Template talk:Circa/Archive 1

Archive 1

Problems with invisible span

The trick with the invisible span causes problems in common uses of {{Circa}}. For example, in Philitas of Cos # Life, the following image:

[[Image:Ptolemaic-Empire-300BC.jpeg|thumb|left|alt=Map of eastern Mediterranean, showing the Ptolemaic Kingdom, Alexandria in the north of Egypt, and Cos in the Aegean just off the coast of Asia|The [[Ptolemaic Kingdom]], {{circa|300 BC}}, was centered on [[Alexandria]] in [[ancient Egypt]]; [[Kos|Cos]] was on its northwest frontier.]]

generates the following HTML

<div class="thumb tleft">

<div class="thumbinner" style="width:182px;"><a href="/wiki/File:Ptolemaic-Empire-300BC.jpeg" class="image" title="The Ptolemaic Kingdom, 300&#160;BCc.&#160;300&#160;BC, was centered on Alexandria in ancient Egypt; Cos was on its northwest frontier."><img alt="Map of eastern Mediterranean, showing the Ptolemaic Kingdom, Alexandria in the north of Egypt, and Cos in the Aegean just off the coast of Asia" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/Ptolemaic-Empire-300BC.jpeg/180px-Ptolemaic-Empire-300BC.jpeg" width="180" height="141" class="thumbimage" /></a>

<div class="thumbcaption">

<div class="magnify"><a href="/wiki/File:Ptolemaic-Empire-300BC.jpeg" class="internal" title="Enlarge"><img src="/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png" width="15" height="11" alt="" /></a></div>

The <a href="/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom" title="Ptolemaic Kingdom">Ptolemaic Kingdom</a>, <span style="display: none;">300&#160;BC</span><a href="/wiki/Circa" title="Circa">c.</a>&#160;300&#160;BC, was centered on <a href="/wiki/Alexandria" title="Alexandria">Alexandria</a> in <a href="/wiki/Ancient_Egypt" title="Ancient Egypt">ancient Egypt</a>; <a href="/wiki/Kos" title="Kos">Cos</a> was on its northwest frontier.</div>

</div>

</div>

Notice the underlined text "300 BCc. 300 BC". It is incorrect, since it attempts to render the "invisible" text into the image's title text. This causes the tooltip to contain some garbage.

Worse, even in plain text, the trick causes text browsers such as Lynx to display the "invisible" text, thus messing up the message, thus hurting WP:ACCESSIBILITY.

To fix this, I propose we remove the invisible-text trick, as is done in this obvious sandbox edit. Eubulides (talk) 22:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

And what about the many, many places that want to use {{circa NUMBER}} in a sortable table? You'll then break all of them. —ras52 (talk) 00:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

In any case, the text you quote is rendered:

The <a href="/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom" title="Ptolemaic Kingdom">Ptolemaic Kingdom</a>, <span style="display: none;">300 BC</span><a href="/wiki/Circa" title="Circa">c.</a> 300 BC, was centered on <a href="/wiki/Alexandria" title="Alexandria">Alexandria</a> in <a href="/wiki/Ancient_Egypt" title="Ancient Egypt">ancient Egypt</a>; <a href="/wiki/Kos" title="Kos">Cos</a> was on its northwest frontier.

...which looks perfectly fine to me.—ras52 (talk) 00:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• We have to balance the many occurrences inside sortable tables against the many, many more places that use {{circa}} outside sortable tables. All those places are broken now, for text browsers like Lynx, and more generally, for visually-impaired readers who use a screen reader such as JAWS or Orca, as well as for graphical browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer.
• The text I quote is rendered as I stated, and the underlined part is the part that's in error. The part that you quoted indeed does not contain the error, and does look perfectly fine. But that's not the problem. The problem is in the part that you didn't quote.
• Let me give a simpler example of the error:

[[File:Bad Title Example.png|100px|{{circa|1550}}]]

This generates the HTML:

<a href="/wiki/File:Example.png" class="image" title="1550c.&#160;1550"><img alt="1550c.&#160;1550" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/70/Example.png/100px-Example.png" width="100" height="108" /></a>

which displays as:

This image's title attribute and alt attribute are both "1550c. 1550", which is clearly wrong. This error causes a screen reader to say something like "1550 cee dot 1550", instead of the correct "cee dot 1550", which hurts WP:ACCESSIBILITY. It also causes a typical graphical browser to generate a tooltip that says "1550c. 1550" instead of the correct "c. 1550". I can see that bug right now by hovering my mouse over that sample image.

