User:John/date linking

This temporary page is intended to resolve as informally and cordially as possible the dispute between User:Rebecca and User:Hmains about date linking. While anyone is welcome to contribute, I'd like us to focus on a solution-based approach from these two users' point of view. It is unlikely (though it would please me very much) if any agreement reached here would be adopted across the board. Perhaps it could serve as a step towards a more general agreement though. Once this dispute is resolved I will paste it into Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). It is explicitly not intended as a content fork of that page. Posting comments here constitutes acceptance of the premise that we are (in the first instance) mediating here and not writing policy. I therefore reserve the right to delete comments or refactor, if I feel that will help achieve our goal.

I want to emphasise that we are not here to talk about past behaviour, but rather to try to move this on. Any comments about the methodology of what we are trying to do here, may be best addressed at this page's talk space rather than here.

Background

At present we have got:

"Partial dates

If the date does not contain both a month and a day, date preferences do not apply: linking or not linking the date will make no difference to the text that the reader sees. So when considering whether such a date should be linked or not, editors should take into account the usual considerations about links, including the recommendations of Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. ...

... There is less agreement about links to years. Some editors believe that links to years are generally useful to establish context for the article. Others believe that links to years are rarely useful to the reader and reduce the readability of the text. Another possibility is to link to a more specific article about that year, for example [[2006 in sports|2006]], although some people find this unintuitive because the link leads to an unexpected destination."

(Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)).

While I think I understand why this compromise version was adopted, I also think the ambiguity leads to some unfortunate friction between users who think all year links, or almost all, should be delinked, and those who regard this as a loss of utility in articles.

Declaration of my own POV

I tend to side more with the delinkers than with the linkers. I find that the majority, even a vast majority of year links are adding little or nothing. I can see the merit of the other side's opinion too, and I promise to try my best to mediate here without regard to my own POV. For interest, here is a recent copyedit I made which includes date delinking: [1]. Guinnog 04:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Framework

Never link / Can be delinked on sight	Seldom link / Usually delink	Usually link / Sometimes delink	Always link / Never delink	User	Comment
Multiple repetitions of the same linked year within a page, especially in lists. Links where the article linked to would in my judgement clearly add no context to the subject of the article.	Recent links, say roughly from 1900 - 2006. "Easter egg links" like [[1933 in aviation\|1933]]. Rather use: (See also 1933 in aviation)	1800 - 1899	dates prior to 1800	Guinnog (before)	These are just my own interpretations; I stress I always discuss link removal on the odd occasion someone challenges it. I obviously try to judge each case on its merits.
Standalone year or year-month links where, in my judgement, they add no context. I rarely see any such value, just confusion as the reader is confronted with a sea of blue years: what is of value to them? What not?	N/A	N/A	Year links in century articles	Hmains	As far as I know, this is the editing I am supposed to be doing as a WP editor. However, I also do not like the loose guidelines and the trouble they cause and said so when they were being discussed; however, in the interest of 'consensus', the guidelines, as written, were accepted.
I think this is inherently a judgement call. If someone thinks it is useful, keep it. If someone doesn't, remove it. Just don't get in the habit of spending all ones time doing either one or the other.	Generally, I don't mind if people cut recent links (say, last twenty years). I disagree with Guinnog about setting a cutoff about 1900 - most of the most useful links, I would argue, are those for historical articles during the 20th century, where providing a broader geopolitical context is often really quite relevant.	Again, I think this is inherently a judgement call. There are many cases where links in the time periods both Guinnog and I mention where date links may be relevant, but there also many where they may not. I don't think setting specified dates is particularly helpful, though I do think there's much less likely to be an issue with removing date links in the last couple of decades.	As above.	Rebecca	I think this really is a matter of both having respect for other points of view and using a bit of discretion. Setting hard and fast rules inevitably leaves useless date links in and leads to the removal of perfectly useful ones.
Multiple repetitions of the same linked year within a page.	Any year link, except in special circumstances. "Easter egg links" like [[1933 in aviation\|1933]]. Rather use: (See also 1933 in aviation)	Century links (most cases)	Year and/or century links that are critical to the understanding of the article	Guinnog (after)	I have learned a lot from this study and thought it would be interesting to summarise that in this table.
Multiple repetitions of the same linked year within a page. "Easter egg links".	Years mentioned in an article, where the event is important, but not the year itself. E.g., the year an album was released in an article not about the album.	Any year links important enough to the article that it would be appropriate to use them in the main (summary) section, e.g. the founding year for an empire in that empire's article, or the year a swimmer won the Olympics in an article about the swimmer.	Birth and death years, or years in century articles.	Quadell

