Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 156

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Should MOSNUM be brought closer to the Times Style Guide’s prescription on Sport?

There is a mismatch between a literal reading of MOSNUM advice on UK usage and the Times Style Guide..

This guide says, "The overwhelming preference is sporting, foreign, engineering and scientific stories to be metric…” [1] MOSNUM follows this in science and non-UK/US contexts and has adapted this in engineering. However, in the sporting context, the Times Style Guide is not explicitly followed. As a result, a literal reading of MOSNUM guidance may be somewhat out of line with the Times Style Guide, British practice and much Wikipedia practice in several sports.

UK weightlifting rules [2] measure the weights (and the weightlifters) in kilograms.

UK Rugby League [3] (metric only format for heights and weights)

UK Rugby Union [4] (metric only format for heights and weights)

This format is also used in Premier League player profiles, e.g. [5] or [6] and in some UK football teams, e.g., Tottenham Hotspurs [7]

Wikipedia player profiles in these sports more often than not follow the format used by the sport and because of the general sanctions,[8] this cannot change without agreement.

To deal with this gap between MOSNUM and Wikipedia practice, an explanatory clause like the engineering clause could be helpful. Perhaps it could read like this:

In UK sporting articles, the primary units should generally follow the predominant usage of the sport.

This would support present UK practice in sports, whether imperial or metric, and also support the predominant Wikipedia practice. Also, as any adjustment in the order of UK units would still have to be approved in advance, the good order achieved by the General Sanctions on UK units would not be overturned.

What do others think of this proposal?Michael Glass (talk) 02:03, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah, back to this crap. It hasn't been missed.

We already follow what the Times tells us to pretty closely. When the Times says that most units in British sporting contexts are metric, that's true, in Wikipedia as elsewhere. The apparent confusion arises because it is only in the strange world of units disputes in Wikipedia where the most important aspects of sporting units usage are the measurements of the physical dimensions of the players and not, say, the dimensions of the field of play or the usage in the rules or laws of the games in question.

(This is more widespread than this. I once deleted a sport section of Metrication in the United Kingdom because it mentioned nothing about the degree of metrication in sport but went on and on about which units individual websites used to measure players.)

No matter how many times you try to claim the contrary, it is not evidence of anything to provide links to individual usages and claim them to be universal. All they are representative of are a single website, if that.

You make sweeping claims of all of rugby (both codes) based on the websites describing only the senior teams. You make sweeping claims about football and other sport again based on very paltry evidence. And as it so happens you always pick the most metric example (surprise!). You demonstrate the depths of your understanding by claiming England teams and an English league as representative of the entire UK. Frankly, you wouldn't expect a British five-year-old to make that mistake. I oppose this proposal because it gives far too much scope for this sort of rubbish to be pushed.

Insofar as the players' dimensions often do not match the MOS, the reason is that you went through articles by the thousand quite deliberately violating the rule, trying to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. So far as I can tell, the only reason you stopped is because you were forced to by the general sanctions. Kahastok talk 08:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I think we should stop and thank Kahastok for his constructive response, which launched the discussion about this proposal directly to the ad hominem level in a single comment. This page is not for debating the crimes, real or imagined, of Michael Glass, so a lot of what is said above is irrelevant. If you two want to face-off somewhere, that place is not here. And before more accusations of mala fides are thrown around, I'll quickly note that I have never, to the best of my memory, been involved in a dispute about units in sport. Indeed, I very rarely edit sport-related articles at all. I have, however, pointed out this discrepancy in the past, and I did not get a satisfactory answer as to why (for example) a probably-unused rule about milk is vitally important to MOSNUM, while this (I'd think, far more important) one about sport is omitted. If the objective is to "follow what the Times tells us to pretty closely [in sport-related articles]", as you say, then surely mentioning sport directly is only conducive to that end. Indeed, it is rather odd that we don't, if milk is culturally important enough to merit a mention. My argument is similar to yours regarding milk: the alternative is not to have a rule and not to give editors any explicit advice. Moreover, if the TSG, which we are taking to be a NPOV source for the purposes of MOSNUM, says it, we cannot simply ignore it without tacitly admitting that the UK unit recommendations are based to an extent on personal preference, which is the entire reason that MOSNUM refers to the TSG, right?

Now that the general sanctions exist, MG or anyone else cannot simply use this rule as a means of justifying unit-flipping on thousands of articles, as you seem to suggest. Rather, the rule would give some extra clarity for other editors working on this topic (much like the engineering proposal which was eventually successful, and which was also taken directly from the TSG). Moreover, this proposed rule and the engineering rule are actually less strict than the language the Times uses ("an overwhelming preference for metric"). Just as it was unjustifiable to claim that, because old UK engineering used metric, articles about more modern engineering projects should also use it, so it is unjustifiable to claim implicitly that, because some – especially more "traditional" – UK sports use imperial, articles about all UK sports should follow this practice (including in the context of player dimensions – you seem to be making an artificial distinction between player measurements and field measurements which I don't see a justification for). What you appear to be suggesting (and I am confused by what you are suggesting, since your comment was mostly ad-hom) is not NPOV, it is contrary to much of current UK sporting practice (for example, pretty much everyone I know of who is involved in competitive weightlifting or bodybuilding talks about their weight exclusively in kilograms because that is the established practice) and it is directly contradicted by the TSG. You cannot simultaneously argue that the TSG is a reliable neutral source on UK units which needs to be respected lest we at MOSNUM are accused of having made it all up, and cherry-pick bits that you personally think are important (e.g. milk) while ignoring language like "overwhelming preference for metric" because it is inconvenient. Archon 2488 (talk) 10:34, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

First of all I would like to acknowledge both Archon and Kahastok's comments.

I want to thank Kahastok for pointing out that weightlifting was metric. The official rules that I linked to are metric only. This proves that he was right about weightlifting being metric. [9]

Rugby Union and Rugby League senior teams are metric only in format on the official websites. [10] [11]

The usage of the Rugby codes is specific to the codes. These sports have an international following, and this might help to explain why they use metric heights and weights. However, the fact that they don't include the equivalent non-metric weights is telling.

Yes, as Kahastok has often said, I checked the heights and weights of many players five years ago and changed many (though not all of them). For the most part these edits have stood the test of time. Ironically, the general sanctions have made my old edits a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. They also prevent the same thing from happening again.

Before and after I did my edits, others were adding the heights and weights of players with metric first (and Imperial first, too). Nothing has changed. This proposal is designed to help in the future.

My proposal supports the predominant usage of the sports. If it is metric, that is supported; if it is not, such as in horse racing or basketball, that is supported, too.

It is hard not to get sucked in when people use foul language and adopt a belligerent tone. However, Archon's contribution to this discussion has helped to bring it back on track. I hope that now we can now concentrate on the issues rather than the personalities. Michael Glass (talk) 11:17, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

You appear to be labouring under the misunderstanding that we do not already have an overwhelming preference for metric in sporting contexts as the TSG suggests. The problem comes when "sporting contexts" means a completely different thing in the real world (such as the TSG) compared with Wikipedia unit discussions. The TSG clearly advises metric in general for sport but prefers imperial units for personal dimensions in general. Neither MOSNUM nor the TSG requires that all sports articles use imperial. MOSNUM actually basically says that all UK sporting contexts (in the Real World meaning) use metric.

There has always been this bizarre absolutist fallacy, in UK units discussion, that the fact that the MOS prefers one set of units means either:

That the described units must be used in all circumstances no matter what, or
That the MOSNUM preference is entirely redundant and it's 100% down to user choice in all circumstances no matter what.

This is very rarely argued with any other part of the MOS. For every other part of the MOS, the rules are (to quote the template at the top of the page) "a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." I do not understand why people refuse to acknowledge that this applies to UK-related units just as it does the rest of the MOS.

For example, we do not have any language anywhere in the MOS at all that would allow US weightlifters' dimensions to be given in metric units. Nothing at all. Yet if you go on United States records in Olympic weightlifting the dimensions of the linked weightlifters are metric-first. There is a good topic-specific reason to go against the MOS rule, so editors have. This can apply to British articles too, if there is a good topic-specific reason, (bearing in mind - and I shouldn't have to say this but I do - that a user's preference for source-based units does not count).

I note with interest Michael's first bullet point. I never actually mentioned weightlifting before this message. I acknowledge that it is probably fully metric-first, but that can be handled within the current rules. Of course, his document does not "prove" anything - it happens to use metric units, which is a different thing - and even if it did all the contexts that it gives would already be metric-first according to even the most absolutist application of our existing rules. Kahastok talk 11:48, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I note Kahastok's change of tone. If he will check the link he provided, he will see that it is metric only. If this can be accommodated within the current rules, then so can putting metric heights and weights first in the top UK Rugby Union and Rugby League teams. As it is, a literal reading of MOSNUM would rule this out. What I seek is a clarification to ensure that UK sports should follow the predominant usage of the individual sports.The good reason is that this is the way that the official websites present the information. Michael Glass (talk) 12:39, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The good reason in the case of weightlifting is that otherwise we would be comparing weights in stones and pounds with weight categories defined in kilograms. Which makes no sense.

You claim that there is an equivalent good topic-based reason in the rugby codes, but in fact it's just source-based units again. How many times have you pushed this now? Twenty? Thirty? Forty? On every topic. And continually rejected for all the reasons we all know. To save everyone time I shall rename the section to reflect this.

And even if it was a legitimate basis in principle, it wouldn't be in practice because you're still be working on the assumption that England and the UK are one and the same. Which they aren't. Kahastok talk 13:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I have reverted to the original name of the section. I believe the change of title was misleading because the proposal was only about sport. I think that changing the title like this was both provocative and disruptive. The usage of an official team or code website is not just any source. By all means argue that the title could be improved or clarified, but changing a title like this is quite high-handed and wrong.Michael Glass (talk) 14:07, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I am alarmed that Kahastok thought it appropriate to rename someone else's proposal to make it easier to dismiss. That was extremely rude and disruptive. While I defend his right to present his opinions here, on this subject he is not capable of arguing dispassionately at all.

The discussion was not couched in terms of "source-based units", a concept which Kahastok introduced purely in order to weaken and dismiss MG's argument. While I am pleased to see that he has shown an appreciation of the need for nuance in the context of UK sports (for example, a literal reading of the TSG seems to contain a contradiction between personal dimensions and sports – what, then, is the style guidance for personal dimensions in a sporting context?), he has dismissed out of hand the perfectly legitimate point that there is no reason for MOSNUM to avoid mentioning this explicitly – that sport, like engineering, is a topic in which a different unit presentation will commonly be used. This is basically what the TSG does, on my reading of it. We're not talking about source-based units or Michael Glass's edit history, so it is inappropriate to bring those things up; it can only derail what should be a straightforward discussion.

I would also note that in the past, I made precisely the same argument that Kahastok is now making, in the context of the milk rule. There is no reason why we could not just trust editors to refer to a pint-size milk bottle as "1 imperial pint (570 mL)" and a litre-size milk bottle as "1 litre (1.8 imp pt)", for the same "common sense" rules that Kahastok recognises in the context of weightlifting (and in the case of bottle sizes, MOSNUM says that the nominal values should go first, regardless, which IMHO makes the entire milk rule redundant since an imperial bottle will be given as imperial-first and a metric bottle will be given as metric-first, and nobody is actually going to be confused by this). But Kahastok argued that it made sense to give editors explicit advice, in line with what the TSG recommends, so I relented, and that remained the consensus position of MOSNUM. Now, Kahastok is apparently arguing that it does not make sense to give editors explicit advice about a topic which is much broader and more complex, and more practically important in Wikipedia, than milk. Archon 2488 (talk) 14:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The proposal is for source-based units whether you like it or not. Otherwise there is no reason to bring rugby or football into the discussion at all. So the title I put on was entirely accurate. The current title OTOH is misleading because it implies that the current advice does not follow the TSG when it does.

The TSG is not contradictory once you realised that sports contexts are not the same as personal heights and weights. It is only in Wikipedia units disputes where people seem to think that the only units used in sports are personal measurements.

If you want to discuss milk, that's fine. You will note that the last time milk came up I pointed out that I felt that it would be well within the spirit of the TSG to say that when dealing with consumer goods, we should be using the units of sale. That would eliminate all mention of milk, beer and cider. But as you insist we not discuss that I won't propose it again. Kahastok talk 14:32, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

[ec]You're now just asserting things that are false. For example, since UK golf courses are typically measured in yards, that is the unit that UK golf articles would normally use, right? That is what MG's proposed rule would imply in this context. Not, as you seem to read it, "use whichever units you find in [source X]". Nor is it true that "the only units used in sports are personal measurements"; again, the wording above does not single out personal measurements as compared to the measurements of pitches or pools. There's as much reason to talk about football or rugby as weightlifting or basketball, since the proposal covers all sports; this is not evidence that the proposal amounts to "source-based units". Your characterisations simply do not reflect what the proposal says, and renaming the section to enforce your dubious reading of the proposed rule is extremely arrogant, bordering on bullying.

When you say "sports contexts are not the same as personal heights and weights", you've lost me. That is true in the most literal sense, but not a useful thing to say in the context of sports players. You might as well say "sports contexts are not the same as the lengths of fields", which is also literally true, but an absurd thing to say in the context of a football field. My point was that, on a literal reading, the TSG statements to use imperial for people's measurements, and to use metric for sports, clearly directly contradict one another in the case of sportspeople's measurements. It is not true that the intersection of those two categories is empty, which is (on my reading) the only way that what you say above ("TSG is not contradictory...") could be correct. The proposal above is a simple piece of advice to allow topic-specific (but not source-based) resolutions of this contradiction. Exactly like the engineering rule, which has been there for three years without major incident.

