Talk:Dylan and Cole Sprouse

Date format in citations

Yesterday I aligned as many citations as I could with YYYY-MM-DD (ISO 8601/international all-numeric, basically) format since that seemed to be the style most dates on citations were using save some newer ones. I was doing this manually (and was sick) so I stopped to take a break without completing the job and ended up not coming back to it yesterday. This morning (last night? ...early March 29 UTC), Joeyconnick converted all the dates in citations to MMMM DD, YYYY (i.e. March 29, 2018, the format commonly used in the US) via a script. I don't think either date format has special merit over the other, but I felt the change warranted discussion. (I'm personally in support of YYYY-MM-DD, largely because the article ended up almost entirely consistent in that date format first and I don't think "some dates are still inconsistent" was a good enough reason to switch all the otherwise consistent dates to the format of the few that weren't consistent with them.) Does anyone care one way or the other? - Purplewowies (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Basically the reasoning is MOS:TIES... articles about American subjects (like TV and film in addition to actors) use American spelling so in the case of inconsistencies, it seems reasonable to default to mdy, which is the "American" date format. I did go back to the version of the page before Purplewowies started standardizing on ymd... there was a real mix of dates, including ones in dmy, and mixes within citations between dates and access dates. I would argue yyyy-mm-dd is less easily "human readable" than dmy or mdy and we should be making choices that make it easier for readers to parse articles. Finally, if Purplewowies was going to revert so we could have a discussion, they should have reverted to the version before their own date changes given those were just as bold as mine were. —Joeyconnick (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

...Fair, regarding which version to revert to. I didn't realize MOS:TIES (or for an even more specific link, MOS:DATETIES) applied here (my understanding of it was rusty) so I was working from something more like MOS:DATEVAR. I suppose given that information I'll withdraw my own dispute here. (Part of me is a little curious as to others' thoughts on the subject, but... *shrug*) - Purplewowies (talk) 19:28, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh... I had forgotten about MOS:DATETIES. That is a bit more relevant. Yes, there is WP:CITEVAR, so no one should be wholescale changing the format if it's already consistent, so I guess when it's not it just comes down to do you go with the format most-used or something like MOS:DATETIES. Which is subjective and not governed by a specific guideline (that I know of). I do appreciate that yyyy-mm-dd is the least ambiguous in terms of numeric formats. I'm Canadian, so we deal with a variety of formats, but mdy tends to predominate as far as "written-out"/prose formats, whereas dd-mm-yyyy tends to predominate over the more American mm-dd-yyyy in terms of numeric ones. I could live with this article either way (mdy prose or yyyy-mm-dd numeric)—I just saw you were going in chunks and I was like, "Oh I know a script for that!" and then I thought about whether the numeric format was the right choice. I appreciate you being cordial and willing to discuss; if a bunch of people chime in and want yyyy-mm-dd, I will be similarly reasonable and let my objections go. —Joeyconnick (talk) 19:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDAVOID and their individual articles

The MOS is a guideline and not policy, but I figured I'd bring this up. I've reverted linkings of the names of the two in the first sentence with the rationale that it's not in line with MOS:BOLDAVOID (and that there's a note just above the first sentence that links each name already) but I'm not 100% on what's the best course of action, now that I think about it. I see the utility in linking it there, so... *awkward shrugging* I think there are probably about three different ways to deal with this:

1. Link the bold. (Because BOLDAVOID is a guideline and there will always be exceptions)
2. Leave the links where they are in the third paragraph. (Status quo, in line with BOLDAVOID)
3. Rephrase some early part of the lede to allow the names to be linked closer to the start of the article. (In line with BOLDAVOID but still changes link location)

I have a weird related question, as to whether the rephrasing of their names is technically in line with MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD. (It... probably is in line. I'm just tired and my brain is fried.) Strangely, if it isn't, that introduces a fourth option of unbolding the names and linking the first instances. I dunno. I'm confused. Thoughts? - Purplewowies (talk) 17:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Given the way the first line is currently worded (with their full names, which may well be unnecessary in the lead), those names should not be bolded as per MOS:BOLDAVOID since the first sentence does not then include "Dylan and Cole Sprouse". So you could easily have:

Dylan Thomas Sprouse and Cole Mitchell Sprouse (born August 4, 1992) are American actors.