Eubulides (talk) 07:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

As a compromise I'm inclined to install this simple change, which generates the sortable-but-less-accessible output if a new "sortable=yes" parameter is specified. This should support users who prefer the behavior in sortable tables even though it makes the tables less accessible. Eubulides (talk) 19:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I systematically searched through Wikipedia pages to find all articles that used {{circa}} inside a sortable table. There were four such articles; I fixed them all to use the new "sortable=yes" parameter. Here are the changes I installed to these four pages:

• changes to List of Hewitts and Nuttalls in Wales
• changes to List of church restorations, amendments and furniture by John Douglas
• changes to Listed buildings in Widnes
• changes to List of mountains and hills of the United Kingdom

This removed the main objection to the proposed change, so I installed it. Eubulides (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Spacing

The spacing between the c. and the year seems unnaturally large (on Vista FF 3.5.5), when the year starts with a 1 (as most years are inclined to do). Is there anything that could be done? CSS? A narrow space character? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 01:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

We can't replace   with   because the latter can be replaced by a line break. We could try replacing it with  , the NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE (U+202F) introduced in Unicode 3.0 for Mongolian. Here's what it looks like:

• c. 1066 (from "c. 1066")
• c. 1066 (from "c. 1066")
• c. 1066 (from "c. 1066")

Does the first line work better for you? We can't use the second line, due to the line-break problems with it. Eubulides (talk) 06:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

No, they all render exactly the same. I don't think there's a sensible way to hack around a kerning issue. Non-sensible methods include adding a span with negative left margin. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

That's odd, because the first two lines do show thinner spaces for me. (They're equally thin.) I observe a thinner space both with Chromium 4.0.245.0 (Developer Build 31616) and with Firefox 3.5.5. I don't have easy access to Vista, though. I agree that negative spans would be a no-no. Perhaps we should use " " anyway? After all, it helps with some browsers, even if it doesn't help with them all. Eubulides (talk) 04:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

On a different computer now (XP SP3, FF 3.5.5), which doesn't have a font for " ", and it displays a unicode box. The " " does give a thinner space though. Looks like there's nothing to be done short of removing the space altogether. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

With Chrome 3.0.195.33 on Vista, I see the spacing differences between each one, but they're very small. (If it wasn't for an aperture grille, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the first two.) On IE7 on Vista, at normal resolution, the first two are indistinguishable, the third is larger—but zooming in, the differences between all are apparent. That's consistent with other observed behaviour on IE7—spacing is very granular, even with finely-tuned CSS.   works for me; it's unfortunate that XP doesn't seem to support it natively. TheFeds 16:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Ouch: I think that Unicode box effectively ends the question about whether we can use some other character. (We can't use "&#thinsp;" due to the line break problem.) But hey! I have another idea! How about this?

1. c. 1066 (from "c. 1066"; the current behavior)
2. c. 1066 (from "c.<small>&nbsp;</small>1066")
3. c. 1066 (from "<small>c.&nbsp;</small>1066")

This should work with any browser. On my Firefox 3.5.5, it makes the no-break space a tiny bit smaller, but every little bit helps, no? I mildly prefer (3) to (2), and (2) to (1). How about you guys? Eubulides (talk) 20:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Number 2 looks good. Should help make it less jarring to the text flow. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 00:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

2 looks good; 3 looks a bit strange. Another option: we could use <span style = "white-space: nowrap">c.&thinsp;{{{1}}}</span> → c. 1066 if we want to use the thin space character, but want to prevent wrapping.

