[WikiEN-l] The present tense

[Matt R]

--- theProject <wp.theproject at gmail.com> wrote:
> Basically, my issue is with pages that contain statements that may be
> *directly* false in the future. (Omission of facts that may be true in the
> future is, of course, completely expected.) So instead of "Person X is the
> CEO of ABC Company, Inc.", or even "as of 2006, Person X is the CEO of ABC
> Company, Inc.", we'd write instead, "as of 2006, Person X was the CEO of ABC
> Company, Inc." Even if X is no longer the CEO of ABC sometime down the road,
> that statement -- as of 2006, he WAS the CEO -- is still true.

I don't think there's any one solution to this (sometimes using "is" is quite
reasonable), but another option is to simply bypass the issue of the present,
and go with something like "person X was appointed CEO in May 2006". 

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com