[Yes, a date linking thread again (feel free to hate me ;-)]
Consensus about the date linking/not-linking issue is dominated by users that do have a login and can choose their date display format preferences. And I guess on en.wikipedia.org, a lot of users choose a format which is *not* the ISO-format (some hard statistics would be welcomed).
I fear this is to the detriment of anonymous users - the vast majority of our readers.
On en, it seems to be quite popular and handy to enter dates in ISO-format (Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_web)
The "default date display preference" for anons for wikilinked dates entered in ISO-format is currently simply the ISO-format (no format tweaking is done).
Could/should the displayed date format of wikilinked dates that are entered in ISO-format be changed such that anons do get the same date display format that is used to show - let's say - date entries from the history of a page in a given wiki?
(I strongly assume the format of the date entries of the history of a page is configurable somewhere per wiki).
--Liuglem
Ligulem wrote:
[Yes, a date linking thread again (feel free to hate me ;-)]
Consensus about the date linking/not-linking issue is dominated by users that do have a login and can choose their date display format preferences. And I guess on en.wikipedia.org, a lot of users choose a format which is *not* the ISO-format (some hard statistics would be welcomed).
IIRC, the default is simply not to mess with the text, which is always the most sensible thing.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
IIRC, the default is simply not to mess with the text, which is always the most sensible thing.
I see. Seems we have to stick then with the current level of messing with dates ;-)
Marking dates with <date> (or something) wouldn't be bad, IMHO.
Something like <date>2006-09-14</date> would be fine. Displayed as "14 September, 2006" on en "14. September 2006" on de with selectable overrides per logged-in user.
I agree that scanning wikitext for text that looks like dates might technically not be the best solution.
Also, having a date linked in order to get date display magic is against orthogonality of choices.
But I admit, I don't know the history behind the current date handling logic.
--Ligulem
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Moin,
On Thursday 14 September 2006 15:46, Ligulem wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
IIRC, the default is simply not to mess with the text, which is always the most sensible thing.
I see. Seems we have to stick then with the current level of messing with dates ;-)
Marking dates with <date> (or something) wouldn't be bad, IMHO.
Something like <date>2006-09-14</date> would be fine. Displayed as "14 September, 2006" on en "14. September 2006" on de with selectable overrides per logged-in user.
I agree that scanning wikitext for text that looks like dates might technically not be the best solution.
Also, having a date linked in order to get date display magic is against orthogonality of choices.
But if you mark them with date<2006-09-14> or the more wiki like {{date| d=2006-09-14}} (or your <date></date>, but wikitext was the reason why I stopped writing HTML in the first place), then they could be automatically linked, too :)
Best wishes,
Tels
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Tels wrote:
But if you mark them with date<2006-09-14> or the more wiki like {{date| d=2006-09-14}} (or your <date></date>, but wikitext was the reason why I stopped writing HTML in the first place), then they could be automatically linked, too :)
date<2006-09-14> is rather un-xml-ish.
I wouldn't oppose to wikilinking all dates. But there are Wikipedians that want to be able to chose per each single date instance if it should be linked or not. I think the argument was "not to overlink" and some felt that a huge amount of incoming links to pages like [[2005]] are pointless (I don't care about either of these issues). But the [[..]] syntax rightfully suggests that we can *choose* to link or not to link on everything. Why not on dates exhibiting date display magic? Currently these *must* be wikilinked in order to get that popular date preferences magic. Which seems odd to me. Non-orthogonal.
My problem is, that this whole linking/not linking, date preferences working/not working issue is a matter of constant debate, also on templates like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_web. And in that debate the anon users have no voice.