Although honestly given the whole genesis of them having a shared article, I would probably change it to:

Dylan Thomas Sprouse and Cole Mitchell Sprouse (born August 4, 1992) are identical twin American actors [or "are American actors who are identical twins"].

The whole reason they have a shared page is their twin-ness (twin-ity?), so it probably should be mentioned right up front. —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:48, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

"Identical" was left out because consensus (eight years ago) was that no one (even them) had a consistent and sure answer as to whether they were identical or fraternal (I haven't checked to see if anything has changed), but all good points. I think BOLDAVOID is just about linking in the bolded part of the lede, though, and the bolding of the names is TITLEABSENTBOLD. It feels like it could go either way, because every other person's full name is mentioned and bolded in their article, so theoretically it shouldn't be different... but somehow it feels like it departs from the titling of the article more than a single person's full name would? I don't know. - Purplewowies (talk) 23:02, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

They're not confirmed identical?! Weird! I feel like they were certainly treated as identical. This isn't a normal bio article, though, so their full names don't have to be in the lead nor do they have to be bolded. The article title is "Dylan and Cole Sprouse" but it's essentially at this point "Dylan and Cole Sprouse's shared child actor career(s)" really. I say we either reword and start with the title and have that bolded as per normal, but not linked (as per MOS:BOLDAVOID), and leave their next mentions linked to the individual articles (whether that gets moved up or not is not really a huge deal, as long as it's in the lead) or we unbold the current wording but link to their respective articles. We could also rework the opening in that case so it reads/looks less like a biographical article i.e. remove the "(born August 4, 1992)" bit since this info could be included later and is already in the infobox.

It's also possible this article should just be merged into their separate articles and otherwise go the way of the do-do. I realize that wasn't the consensus around a year ago, though, which gives further ammunition to the notion this article is not a typical biographical article, but rather an article about the shared portion of their careers, and that that the title is just a convenient shorthand.

So something like:

Dylan and Cole Sprouse are twin American actors who, as children, rose to prominence and acted together in nearly all of their early projects. Often referred to as the Sprouse Brothers or the Sprouse Bros., their first major theatrical film role was in the 1999 comedy, Big Daddy, in which they co-starred with Adam Sandler.

could work. —Joeyconnick (talk) 01:31, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Riverdale

Hi, i noticed Riverdale is not listed in his work? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.20.92.126 (talk) 21:03, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi, 98.20.92.126. That's not included here because this article is about the period of their career in which they were frequently sharing roles. Cole Sprouse, a page just about Cole, does in fact list his work on Riverdale. - Purplewowies (talk) 22:37, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

merging of this page with their respective pages.

Hello everyone. I would like to clarify a doubt here. Has there been any discussion prior to this regarding the existence of the aforementioned actors' individual pages? This doubt has arisen in me due to the fact that the information given here seems to be somewhat similar to that of their individual pages. Please do clarify my query.

Thanking you in advance. 2409:4071:D9E:3A06:C807:CF00:1AF8:D622 (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Correction: 2409:4071:D9E:3A06:C807:CF00:1AF8:D622 is me, TSK201911 (talk). Sorry for the mistake, for I had forgotten to sign in. TSK201911 (talk) 17:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Take a look at Talk:Dylan and Cole Sprouse/Archive 1#Separate articles for each?; there was consensus to split their separate activities into individual articles for the two of them in 2017, and there is some duplicated content to those articles in the interest of summarizing their early lives and shared career just a tad before explaining their separate careers. (I think this was done so the article didn't just abruptly start in, like, 2017 with no explanation of anything that occurred prior.) But yes, there has been discussion before about separate versus shared pages, and it is currently deliberate and in line with consensus that both of them exist. - Purplewowies (talk) 00:37, 13 March 2021 (UTC)