html#95916
and January 2009:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-January/thread.html#98280
geni wrote:
See for the most part what happened in the year of someone's birth is of little interest unless the event dirrectly impacted them. You might be able to make a case for the years where they did whatever makes the noteable but even then a case could be made that you would do better linking to say 1860s in engineering.
That's probably true. I'm personally more annoyed that people come by with bots (or bot-like scripts) and unlink centuries. In most cases where I actually take the time to write out "[[5th century]]", it's because the century is relevant as background information.
Actually I'd have fewer problems in general with any of this if it were humans making case-by-case judgments. It's mostly the drive-by auto-editing by people who haven't even read the article that I find annoying and harmful.
-Mark
2008/10/17 Delirium delirium@hackish.org:
geni wrote:
See for the most part what happened in the year of someone's birth is of little interest unless the event dirrectly impacted them. You might be able to make a case for the years where they did whatever makes the noteable but even then a case could be made that you would do better linking to say 1860s in engineering.
That's probably true. I'm personally more annoyed that people come by with bots (or bot-like scripts) and unlink centuries. In most cases where I actually take the time to write out "[[5th century]]", it's because the century is relevant as background information.
Actually I'd have fewer problems in general with any of this if it were humans making case-by-case judgments. It's mostly the drive-by auto-editing by people who haven't even read the article that I find annoying and harmful.
-Mark
A lot of our articles have mostly bot or tool assisted edits.
2008/10/17 Delirium delirium@hackish.org:
geni wrote:
See for the most part what happened in the year of someone's birth is of little interest unless the event dirrectly impacted them. You might be able to make a case for the years where they did whatever makes the noteable but even then a case could be made that you would do better linking to say 1860s in engineering.
That's probably true. I'm personally more annoyed that people come by with bots (or bot-like scripts) and unlink centuries. In most cases where I actually take the time to write out "[[5th century]]", it's because the century is relevant as background information.
Actually I'd have fewer problems in general with any of this if it were humans making case-by-case judgments. It's mostly the drive-by auto-editing by people who haven't even read the article that I find annoying and harmful.
-Mark
on 10/17/08 12:39 PM, geni at geniice@gmail.com wrote:
A lot of our articles have mostly bot or tool assisted edits.
Which leaves all creative instinct and Article by Article basic human judgment behind. A sad road to go down.
Marc
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Which leaves all creative instinct and Article by Article basic human judgment behind. A sad road to go down.
Marc
Not really. Human create. Bots sort of copyedit.
Typical example of Wikipedia changes being applied excessively due to lack of judgment. The idea that it was unnecessary in most cases to link day or month was a good one; carrying it to year is ridiculous. Even print reference sources often provide a listing by year of births and deaths--almanacs for example. A small group of self-selected specialists with the persistence to follow all the MOS discussions should not be deciding these things--they should be able to distinguish the parts that do need more general community involvement. (To expect the community in general to follow ''all'' of MOS is not practical).
On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 1:16 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Which leaves all creative instinct and Article by Article basic human judgment behind. A sad road to go down.
Marc
Not really. Human create. Bots sort of copyedit.
-- geni
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
on 10/17/08 3:23 PM, David Goodman at dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Typical example of Wikipedia changes being applied excessively due to lack of judgment. The idea that it was unnecessary in most cases to link day or month was a good one; carrying it to year is ridiculous. Even print reference sources often provide a listing by year of births and deaths--almanacs for example. A small group of self-selected specialists with the persistence to follow all the MOS discussions should not be deciding these things--they should be able to distinguish the parts that do need more general community involvement. (To expect the community in general to follow ''all'' of MOS is not practical).
I agree with you, David. But with the Wikipedia set of policies and procedures beginning to look like the US Tax Code, how does one begin to challenge an MOS "Policy". I am tempted to take a firm stand, leave the day & month unlinked, link the year, and risk getting into an edit war just to force some sort of action from someone. (It's not exactly '60s Berkeley, but I've already been there & done that :-) ).
Marc
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
I agree with you, David. But with the Wikipedia set of policies and procedures beginning to look like the US Tax Code, how does one begin to challenge an MOS "Policy". I am tempted to take a firm stand, leave the day & month unlinked, link the year, and risk getting into an edit war just to force some sort of action from someone. (It's not exactly '60s Berkeley, but I've already been there & done that :-) ).
Marc
1)You don't start from this position. The time to do something was some months ago. This is why you need a few thousand pages on you watchlist so you spot this kind of thing when it starts.
2)try [[WT:MOS]]
3)edit waring with a bot won't work to well.
on 10/17/08 5:28 PM, geni at geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
I agree with you, David. But with the Wikipedia set of policies and procedures beginning to look like the US Tax Code, how does one begin to challenge an MOS "Policy". I am tempted to take a firm stand, leave the day & month unlinked, link the year, and risk getting into an edit war just to force some sort of action from someone. (It's not exactly '60s Berkeley, but I've already been there & done that :-) ).