I have no idea why you think I'm insisting that we must not discuss milk/beer/cider; we can if you really want to (which I doubt), but it is simply not what this discussion is about. But I think the example is illustrative: you said that it made sense to have a rule for those (fairly obscure) circumstances where bottled milk or draught beer/cider are being discussed on Wikipedia, in part because the TSG explicitly mentions it. Now the TSG explicitly mentions sport as well, but you think there is no reason to mention it in MOSNUM, or perhaps even a good reason not to mention it in MOSNUM. But this is something you need to present an argument for, which does not involve misrepresenting other editors' arguments. Archon 2488 (talk) 15:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

You can tell the proposal is for source-based units because the OP has said that it is for source-based units. In fact the entire basis for the proposal was that units should be based on the sources of the OP's choice. Hence going on about rugby websites and the Premier League website. If it hadn't been a proposal for source-based units, the case made would have been very different.

Across the board, the standard is that if we are to deviate the rule, there has to be a good article- or topic-specific reason to do so. I do not understand why people seem to think it does not apply in this one area. If we do not need an special extra exception for US-based sports articles, we do not need a special extra exception for UK-based sports articles. Of course, the fact that any particular source happens to use one system is not a good reason, as that is applying a completely different rule such as to subvert the MOS.

The TSG explicitly mentions sport in passing. We don't, because we don't need to. We could qualify "the primary units for most quantities are metric or other internationally used units" by saying "in scientific, engineering and sporting contexts", but that would rather imply that other contexts that are currently metric-first should not necessarily be metric-first. Which would rather miss the point - they should.

But that is a different question from personal heights and weights. You take my quote on this completely out of context - making you a fine one to talk about "misrepresenting other editors' arguments"! Sporting measurement should not be taken to mean personal heights and weights, but note where this started - with the OP basing his entire case around the units used to measure sportspeople's heights and weights. In this case, personal height and weight is precisely what was meant. I see no contradiction between saying that as a rule sporting contexts should generally be metric-first, but personal heights and weights imperial-first. Kahastok talk 16:56, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to take anything you said out of context. It's a simple observation that either there is a latent contradiction between those two statements ("sporting contexts should generally be metric-first, but personal heights and weights imperial-first") in the specific case of personal heights and weights of sportspeople, or there is something hiding in the term "generally" which resolves this apparent contradiction. But you've not said explicitly what it is. This rule, even if you think it is flawed (and the argument should be taken on its merits rather than the name of its proponent) does not say anything about source-based units, however much you believe it does (and MG did not use that language, so it is not fair to attribute to him – or could we please have a diff for that quote?). However, it is instructive to point out (without recommending that we follow any of them specifically, i.e. source-based units) that reliable sources covering several sports are not overwhelmingly imperial-first or imperial-only, as your case seems to assume. Quite the contrary. If you are going to argue for the counter-intuitive position that the length of a football field is a sport-related measurement, but a player's weight is not, then a) that is not in the TSG; b) it is not in MOSNUM; c) there is AFAIK no consensus for it. So it is not something you can just assert and expect everyone to accept; you need to justify it.

If the TSG says the preference for metric is "overwhelming" in a sporting context, and MOSNUM is based on the TSG, then there is no good reason why we should not incorporate that language directly into MOSNUM. That would be an entirely NPOV thing to do, which you are now opposing on the grounds (I surmise, correct me if I am wrong) that it is not NPOV. Why, as I have asked repeatedly above, is this case any different from what the TSG says about milk or engineering? In the case of engineering, recall, there were a few cases of confusion caused by the odd omission of the TSG engineering rule from MOSNUM. Including it explicitly (even if in a watered-down format) helped to resolve that confusion. If you are claiming that you have a uniquely authoritative interpretation of what the TSG "really means", which is not written explicitly in the TSG, then that is not compatible with NPOV.

What I'd ask from you, if I may, is a strengthened version of MG's argument, which avoids what you perceive to be the issue of source-based units. You have said above that "[i]f it hadn't been a proposal for source-based units, the case made would have been very different", which suggests that such a proposal would be possible, and it leads me to wonder what such a proposal would look like. Moreover, trying to strengthen other people's arguments is more constructive than trying to weaken them. Archon 2488 (talk) 10:15, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure why I should be arguing for a text that I don't think the guideline needs. We don't need it for US sportspeople, we don't need it for British sportspeople.

It's quite clear that this was about source-based units. There is no objective reason to assume in most cases that players' heights and weights should be even considered to be counted within "sporting contexts" at all. No reason to assume that they'll be any different from units used in society as whole. Why would they be? But no, the OP himself declared clearly and explicitly that the fact that his preferred source used metric units for heights and weights of players meant that we should use metric units in those circumstances. Whether you like or not, that is a call for source-based units.

Units in sporting contexts - to people outside Wikipedia units disputes - means the length of the throw or the length of the course, the height of the goalposts or the height of the jump, the weight of the ball or the weight of the boat. Those are for the most part already metric-first by default just as per TSG. Only if there are actually height and weight categories, like in martial arts or weightlifting, does personal weight come into it. And they can be handled for Brits just as they are for Americans. No need for a new rule.

My main concern isn't NPOV. NPOV is important here - we can't neutrally push metric faster than it comes in IRL - but that's the starting point, that's why we use the TSG. My concerns are twofold. First is that it will be used to push source-based units as already discussed. Second, that we end up with a long list of contexts in which we use metric, and that ultimately dilutes our advice in general. We don't need to list things that are metric because everything is metric, except in a few circumstances and the most prominent and general exceptions are listed. If we add a list of particularly metric or especially metric contexts, then we undermine the general rule for metric-first.

You routinely hear hill heights given in feet in modern Britain. We currently give no explicit advice on the context, which means we default to metric. If hill height is not in the especially-metric category (and the TSG implies that the change is recent), that implies that it is less important for hill heights to be in metres, or even that we're not advising either way. What about the weight of a rock. We currently give no explicit advice, which means we default to metric. If the weight of rocks is not in the especially-metric category (and it isn't mentioned in the TSG), that implies that it is less important that it be in metric units and may imply that we're not advising that it be in metric units at all. The especially-metric category ends up with a long list that isn't exhaustive (because it never will be) and anything that isn't in it is implied not to be metric-first. The default should be metric-first in all contexts, other than those listed, unless there's a good reason article- or topic-specific reason for it not to be.

You keep bringing up milk. You were the one who insisted that this be a sports discussion and told me that I was being "extremely arrogant, bordering on bullying" to suggest otherwise. You're right that I don't want a massive discussion about milk, for the same reason I didn't want this discussion, because it'll just be a time sink and probably won't achieve anything. You've heard what I would do with the milk point, you weren't interested. Fine. But don't then complain that I'm advocating the current wording. I'm not. Kahastok talk 21:17, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

What I called "arrogant and bullying" was renaming the section to enforce your reading of it, not merely suggesting that it was not a discussion about sports (which I believe it was intended to be, per MG's original proposal).

The point of presenting a stronger argument is not that you are actually advocating it; it's to show that you can present an argument for a position that you disagree with in a way that a proponent of that position would recognise, rather than seeing it as a trivialisation of the argument (a strawman) constructed to dismiss it. Since you said above that a proposal written without "source-based units" in mind would look different, it's natural to wonder what exactly it would look like.

I'm curious about your idea of "pushing" metric. Since a lot of UK publications, like the Economist or New Scientist (and even, when it's in the mood, the Guardian) predominantly use metric (including distances in kilometres rather than miles and furlongs and chains, i.e. exactly the sorts of contexts that you seem to have so many objections to), do you regard them as unreasonably biased? Would it be dishonest of them to claim impartiality, because they prefer to use measures that make a lot more sense to most people who do not have fond memories of Queen Victoria and pink world maps? This archaic cant gets more unjustifiable with every passing year. Bringing Wikipedia into the twenty-first century is not "pushing" anything except reality, and I retain my opinion that this anti-metric humbug brings Wikipedia into disrepute. I could just as well say that opposing metric is "pushing" a socially acceptable form of scientific illiteracy.

But I'm not going to pretend that this will change anything. The GS and the current pointless MOSNUM muddle will ensure that UK articles remain a confusing jumble of different styles. And yes, since you opposed getting rid of the trivial and silly milk rule, you de facto supported retaining it. Archon 2488 (talk) 10:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The fact that you support metrication is not good reason for Wikipedia to apply metrication faster than does the public at large. Wikipedia is an encyclopædia, not a campaigning organisation, and that applies even if you happen to believe in the cause you wish Wikipedia to campaign for.

When we discuss it, your argument always boils down to this. You like the metric system. I like the metric system as well. I think Brits should use it more. But we don't. We have to respect that fact, whether we like it or not. Most people in Britain giving a distance will do it in miles over kilometres. Most people in Britain will give a personal weight in stones and not kilos. You say "[t]his archaic cant [imperial units] gets more unjustifiable with every passing year", but if you listen to the political mood music, the direction discussed is for moving the other way, from metric to imperial, not the other way around. You dismiss people who prefer imperial as those who "have fond memories of Queen Victoria and pink world maps" - which was precisely the sort of language used to dismiss the Brexiteers. They just won a referendum. I would suggest that there are probably quite a lot more people with the sort of attitudes that you so obviously disdain than you think. We have to be an encyclopædia for those people as well as those of us who take the other view.

What we have in the Times - the UK's newspaper of record - is a style guide that attempts to do what we intend to do. It attempts to reflect real British usage in a few simple and easy-to-follow rules. And y'know what? When we actually take it to other UK-specific fora and ask British posters, the current rules tend to get supported. Several times we've had editors trying to push us in one direction or other, who have come unstuck when they appealed to a silent majority for their position that didn't exist. That's generally a good sign that we're doing it right.

As to the rest, I find you serially misrepresent my position, and I find you double down on your personal attacks. Perhaps this is why these discussions go nowhere. Kahastok talk 18:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The referendum was not a referendum on SI units, and it is disingenuous to pretend that it was. Different political factions are now claiming that it was "really" a referendum on immigration, parliamentary sovereignty, economics, etc. etc. – in accordance with their political biases and special interests. But this idea of SI as an EU plot is a fabrication of gutter journalism, and it should never be entertained in an encyclopedia – the reasons for using SI would be exactly the same had the EU never existed. And whether the troglodyte faction ultimately prevails and comes to dominate English politics (and let's not deceive ourselves, it's really only English politics we're talking about) is something that can now only be speculated about – but that is not compatible with NPOV. My fundamental position is that metrology is not politics, and the opinions of anti-SI nescienti are irrelevant next to the global consensus of scientists (i.e. the much-maligned "experts" who have the unfortunate property of actually knowing things).

The Times is a mouthpiece of Murdochism, not a reliable source to consult on questions of metrology; nor is it "neutral". I personally never supported its use at all, but I do note the tendentious applications of it. My touchstone would be the values which gave birth to the original modern Encyclopedia, and which also gave birth to the idea that measurements should be based not on tradition or – as we are perhaps seeing with anti-SI nonsense in the UK – mob rule, but on science and reason. The problem with "neutrality" as a goal is that it's an essentially contested concept – you simply cannot divorce, even in thought, a cultural product such as an encyclopedia from the system of values that sustains it. Or else, why bother to write an encyclopedia at all? The very decision to share knowledge depends upon a system of values, values which troglodytes do not care for. These people behave like enemies of reason, and it does not serve the interests of an encyclopedia to pander to them ("appeasement"? "peace at any price"?).

This whole pseudo-democratic strategy of polling people for their opinions is pointless. Suppose you were to find that 45% of US citizens believe the world is under 10000 years old (and it is about that proportion). Does that mean that it is impermissible to "systematically prefer" statements that, say, geological features are older than a few thousand years in US contexts, because we need to build an encyclopedia for people who know nothing about geology also? Science is dictatorial, in a sense, because reality is. The Universe doesn't care what people vote for, and the clear superiority of SI (not, as you like to pretend, a mere matter of personal opinion, but something close to mathematical reality) is unaffected by this vote or any other. If I were actually arguing for my own opinions, my argument would look different – for example, I don't like the SI approach of naming units after people, because it's insufficiently abstract and it has produced a now-embarrassing cadre of all-white-European men; it is all too obviously a product of the 1960s, in that sense. Likewise, the lower-case "k" is odd, the prefixes around unity are somewhat questionable, and the kilogram as the base unit of mass is counter-intuitive. But I'm not gonna push that here, because that is clearly just my opinion. SI as-is is not just my opinion, it is the consensus of basically every informed person on Earth. Some dudes who edit an online encyclopedia simply don't have the standing to pass judgement on it. Archon 2488 (talk) 11:23, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the accusation about "source based units" is really a canard that prevents rational discussion. Of course it is right to condemn the selection of sources if they are picked merely to justify using metric or Imperial measures. However, when the selection of units is based on official sources, that is quite different. MOSNUM explicitly favours miles for distances in UK articles because that is what prevails on the roads, as set down in legislation so the selection of miles is as source based as it comes. In the sporting field it is quite clear that different sports have chosen different standards, some favouring imperial and others favouring metric. I think it's easier for editors and their readers to follow the usage of the individual sports. Hence my proposal. Michael Glass (talk) 13:18, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

You conflate a number of different things here.

There is a clear and obvious difference between a source that uses a particular set of units and a source that says that people use a set of units. The difference is reasonably easy to understand and it is surprising that you are apparently unaware of it - though it is difficult to be overly surprised that a user is unaware of something when that user doggedly insists that England and the UK are exactly the same thing.

You claim that "MOSNUM explicitly favours miles for distances in UK articles because that is what prevails on the roads". No, MOSNUM favours miles for distance because that's common usage in the UK, as demonstrated by the TSG. We can probably fairly safely assume that the fact that it's common usage is because it's used on roads - that if the road signs switched to kilometres common usage would follow within a reasonably short period - but it's the common usage by real people, not the road signs, that dictate our usage. Hence using the TSG. And note that the TSG isn't just using measurements, it's telling people which measurements to use. Crucial difference.

