On 5/21/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps you should consider the vast continent of Wikipedia readers who don't have accounts (or date preferences), and not the small village of actual editors with accounts and date preferences set.
Actually, I incorrectly believed that MediaWiki by default chose American format and would in fact convert these even for anonymous readers. I just checked, and it turns out I was wrong. I apologize; since these do not display normally for non logged-in users, I won't do that in future.
The MOS is a result of collaboration and consensus, and having to go round tidying up after people who are trying to make some self-centred point against consensus is work that I'd prefer not to have to do.
Actually, I don't think the MOS says that any supported date format is incorrect - at least, it did not when I last read that section. Thus, entering dates in any supported format is not 'against consensus'. The entire point of user date preferences and the way they were implemented was exactly because no consensus on these things could be reached.
-Matt