1. c. 1066 (from "c. 1066"; the current behavior)
2. c. 1066 (from "c.<small>&nbsp;</small>1066")
3. c. 1066 (with the HTML thin space, and CSS nowrap)

TheFeds 04:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that suggestion. #3 looks best to me. I got bold and installed it. Eubulides (talk) 16:05, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I just made a change to implement it with CSS instead of {{nowrap}}, to avoid transcluding it for such a simple case. I doubt we'll see any substantial change to the behavior of {{nowrap}} that will need to be applied automatically here, so this should be robust, and won't run afoul of the preprocessor node count limit. (Was there a specific intent to transclude {{nowrap}}, or just to keep the text non-breaking?) TheFeds 23:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

No, no intent, and the change is of course fine. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 07:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Italics

A recent edit altered the template so that the "c" or "circa" is italicized. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) #Foreign terms says "Loanwords or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online." Merriam-Webster lists "circa" as an English word, so under that guideline "circa" should be in roman, not italics. Perhaps we should add an option to italicize the "circa", for editors that prefer italics despite the guideline? Is there a common name for such a parameter? Eubulides (talk) 23:44, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I added support for this to Template:Circa/sandbox, using the parameter named |i=. For example, "{{circa/sandbox|i=''|1320}}" → "c. 1320". Eubulides (talk) 07:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, didn't realise this was contentious - I thought all foreign words (and hence their abbreviations) must be italicised; hence fl., but d., for instance. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 07:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Circa is an English word (we stole it from Latin, and it's ours now!), so it doesn't need to be italicized. Of course, some people like to italicize it (I guess they're using the Latin word, not the English word...) so there should be an option to italicize it. The Wikipedia style guide says that in cases like these, the word shouldn't be italicized (see the 1st comment in this thread). I'll install the change. Eubulides (talk) 07:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

What's with the dotted underline?

What's with the dotted underline? It's something I've never seen it in history books or populist scientific articles? I thought there was a mark on my screen! Kevin McE (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It is the default browser style for abbr elements. Move the mouse over it and a tooltip will appear. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} If the default is to remain unlinked, the following line should be removed and the documentation updated.

  |abbr= <abbr title="circa">c.</abbr>

OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I've left abbr in as I think the code is more clear like that? Documentation can be updated by anyone of course. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

sortable=yes not compatible with

{{Dts}} inserts a "0" before the year for sorting. Circa doesn't, which messes with sorting. In the following table, only Rarebit Reveries uses {{circa}}:

Comic strips by Winsor McCay

Title	Begin date	End date
Little Sammy Sneeze	July 24, 1904	December 9, 1906
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend	September 10, 1904	June 25, 1911
	January 19, 1913	August 3, 1913
Little Nemo in Slumberland	October 15, 1905	1914
	1924	1927
Rarebit Reveries	1923 c. 1923	1925 c. 1925

CüRlyTüRkey^Talk_Contribs 02:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Correct the default setting

Practically no one but the already-invested will show up here, but I'd like to record my support for any move the correct this template. The default should be a c. with a simple non-ugly thin no-break space; the default should not be anything with unsightly dotted underlining.

I'm not saying we should remove the feature or the functionality; but the extra typing should be on the part of those wanting to make their pages uglier and their use of this template overly distracting. — LlywelynII 14:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Fwiw, yes, less annoyed now that I see I can use {{c.}}. Still... ;) — LlywelynII 14:45, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Rationale needed

I imagine there is a rationale for typing {{circa}} rather than c. It would be helpful if some of the editors involved in producing this template provided such a rationale on the template main page to assist the non-cognoscenti.