Marc
1)You don't start from this position. The time to do something was some months ago. This is why you need a few thousand pages on you watchlist so you spot this kind of thing when it starts.
2)try [[WT:MOS]]
3)edit waring with a bot won't work to well.
I guess it would be like challenging a Robocop :-).
Thanks, geni.
Marc
2008/10/17 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
I agree with you, David. But with the Wikipedia set of policies and procedures beginning to look like the US Tax Code, how does one begin to challenge an MOS "Policy". I am tempted to take a firm stand, leave the day & month unlinked, link the year, and risk getting into an edit war just to force some sort of action from someone. (It's not exactly '60s Berkeley, but I've already been there & done that :-) ).
I think what we've seen is *exactly* how to challenge an MOS policy - it was done roughly one month ago, and the decision was to change to this new approach!
On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 10:20 PM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Also, the year articles, by contrast with the date articles, often have non-list background information relevant for the article they're linked from. See, for example, the excellent article on [[1345]].
-Mark
I have nothing intelligent to add to the discussion, I just wanted to say that, Holy crap!, that's a great article! Seriously, how can we have a far superior article on 1345 than 1945?
--Oskar
Delirium wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
The old "link all dates" is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking
The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing...
The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the "wrong" format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing.
Reviving this thread, that does appear to be taking place (contrary to some more optimistic predictions that it wouldn't). The biggest offenders seem to be people whose hackles are raised by what they perceive as "American provincialism", and who feel that an international encyclopedia "ought to use the international date format", rather than follow the usual Wikipedia dialect practice, where we accept all the major variants, and strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
Previously, such folks could be accomodated by simply changing their date preferences, keeping them from ever having to see an odious Amerikkkan date, but now they're required to resort to a crusade to get rid of Americanist date formats, preferably entirely, or at least confine them to US-only articles. There's even some proposals to change the current MOS (which basically says don't change date formats unless it's a UK/US/Australian/etc. subject) to accomodate their views: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/P...
-Mark
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote:
... strongly discourage edits that change one to
another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
Regardless of who speaks what, the original poster is referring to debates over which format to use when. Ex: January 1, 2009 ; 1 January 2009 ; or even 2009 January 1.
With the automatic date formatting... People that *cared* about which one they saw when reading articles could just change it in their preferences. Now the only way to see dates in their preferred format is to change articles to their format. This creates tension and disputes, similar to how the spelling differences of Canadian, English, US, Australia, etc cased disputes. (and still do cause disputes). I think there are a few entries in [[WP:LAME]] on that topic.
If auto formatting is tossed aside long term, we will have to create conventions for articles similar to how spelling works to prevent more lame editwars.
On 1/17/09, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote:
... strongly discourage edits that change one to
another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
-- Peter in Canberra
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilhelm@nixeagle.org wrote:
Regardless of who speaks what, the original poster is referring to debates over which format to use when. Ex: January 1, 2009 ; 1 January 2009 ; or even 2009 January 1.
With the automatic date formatting... People that *cared* about which one they saw when reading articles could just change it in their preferences. Now the only way to see dates in their preferred format is to change articles to their format. This creates tension and disputes, similar to how the spelling differences of Canadian, English, US, Australia, etc cased disputes. (and still do cause disputes). I think there are a few entries in [[WP:LAME]] on that topic.
If auto formatting is tossed aside long term, we will have to create conventions for articles similar to how spelling works to prevent more lame editwars.
Yes, I think that this is the intention of the discussion on the MoS.
The problem with autoformatting is that it only worked for those very few users who were registered and had date preferences set. Most people reading Wikipedia are not registered, and hence see the schemozzle of different date formats added by whatever editor thought looked best at the time.
There's very little debate on which date format should be used for articles on U.S. or UK subjects, but for articles on (say) France or Brazil, there is a push to use U.S. date format, despite both of those nations using International format. The existing conventions on units of measurement and currency (where we use the units of that country) are a better guide than attempting to link non-english speaking nations to a variety of English.
Skyring wrote:
There's very little debate on which date format should be used for articles on U.S. or UK subjects, but for articles on (say) France or Brazil, there is a push to use U.S. date format, despite both of those nations using International format.
There's no such push at all, and it's a bit disingenuous to claim so, as the only people making a "push" to convert date formats from one to another are those in favor of a day-month-year universal standard. The long-respected status quo is that if an article is on a subject that isn't strongly tied to a particular dialect of English, then it uses whatever the original author used, including for spellings, date formats, etc. Changing from one to another is discouraged, as it's a noise edit, and rather impolite to change one correct English dialect to another, especially as there are much more important things to work on.
-Mark
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Skyring wrote:
There's very little debate on which date format should be used for articles on U.S. or UK subjects, but for articles on (say) France or Brazil, there is a push to use U.S. date format, despite both of those nations using International format.