As to Archon's post, I see little more than abuse toward people who disagree with him, so I do not propose to respond to it. Kahastok talk 18:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The values that uphold an encyclopedia are fundamentally incompatible with the values of people who dismiss SI or treat science with indifference, and looking for "neutral" ground there is like trying to square the circle. Far from being "little more than abuse", my position is basically the same as that of Jimmy Wales opposing homeopaths' attempts to subvert Wikipedia to promote their nonsense – there are cases where a pursuit of superficial "neutrality" will not be conducive to the goals of an encyclopedia. Pander all you will to the fashionable anti-intellectualism of the day; it will not serve the interests of Wikipedia or humanity. Archon 2488 (talk) 13:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Kahastok, I'll ignore your ad hominem and answer just a couple of points.

We have no direct information about "common usage by real people" apart from some surveys done by opinion polls. However, when it comes.to the various sports, their websites show which units of measure they present. The English rugby teams - both league and union - were consistent in their usage though I concede that this may not be so in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who together account for about 17 per cent of the population of the UK.
The TSG is designed for people writing for the Times; MOSNUM should provide guidance for Wikipedia editors. However, when common Wikipedia practice differs from MOSNUM prescriptions, some adjustment may be called for.Michael Glass (talk) 00:41, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Don't forget about WP:GS/UKU. The sudden 'growth' of a such a cancer as this discussion has me taken aback. RGloucester — ☎ 14:50, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, it is useful to point out that the GS give us a level of assurance against "gaming" or edit-warring, which should in principle allow us to have a slightly more good-faith discussion about such topics than usual (and I realise that this sounds extremely naive). For my part, I have little direct interest in sports articles, but I do think it makes sense to have a guideline for editors to refer to, especially when the NPOV reliable source to which MOSNUM refers explicitly includes such a guideline. Archon 2488 (talk) 15:06, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Holy walls of text, Batman! E Eng 15:58, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Point taken about the walls of text, EEng! That's why I have inserted a subheading below.

Back to the actual wording

The present wording says:

the primary units for personal height and weight are feet/inches and stones/pounds;

This policy is honoured more in the breach than in the observance in the UK sporting context.

The proposed wording modifies the general policy only in the case of UK sporting articles:

*In UK sporting articles, the primary units should generally follow the predominant usage of the sport.

Could I just ask people what they think of the actual wording.

Could the proposed wording be improved?
Do you support or oppose the proposed wording?

I think if we concentrate on the wording it might not take a huge wall of text to decide YES or NO, or to revise it. Michael Glass (talk) 23:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Oppose this is your usual attempt at metricate everything regardless the existing wording should stand. Keith D (talk) 00:07, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

[Keith, in my proposal, the existing wording does stand. The proposal doesn't attempt to metricate everything, nor does it attempt to metricate anything that isn't metric already.] Michael Glass (talk) 12:55, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

May be this continual bringing up of changes to the UK units situation on this page is a violation of the general sanctions. Keith D (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

When it's the same user proposing the same thing over and over again, particularly when the user themselves accepts that the change proposed cannot be implemented because of the general sanctions, one wonders if it might be. Kahastok talk 18:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

But it wasn't the same proposal as before.! It didn't call for any change in the general sanctions. These are misleading claims. Besides, the obvious error in grammar ( the user themselves) suggests that the writer is too emotionally involved to think or write straight. Michael Glass (talk) 14:36, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Oppose per Keith D and per my comments above. Despite the objection to what Keith D says, it is obvious from Michael's comments - both under this heading and the previous - that Keith D's interpretation is entirely accurate. Kahastok talk 18:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Support This is only about the primary units; feet/inches and stones/pounds can still be there vis the convert template. But it will make the articles easier to write. When a sport switches over to metric, all the sources will be in metric, so to get the old measurements, you will need to use the convert template order=flip parameter on the convert template. ie {{convert|90|kg|stlb|order=flip}} generates 14 stone 2 pounds (90 kg). Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

[Thanks, Hawkeye. The proposal supports the primary usage of individual sports, whether Imperial (like UK horse racing and basketball) or metric (UK Weightlifting and the Rugby codes). Describing this as an "attempt at metricate everything" is obviously wrong.] Michael Glass (talk) 23:11, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

And bringing up personal measurements in rugby demonstrates the point. There is not a jot of evidence that there is a clear and overriding preference for metric units for measuring the personal dimensions of rugby players in the UK, or from any governing body. There is nothing here surrounding other sports that cannot be handled in exactly the same way as for every other country. You've just decided that there is. Given that you seem also to have decided that England and the UK are one and the same thing, that probably gives a good indication as to how seriously to take these conclusions. Kahastok talk

If I read you correctly, you are arguing that the way the official website presents its data is not sufficient to establish usage in the sport. No evidence is perfect, of course, but this evidence is good enough for me to accept that the weightlifting and rugby bodies use metric measures for their websites and the horse racing and basketball bodies use imperial measures.for their websites. I think that's good enough to treat this data as primary for the purpose of editing on Wikipedia. As for your belief that I don't know the difference between England and the UK, it's quite wrong. Michael Glass (talk) 23:10, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

If you know the difference between England and the UK, then you will know that your argument unravels as soon as you start taking it into account. Because even if we accepted everything else you say, the websites you point out are not the official websites for either Rugby code in the UK as you claim.

But even if it were the official website, it wouldn't matter. You say: "you are arguing that the way the official website presents its data is not sufficient to establish usage in the sport". Yes, that's precisely what I'm arguing. No it isn't sufficient. Not even close.

You and others have tried to pull this particular trick over and over and over to push metrication in the guise of source-based units. Because that's what you're saying. Your argument boils down to a claim that if you can find a source that uses some metric units, then you can claim the entire topic is metric and that way you can use the source to override MOSNUM. It doesn't work like that in any other area and it doesn't work like that here.

Now, if there were sources that said, "it is established practice in rugby to measure players using these units", that would be a different thing. Possibly enough for a WikiProject rule, if the sources were good enough. If we were discussing a sport based on weight limits that we had to compare against, similarly. But that's not what you have here, and even if it were it wouldn't justify a change to MOSNUM. Kahastok talk 18:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

England accounts for almost 83 per cent of the population of the UK and this gives it considerable weight in discussions about British usage. However, English data is not evidence of usage in Scotland, Ulster and Wales. On that basis I withdraw my proposal and will check the data of sporting usage in Scotland Northern Ireland and Wales.

However, I feel it is necessary to state the following:

The proposal applied to both metric and imperial usage in a sporting context.
Using an official source is quite different from finding or using just any old source.
If MOSNUM is out of step with usage, it needs to be brought into step.
MOSNUM should reflect usage in the real world, not set it. The tail shouldn’t wag the dog.

On the evidence I supplied:

The links I supplied were official websites of the sports in England.
Official websites matter in determining usage, and are decisive in deciding which data should be treated as primary.

I also wish to make the following points:

The proposal was to apply equally to both metric and Imperial usage in sports. It was not to push metric usage as primary when it is not.
I welcome Kahastok’s statement implying that official weight limits in sports are good evidence of usage.
The term source based units either is meaningless, because all usage is based either directly or indirectly on sources of information; or it is used as a way of damning evidence on partisan grounds.
I note with interest that Kahastok states he like the metric system. [12]

Michael Glass (talk) 02:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I've been pointing out that my personal preference IRL is for metric units for years. You just ignore me when I say it because it doesn't suit your prejudices.

I have always taken the view that if there is a genuinely good topic- or article-specific reason to vary from the rules, there is no reason why we cannot vary from the rules. In a sport where weight limits are an intrinsic part of the sport, we are always going to be comparing personal weights against those weight limits (defined in either system) and I view avoiding a difference in this context to be good topic-specific reason to vary from the rules.

There is a clear and obvious difference between a source that happens to use measurements in a particular system, and a source that describes what units people use (such as the TSG). If you are claiming not to be aware of this difference or that there is no difference, then I think the best faith I can assume is that you lack the WP:COMPETENCE required to edit Wikipedia.

Let us remember that you once had an article claim the entire Royal Family used nothing but metric units on the basis that the website of the Prince's Rainforests Project mentioned a measurement in hectares. That's where the "official websites" argument leads.

And let us not forget the thousands of articles that you have flipped to metric (and always to metric) against MOSNUM advice because you could find a source that used metric units, which you claimed trumped MOSNUM. Your attempted imposition of source-based units in knowing violation of MOSNUM consensus is a real problem, not a "way of damning evidence on partisan grounds".

On the basis that these discussions are clearly unwanted, I reiterate my call for Michael Glass to be topic banned from discussing systems of measurement in UK contexts, including here at MOSNUM. He is the only one who ever starts these discussions. If we don't want them to happen, ban him from starting them and they'll stop. Kahastok talk 10:31, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not going to claim that I am all right and Kahastok is all wrong. However, I really do consider that his call for a topic ban is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Kahastok was the only one to resort to foul language in this discussion.
Kahastok was the one who had to be pulled into line when he changed my topic name.

I would also like to draw attention to some of Kahastok's odd lapses immediately above.

I noted that Kahastok says he likes the metric system. In response, Kahastok condemned me for not notiicing that he likes the metric system.
I noted that metric measures were used on the Prince's Rainforest Project. In response, Kahastok accused me of claiming that the entire Royal Family used nothing but metric units. As this claim is laughable, it calls into question anything he might claim about me.
I put up a proposal, and when Kahastok pointed out a flaw in the documentation, I withdrew that proposal. In response to this withdrawal, Kahastok has condemned my attempted imposition of source-based units. I therefore question his competence to read and understand what I write.
Kahastok has responded to my voluntarily withdrawing my proposal in a way that I can only describe as malicious. It is also a prime example of bullying.

Kahastok's response is as out of line as his foul language was. I condemn it. Michael Glass (talk) 14:36, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Star and cross DoB

Are star and cross (* 1905; † 1974) allow? According to Special:Search/insource:/\(\*\ 19/ we have over 800 of these. — Dispenser 13:35, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't know the answer. I don't like them as I don't think they are familiar to many people. I do think the MOS could use more clarity on this. MOS:OPENPARA points to MOS:DOB, which gives examples but never comes right out and answers your question. It does seem to imply that if the dates are known, the recommended format is two dates separated by a dash with no extra stuff like "born", "b.", "d.", "*", or "†". And it says, "Use a dash, or a word such as from or between, but not both" so your particular example seems to be disallowed. But what about "(* 1905 – † 1974)"? Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:46, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Many of the examples are on subjects from countries where this is the usual convention. It can, for example, be seen regularly on the German Wikipedia. --David Biddulph (talk) 14:51, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the examples at MOS:DOB make it quite clear that we don't use "*" or "b" or "b." but always "born" (Serena Williams example), and not "†" or "d." or "d" but "died" (John Smith example). As far as I know "*" and "†" are German usage, not common in any English-speaking countries. I'd suggest that a bot or AWB run to clean up those 800, which are predominantly "notable residents" of non-English-speaking places, would be useful. PamD 16:14, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

See for example Almaty where a list of names with "*" was added and a later edit summary says "Yes, copied from the German wikipedia and translated".

Those should be changed. Star by itself with no cross looks like a footnote of some kind. Also most of those prople are not apparently notable but that's a separate issue. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:57, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank for the quick response, I fixed 550+ of these today using AWB. — Dispenser 23:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I boldly added text [13] explaining that here at enwp those quaint forms aren't used. E Eng 17:57, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I'd allow b or d where space is an issue, but agree an asterisk for born is not obvious. I have seen a cross for death often enough, but it is old fashioned and also assumes a Christian perspective, so probably best avoided. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 18:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Good point re limited space. I've made a further edit to address that [14]. All of this is subject to the approval of my esteemed fellow editors, of course. E Eng 18:46, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the cross when used to signify death date is related to the Christian cross. They are actually two separate glyphs, dagger (†) and latin cross (✝). Certainly the dagger glyph pre-dates Christianity, although I don't know when it first was used to signify death. Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:52, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

19thC publishers didn't use unicode! Without straying into philosophical areas, you'll find the dagger and the cross are identical in much earlier work. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:06, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Certainly Babylonian scribes working in cuneiform distinguished the dagger from the latin cross -- see [15]. There's also evidence of the distinction being respected in prehistoric cave paintings -- see right. E Eng 00:41, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Brilliant! James Murray as the biblical philologist was an inspiration. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:57, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Really, sir, you think I didn't know that? Harrumph! E Eng 00:31, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Display Resolutions

Would it be possible to add a specific clause addressing the notation for display resolutions? There are some editors arguing that the only acceptable forms are the following:

1920x1080 (letter x unspaced)
1920 pixels × 1080 pixels (multiplication sign with spacing and units)

and that any other forms, such as:

1920 x 1080 (letter x with space)
1920 × 1080 (multiplication sign with space)
1920×1080 (multiplication sign unspaced)
(I don't agree that all three of these should be accepted, I'm just giving examples of alternate styles people have used on here which have all been declared as a violation of the MOS by some)

are in fact all prohibited by the MOS, due to the following clauses:

"The letter x should not be used to indicate multiplication, but it is used (unspaced) as the substitute for "by" in terms such as 4x4."
"When dimensions are given, each number should be followed by a unit name or symbol (e.g., write 1 m × 3 m × 6 m, not 1 × 3 × 6 m)."

I would like to note a reminder at this time that I am not arguing about what the MOS currently says, I am asking for a change to the MOS to address this topic specifically. Since "1920x1080" is read aloud as "1920-by-1080" and represents the dimensions of a display (in pixels, generally), I am forced to agree the MOS does currently endorse only those two forms explicitly. However, these are essentially the two least readable forms. Either using a multiplication sign or adding spaces (or both) improves readability, but neither is explicitly allowed unless units are also included, which decreases readability again, is cumbersome when discussing many resolutions in a sentence, and is not consistent with real-world usage of these terms (it is rare for one to state the units when writing a resolution).