Next step

Thank you Hmains and Rebecca, for filling in the table above. As the next step in resolving this, I'd like you both to look now at a test page I've made up. You each have your own copy; it is based on a real article. I have removed all the non-date links and added a few more examples of date linking which I thought might provide interesting discussion points. I'd like you each to copyedit your own copy of the article, with reference to your own ideas of good practice in date linking. As far as I can see, neither of you have ever edited the original article. There is no need to change anything else other than dates.

Rules

Only edit your own version.
No peeking at the other person's version!
No peeking at the original article this is based on.
Please don't edit the original article until this is over.

Take your time, and try to do it just as you would if you were copyediting it in the normal way of things.

Hmains, yours is here. Rebecca, yours is here. If anyone else wants to take part, they may edit this third copy. Best wishes, and thanks again for your good faith in taking part so far. --Guinnog 12:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to go through the article itself, as I've got other things to be doing. That said, I could see no great problem with removing the links in the "popular culture" and "other contexts" sections. The rest is an inherent judgement call, and as I don't particularly care that much (so long as they're not all removed), I'm not going to go through them myself. Rebecca 23:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

In that case I will do it for you, according to my understanding of what you have said. You can correct my edits if I get any wrong. I do think this is worth spending time on though. If we get it right it could help defuse a whole area of completely unnecessary conflict over what really amounts to a tiny detail of linking policy, that has wasted loads and loads of people's time, who no doubt could have been doing something productive with it. By putting in place a compromise that you and Hmains are both happy with, and making it stick, we would be doing an immense favour to the project I think. --Guinnog 23:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I think we can do the same if people start using their own discretion - if they're sensible about it, I'm hardly going to bother objecting. I really don't see the need to each set out how we'd personally use that discretion, as long as people stop killing them all. Rebecca 23:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I'll beg your indulgence to play along with the exercise I've constructed though, to the extent of checking the diff when I make the edit (which will be well within the next hour) according to what you've just said, both directly above and in your answer in the table, and telling me if it's broadly ok with you. My idea would be to then talk about any differences between my/your edit, and that of Hmains when he did it, towards establishing a synthesis version of the table above. This would then become a consensus between us three which (if they wanted) others could adapt and/or adopt. The very least we can do is prevent future problems from getting between you two again, and at most we might establish guidelines for "discretion", and what "sensible" means (for one problem is, these can mean different things to different people). It would at least be something that the wider group of users interested in this kind of thing could shoot down in flames at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)! I've said some more on this at User talk:Guinnog/date linking as well. --Guinnog 23:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I did that quite deliberately using several edits. I tried to follow what you said, and also eliminated a couple of outright errors, using my discretion in the case of a 1980. Finally I tried to remove multiple links to the same destination, in one case a redirect. --Guinnog 00:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks reasonable to me. There are others I could take or leave, but neither particularly want removed or particularly want kept. Thanks for your help with this - I appreciate stepping in for me when I really did have to go home and do some study. Rebecca 02:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

(deindent) You're very welcome. It was kind of fun trying to edit as I imagine you would have done, and I'm glad you are broadly in agreement with what I did on your behalf. It'll be 24 hours or so until I can get to analysing the different edits towards a refined version of the table. Best wishes (to both of you) for giving up your time to help solve this. --Guinnog 02:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate policy discussion page, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Year linking and delinking or User talk:Guinnog. No further edits should be made to this page.