User talk:Guy Harris/Archives/2021/09

The game with dates

If you don't mind me asking, what's all this date-altering, scripts, and what-not? When I read your Jedi-imitating mind-control comment for the change, I thought you're playing a game or something, hence my playful response. But is there is a substance to it? Waysidesc (talk) 10:25, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

@Waysidesc: "When I read your Jedi-imitating mind-control comment for the change" My comments were neither Jedi-imitating nor a form of mind control.

The first comment was a response to User:TheBuddy92; their edits added , suggesting that they wanted dates in the article to be in the US "Month day, year" format, but they did not, in fact, change all the dates to that format. I therefore edited the article and clicked on the "DATES to mdy" link in the sidebar; that ran a script provided by Wikipedia that scanned the article to convert all the dates to that format (it also adds a template if it's not already there, but, in this case, there already was one, inserted by one of User:TheBuddy92's edits).

You then proceeded to revert User:TheBuddy92's edits and my edit, so I assumed you didn't prefer the US date format. That left the article with a mix of the "day Month year" format and the YYYY-MM-DD format; I then used the "DATES to dmy" link in the sidebar to convert all the dates to that format.

"I thought you're playing a game or something" No. See above.

"But is there is a substance to it?" Yes. My goal was internal consistency in the date format used in the article. MOS:DATEUNIFY says that "Dates in article body text should all use the same format"; the easiest way to make sure that's the case is to use the date scripts. That also changes the style used for dates in citations; MOS:DATEUNIFY doesn't mandate that those be consistent with the date format used in article body text, but that's one of the choices it suggests.

I don't strongly care what format is consistently used. MOS:DATETIES says that "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation."; Microsoft is a US company, but I'm not sure that's a strong enough tie to the US to recommend the US "Month day, year" date format. MOS:DATERET says that "If an article has evolved using predominantly one date format, this format should be used throughout the article, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page." The version prior to the date-format-changing edits largely used the "day Month year" format, which would seem to match the MOS:DATERET suggestion, but perhaps User:TheBuddy92 believed sufficiently strongly that the article had US ties due to, for example, Microsoft being a US company that they wanted the dates in US "Month day, year" format, but were unaware of the scripts, so I applied the "DATES to mdy" script. When you reverted that, I assumed you might want the dates in "day month year" format, but were unaware of the scripts, so I applied the "DATES to dmy" script.

User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates is the documentation for the date-conversion scripts; {{sectionlink|User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates#Installing the script]] gives information on installing them, perhaps implying that they're not installed by default, so perhaps you (and User:TheBuddy92) don't have them installed by default. Guy Harris (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Seriously? 😂

I reverted change because I thought it was an attempt in knolling. It seemed something unnecessary that caused someone with a script (you) to intervene. But now, you're telling me that Wikipedia is suffering an epidemic case of date consistency disorder?

Tell you what, go change that article's dates (or any other article's dates) to Day-Year-Month format; I won't bat an eyelash this time! And I am not going to click on any of those 8 links that you've inserted here. My God! Date politics! What's happening to this world? Waysidesc (talk) 07:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@Waysidesc: "Seriously?" Yes.

"But now, you're telling me that Wikipedia is suffering an epidemic case of date consistency disorder?" No. I'm just saying that if somebody wants to change the formats of dates in the article, as User:TheBuddy92 apparently wanted to do, they should just use the scripts, rather than doing it manually. Less work, and, yes, more consistency. Guy Harris (talk) 08:58, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll stop doing the mdy/dmy format templates. Apologies! TheBuddy92 (talk) 18:18, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@TheBuddy92: Go ahead and change dates, but, if you want to change dates, do so by installing the scripts and using the "DATES to mdy"/"DATES to dmy" scripts linked to in the sidebar once you've installed the scripts. These edits of yours changed some, but not all, dates; my followup edit using "the "DATES to mdy" script changed the remaining ones. The scripts not only catch all the dates, they do so automatically, so you don't have to manually look for dates and make changes - or insert the "use {mdy,dmy} dates" templates yourself. Less work, more completeness. Guy Harris (talk) 18:51, 29 September 2021 (UTC)