My personal feeling is that the multiplication sign with spaces, but without units (i.e. 1920 × 1080), should be explicitly allowed for display resolutions. The combination of spaces and multiplication sign is the most readable and most professional form in my opinion. The spaces are also consistent with the style set by the MOS for mathematical usage of the multiplication sign, just without the requirement for units after the numbers when dealing with display resolutions (which is consistent with how resolutions are written and encountered normally). I don't think that the "1920x1080" unspaced letter x form should be explicitly prohibited for resolutions (though I would not mind), I just think this alternative more professional form should be explicitly allowed by the MOS for resolutions. It would allow a more readable style without resorting to the cumbersome "full form" with both spaces and units. GlenwingKyros (talk) 05:39, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

I tend to agree that "the multiplication sign with spaces, but without units (i.e. 1920 × 1080), should be explicitly allowed for display resolutions". Dicklyon (talk) 05:48, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Can I suggest you take this to Wikipedia_talk:MOSNUM? Somewhere in its archive (within the last four years) is a huge discussion of this. E Eng 06:41, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Is this what you are thinking of? (Other options.)—DocWatson42 (talk) 03:36, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

No, not those. It went on interminably about screen resolutions, pixels, and whatnot. It was YUGE (to quote Herr Trump). I spent a little time looking ~~but couldn't find it.~~ and finally found it: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers/Archive_146#Revisit:_the_use_of_.22.C3.97.22_and_.22x.22_for_indicating_.22by.22_in_arrays_and_dimensions. Success! Bow down to me!

Again, if this thread is to go on it should be transferred to Talk MOSDATE. E Eng 06:56, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for digging that up! I wasn't able to find it myself. I've transferred it to Talk:MOSNUM as suggested.

The linked discussion ends with a proposal to make "1920x1080" the endorsed format, which was rejected, but there is no proposal made for something in the other direction (i.e. recommending something besides unspaced x, the point of this discussion). I think maybe the best way to do it (for the most general coverage) would be clause for notation of dimensions of arrays/matrices (a category which display resolutions could be considered to fall under) which endorses "m × n" (unit-less with spaced multiplication sign). The WP page for arrays already uses this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(mathematics) I'm not an experienced editor though, so I'm not sure if this idea makes sense and I welcome second opinions. GlenwingKyros (talk) 00:07, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to try to stay out of this, except to say

I think 1920x1080 looks absolutely awful, and 1920×1080 looks still kind of awful, but maybe just acceptably so.
If there's a space on either side, then I don't care whether an x or a × is used, but an x sure is easier.
I think what's really going on here is that rectangular arrays of discrete, identical elements (pixels are only one example) don't always require units, which can sometimes be taken as implicit:

As cost-per-pixel dropped, screen sizes of 2400 x 3600 became common
Eggs are often sold in dozens, typically in 2 x 6 cartons, though 3 x 4 cartons are often seen

(I just made that last one up -- best I could think of.)

E Eng 01:09, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Remove unneeded conversion and reference to a non-standard mass unit

Regarding the two changes https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Allosaurus&oldid=750736819 and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Allosaurus&oldid=750737130 , please explain your justification to support non-standard measure units/regionalism in the English Wikipedia which is not US Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.235.229.22 (talk • contribs)

The short ton is widely used in the US, where a significant portion of Wikipedia readers reside. Unit conversions improve comprehension for these readers who may not be familiar with SI units, a practice which is generally recommended by the Wikipedia Manual of Style where English-speaking countries use different units for the same quantity. Though conversions are not required for science-related articles, their presence may still aid readers and I see no reason to remove such conversions for Allosaurus, which has geographic ties to the US. —Laoris (talk) 14:25, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

I have to disagree with your statement regarding Wikipedia usage statistics as a reason to keep short ton conversion in use. From page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_ton the only countries where this unit of measure is used is US and Canada. From https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm readers originating from US+Canada for English Wikipedia is only 46.2% which is not the majority. Following this precedent, the same portion of the readers should be represented with all the specific regionalism in use to ease reading for them as well. Do US/Canada users/editors have some specific rights over English Wikipedia? If not, this discussion shall be brought to a more wide board. I agree, instead, on the geographic ties of Allosaurus to US. --109.235.229.22 (talk) 14:57, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

46.2% isn't a majority, but it's definitely a large portion of readers. By using both SI and US units, the vast majority of the audience can be accommodated, rather than just 53%. Clearly we cannot always support all units used by all regions, but the US and Canada represent a significant portion of Wikipedia views. —Laoris (talk) 15:11, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above, originating from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Laoris#Remove_unneeded_conversion_and_reference_to_a_non-standard_mass_unit , is reported here to request an official statement. Is the use of US/Canada regionalism in international English Wikipedia with precedence over all other regionalism accepted and recognized as intended Wikipedia editorial policy? --109.235.229.22 (talk) 15:20, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Laoris' explanation is more than adequate. The OP has a case of WP:IDHT. E Eng 15:35, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Emitting accusation of WP:IDHT while the argument is backed by actual data is degrading, disrespectful and definitely insolent. argumentum ad hominem is a prejudiced way to close this dispute, but I lean over the leviathan authority. Rejoice in your bias, since, evidently you can. --109.235.229.22 (talk) 16:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Your argument invokes data but ignores logic -- logic which is the basis for the longstanding, sensible practice you object to. Your refusal to see that is indeed WP:IDHT. E Eng 16:16, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Please, keep up the good work. http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/ . --109.235.229.22 (talk) 16:23, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

No problem. Editors whose first and only contributions are to grind some parochial axe (i.e. not the "desirable newcomers" discussed in the paper you link) almost never become productive members of the community, so I won't be losing any sleep. E Eng 18:06, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

(A month later) Still obsessed, I see [16]. E Eng 21:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Template:Floruit

I just want draw people's attention to Template:Floruit. Through a series of IP edits (possibly the same person from multiple IPs), the template has gone from a very simple shortcut for adding fl. to dates to something extremely complicated to look at. It's in need of a look at from an expert on templates. I've never seen this kind of thing from an IP before. McLerristarr | Mclay1 13:38, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

DANGER! If someone tries to combine it with Template:Sfn, the resulting superdense singularity will suck Wikipedia and the observable universe into it. E Eng 22:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

NM and nmi for nautical mile

Is it really necessary to have 2 different unit symbols for nautical mile? I don't see the benefit of the duplication, and have the impression that nmi is in more widespread use than NM. Would anyone object to removing NM is an option? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I realize I'm being today's naysayer, but I think this would be better coming from people who work on actual articles that use that unit. There might be some reason it's the way it is. E Eng 22:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

As well as those that work on the articles, perhaps a nod to sailors might be relevant. I've just grabbed my copy of Reed's Skippers handbook (which is in the desk next to me) and in the section on "Measuring distance" it uses "NM" and "nm", but not "nmi".^[1]

fair enough - if it ain't broke why fix it Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:51, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

References

^ Pearson, Malcolm (2010) [First published 1993], Reed's Skippers Handbook for sail and power (6th ed.), Bloomsbury, pp. 6–7

Usage of "noon" and "midnight" in tables with other times

It's not clear in MOS:TIME what cases "usually" refers to in "Usually, use noon and midnight rather than 12 pm and 12 am;". What is everyone's thoughts on if this applies to tables that have other dates in them, such as in this table here: 2016 Western Michigan Broncos football team#Schedule. In my opinion, "noon" is acceptable to use here because the intent to clarify "noon" outweighs the desire for all rows to be consistent, but I'm curious what the MOS experts think. — X96lee15 (talk) 14:09, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Both acceptable and advisable. Noon is neither ante- nor post- meridiem by definition. See 12-hour_clock#Confusion_at_noon_and_midnight for a wider perspective. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:19, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, both "12 am" and "12 pm" are to be avoided. I find them confusing and never know whether noon or midnight is intended. If using the 12 hour clock, specify "noon" or "midnight" explicitly. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

This is a fundamental problem with the 12-hour clock - 12:00 is ambiguous, it is neither AM nor PM. There are various ways around it, sometimes people just never use 12:00 and jump directly from 11:59 to 12:01. Others use 12:00 noon or 12:00 midnight rather than AM or PM. But 12:00 AM or 12:00 PM should never be used. The 24-hour clock of course avoids this problem, 12:00 is 12:00 noon, and midnight is either 24:00 or 0:00 depending on which day you want to assign it to.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

The only legitimate exception I can think of would be if one were explaining the convention followed in some arena outside Wikipedia (such as a programming language), and that external arena used 12:00 AM and PM rather than noon and midnight.

By the way, 12:00 noon and 12:00 midnight are redundant, no need for the "12:00". Jc3s5h (talk) 20:45, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, yeah, 12:00 is ambiguous, but 12:00AM is not ambiguous, and neither is 12:00PM. But it's something people do get confused about, so noon or midnight seems to me always better where possible. The only problem situation I can think of is a sortable table, but I suspect there's some technical trick to get around that too. E Eng 21:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
There -- you can look up "data sort value Mediawiki". --Izno (talk) 00:15, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Headings on a TV series page

Should the headings on a multi-season TV series page be "season one" or "season 1"? The former appears to comply with the MoS but the latter appears to be in common use. IanB2 (talk) 07:49, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Have you raised this question at WP:Wikiproject Television? I cannot believe this hasn't come up before. E Eng 08:11, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

it would be helpful to clarify the general issue first, since the same question surely arises with anything divided into numbered parts where headings or sub-headings are used? If I am not misreading the MoS a discussion on tv is the next place to go, I guess IanB2 (talk) 08:18, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

In most cases we would follow the format of the sources, so there's no issue. But here I can imagine there's been a desire for consistency within articles, specifically on the point of TV seasons, and (I repeat) I suspect that's been discussed on the Project already. E Eng 08:31, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Abbreviation for trillion

MOS:NUMERAL gives recommended abbreviations for million (M) and billion (bn) but not trillion. Should that not be recorded as "tn"? Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 09:43, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Where has this come up? E Eng 15:08, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Is an abbreviation ever needed? Why can't it be spelt out in full? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 16:42, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I feel I must reiterate: these discussions are rarely productive unless there are examples of (multiple) actual articles where there's been actual discussion of an actual problem. In this case, as DV2 highlights, there's no evidence so far that there's any need for an abbreviation at all. Show us the articles. E Eng 19:19, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

As noted, in many cases the SI prefixes can be used, but there are cases where they are not appropriate. Human population being one case, fortunately we don't have to worry about that one. Money is another one. MOS:NUMERAL suggests spelling it out the first time, but abbreviating the second. It does seem to me, though, that in the actual (hopefully rare) cases where numbers are that big, that spelling it twice isn't so bad. It isn't like newspaper headlines, where space is limited. Gah4 (talk) 19:29, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

What's wrong with × 10¹²? — A. di M. 13:14, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Here is the case in point:

while energy bonds make up 15.7% of the $1.3tn junk bond market

found here. I changed the sum to

$1.3 trillion

on the next commit. I hope that satisfies EEng. Is there a consensus on my suggestion? Does the main page need to be modified? Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, from my point of view, the example you've given shows that, in the one case we have, trillion was fine and no abbreviation was necessary. I'd really like to see discussion at multiple articles suggesting something's needed here in MOS before we add anything about a preferred abbreviation. E Eng 22:26, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Without looking it up I would not have known the value of a trillion, so I added a link (I assume short scale is intended). I also see no need for a change to mosnum. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:37, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

FTR, yes it's short-scale -- see 4th bullet at WP:NUMERAL. E Eng 03:09, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

I've recently had this problem in editing an external text. I opted for spelling it out (it appeared just once in the text). I think if it's repeated much, and especially if "bn" occurs in the vicinity, you might get a way with the abbreviation. Unfortunately, some readers might at first think it's an abbreviation for "ton(ne)". Tony (talk) 04:19, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

As in, "They spent a ton of pounds on remodeling!" E Eng 08:36, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

OK to change date ranges in titles of cited works to use en dashes?

Here is an example of a change to a cite web template. Another editor objected to the change. I sometimes find it less than obvious what exact punctuation was used on a web page, and I don't think Wikipedia is obliged to keep the original punctuation if a web page uses a hyphen, minus sign or em dash in a date range. Even harder to tell what kind of dash/hyphen is on the cover of a book. What do others think? Chris the speller ^yack 15:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Changing to the ndash in a title is appropriate under MOS:QUOTE#Typographic conformity, and as much as I hate so much of AWB tinkering, I don't think it's an "insignificant or inconsequential edits" under AWB Rule #4 (which was the objection made when that change was reverted). But I'll leave that latter question to the Talmudic scholars. E Eng 16:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

The section on typographic conformity really covers it. Thanks. Chris the speller ^yack 03:21, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

MOS ERA

To quote the policy: "BP years are given as 18,000 BP or spelled out as 18,000 years before present (not 18,000 YBP, 18,000 before present, 18,000 years before the present, or similar)."

18,000 BP - 18,000 what BP? one might ask.

If this is a scientific notation, there should be no room for making assumptions. We should be saying either 18,000 years BP, or we should be accepting 18,000 YBP after first defining it in an article.

Does anyone have an opinion on this before I amend the policy, please? Regards, William Harris |talk 04:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I cannot discern what your concern is or what you're proposing. E Eng 05:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

BP is a specific notation that applies to radiocarbon dating. It does not apply to dates calculated by other methods, such as historical records. The specific abbreviation recognized by the scientific community should be used rather than an abbreviation invented by Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 06:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. Jc is right. If you're concerned about the reader understanding, I guess the first use of BP could be linked to Before Present. E Eng 16:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Jc is indeed correct but so is William Harris IMO. I find both "BP" and "years before present" too cryptic without explanation. I support a MOS requirement to link to an appropriate definition on first use. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 16:13, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, and forgiving my initial lack of clarity above. We also have scientific articles quite comfortably using YBP after it has been initially defined, of which this is one of many examples: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4446326/ It is often used in ancient DNA studies, and I can see no reason why Wikipedia should not be doing the same rather than banning the term "YBP" with no reason provided. Regards, William Harris |talk 03:09, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I have now updated the article with what I believe encapsulates our view here. Please review it for confirmation. Regards, William Harris |talk 20:24, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Ocupado

At Uncertain, incomplete, or approximate dates, we have:

When a person is known to have been active ("flourishing") during certain years, fl., [[Floruit|fl.]], or {{fl.}} may be used:

• Jacobus Flori (fl. 1571–1588) ...