Packaging dates into template calls like {{date|d=2006-09-14}} doesn't solve the underlying problem we have with dates. Such a template would be simply ignored by Wikipedians IMHO, because it serves no purpose. Also, on en the name is already taken ;-)
--Ligulem
Ligulem wrote:
Tels wrote:
But if you mark them with date<2006-09-14> or the more wiki like {{date| d=2006-09-14}} (or your <date></date>, but wikitext was the reason why I stopped writing HTML in the first place), then they could be automatically linked, too :)
{{date|2006-09-14}} is surely the wiki-way to go: it can then expand to <date>2006-09-14</date> for the parser/renderer back end to deal with.
-- Neil
On 9/14/06, Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
{{date|2006-09-14}} is surely the wiki-way to go: it can then expand to <date>2006-09-14</date> for the parser/renderer back end to deal with.
I totally agree with you for the syntax.
Out of curiosity, when I proposed wrapping ISBN's in an {{ISBN|...}} template this way, no one liked the idea...but I'm not bitter.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 9/14/06, Neil Harris neil@tonal.clara.co.uk wrote:
{{date|2006-09-14}} is surely the wiki-way to go: it can then expand to <date>2006-09-14</date> for the parser/renderer back end to deal with.
I totally agree with you for the syntax.
Out of curiosity, when I proposed wrapping ISBN's in an {{ISBN|...}} template this way, no one liked the idea...but I'm not bitter.
Steve
Hoi, The difference is that there are several competing projects around books / publications / authors. Some have real drive behind it; Wikiauthors will be developed. The result is that the enthusiasm for yet another proposal in such a sphere becomes less even though having a solution is a great idea. Thanks, GerardM
Neil Harris wrote:
{{date|2006-09-14}} is surely the wiki-way to go: it can then expand to <date>2006-09-14</date> for the parser/renderer back end to deal with.
From my on-wiki experience (en wikipedia.org), I agree that template call syntax {{..}} is very popular among Wikipedians (a real killer syntax, I would say ;-)
Technically, if we'd be allowed to go for {{date|2006-09-14}} - a template - we would end with yet another high use template just for the sake of syntax (ad-hoc rule: "No syntactic sugar templates"? ;-), which in this case I feel is a suboptimal idea as there aren't any editorial display format decisions to isolate (There is no "moving target" about the question how to display a date from an editorial viewpoint. There are just culture/language dependent display formats to choose from.)
So if this is the preferred syntax, we really should think about sitting onto http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions and implement:
{{#date:2006-09-14}} or {{#date:|2006-09-14}}, and additionally {{#uldate:2006-09-14}} or {{#uldate:|2006-09-14}} (for unlinked date?)
How difficult would it be to extend ParserFunctions to implement {{#date:2006-09-14}}?
--Ligulem
On 9/17/06, Ligulem ligulem@pobox.com wrote:
sake of syntax (ad-hoc rule: "No syntactic sugar templates"? ;-), which in this case I feel is a suboptimal idea as there aren't any editorial display format decisions to isolate (There is no "moving target" about the question how to display a date from an editorial viewpoint. There are just culture/language dependent display formats to choose from.)
How so? I'm not really sure why I seem to keep being told that my preferred date format is "9 July 2004". Personally, "9th of July, 2004" would be better. Nor am I convinced that editorial judgment never comes into this. In some fields perhaps it makes sense to use condensed dates like 2004-7-9, while in others, more verbose formates are preferred? Similarly, it would be nice to have dates in some places not show the year (ie, "on July the 9th that year...") while linking or not linking as preferred..
So the editorial target isn't moving a long way, but it's not necessarily a sitting duck either ;)
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 9/17/06, Ligulem ligulem@pobox.com wrote:
sake of syntax (ad-hoc rule: "No syntactic sugar templates"? ;-), which in this case I feel is a suboptimal idea as there aren't any editorial display format decisions to isolate (There is no "moving target" about the question how to display a date from an editorial viewpoint. There are just culture/language dependent display formats to choose from.)
How so? I'm not really sure why I seem to keep being told that my preferred date format is "9 July 2004". Personally, "9th of July, 2004" would be better. Nor am I convinced that editorial judgment never comes into this.