On another matter, I would personally prefer having no underline as the default; the dotted underline is certainly not a familiar typographic convention. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:04, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the dotted underline, or why this template is needed at all. OK, the "parameters" section does give some possible reasons. It would be useful to summarise those under "Usage". 86.160.211.58 (talk) 02:01, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I understand that the dotted underline is a standard way to indicate to the user that there's a popup available; the same method is used at {{H:title}} and {{Abbr}}, for example e.g. or abbr.. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:25, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Have sortable=dts to match Template:Dts

Because Template:Dts puts lead digits "00" or "0" before each year, then {circa} must also prepend "0" or else all circa-formatted years would sort to the bottom of dts-formatted dates. For example: {{dts|789|12|13}} has generated the following sort key:

• <span style="display:none; speak:none" class="sortkey">00789-12-13</span>

An option "sortable=dts" would match the sort-key format of {dts}, and the leading zeroes would be added by {padleft:789|5|0} = 00789. -Wikid77 13:12, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Fixing sort key for screenreaders

Per wp:ACCESS, {circa} should handle accessibility issues. The option "speak:none" and an extra space are needed, after the sort-key year, to separate from the "c." as previously formatted in run-together style: {circa|1850} had generated "1850c. 1850". -Wikid77 13:12, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Beware overuse

Instead of Template:Circa, users should often just put "c.&nbsp;1850" or such, because there are too many templates in use, forstering more wp:template creep. When a feature is changed in Template:Circa, then it triggers reformatting of all related pages, which can span over 3 days when more than 1,000 pages are affected (used in over 5,000 pages by 2013). Try to limit use where needed most, such as in sorted tables where "sortable=yes" is crucial to be used. -Wikid77 13:12, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

So what? Is this a problem in any way? Pburka (talk) 21:27, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

c. and space or no-break one?

I was going to propose that the template adds a non-break space.. The MOS recommends uses that as an example. The first use could it however add a space? Would it display two if either a regular space or a non-break one (or other) followed? Then I saw the second use here. Is a thin-space better than the MOS example? comp.arch (talk) 19:14, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Merge for new metatemplate features?

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see proposed merger (leaving behind a wrapper at the original template name): Template talk:Reign:Overhauled, and basically a meta-template – maybe merge some stuff?
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:42, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I suspect SMC meant Template talk:Reign#Overhauled, and basically a meta-template – maybe merge some stuff? (: vs #) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:54, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 March 2019

Please remove the line <noinclude>{{pp-template|small=yes}}</noinclude> - protection templates are automatically handled by the documentation page. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:38, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

 Done — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:53, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

range dash example

The documentation suggests

{{circa|1000}}–1050 : c. 1000–1050 : For ranges in a more compact form (without spaces and extra "c.")

This is wrong and abusive to the reader. It is abusive because the lack of spacing around the dash implies that the "c." applies to the entire range, which it shouldn't, because MOS:CIRCA says "Where both endpoints of a range are approximate, c. should appear before each date." It is wrong because, per MOS:CIRCA, the single "c." applies only to the starting date, which means that the starting date includes a space, which means that the en dash must be spaced per MOS:DASH, which states, "The en dash in a range is always unspaced, except when either or both elements of the range include at least one space." This usage should not be promoted. It is wrong. Throughout Wikipedia, every "c." followed by a range of years with an unspaced en dash needs to be corrected. —Anomalocaris (talk) 11:17, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

This was added on 7 January 2019 by User:Mwtoews. Maybe that editor can shed some light why this was done. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:25, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I've reverted for now. Primefac (talk) 16:02, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Displaying strangely

For some reason, this template results in strange appearances on my Windows 10 machine. It looks a bit like ".c," but not quite - something funny is going on. This is the same on Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. On Internet Explorer, it's a bit different - it seems that it's "c." with three dots just underneath it. Is this something other people see? If so, is anyone able to fix it, please? - The Parson's Cat (talk) 13:16, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

The default (e.g. c. 2020) uses {{abbr}}, which "underlines" the text with a dotted line. My guess is that your browser is unable to render that properly. Primefac (talk) 13:19, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - posted a query at Template talk:Abbr#Displaying strangely - The Parson's Cat (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Late comment (Sep 30). I came here because my laptop display showed a complete mess at the Circa "c". Only when I change the display zoom to 400% could I work out that for reasons I didn't understand then, it was dotted underlined. Those dots have got to go - they are completely counter-productive. Having got here on my desktop where I can see the dots at "only" 200% zoom, I understand that it is some form of hover help. It doesn't work (Win 7 MSEdge) for me. I know c. is circa. But I that messy splodge could be anything. Horrid. -- SGBailey (talk) 21:14, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