The linked forms should not be used on disambiguation pages, and "active" followed by the range is a better alternative for artists, soldiers and other persons with an occupation.

That last bit has apparently been there for some time. A year or two ago I added the html comment,  but there has been no reply to date. Any thoughts? E Eng 07:32, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

To my understanding floruit was originally used for historians, grammarians, etc etc for when they began their work, or began to rule, or basically when people cared about them. From this I propose it be changed to: "The linked forms should not be used on disambiguation pages, and "active" followed by the range is a better alternative for occupations relating to composition of works, whether it be musical, grammatical, historical, or any other written work." I don't include the whole "began to rule" part as it's by far outdated. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 07:42, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Wait... First you said fl. would be used for grammarians, but then you said active would be used for them. E Eng 08:15, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for the contradictory statement, should be that historians, grammarians, etc etc are floruit, and most other professions would be active. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 08:17, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, but I think most editors will find historians, grammarians, etc. decidedly vague guidance, and even if we fleshed that out it will still seem arbitrary. I wish I could suggest that fl. and active can be used -- either of them -- for anyone, but our article Floruit indicates there really is some subtlety of usage. Paging the omniscient Tony1. E Eng 08:35, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Omniscient? This is undeserved flattery of one who probably lacks common sense in certain ways! I've no problem with "fl" for any sort of historical figure. No need for variants. New Hart's Rules (Oxford) makes no distinction either. [17]. "Brennus, Gaulish leader, invader of Italy (fl. 390 B.C.)" and so on. [18]. All types of folk there with "fl." A constable (in the old sense), an earl, and the usual motley assemblage of literary types. Tony (talk) 10:42, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

The space in a value

See #Unit_names_and_symbols, the 29kg example. I propose to split example into two independent issues: 1. When to use a space, 2. What kind of space to use (NBSP or simple)? As it is presented now, it is confusing by mixing things up. Also the word "but" is used incorrectly, as there is no contradiction just a different situation; consider reading "and" instead. In split rows:

Use a nonbreaking space ({{nbsp}} or ` `) between a number and a unit symbol, or use {{nowrap}}. Certain symbols with which no space is used are shown in the "Specific units" table below.	29 kg Markup: `29 kg` or `{{nowrap\|29 kg}}`	29kg
Use a normal space ( ) between a number and a unit name.	29 kilograms Markup: `29 kilograms`

-DePiep (talk) 13:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Done Great idea! E Eng 17:03, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I have torn them apart even more. (A multi-conditional rule is more difficult to grasp, while in this case that is not necessary. It is either name or symbol, and they do not interact). -DePiep (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Occurs to me now that I introduced some confusion too... Approach should be (and is now in the examples): 1. what kind of space to use before unit symbol, if at all? 2. What kind of space to use befor unit name? Now by this approach, we have two independent (unrelated=simple) statements. -DePiep (talk) 19:49, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Yup. We need clear guidance, not "in most cases" and "special situations" to cloud the issue. There no cases where a need routinely exists for a   between a numeral and its unit name, just as there are no cases where one is needed in phrases like "60 soldiers" or "20 lengths". In the very rare cases where a sentence fragment, perhaps used an an example, ought to be kept together in a table cell, the {{nowrap}} is available to avoid confusion. Any such rare exception to a guideline is already provided for in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines #Role. We don't need to hedge clear-cut guidance, so I've clarified the guidance once more. --RexxS (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Hidden meaning

Just wanted to share with my esteemed fellow editors that anagrams of Manual of Style incude Of, um, anal style; Foul, lame, nasty; and Lame! Flay us not!.

And the winner is... A muse? Flatly, no! E Eng 15:54, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Unit symbols for pound force and avordupois pound

The international standard unit symbols for the pound force and avoirdupois pound are lbf and lb, respectively. I have encountered many articles that use non-standard symbols such as lbm, lb_m, lb_f and lb_F. My attempts to harmonise (by following the international standard) are met with claims that it is somehow clearer to use these non-standard symbols. I have made a text proposal at mosnum in the spirit of WP:BRD. Please also feel free to comment at Lbm and Slug (mass). Thanks, Dondervogel 2 (talk) 12:02, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

In general I agree with you. 2 lb of potatoes do not require any "m"s adding. There is a marginal case for the template though, it produces "lb_m" not "lbm", which can be useful for disambiguating from "lbf". The others though are simply seeds of confusion. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:20, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

It might be desirable to state that disambiguating is only necessary where both units are present and context would not otherwise indicate that we're talking about mass vice force. It's usually the case we're talking about force, so disallowing "lb" in place of "lbf" seems not-great. --Izno (talk) 14:09, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

In everyday experience I often come across the pound used as a unit of mass (symbol lb), and almost never as a unit of force. In scientific use both pound force (lbf) and avoirdupois pound (lb) are used. Further in some scientific articles (and I only learnt this today - I had never seen it before outside WP), it seems that the author aims to distinguish between lb and lbf by adding the suffix 'm' to the symbol 'lb'. Bad practice in my opinion but I accept that it happens. The (purely rhetorical) question becomes, do we want to encourage this practice on WP? I see no justification for ever using 'lb' (the symbol for avoirdupois pound) as a symbol for the unit of force - that is a recipe for confusion. regardless of my opinion though, three questions to esteemed fellow editors:

Assuming we adopt 'lbf' for pound force, is there a need to add the suffix 'm' to indicate a unit of mass?
If there is such a need, is your preference for 'lbm', 'lb_m' or other (please specify)?
If we do not adopt 'lbf' for pound force, what do you propose instead?

Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

lbm shows up in engineering textbooks, though I'd have to be home to provide a specific page of my thermodynamics text. Probably at least in the steam tables in the appendices. :) --Izno (talk) 14:58, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I suggest the phrase "The international standard unit symbols" at the beginning of this section is nonsense. If the people who still use customary British and American units were interested in following international standards, we'd all be using SI. The fact that these older units persist proves that international standards have made limited headway in this realm. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

The statement is factually correct (it applies specifically to an IEEE standard for customary inch pound units^[1] - I guess there might be other standards out there), although I accept your point that users of customary British and American units might prefer not to follow the IEEE international standard. But what do they use instead? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Dondervogel 2 asked "But what do they use instead?". I'm writing from an American perspective, which I think is appropriate since the US uses British/American customary units more extensively than any other country. Those who use customary units are not usually doing so in a scientific or high-tech realm, and so are likely to rely on whatever they learned in elementary or high school. At most, such users might consult whatever dictionary is handy. Purchasing a technical standard is completely out of the question.

The writers who might be held to a high standard for customary unit abbreviations are those working in a highly regulated area, such as food, drug, and product labels. Such writers would follow whatever law or government regulation governs the type of product they are writing about.

Adding to the difficulty is that the agency one might look to for guidance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is only interested in promoting SI, so provides minimal guidance about customary units. This attitude doesn't go over very well with other parts of the federal government, nor with the state governments, so NIST is mostly ignored by the rest of the government. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:28, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, there is no US national standard we can follow, so what should we do instead? More specifically, what is the objection to following the IEEE standard? I do understand the point of some articles wanting to drum home the difference between lbf and lb by attaching an 'm' suffix to the latter. While this would not be my preference, if there's enough support for doing so, fair enough. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:25, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Dondervogel 2 asked "what is the objection to following the IEEE standard?" My objection is that it costs $94 (only $75 for me, since I'm an IEEE member). My experience with ISO 8601 in Wikipedia is that it is frequently misinterpreted because those attempting to use it can't afford to, or choose not to, buy it, and so are relying on third-hand summaries. So I object to the MOS relying on non-free standards. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:38, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h: That falls down right quick in the spirit of WP:PAYWALL. --Izno (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

As Izno seems to acknowledge by using the phrase "in the spirit of", WP:PAYWALL is part of WP:Verifiability, and so does not apply to project pages like this, only to article pages. I think an individual article is really a different situation than a widely-consulted project page. Not all encyclopedic information is readily available from free reliable sources, so WP:PAYWALL is necessary for articles. But there are sufficient free sources of style information, so we don't need to ask editors to follow style advice contained in non-free sources. Of course, we could just say it is Wikipedia's decision that the abbreviation for pound-mass is lb and the abbreviation of pound-force is lbf, just so long as we don't descend the slippery slope of asking editors to follow all the other abbreviations in the IEEE standard. Also, since the IEEE standard is generally ignored by users of British and American customary units, that standard shouldn't be given much weight in this discussion. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:56, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

In that case, let me rephrase my question: Are there any objections to MOSNUM adopting (accepting in principle that they might be exceptions in some special situations) the symbol lb as the symbol for a pound of mass and lbf as the symbol for a pound of force? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:33, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid I do object, on the grounds that I'd first like to see actual arguments on both sides, emanating from actual discussions on actual articles. Otherwise we're working in a vacuum. E Eng 22:00, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

... but this one really is broke [19] [20] Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Looks like that discussion is ongoing. AFAICS this guideline doesn't take a position on this anyway, and I'd prefer to keep it that way until there's demonstrated need for something to be added. For all we know different articles are best off using different conventions (civil engineering vs. physics, for example). E Eng 23:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

[21] [22] [23] [24] [25] Strongly disagree. What we have now is a confusing proliferation of lb, lbf, lb_f, lb_F, lbm and lb_m, with no rhyme and CERTAINLY no reason. The reader has no chance to work out what all the different symbols mean. We can make it much simpler for the reader by choosing a symbol and sticking with that symbol. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:39, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, I can certainly believe that lbf, lb_f, and lb_F ought to be harmonized, as well as lbm and lb_m. But as between lb, lbf (whichever form), and lbm (whichever form), I suspect there are different places where each is appropriate, according practices in works in various topic areas. E Eng 00:53, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Aha! Now we're making some progress. One step at a time: Which is preferred between lbf, lb_f and lb_F for pound force? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 01:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't get upset, but I'm going to suggest that you work that out on at least one of the articles. At least there people are familiar with the (or "a") topic area; after that "we" (i.e. you) will need to figure out how to bring in a wider group (Project Physics + Project Engineering + ...) for a broader discussion before adding something here.

BTW, shouldn't a subscript version be on the table? E Eng 01:18, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Not upset, but can't be bothered either. It's an obvious problem with an obvious ~~problem~~ solution. No one has yet come up with a serious alternative to the international standard symbol (lbf) for pound-force. That is what we should use. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 01:25, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, if it becomes a problem on multiple articles I'm sure there will be interest in a centralized discussion with an eye toward ending hostilities on the question. Until then I counsel letting sleeping dogs lie. E Eng 01:54, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

It's already a problem on multiple articles, for the reasons I explained earlier. Whether or not mosnum gives clear guidance, I consider it important to continue harmonizing these multiple articles to reduce the potential for confusion. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:27, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

References

^ IEEE Std 260.1™-2004, IEEE Standard Letter Symbols for Units of Measurement (SI Units, Customary Inch-Pound Units, and Certain Other Units)

Dondervogel, I agree with you in general, that we should use lb for mass and lbf for force, and should make those changes in articles and templates that do otherwise, and then if someone objects, invite them to discuss it there, or more centrally here. But not just let it lie, since it's clearly a mess. On the other hand, I think that lb can sometimes be used where lbf is what is meant, as long as it's not ambiguous what is intended. Perhaps in constructs such as foot pounds and pounds per square inch, where including the f would seem unconventional? Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be a very bad idea to make an in vacuo decision here and then go around reforming articles accordingly. More appropriate would be to leave invitations-to-discussion at the obvious Wikiprojects, plus on the talk pages of a sample of their FAs. E Eng 07:00, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

@Dicklyon, you seem to be arguing that both lb and lbf are acceptable units of weight. If we go down that path we need a third symbol for an unambiguous unit of mass. For that I would I would propose lbm, as this symbol is sometimes used for precisely this purpose, and it has a clear symmetry with lbf (easier for the reader than lb_m). Does this make sense?

I'm not convinced of the necessity that you see. Can you show a context where just using lb for mass could be confused with a force interpretation? Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I do not see a need for it all, but others wish to use lb as a symbol for pound-force. If they do that there's a clear risk it would be confused with mass. My personal preference was and remains to reserve lb for avoirdupois pound and lbf for pound-force. That's why I made this edit that led to this discussion. What could be simpler than that? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

@EEng, I will post notes on ongoing discussion pages inviting participants to join a centralized discussion here. I do not have time for more. Sorry.

Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:25, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Break

OK, looking back to where this came up, and particularly at the IP's opinion in Template_talk:GravEngAbs#Eliminate_pound_mass_because_it.27s_not_part_of_a_real_system_of_units, I can see more clearly the issue that Dondervogel is struggling with there. Apparently in aviation they like the system of lb always being a force, and sometimes go so far as to claim that there's no such thing as a pound mass, and so propose one radical approach. Most "modern" systems go the other way and define a pound as only a mass. In typical usage, it might be either, and usually nobody cares which; whether you buy you cheese using a spring scale or a balance, a pound is a pound unless you're extra terrestrial. So the right thing to do is probably dependent on the context, and I admit that in a context where the difference is relevant or under discussion, using both lbf and lbm or some such is a good idea. In most contexts, however, just using lb is probably fine; if the interpretation is important, linking the first use to the appropriate article Pound (mass) or Pound (force) should be enough to remove any problem. Using lbf in general where lb is conventional would be horrible for the general audience. If one or more article or template discussions could be resolved along such lines (or some other consensus), I'd support saying something about it here, too. Invite me to relevant discussions please. Dicklyon (talk) 18:31, 14 December 2016 (UTC) A half-pound of Newtons

What about the conversion template? How does it know whether to convert to kg or N? Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:18, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

When you use the template you specify the convert-to unit, no? E Eng 21:25, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

No, it doesn't work. 1 pound (^{[convert: unit mismatch]}). The convert template would need additional code. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say it would work. Hawkeye asked how the convert knows whether to convert to kg vs. N, and I said that's specified when you use the template. You're highlighting a different problem. E Eng 23:17, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@Dicklyon I think the main problems are caused by Template:GravEngAbs, which is used in several relevant articles. If that template were fixed, many of the other problems would go away. In the absence of advice from mosnum, my position is that Wikipedia should follow the IEEE standard, but each editor has his or her own preference. If mosnum came to some consensus I think that consensus would be followed. In the meantime the present confusion is perpetuated. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:23, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that lbm and lbf are the right symbols under the "EE" column. Hopefully we don't need them anywhere else. I made the those edits; let's see if anyone still prefers the funny mixed-case subscript style, and why. Dicklyon (talk) 23:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I like what you've done there. I still see a need to bring mosnum into line. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 00:12, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

mosnum is not achieving its goal on matters of weight

The purpose of mosnum is to promote uniformity of style in units and numbers. There are several templates used to harmonise symbols for the pound (mass) and pound (force) across articles. One of these uses lbf and lbm, one uses lb_f, and another uses lb_m. Mosnum is not doing its job. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:24, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

No, the purpose of MOSNUM is to document what are the current practices in the use of units and numbers on Wikipedia. On this encyclopedia, policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. Much as it would be nice to be able to promote uniformity of style, the idea that a small group can produce "standards" that are to apply across Wikipedia is one that enjoys no consensus whatsoever. --RexxS (talk) 00:22, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The (verbatim) stated goal of the MOS is "to make using Wikipedia easier and more intuitive by promoting clarity and cohesion, while helping editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting." One does not achieve clarity and cohesion with three different symbols for the same unit - if the goal was to reflect current practice we would be promoting kbps for kilobit per second, ' " for ft in, lbs. for pounds, kts for knots and nm for nautical mile. I do agree with your last point though; the solution is to encourage inputs to MOSNUM from those who edit the articles. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The goal may be so, but its purpose has to conform with the policy stated in WP:PAG. So no cabals deciding how we write our articles. For information, a Google search on "site:wikipedia.org +kbps" yields "About 146,000 results", and similar sorts of results for the others. Good luck "promoting clarity and cohesion, while helping editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting" in those articles. --RexxS (talk) 17:56, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

This distinction between descriptive and prescriptive is not useful. If a practice is working and has consensus support, we can write it into the MOS and encourage its consistent use. If two schemes are being used, in confusing conflict, we should look at maybe deciding on which one to encourage and phase out the other. Dondervogel, I think you make a definite proposal or two, informed by this discussion, and open an RFC about it, so we can get more eyes on it and decide whether it's time to resolve the multiple schemes in favor of one. Dicklyon (talk) 17:44, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive is very useful, and you'd do well to bear it in mind. The guidance documented here was once authoritative because it was a distillation of the best practice found on the wiki. Now what is found here is all too often treated with disdain because the small group deciding what is best for everyone are not spending enough time looking for that best practice within articles. I'm all in favour of consensus decision making, but I don't view unpublicised debate between a handful of editors on these pages as carrying any more weight than CONLOCAL allows. By all means, set up a proposal and open a well publicised RfC. The results of that are far more likely to be useful in encouraging editors to adopt a consistent scheme across Wikipedia. --RexxS (talk) 21:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I have already made a proposal, to adopt lbf for pound-force and lb for avoirdupois pound, on the grounds that these are the international standard symbols^[1] . It was reverted. Now it is up to others to make a counter-proposal to sort out this mess. I don't see a need for a formal rfc. A well-publicized discussion on this page should suffice. I'm happy to help with reaching out if you tell me which projects need to be informed. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:39, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I have made an edit to the lbf template to bring it into line with the IEEE standard. Views of all involved editors are solicited on the template talk page. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

References

^ IEEE Std 260.1™-2004, IEEE Standard Letter Symbols for Units of Measurement (SI Units, Customary Inch-Pound Units, and Certain Other Units)

Singular/plural for mixed units

When I made this edit [26] it seemed perfectly obvious, but on reflection I realize I just don't know. In other words, which are correct?

(A) 6 foot 5 inches and 6 foot 1 inch or
(B) 6 feet 5 inches and 6 feet 1 inch

(Obviously there's no issue about the inch/inches.) Our current text on mixed units ~~old version~~ doesn't explicitly address the question. Thoughts? E Eng 01:57, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

It's just an idiomatic English usage of "foot" instead of "feet" for plural units. For no apparent reason, it is perfectly normal to say "he is six foot tall", but I can think of no other unit where that applies – "the pitch is 100 yards long", "the candle is 5 inches high", etc. Of course, "he is six feet tall" is just as acceptable, but my feeling is that it's rather less common, certainly here in the UK. I wouldn't worry about it. --RexxS (talk) 02:25, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

FWIW I’ve heard “ton” used similarly where one would usually expect a plural, as in “She had three ton of fish in her hold.” But I regard this usage as colloquial or dialect, not suitable for a formal register.—Odysseus 1479 03:05, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Also FWIW, anecdotally, I often hear "six foot two", never "six feet two", but "six feet two inches" and never "six foot two inches". Primergrey (talk) 03:33, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I realize I'm not thinking about this clearly. Let's get away from feet/inches for a second. Are we agreed that (C) is wrong and (D) is right?

(C) 6 gallon 5 ounces and 6 gallon 1 ounce
(D) 6 gallons 5 ounces and 6 gallons 1 ounce

E Eng 02:33, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

US or imperial? :p

Yes.—Odysseus 1479 03:05, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Yessir. Primergrey (talk) 03:34, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, good. I think Primergrey's comment is the key: I often hear "six foot two", never "six feet two", but "six feet two inches" and never "six foot two inches". Clearly we're never going to say merely "A six foot two man" in an article, so that decides it: we're agreed that (B) and (D) are correct, (A) and (C) wrong? E Eng 03:43, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if a few of you could take a look ~~old version~~. E Eng 04:03, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

~~Can't imagine it looking any righter :>)~~

That'll do, I guess. Primergrey (talk) 05:04, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

That makes me kind of sad, like I'll never achieve this level of perfection again. Please take it back. E Eng 05:23, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. We don't want to tempt fate. E Eng 08:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I object to this change. It does not address the subject of date formats. Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:45, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The sad thing is that in a moment someone will actually start arguing about date-format implications of human height. E Eng 15:42, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, we would say "a six-foot man" because it's being used as an adjective directly in that sort of construction: "a four-inch stick"; a "ten-ton weight"; etc. The colloquialism is when it's used as a predicate: "the man was six foot tall" - I never hear "the man was six feet tall", although it's technically correct. --RexxS (talk) 17:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

What I said is that we'd never write (in an article) "A six foot two man" -- instead we'd write "A man six feet two inches tall" or somesuch. I'm sure you'll agree with that.
You're right that "a six-foot man" is acceptable, but remember we're talking here about mixed units, so "a six-foot man" is out of scope of this discussion, and unaffected by the change I made. I suppose that leaves the question of "a six-foot one-inch man", ~~but there are some doors man was never meant to open~~ on which see below.
"The man was six foot tall" is what I must have been thinking of when I made this edit [27],but it's a colloquialism we'd never use in an article (which is why I immediately reverted myself). BTW, "The man was six feet tall" seems perfectly natural to me.

I take it you're OK with my edit (linked a few posts back)? E Eng 02:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

(later) Well, I must be slipping. I myself wrote the phrase four-foot, eleven-inch carved-wood effigy in Sacred Cod, so I guess we should address that form. See my further edit ~~old version~~. E Eng 06:24, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

(even later) And now I further realize that I'm not sure whether a comma should be included in the adjectival form i.e.

four-foot, eleven-inch carved-wood effigy

versus

four-foot eleven-inch carved-wood effigy

Someone please deliver me from this hell. Tony1? SMcCandlish? E Eng 11:14, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The confusion is happening because the "plural foot" usage is a compound modifier which should be hyphenated (if we used it at all): "He is six-foot tall" and "He is six feet tall" are both "correct" (idiomatic, though the first is colloquial). Yet the hyphen is not used when working with unit symbols instead of spelled-out units (whether the number is spelled out or not), resulting in the following possible variants: "The statue is 15-foot tall" (colloquial), "The statue is 15 feet tall" (clear), "The statue is 15 ft tall" (don't abbreviate in running prose), "It is a 15-foot statue" (clear), "It is a 15 ft statue" (don't abbreviate in running prose), while "It is a 15[-]feet statue" is just ungrammatical, hyphenated or not. Regardless, that "The statue is 15-foot tall" (or "The statue is 15 ft tall") usage here is obviously a colloquialism from the construction industry and isn't encyclopedic writing (it's an inversion of common adjectival usage like "six-foot man", "15-foot statue", "four-foot eleven-inch pipe", etc., which are not colloquial. And no, the last of those should never have a comma in it. Also, yes, the "He is six-feet two" variant exists and is in wide use (as above, "He is six-foot two" is using a compound adjective, "He is six feet two" is not); both patterns are common in the US, though maybe on a regional basis. But we should never be clipping the final unit off in encyclopedic writing anyway.
What we need to do is:
1. Distinguish better between usage of symbols and of words – "The statue is 5 metres (16 feet 5 inches) tall" versus "The statue is 5 metres (16 ft 5 in) tall", and definitely not "The statue is 5 metres (16 foot 5 inch) tall" or "The statue is 5 metre (...) tall". This rule seems to only appear in a complex table. It might be best to summarize the key points of (the most frequently sought items from) that table above it and perhaps also import these into the corresponding section at the main MoS page.
2. Advise against the symbol use except in tables, inside parenthetical conversions, and other "cramped quarters" (note that {{Convert}} generates symbols not words in the parentheticals automatically unless forced not to). This is also a point worth including in MoS-main. But it should not be required to abbreviate in such circumstances, especially since elsewhere MoS says to use the unabbreviated form on first occurrence for any unit that may not be familiar to all readers, and there are other circumstances in which the symbol may be confusing; e.g. in for inch[es] is obviously easily confused with the preposition in.
3. Specifically advise against "He is six-foot tall" (and "He is 6 ft tall") as a colloquial style to be avoided. Also advise against the especially colloquial abbreviated version that drops the second unit, "He is six-foot two" and "He is six feet two".
4. Mention that a construction like "four-foot eleven-inch pipe" does not take a comma (wrong: "four-foot, eleven-inch pipe"); it is a single measure, and the adjectives are chained and hierarchical (as in "a big brown dog", which is never given idiomatically by native speakers as "a brown big dog"), not in competition with each other for importance (as in "that stupid, lazy, aggressive, untrainable dog").
5. As usual, advise rewriting any construction that may be awkward or confusing.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Crikey, SM, can you start by just saying whether this updated version of the guidance on mixed units has any problems? Most of what you're saying is already in there. Feel free to make bold edits, of course. E Eng 04:24, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Every edit is a mistake (understanding is left as an exercise for the reader)

So I come here for reassurance and get soooo confused. This edit back in March 2014 tried to shorten the (apparently) obnoxiously long list of examples:

• fifty-six

• five hundred

• four hundred seven or four hundred and seven

• two thousand four hundred sixty-six or two thousand four hundred and sixty-six

in section Numbers as figures or words. Currently the complete examples of the rule are

"larger ones are not (fifty-six, five hundred)".

Now I may be dysfunctional but reading that says to me that the examples of "larger ones" includes both 'fifty-six' and 'five hundred'.

The original examples included one example hyphenated and three examples not hyphenated. This lent itself to comparison between the examples, eliciting understanding that 'fifty-six' should be hyphenated, the others not. This was lost in the attempt at neatening up.

Which would be better? Changing this to "(fifty-six, but not five hundred)" or simply restoring the original list of four examples? I feel having more examples is nearly always better, and especially apt when reading comprehension is impaired. (Shenme says 'hiya!') Shenme (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually, you're misreading what the rule is (correctly, if confusingly) trying to say, but I'm too tired to explain. Anyway, I added an example which I think fixes the confusion. E Eng 07:39, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Midnight departures

Which dates do we use for departures at midnight? For example, Maggie Hassan's resignation as Governor of New Hampshire took effect at midnight 3 January 2017. Do we use 2 January or 3 January, as the departure date? GoodDay (talk) 14:33, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

How about either 24:00 2 January or 00:00 3 January. Both terms are unambiguous and acceptable. In general the only (very minor) thing to be aware of is if a leap second is added: 24:00:00 is followed by 00:00:00 rather than being the same. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

What's got me curious about this matter, is the departure dates used for the last several Mexican Presidents & the departure dates used for New York governors. Those use November 30 & December 31 (instead of December 1 & January 1) respectively. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Martin of Sheffield: Isn't the leap second 23:59:60 instead? Ppp ery 21:14, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

You've got me thinking now - I'm sure I've seen 24:00/00:00 for it on a clock chip, but I think you may be correct on standard policy. If you are right, then there is not even a minor problem. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:45, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This is why strikes and ceasefire sometimes take effect at 12:01 am. Executions, too. E Eng 15:09, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Likewise railway timetables (or else 23:59). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Except unlike executions, railways have arrivals as well as departures. E Eng 15:45, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

You obvious haven't tried travelling on Southern recently ... :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:54, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Italics for foreign units

According to MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, foreign terms that aren't commonly used in English should be italicised. This probably applies to foreign units such as the Japanese tsubo or the Thai rai. This isn't spelled out in MOSNUM, however, and there's the possibility of conflict with preferred style for units, whose symbols are generally set in roman (as opposed to variables, which are in italics).

