[WikiEN-l] Oh No! Not another date format post!

[Tony Wilson]

There are two issues here and a non-issue. 

First the non-issue: there is NO ISSUE to do with
AMBIGUITY. No-one is trying to replace April 1 1999 with
1/4/99, 01/04/99, 01/04/1999, 04/01/99, 1999/04/01 or any
other all-numeric format. The spelled-out month in "1
April" OR "April 1" takes care of that. ISO is irrelevant
to the entire discussion.

Issue No 1: "1 April" or "April 1". WHO CARES? Anyone who
can't count up on his fingers and decide "1 April" and
"April 1" both mean April Fools' Day, please email me right
away. I have a bridge that I sure you will be interested
in.

Issue No 2:  The degree to which we should mandate one
style or another. This one is the ONLY important one.
Obviously the date articles should all be named the same
way. 

(Whichever way. I don't care, and neither should anyone
else. Utter trivia.) 

HOWEVER, mandating that all in-text dates conform to this
style is absurd and restrictive. If a date links to a date
page, sure, write it whichever way the link works. Ouside
of that, we have no business requiring contributors to use
any particular style. 

If anyone wants to know which way I myself write a date,
then you will have to find some of the articles I've
contributed to and work it out for yourselves. I honestly
don't know what I usually write, but I do vary it to suit
the particular sentence from time to time. Sometimes one or
another way suits the context, is clearer and conveys the
point better. When writing history, sometimes it is the DAY
that matters most ("... on the *8th* December, the
President made a speech to say that ..."), other times it
is the MONTH that matters ("...it was not until *October* 4
that action was finally taken  to ... "). It all depends.
Mostly, of course, it doesn't matter either way.  

By all means have the date articles named whichever way is
most desired. When I want to link to a date, I'll write it
whichever way makes the link turn blue. But when I'm
crafting the body of an entry, I should hope I've got
better things to do with my mind than stuff about trying to
remember which particular order the Wikipedia Style Guide
Nazis are insisting on.

Tony (Tannin)

Tony Wilson
(Tannin)