There's no such push at all, and it's a bit disingenuous to claim so, as the only people making a "push" to convert date formats from one to another are those in favor of a day-month-year universal standard. The long-respected status quo is that if an article is on a subject that isn't strongly tied to a particular dialect of English, then it uses whatever the original author used, including for spellings, date formats, etc. Changing from one to another is discouraged, as it's a noise edit, and rather impolite to change one correct English dialect to another, especially as there are much more important things to work on.
With respect, you are pushing U.S. date format on nations that don't use it. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Brazil as an example. Finding the date formats for various nations and cultures is easy: http://www.obout.com/calendar/tutorial_dateformat2.aspx is one of many online tools. Just because six or seven years ago some nerdy American wrote the first stub of an article using formats he was used to, never imagining that Wikipedia would grow to become a respected international project, is no reason to carry over inappropriate formats.
I can't see any reason to stick with whatever the original author used when there is a clear reason for change following our established practice of using local units of measurement and currency. You wouldn't want to use miles and pounds and U.S. dollars for an article on France, would you?
Would you?
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote:
... strongly discourage edits that change one to
another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
-- Peter in Canberra
Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana.
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote:
... strongly discourage edits that change one to
another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
-- Peter in Canberra
Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana.
What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement.
In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments.
Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial.
The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking)
To be honest, I wonder if there is a way to reformat dates by .js script... We could have two scripts... One 1 jan 2009 and one Jan 1, 2009. Then those that care that much can just go back to seeing what they want to see and we could avoid this whole issue.
On 1/19/09, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote:
... strongly discourage edits that change one to
another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
-- Peter in Canberra
Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana.
What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement.
In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments.
Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial. -- Peter in Canberra
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilhelm@nixeagle.org wrote:
The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking)
Picking the correct format for a nation or culture merely involves checking format preferences in your computer. I doubt that there's much variation in the data used by Apple, Microsoft, Linux etc. They are all going to come up with International format for Brazil.
Where there's doubt, either discuss it on the article talk page or stick with the existing format. You know, like we do for ENGVAR for spelling.
As to Arbcom cases over date formats, could you point me to a recent case, please?
Peter
On 1/19/09, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote:
... strongly discourage edits that change one to
another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
-- Peter in Canberra
Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana.
What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement.
In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments.
Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial.
Sure, we have one going on now just over the *unlinking*. Check WP:RFAR under current cases.
We have had problems with types of English being an issue and going to arbcom, this is the same type of thing... Now that it is harder to set your settings to hide the "wrong" format (now it is as difficult as hiding the "wrong" English)... Those that care about these things will likely cause enough drama that arbcom will have to review it. Its the same "preference" style thing.
On 1/19/09, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilhelm@nixeagle.org wrote:
The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking)
Picking the correct format for a nation or culture merely involves checking format preferences in your computer. I doubt that there's much variation in the data used by Apple, Microsoft, Linux etc. They are all going to come up with International format for Brazil.
Where there's doubt, either discuss it on the article talk page or stick with the existing format. You know, like we do for ENGVAR for spelling.
As to Arbcom cases over date formats, could you point me to a recent case, please?
Peter
On 1/19/09, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Delirium wrote: > ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates.
I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates?
-- Peter in Canberra
Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana.
What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement.
In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments.
Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial.
-- Peter in Canberra
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ah. I see. It's something else entirely. I was hoping for some input on the points I raised...
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilhelm@nixeagle.org wrote:
Sure, we have one going on now just over the *unlinking*. Check WP:RFAR under current cases.
We have had problems with types of English being an issue and going to arbcom, this is the same type of thing... Now that it is harder to set your settings to hide the "wrong" format (now it is as difficult as hiding the "wrong" English)... Those that care about these things will likely cause enough drama that arbcom will have to review it. Its the same "preference" style thing.
On 1/19/09, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilhelm@nixeagle.org wrote:
The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking)
Picking the correct format for a nation or culture merely involves checking format preferences in your computer. I doubt that there's much variation in the data used by Apple, Microsoft, Linux etc. They are all going to come up with International format for Brazil.
Where there's doubt, either discuss it on the article talk page or stick with the existing format. You know, like we do for ENGVAR for spelling.
As to Arbcom cases over date formats, could you point me to a recent case, please?
On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 8:49 AM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Would someone help me here? What is the current policy regarding linking dates such as Birth and Death in biography articles?
Don't worry about it. In a few months the Manual of Style people will change their minds again, so just use whatever formatting works for you and let them worry about "fixing" it.
I never got the MoS for dates, people would complain anout what should and shouldn't be linked, what format it should be placed in (eg: american or british [example of this is at the page for recent invasion that russia took part in [i forget the names]]. Why can't people just agree on a single standard, i know that there is a ISO standard (8601) but i believe that was more for people doing engineering based stuff comparted to normal writing.