I've been discussing adding italics to some such units in Template:Convert, and it's been suggested that further input be requested here first. So, should foreign units be italicised, following the above? Or is there more reason not to? --Paul_012 (talk) 08:08, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

From a quick look, I think these are the units known to convert that might be affected.

{{convert|100|arpent|lk=in}} → 100 arpents (34 ha)
{{convert|100|pyeong|lk=in}} → 100 pyeong (330 m²)
{{convert|100|rai|lk=in}} → 100 rai (160,000 m²)
{{convert|100|dunam|lk=in}} → 100 dunams (0.10 km²; 0.039 sq mi)
{{convert|100|shaku|lk=in}} → 100 shaku (30 m)
{{convert|100|viss|lk=in}} → 100 viss (160 kg)

Johnuniq (talk) 09:00, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I see no conflict myself. As Paul points out, the requirement for upright is for unit symbols, not the unit names. It seems reasonable to treat unit names in the same way as any other foreign words. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:20, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of unit name capitalization in infoboxes

Please see Template talk:Infobox unit#RfC: capitalization rule for name parameter, about whether a unit name that appears at the top of an infobox should be capitalized or not. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:24, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for a small gesture

In all seriousness, I want to thank WikiOriginal-9 for taking the time to reduce the GDQ (gloom-and-doom quotient) of this guideline [28]. E Eng 21:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Please refrain from inventing acronyms. Primergrey (talk) 00:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

This is your only warning; if you invent a new acronym again, you may be asked to write a date format essay without further notice. Kendall-K1 (talk) 03:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Ha! It's not an acronym – it's an initialism! Na na nuh na na! I WP:WIN! You may now start WP:WHINING! E Eng 04:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

400 year frequency problem

A reader writes in at WP:OTRS ticket:2017020210016846. This reader released their email with a free license, specifically, "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported and GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts)".

This has always bothered me, and I'm not sure how to fix the issue outside of going in and editing each of the 366 days of the year pages, so I'm hoping you have a way of correcting this easier than I can.

At the top of each of these pages (such as today's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2 ) , wikipedia states the frequency of that day being on a particular day of the week (for a 400 year period). for example, today states

This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Sunday or Monday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Wednesday or Friday (56).

While this may be true for some arbitrary selected span of 400 years, if you took a different span of 400 years, the results would be different. This is similar to stating that February 2 always falls on Thursdays (when observing for one year - 2017)

The day of the week in which a specific date falls on rotates through a 28 year rotation. so every 28 years, any day of the year will land on a Sunday 4 times, Monday 4 times, Tuesday 4 times, etc.

If instead of a 400 year period, you had selected a multiple of 28, and used either 392 or 420, you would have found that each day would have fallen equally on each day of the week.

I realize I say "you" when I know that wikipedia is edited by people all over the world, but I think this error should be corrected from each of the date pages as it is incorrect.

This article is the subject of a request emailed to the Volunteer Response Team (VRT).

Issues identified are: reader writes in
The VRTS ticket number is 2017020210016846.

Please discuss these issues here, being mindful of the policies on biographies of living persons.

Anyone with comments should reply here, and I will direct the person to read here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe put a "citation needed" template after that? But seriously, I don't think this falls under the "simple arithmetic requires no citation" exclusion. Rather than decide whether it's true or not, shouldn't we require an inline source citation? This seems to come from Template:Day, and an entry in the history there says it's from [29]. @Crissov: know anything about this? Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

FTR our articles are correct. The OTRS OP's premise is mistaken because s/he does not take account of the century leap year rule in the Gregorian calendar.

If you take them into account, then 400 Gregorian years divides into an even number of weeks. But since 400 doesn't divide into 7, there is no way that the weekdays can be evenly split over dates in that period. As our article correctly notes, they are not. Kahastok talk 18:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I would think the result would be a bit different if one were considering the Julian calendar vs. the Gregorian calendar. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:51, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe, but the day articles like February 2 are explicitly about that date on the Gregorian calendar. Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:28, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Agree that the Julian cycle would be different (28-year versus 400-year). Disagree that February_2 article is explicitly about that date on the Gregorian calendar, the intro-paragraph assumes such is the case, but the events/births/deaths are a mixture of Julian and Gregorian. We should be more careful, so readers are not disconcerted by the perceived inaccuracies. If we add some footnotes that should help, see detailed suggestion below. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:02, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

It’s probably unexpected information, but infact accurate like Kahastok explained. Unlike Kendall-K1, I do believe that it’s covered by the mentioned exemption. — Christoph Päper 00:03, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's a big deal, but I don't think it's covered by WP:CALC. There are just too many moving parts to be able to say it "obvious" nothing's been overlooked in the calculations outlined above. If it's right (and I suspect it is) there should be no problem finding an RS. E Eng 01:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

It's pretty trivial to confirm - look up a calendar for February 1617 or February 2417 and compare them with a calendar for February 2017. If they are the same (and they will be) then the calculation is confirmed.

But I agree. The fact that the OP got it wrong in such a perfectly understandable way demonstrates that it is not a trivial calculation. And the conclusion is somewhat counterintuitive. WP:CALC does not apply to the calculation in those articles without a further source.

That said, it seems to me that the source linked above is sufficient as a source for the text as-is, as only trivial calculation is needed to add together the relevant numbers given in the first table. Kahastok talk 23:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Having done a manual WP:CALC using a spreadsheet (named somewhat ironically 'Calc'), and the detail-tables of the provided source,[30] it is definitely the case that for Groundhog Day under the Gregorian calendrical system, there *is* a 400-year cycle, and it does properly rollover. So for instance 2/2/2000 is a Wednesday, and if you hand-count all the Groundhog Day celebrations from 2000 thru 2399, which is 400 years, there indeed are 58 Tue/Thu/Sat instances, 57 Sun/Mon instances, and 56 Wed/Fri instances, just as wikipedia accurately says (without source albeit) over at February_2.

So here is the flaw in the text OTRS ticket: "While this may be true for some arbitrary selected span of 400 years, if you took a different span of 400 years, the results would be different." Turns out that is NOT a problem, because the Gregorian system (including the proleptic Gregorian calendar which goes back in time indefinitely albeit counterfactually/ahistorically), you can select an arbitrary span of *any* set of consecutive 400-years-duration, and get the same result. Above I used the span from 2000-thru-2399, which started on a Wednesday for 2/2/2000... but if I shifted up a notch, and used the span from 2001-thru-2400, the counterintuitive 58+57+56 outcome would still hold with no changes, because we dropped 2/2/2000 from the span, but replaced it with 2/2/2400, which is also a Wednesday since it is exactly 400 years away, and the Gregorian calendar *has* a 400-year-cycle. As pointed out by Kahastok, this is always the case: 2017 matches 2417, and also matches 1617, and so on, in terms of what the days-of-the-week look like. However, if you go back to 1217, you HAVE to use the proleptic Gregorian, otherwise things will get seriously out of whack mathematically speaking.

Now, there is a different question, which the wikipedia article on February_2 does NOT speak to. The original OTRS ticket says this: "The day of the week in which a specific date falls on rotates through a 28 year rotation." And that *is* in fact the case, for some calendrical systems, as explained at the Solar cycle (calendar) article. As Jc3s5h mentioned above, the result for the Julian calendar would differ, since it uses a different leapday-scheme from the Gregorian. While it is true that February_2 and the other on-this-day articles in wikipedia have an intro-paragraph which only covers the Gregorian calendar, that does not mean wikipedia should ignore the Julian calendar. The very first thing in the February_2#Events section is the Breviary of Alaric which is traditionally dated to February 2nd during 506 Anno Domini. There is no cite for that 2/2/0506 datestamp in the February_2 article, but if you click on the Breviary of Alaric article there is a cite to a couple of sources published in the late 1800s. So the question becomes, were those sources using the proleptic Gregorian calendar, for the year 506 A.D.? Probably they were not, is my guess, although the source doesn't specifically say if they were using old-style (Julian) dates, or new-style (Gregorian) dates.

But regardless of that specific 2/2/0506 question, the February_2 article, and the other on-this-day articles are deficient in two ways. First, it is important to specify the calendar-system being used, for ALL events that are pre-1752-or-so, and certainly for any events that are pre-1582/1583. Such things will usually *not* be in the proleptic Gregorian, they will be Julian dating-style. And second, since at least *one* reader was disconcerted by the claim that there are *always* going to be 58 Tue/Thu/Sat instances, 57 Sun/Mon instances, and 56 Wed/Fri instances of February 2nd during *any* timespan of 400-years, I would suggest that we specify in the lede that this statement is only factual for the Gregorian calendar, and then in a footnote explain that the proleptic Gregorian calendar can theoretically be utilized such that this statement is factual for any 400-year-timespan past or future. And link to an article which explains the math. But the very same footnote should also go on to explain that under *other* calendrical systems, such as the Julian system used for discussion of pre-1582 historical events even nowadays in 2017 (see e.g. October_25#Events which lists the Battle of Agincourt ... despite that battle happening on October 25th Julian 1415ad), the 400-year-cycle is not applicable. In the Julian case, there is instead a 28-year-cycle, and some groups still use the non-Gregorian systems, so for maximum correctness wikipedia ought to have a footnote explaining that the February_2 article and the October_25 article and all 366 other on-this-day articles are *mostly* about the Gregorian date, unless otherwise noted (e.g. 1415 Battle of Agincourt is Julian because the WP:SOURCES don't use proleptic-Gregorian). My thanks to the person who emailed OTRS, and to Bluerasberry for jumping through the copyright-hoops to get it posted on-wiki. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:02, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

You are quite welcome. If you will excuse me now, I am running away from this discussion forum. I obviously brought that post to the right place and now I am quite sure that this is a discussion for other people to enjoy. I read all of your post - very interesting and enough for me to stop here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 03:19, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

break for convenience

Yes, I think you're right. The lede says "February 2 is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar" but then goes on to list events that, while it doesn't say, I assume are listed by their Julian dates, not (proleptic) Gregorian. We need something like "February 2 is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars" and "dates in this list before 1752 are presumed Julian unless otherwise specified." The exact wording may be a bit tricky. Also I doubt anyone is going to go through and verify all the dates so the wording will necessarily be a bit weasily. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:37, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe a footnote could be added to the lead, saying that the article follow the conventions at MOS:JG. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:08, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, it is not usually wiki-honourable to link to the guidelines from body-prose in mainspace :-)

Which I learned the hard way, by doing it and getting reverted! But I do note that MOS:JG says this: "The dating method used should follow that used by reliable secondary sources (or if reliable sources disagree, that used most commonly, with an explanatory footnote)." So probably the February_2 article, and other on-this-day articles, should follow the example set by WP:RS. What is the tactic most commonly used by On This Day type of publications, that are WP:RS? I would assume they use a mixture of Julian and Gregorian, but they might do something different. In particular, I'd really like to know whether or not the WP:RS utilize the strange-sounding "...but the start of the Julian year should be assumed to be 1 January..." thing that MOS:JG guideline recommends. That would impact our specific use-case, since we are usually listing the year in which an event/birth/death happened. So for instance, George Washington was born "February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731]" and we only list him at February_22#Births with 1732 as the year-of-birth. Is that normal/proper/etc? Do some WP:RS crossref him On This Day: February 11th (for G.W. see Feb 22nd), and also, do some RS use 1731 rather than 1732 for Washington's birth-year? Agree that we should get the exact wording hammered out, for footnotes and intro-text, before we go WP:BOLDly changing all 366 entries 47.222.203.135 (talk) 16:01, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Sources I've noticed, such as Dictionary of American Biography and Dictionary of National Biography always treat January 1 as the beginning of the year, and otherwise use the calendar in force at the time and place of the event. What I don't know is what modern English-language historical publications do when describing an event at a time and place where neither calendar was in force, for example, early 16th century China. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:04, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

"There is no year 0"

Should this be clarified here? It seems it's not widely understood, and at least one of our articles put the year 0 in the mouth of a source that said year 1 until a moment ago. Maybe say Some sources refer to a year 0; where it is necessary to use such sources, try to find a way to work around this (say, using "the beginning of the year" or "the turn of the era", or rounding up to "year 1"), or at least say the converse Do not insert a year 0 if a source uses wording like "turn of the era", etc.? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

If a source actually says "year 0" is that an obvious mistake we can just fix, or should we use template:sic? Obviously if it's part of a quote we have to use it verbatim, but what if we're paraphrasing? Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:18, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

It's obvious that there is an error, but do we really always know how to fix it? In a lot of cases (population estimates for example) it doesn't matter, but I can't imagine that when sources say "0 AD" they always mean 1 AD -- surely sometimes it's 1 BC, no? That would make correcting it difficult, at least in theory. I don't actually have an answer, though. Ideally we should always be paraphrasing, as a source that makes a mistake isn't the source we should be quoting, but I'm more concerned just with telling our editors not to use "year 0" on Wikipedia. I'm not sure how much detail to provide in the guideline, though. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:01, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

In astronomy the year 0 is 1 BC, see Astronomical_year_numbering. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:53, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

My point exactly. If a source uses year 0, we don't know which year they are talking about, and so correcting it is difficult. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:57, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) When one is exclusively using AD and BC notation (or equivalently, CE and BCE) there is no year 0. But if one is using astronomical year numbering or the version of ISO 8601 adopted in 2004, there is a year 0. Also, in astronomical works, it is common to use several ways of designating time in the same text, and the reader is expected to keep them straight. So unless 聖 tells us exactly which article and which source are at issue, it's impossible to say if there is an error or not. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:57, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I see that the MOSNUM does permit astronomical year numbering:

- Astronomical year numbering follows the Common Era and does not require conversion, but the first instance of a non-positive year should still be linked: The March equinox passed into Pisces in year −67.