I think we are completely out of sync here.
The idea I had was that <date>2006-09-18</date> would for example be displayed as "September 18, 2006" on en.wikipedia.org *as defined by a per wiki setting* (an editable page in MediaWiki namespace?). An admin on en could change that to "18 September 2006" or whatever that wiki wants it (Duh, that would invalidate the cache of all pages. Smells like being the killer of that idea... :( ).
Users with a login could override that setting and use their personal date display from the list shown in their preferences. As we have it now (but only for the dates displayed
If editors on an article don't want to use the site wide display format for dates, then they can simply write the date as they do it today.
Ok. I think I had some interesting feedbacks on this now. Thanks everybody for reading and commenting. Seems really to be the best thing not to mess with the date display for anons.
--Ligulem
On 9/17/06, Ligulem ligulem@pobox.com wrote:
So if this is the preferred syntax, we really should think about sitting onto http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions and implement:
{{#date:2006-09-14}} or {{#date:|2006-09-14}}, and additionally {{#uldate:2006-09-14}} or {{#uldate:|2006-09-14}} (for unlinked date?)
How difficult would it be to extend ParserFunctions to implement {{#date:2006-09-14}}?
This doesn't really strike me as part of what ParserFunctions are intended to be at all: calculations, not an implementation of user preferences. If this is going to be used, which I really don't think it should (the current format is much less obtrusive and confusing for new editors), it should definitely be in the core package as now, whether as a parser function or what ever.
Ligulem wrote:
Marking dates with <date> (or something) wouldn't be bad, IMHO.
Something like <date>2006-09-14</date> would be fine. Displayed as "14 September, 2006" on en "14. September 2006" on de with selectable overrides per logged-in user.
I've added this to http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4582
I wonder if this <date> tag could be implemented as an extension...
--Ligulem
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Moin,
On Thursday 14 September 2006 21:00, Ligulem wrote:
Ligulem wrote:
Marking dates with <date> (or something) wouldn't be bad, IMHO.
Something like <date>2006-09-14</date> would be fine. Displayed as "14 September, 2006" on en "14. September 2006" on de with selectable overrides per logged-in user.
I've added this to http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4582
I wonder if this <date> tag could be implemented as an extension...
That would be easy and done before breakfast, if I wasnt currently on holiday...
best wishes,
tels
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Tels wrote:
On Thursday 14 September 2006 21:00, Ligulem wrote:
Ligulem wrote:
Marking dates with <date> (or something) wouldn't be bad, IMHO.
Something like <date>2006-09-14</date> would be fine. Displayed as "14 September, 2006" on en "14. September 2006" on de with selectable overrides per logged-in user.
I've added this to http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4582
I wonder if this <date> tag could be implemented as an extension...
That would be easy and done before breakfast, if I wasnt currently on holiday...
Cool! So at least it wouldn't be complicated to do - I'm looking forward to the end of your holiday ;-)
I was mostly concerned about the dependency on the "default wiki date display format setting" (I assume this is already configurable somewhere) with all the myriads of date display formats, and the "user preferences" part of a possible implementation.
Maybe I will give it a try as first MediaWiki hacking learning experience for a dumb client app programmer like I am (C++, Windows). Although, I doubt the quality of my concoction would be acceptable for a installation like Wikipedia ;-)
--Ligulem
Nick Jenkins wrote:
If it was going to be done as an extension, usage of it would probably look something like:
<date day=2006-09-14 />
At least, I would say <date day="2006-09-14"/> to be compatible with current standards.
And I have some doubts that <date day="2006-09-14"/> would be better accepted by Wikipedians than <date>2006-09-14</date>. If you do a char count, both are equal, but your variant requires an equal sign, which smacks more of "programming" (generally disliked by a strong subset of Wikipedians). But this is just a sub-aspect, so for me I don't care that much.
--Ligulem
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