It's your browser that's making it look so "horrid", not us. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 184#"{{circa}}" for an explanation. Nardog (talk) 21:23, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Quite likely - it is microsoft and thus naff. But I can't see the point of the dots for anybody. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:56, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

As explained above, this template uses {{abbr}} which produces this dotted underlined text which is normally helpful. It's just that for a very short abbreviation, as here, it might look confusing in some environments. Editors have the choice to omit the underline (|lk=no) or not to use this template. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Add 'circa' and 'ca.'

Options are needed for the template to also write out 'circa' and 'ca', because not all people use 'c.', and some might confuse this for 'century'. -Mardus /talk 10:26, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

There's no point in adding support for 'circa'. If you hover over the 'c.' then "circa" is displayed so there would be no point in adding support to display "circa" as the interpretation of 'circa'. Generally (well IME) 'C' is used for century so there's no problem with 'c' – consider C19 or 18thC for example. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Another reason not to add "circa" as an output is because it is the epitome of pointless, i.e. typing {{circa}} to display circa. Primefac (talk) 11:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

What, then, about ca.? -Mardus /talk 16:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I personally have no opinion on that, will defer to others. Might be worth cross-posting at MOS, they really dig this sort of stuff. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 July 2021

Circa is no longer an article - it is a disambiguation page. When the link is on in this template, it should no longer link to Circa. The link should either be removed, or link to wikt:circa, I have no preference as to which. -Niceguyedc (talk) 08:08, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

 Done firefly ( t · c ) 09:20, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

can i use on short description template?

i am wondering whether this template can be used in Short description? --28au21 (talk) 17:06, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

It might be better to ask the general question at the shortdesc talk page: I would guess that templates (in general) do not work inside of a shortdesc. Primefac (talk) 17:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 13 January 2020

The documentation mentions

If the parameter "cap=yes" is specified, the result starts with a capital letter.

However, it is not working in the Edith Roosevelt article (see the caption for the image in the infobox). Was the pearameter deleted, never implemented, or something else? I'd like to have it for cases such as the Roosevelt image, in which it is the beginning of a sentence. —DocWatson42 (talk) 20:42, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

From a quick glance at the history, I can't see any evidence that this support was ever implemented. I think it's a documentation error, unfortunately. pburka (talk) 21:02, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. The Caps "option" was added to the documentation in 2014, but the template at that time period did not contain such a parameter, and doesn't appear to have been added since. Primefac (talk) 22:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Would someone please be so kind as to add that option? Also, why a hair space instead of a regular space? (I'd prefer the latter.) —DocWatson42 (talk) 12:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. I feel like from a MOS perspective that it shouldn't be capitalised, ever, but I would want to get some more MOS-savvy folks in here to discuss. I mean, I suspect there's a reason no one ever asked for it before now... Primefac (talk) 12:47, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

NB: I've commented out the mention of the never-implemented parameter, with a pointer to this talk section, so as to avoid confusion.

- 2A02:560:424B:4100:E5DA:F02E:6B55:F735 (talk) 10:59, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 4 March 2022

MOS:CIRCA says not to italicize the "c." abbreviation, and in fact I've removed all instances of {{circa|.*|i= from the main namespace. So, I think the i= option should be removed from {{circa}}. I suggest this edit:

Extended content

{{circa}} is currently: {{#if:{{{sortable|}}} |<span style="display:none; speak:none;">{{padleft:{{{1|}}}|4|0}} </span> }}{{#if:{{{i|}}} |<nowiki/>'' }}{{#switch:{{{lk|}}} |no|off = <span title="circa">c.</span> |yes|on = [[wikt:circa#English|c.]] |abbr |#default = <abbr title="circa">c.</abbr> }}{{#if:{{{i|}}} |''<nowiki/> }}{{#if:{{{1|}}} |<span style="white-space:nowrap;"> {{{1}}}</span> }}{{#if:{{{2|}}} | – c.<span style="white-space:nowrap;"> {{{2}}}</span> }}<noinclude> {{Documentation}} </noinclude> {{#if:{{{sortable|}}} |<span style="display:none; speak:none;">{{padleft:{{{1|}}}|4|0}} </span> }}{{#switch:{{{lk|}}} |no|off = <span title="circa">c.</span> |yes|on = [[wikt:circa#English|c.]] |abbr |#default = <abbr title="circa">c.</abbr> }}{{#if:{{{1|}}} |<span style="white-space:nowrap;"> {{{1}}}</span> }}{{#if:{{{2|}}} | – c.<span style="white-space:nowrap;"> {{{2}}}</span> }}<noinclude> {{Documentation}} </noinclude>

--Quuxplusone (talk) 22:13, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Please make your proposed changes to Template:Circa/sandbox. Some spaces changed when I copied your code below. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:21, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Removed the |i= parameter; other stuff was kept. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 23:18, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Unnecessary

It is completely unnecessary to have a template to generate the abbreviation "c.". The dotted underline is also unnecessary visual clutter. In the event that someone does not know what "c." means, they can look it up. It is not necessary for Wikipedia to provide an inline explanation of every common word or abbreviation. This template should be deprecated or even deleted. 109.152.147.133 (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Wait, this template makes sorting tables with circa-year dates much easier for users who do not know the sort-key details, by using option "sortable=yes". However, the use of {circa|_} should be kept limited where not needed. Instead there are numerous other templates which should be deleted, to reduce clutter. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

How do you propose they look it up? The single letter abbreviation is quite ambiguous, and cryptic abbreviations present an undesirable barrier-to-entry for non-expert editors. The underline provides an effective and unobtrusive way for an inexperienced reader to discover the meaning of the abbreviation. To suggest that c. is a common word or abbreviation reflects, I think, a certain professional arrogance which Wikipedia should avoid. While we need not restrict ourselves to simple English, we shouldn't assume that all of our readers are college educated native English speakers. Pburka (talk) 17:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

They look it up by typing "c." into the Wikipedia search box, whereupon, lo and behold, "Circa" is the first entry in the page that comes up. To suggest that "c." is a "cryptic" abbreviation is simply ridiculous, by the way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.185.210 (talk) 02:59, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I just removed one on a dab page, and dabs, like most usages of this, are not sortable tables. Typing 15 characters to get the letter c is a ridiculous overuse of templates. SpinningSpark 00:36, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Spinningspark, I completely agree with the (generally) unnecessary usage. I think if consensus is gathered, we might be able to remove all instances of this (and, potentially, {{born}}) that aren't being used in sortable tables. Primefac (talk) 00:41, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

What people don't seem to have considered is that this template adds a non-breaking space (well, it should anyway), which is required by MOS:DATE. {{c.|2017}} is one character shorter than c. 2017 and easier to read and understand in the editing screen. I think it was a big mistake though to merge {{Circa}} and {{c.}}; the tooltip is clutter if the template is used multiple times on the same page. M.Clay1 (talk) 05:26, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

...and what you don't seem to understand is that edits like this where the "c. " is in a list or the beginning of the first line of an article (majority of cases) it is never going to line-wrap on the space unless the user has the screen width set so ridiculously small that long words are breaking across lines as well. You are edit warring over a ridiculous piece of useless clutter that is never going to make one iota of difference to the reader's experience. And by the way, the MOS says "ideally", not "required". In fact the MOS almost never says "required" as a matter of policy, meaning the community don't want it enforced by self-appointed style police. SpinningSpark 00:46, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Why underlined?

