[WikiEN-l] Linking Dates

[Marc Riddell]

on 10/9/08 6:26 PM, Delirium at delirium at 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