Why is the “c.” created by this template underlined? (See screencap at right.) It’s completely unnecessary and distracting. Please remove the underlining. Using WP:BOLD, I would have done it myself, but the template is fully protected. Thanks! — SpikeToronto 23:08, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Thats not underlined; this is underlined. The template here, {{Circa}}, calls {{Abbr}} which uses the HTML element <abbr>...</abbr> to generate a tooltip. I'm not aware of any interface on touch-devices that allows access to tooltips (how do you hover with a finger?), so it's pointless for browsers on such devices to show the dots. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:21, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek: You are correct: One cannot hover with an iPad. Therefore, is there a “conditional” that can be added to {{abbr}} so that the dots do not display on touch devices (i.e., a browser-specific display:none sort of thing)? Otherwise, thanks for the explanation! — SpikeToronto 03:55, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

That's certainly not possible within templates. It is possible for the Wikimedia software to render pages differently for mobile devices, and I don't know why it displays tooltips; maybe there are mobile devices that cater for them (I've heard of "long press"). Still, I think the simplest solution would be for a browser that doesn't support it on touch devices not to display the dots. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:46, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

And you can hover with some mobile touch devices; it's a matter of moving the pointer over the text in question, so any touch device that lets you drag a cursor around will do it. So, that's lots of touch-screen laptops and "netbooks" if anyone still uses that term. E.g., I have an HP Envy that works this way, running Windows 8, and it continues to work that way if I take off the physical keyboard and just use it as a tablet.

Anyway, suppressing the element's "decoration" could be done in en.Wikiepdia's mobile stylesheet. I'm not sure this is a good idea unless we're certain that no devices that use the mobile version of the site are capable of a "hover" that bring up the tool tip. I'm quite skeptical about that.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:53, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't think this particular template should be doing <abbr>...</abbr> markup by default, because "c." is a basic, every abbreviation people are familiar with (though some prefer it as "ca.", a spelling MoS doesn't like). It should only do this when told to. It's a different case for {{Reign}}, because "r. " isn't going to necessarily mean anything to the average reader. Same goes with {{Floruit}}'s "fl.". And {{Sic}} should probably stick with the explicit link: [sic]. In short, these templates don't have a one-size-fits-all default behavior (though {{circa}}, {{floruit}}, and {{reign}} can still mostly be merged into a meta-template, most of the work for which I've already done at Template:Reign; I've opened a merge discussion at Template talk:Reign.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:53, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Came here to say the same thing. The dotted underlining is more distracting than helpful for such a widely used abbreviation. Krubo (talk) 23:08, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I don't see the utility of the template, as c. and circa are widely used in English, and I see the underlining as distracting. Eric ^talk 12:35, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Explanation of circa in tooltip

As the rationale behind having this template is to help people know who aren't familiar with the concept, wouldn't it be better to have an explanation in the tooltip rather than just saying "circa". For example, {{floruit}} says "floruit ('flourished' – known to have been active at a particular time or during a particular period)". Would anyone object to changing the tooltip to say something like "circa ('about' or 'around')"? ‑‑Yodin^T 17:43, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I'd use 'approximately', since 'about' and 'around' are a bit ambiguous (e.g. they can also mean 'related to' or 'surrounding' in other contexts). pburka (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Yep, I agree; I've added that as the wording to the sandbox version and will put in an edit request if noone else objects. ‑‑Yodin^T 19:20, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I've added {{Edit template-protected}} above; all changes are in the template sandbox, and working as expected on the testcases page. ‑‑Yodin^T 18:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I personally would like to see more substantial consensus before this change is implemented. To me "approximately" implies the precise number is known but not used because it's not important, and "circa" implies it is not known. And I'm not so sure if a gloss is needed at all—"circa" doesn't strike me as such an obscure term or concept that it requires an explanation. Nardog (talk) 18:31, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the edit request until a consensus emerges. Circa may be obvious to well educated readers, but it's a Latin loan-word, and there are readers who won't be very familiar with it (that seems to be the purpose of this template, which would be redundant if everyone was familiar with it). I can't see any significant downside to adding the meaning of the word, in the same way as {{fl}}. As for the precise meaning, Mirriam-Webster, Cambridge, Google, and Wiktionary all use 'approximately' as the primary word in their definitions; others (such as OED and our disambiguation page circa) use 'about' and 'around', which are often given as subsequent words in other definitions. Some combination of these words should be able to remove any ambiguity; maybe others will be able to come up with a better wording, if there's a consensus in favour! ‑‑Yodin^T 19:13, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

...resuming discussion...

I'd like to revive this discussion. The set of readers who know what circa means, but don't know that "c." means circa, is tiny. A tooltip allows us a bit more room than a single word; why not use it? Ovinus (talk) 00:03, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you have evidence to back up that assertion? I think that most people will know what circa means (unlike floruit, which is obscure), but not everyone will have seen it abbreviated as c. Primefac (talk) 09:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

This seems to me quite a bit like the curse of knowledge, assuming that everyone (or an overwhelming majority) knows what it means regardless of age, education level, English language ability, etc. Even if most people (let's say 99%) understand what it means, surely this template is specifically for the remaining people who don't? Is there any downside to adding this to the tooltip? ‑‑Yodin^T 12:39, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

For the record, my reply was specifically to Ovinus' comment about who knows what as far as a "tiny number" of people goes. You are correct that this template is not for the people who already know what c. stands for (or to a lesser extent know what circa means), so it probably causes no harm, but Nardog expressed some concerns and I think there might still be some room for discussion here. I am happy to implement whatever the consensus happens to come out to. It might also be worth dropping a note at WT:WPMOS to see if any of the MOS-savvy folk have opinions on this template. Primefac (talk) 14:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

My 2¢: I think any template used on this common English vocabulary term should strive for minimal distraction (as discussed above circa 2015). I don't mean to be contentious when I state that I find it a bit silly and convoluted to type out the word circa and then wrap it in template syntax in order to produce an abbreviation, which in turn has to be coded to explain itself via gadgets (and to have a distracting underline). This may be more an observation for the MOS, but in writing a piece, I would tend to simply use the full word circa (not italicized) for the first instance of the term, then maybe switch to manually abbreviating it later in the text, especially if there are many instances of the term. At the risk of exposing myself yet further as a grumpy old curmudgeon: In my day, when you ran across a word that was unfamiliar in a text, you looked it up in a dictionary and thereby added it to your vocabulary. Eric ^talk 15:30, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but our esteemed MoS doesn't, requiring {{circa}} or c. instead of circa even in prose where space is not at a premium. Perhaps a quick survey of how often books use circa over c. would help, and I can poll some high schoolers this week. (Edit: 15 knew circa, 10 knew c., 4 knew circa but not c., 1 knew c. but not circa. Small sample, but Primefac seems right.) But I sense a broader inconsistency here, that fairly common usages like c. are given tooltips, while words that are far less known are strongly discouraged from any clarification beyond a Wiktionary link. (Tangentially, to fight the exceptional reading difficulty of many Wikipedia articles—people forget too often about the average reader—I would love what EB and others do: a tooltip for unfamiliar abbreviations and unfamiliar words—"His new pal is oh so pulchritudinous"—but there's no chance the community will accept that.) Ovinus (talk) 16:23, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ovinus I came here after seeing "c." on a page just to argue against that. Frankly, when it happened, I had to stop for a second to figure out what "c." means. It was especially hard to understand because it was used before a number of troops, not a year. That abbreviation is not at all commonly used in my language, and I'm sure it's not in many other Romance languages because we don't use such Latin abbreviations. I'm also sure that many other people who speak English as a second language but are not as experienced as I am would have no idea what that is, or how to find that out. Googling "c" is not going to help.

I simply don't see what's to be gained by this. If a single person struggles to understand it, it was already not worth the couple of bytes of storage that were saved. The template says that some browsers use smaller spaces or whatever, but the Wikipedia app itself uses _bigger_ spaces both before and after the "c.".

The way I see it, that makes Wikipedia more technical with no pros at all. If my cousin who's in middle school is reading a page on history and asks my aunt was "circa" was, my aunt will know. If she asks what "c." is, my aunt will neither know, nor have recourse to find out. ~victorsouza (talk) 13:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello Victor. I understand that the c. might be a head-scratcher the first time you encounter it, but I can assure you that it (and ca) are quite common in English. Good dictionaries will have entries for them, e.g. AHD, Cambridge. Eric ^talk 14:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)