Jc3s5h (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h: As I said above, I'm talking about this article. I have to assume there's an indefinite number of others. The lack of a year 0 is not widely understood, hence why scholars like Lawrence Schiffman have to constantly specify it in lectures aimed at the general public. Wikipedia is written by the general public, hence the above-linked error. I am also assuming that there are books containing similar errors. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:57, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

In the article article mentioned by Hijiri 88, there seems to be at least one minor error. However, negative year numbers go with astronomical year numbering. Had the article under discussion been totally correct, it would have been necessary to change "0" to "1 BC", "-10000" to "10001 BC", etc. One would also have to make sure there were no formulas in the article that depended on the years being stated with astronomical year numbering. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:16, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

The article explicitly uses astronomical numbering: "The following table uses astronomical year numbering for dates, negative numbers corresponding roughly to the corresponding year BC (i.e. -10000 = 10,001 BC, etc.)." Changing 0 to 1 has changed an orderly progression into a peculiarly uneven one that implicitly contradicts the preamble. (The actual estimates quoted are for a variety of years circa 0, but they are very broad estimates for values that were changing very slowly; the article doesn't pretend they're precise and we don't need to worry that they should be adjusted for any change between 1BC and 1AD, 0 and 1.) 92.19.26.31 (talk) 22:46, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Deprecation of "c." template

In the "Uncertain, incomplete, or approximate dates" section, {{c.}} is used in one of the examples, but this template is now deprecated and is being replaced (has been already?) by {{circa}} with the nolk=yes parameter. I remember some time ago reading the preference that we use {{circa}} in the first occurrence, and {{c.}} subsequently to avoid over-linking. I'm not sure I know all of the ins and outs here, so can someone more knowledgeable update the advice in this section - at least change the example, and restore the advice about second and subsequent uses? David Brooks (talk) 01:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

ETA - one problem is that people (like, er, me) might remember the old advice and still use {{c.}} as a shorthand for {{circa}}|lk=no. PrimeBOT 8 was run to remove them, and I don't know if it is set to run again, but if c. is to be deprecated, that needs to be explained to editors. David Brooks (talk) 03:54, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Unit conversions : giving both equally

In aircraft articles, specifications are given in metric and imperial. Template:convert is often used between units, but can imply errors by rounding when it shouldn't, when conversion are made backwards, with the wrong source unit. The best thing to do is to retain the manufacturer specs, as in Airbus_A330neo#Specifications where the template isn't called but the manufacturer conversions are used, with its deliberate rounding. To avoid confusing it with the output of Template:convert, I separate units with a slash instead of giving one or the other inside brackets, I don't even know which is preferred : obviously Airbus engineering works in metric, but its marketing is often in imperial units as it is customary. Do you think this agnosticism, not choosing a preferred unit and showing it, can be useful for the reader? --Marc Lacoste (talk) 14:01, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree that using the source's conversion precision is best, but I don't see any reason to display these conversions differently from the way the template would. The general reader doesn't care who did the conversion, and precision geeks can check the page source if they care. Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Kendall, plus maybe we should add "WARNING: DO NOT USE WIKIPEDIA TO BUILD AN AIRPLANE" to WP:General_disclaimer. E Eng 14:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

why assuming the general reader is dumb? It isn't precision geekery, I'm perfectly fine with appropriate rounding, but aircraft are certificated to hard limits and badly interpreted rounding can deteriorate over multiple conversions. This info isn't intended to build an airplane but to understand its capabilities. --Marc Lacoste (talk) 16:31, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

<rolls eyes> [31] [32] E Eng 16:48, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

If you can't express yourself as you want, blame you, not your reader.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 21:28, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I expressed myself as I wanted, but unfortunately overestimated the sophistication of my audience. E Eng 21:36, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

You seem nice.--Marc Lacoste (talk) 19:46, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Julian and Gregorian calendars and Days of the Year articles

I posted this 19 February 2014 and it was archived 12 March 2014 without generating any useful discussion, but it remains an issue.

In section Julian and Gregorian calendars it says, "Dates of events in countries using the Gregorian calendar are given in the Gregorian calendar." For example, Greece did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1923, so events in Greece prior to 1923 are supposed to be given with the Julian date. Presumably this rule applies generally, but it does not specifically state that this rule applies in Days of the Year articles. A reader looking at a Days of the Year article (e.g. January 1) would assume that two events or births in the same year both happened the same day. This would suggest that all events, births, and deaths in Days of the Year articles should be in the Gregorian calendar starting in 1582. The downside of this would be that articles about people and events relating to countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar after 1582 would have different dates from the Days of the Year article. This could be confusing!

I think WP:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Julian and Gregorian calendars should be modified to clarify the application of "Dates of events in countries using the Gregorian calendar are given in the Gregorian calendar" to Days of the Year articles. Whichever way the decision goes, I would suggest that events, births and deaths after 1582 in countries that still used the Julian Calendar should have clarifications in Days of the Year articles. For example, Ioannis Kapodistrias (11 February 1776 – 9 October 1831) is listed in February 11 as

1776 – Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greek politician, 1st Governor of Greece (d. 1831)

His Gregorian birthday is February 22, 1776. So if it is ruled that the use of Gregorian dates goes by country in Days of the Year articles, I would modify his listing in February 11 to something like

1776 – Ioannis Kapodistrias (Gregorian birthday February 22), Greek politician, 1st Governor of Greece (d. 1831)

And if it is ruled that Days of the Year articles list Gregorian dates starting in 1582, I would suggest listing Ioannis Kapodistrias in February 22 something like

1776 – Ioannis Kapodistrias (Julian birthday February 11), Greek politician, 1st Governor of Greece (d. 1831)

—Anomalocaris (talk) 16:17, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Multiple seasons in a date

How should a date that uses multiple seasons be entered? An issue of a certain journal ("Medieval Life," used on the Pioneer Helmet page) is dated "Autumn/Winter 1997/8." I've changed the years in the citation to "1997–98," but can't find a workaround for the seasons (e.g., "Autumn–Winter," "Autumn-Winter," or "Autumn/Winter") that doesn't tell me to "Check date values in: |date=." Thanks in advance for any suggestions! --Usernameunique (talk) 21:51, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Try Help_talk:Citation_Style_1. E Eng 21:54, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Asked there. --Usernameunique (talk) 22:54, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If you resolve it there could you ping us here? Possibly this page should be updated. E Eng 23:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this page should be updated, but I don't think this page should go into formatting dates within citations, only date format in general. Date formats purely within citations would be discussed at WP:Citing sources or, if and only if the article uses Citation Style 1 or 2, Help_talk:Citation_Style_1. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I said "maybe". E Eng 02:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Here's the answer: Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_31#Multiple_years_and_seasons_in_a_date. Essentially, MOS does not contemplate such a date, and thus citation styles 1&2 don't support it. "Autumn–Winter 1997" was suggested as "sufficiently correct enough" to avoid confusion. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:32, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I took the liberty of updating Usernameunique's wikilink to account for archiving. If I happened to know that an organization's autumn-winter season runs from November 30 to March 20, and that nearly all of the activity begins in January, and I saw "Autumn-Winter 1997" applying to this organization, I would wonder what year is meant by "Autumn–Winter 1997". I don't think it's an acceptable solution, whether for an organization's season or for a journal. —Anomalocaris (talk) 17:34, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion regarding date linking on portal date-specific pages

Please come participate in the discussion at WP:VPP#Date links on portal date-specific pages. Thank you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:48, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Conflicts

Is it Cretan Revolt (1866–1869) or Cretan Revolt (1866–69); Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute of 1857–60 or Ecuadorian–Peruvian territorial dispute of 1857–1860? The examples use different styles.--Zoupan 03:23, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

See WP:DATERANGE; the preference used to be for XXXX-XX, but a year or two ago that was turned on its head, so that now XXXX-XXXX is favored, except in narrow circumstances. I assume that reversal should extend to article titles, but I suggest you open a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article titles. The years might also be seen, I suppose, as a disambiguation, so you might also put a pointer at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation to the main discussion. E Eng 03:58, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

"Months and Years" style guide is blatantly wrong

The style guide states the following rule: “A comma follows the year unless followed by other punctuation”. It then provides the following sentence as an example:

The weather on March 12, 2005, was clear and warm

This sentence actually demonstrates that the rule is wrong (quite apart from the fact that the official style guide cannot even punctuate its own examples correctly with a final period). Remove the date from the sentence, and one is left with:

The weather, was clear and warm

The comma within the date (12,) is part of the date format, whereas the comma following the date (2015,) is part of the sentence structure, not part of the date. So removing the date from the sentence leaves us with a misplaced comma. The other way of trying to explain this concept is to reverse the above. A date is formatted thus:

March 12, 2015

Now create a sentence:

The weather was clear and warm.

Now add the date to that sentence:

The weather on March 12, 2015 was clear and warm.

Finally, the best way to avoid this issue altogether is to refrain from interrupting the natural flow of the sentence in the first place simply by writing the sentence thus:

The weather was clear and warm on March 12, 2015.

Therefore, I urge that we remove the above incorrect rule from the style guide altogether.

—Dilidor (talk) 18:18, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Other style guides, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, endorse the comma before and after the year. I suppose the rational is that the year is extra information that often isn't provided, so the extra information is set off with commas. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:46, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I find Dilidor's logic quite compelling. An alternative illustration of the same point is to write "The weather on 12 March 2015 was clear and warm". Do away with the pesky comma. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:21, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I find his logic absurd. Why did he remove only one comma of the pair offsetting the year? Crazy. Your version with zero commas is OK, too, but unbalanced commas, not. Dicklyon (talk) 04:26, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

As it happens, this was the subject of one of my better-known parodies, User:EEng#Why_every_goddam_thing_needn.27t_be_micromanaged_in_a_rule. Personally I think the comma should be optional, and no, not with uniformity within an article, just left to the judgment of editors. (Most uses of commas have more to do with sentence cadence than with "correctness" or even clarity. Serial commas are a great example of that.) However, the place this would have to be worked out is over at the main MOS page – see MOS:COMMA – and I'll tell you now you'll get some still resistance from people who think the year is a "parenthetical" or "appositive", and therefore must be "set off with commas". But I'd encourage you to get such a discussion started. As you'll see in my parody linked above, I think this is one of the sillier rules. (Paging Herostratus and Tony1, whose opinions might be interesting here.) E Eng 02:01, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Your next parody should address the logical gymnastics necessary to conclude that a style guide is "blatantly wrong". But I'll add to your warning to the OP; at the MOS main page you may well find editors who believe in the value of having a stable MOS and are willing to sacrifice some of their favourite and "obviously correct" third-grade grammar lessons in order to have some consistency in article style. Primergrey (talk) 03:25, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Primergrey: "… the logical gymnastics necessary to conclude that a style guide is 'blatantly wrong'." Ok, my wording there may have been a bit fired-up—inflammatory, even. I was mostly miffed at other editors who engage in revert wars over commas, all the while citing the style guide as the inflexible law. It is, after all, a guide, not The Holy Style Bible. Perhaps the style guide should contain disclaimers on every page warning editors that it is to be considered just that—a guide—and not to be invoked as Rule of Law on Wikipedia. Regardless, I will consider opening this can of worms on the main style page. —Dilidor (talk) 10:54, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

@Dilidor: Let me point out that it was my addition of commas to Stamp Act 1765 that got you started on this crusade, and also let me point out that you reverted my edit, not the other way around. So if I am the one who got you miffed, it is not for the reason you state, but that my edits are not to your taste, even though they conform to Chicago Manual of Style and Wikipedia's MoS. Besides the two dates where I added the comma after the year, there were seven cases where the comma already followed the year. My edit brought uniformity and also fixed a capitalization problem, but you just reverted the whole edit. I researched back to March 5, 2003, to find the first full date, and it has "on March 4, 1766, but ..." (and that's with the comma that you disapprove of). If you succeed in eliminating this rule and allowing the first editor of each article to set his or her own style, this article would still get the changes I made (adding the commas). It would also bring on a slew of edit wars on thousands of articles and waste a whole lot of time for any conscientious editor who saw conflicting styles to go back and research the article's edit history. Do you think we need new templates "Use mdy dates with comma after year" and "Use mdy dates without comma after year"? Eliminating the rule would result in sloppy-looking articles and more discord among editors and a huge waste of time. On the other hand, what was hurt by my edit that added two commas and brought uniformity to the article? It didn't make the article harder to read, but easier. Your personal taste was offended (though that was not my intent), but that shouldn't prevent making Wikipedia easier to read and more professional-looking. As for intentional offense, what do you think of telling an editor who follows the MoS that "Your edits are incorrect ... I will leave your incorrect punctuation as-is ... not worth my while to fight over misplaced commas ... your punctuational edits are wrong"? For uniformity, we need a rule to add such commas or a rule to remove them. As the rule stands now, an editor who adds a date that lacks the comma should feel no shame if another editor later adds the comma. Chris the speller ^yack 16:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Let's see. It is not a parenthetical phrase I don't think, in the manner of "The weather on March 12 (2005) was clear and warm" meaning "The weather on March 12 (and by the way, the year happened to be 2005) was clear and warm", since in most cases the year is important. Nor is it "The weather (on March 12, 2005) was clear and warm" since that implies that the main thing we want to get across is the nature of the weather in general (clear and warm) and the particular date or even time of year when the weather was clear and warm is trivial. Which is not usually true, for our purposes.

I once knew what an appositive is, but I had to reformat that part of my brain to make room for sports scores. But I don't think dates are apositives generally. They are unitary phrases. In which case maybe it should be ""The weather, on March 12, 2005, was clear and warm". Then you have "March 12, 2005" as unitary phrase which happens, by convention, to contain a comma within itself; and the entire phrase "on March 12, 2005" is comma-delineated.

But then that introduces an extra comma. Commas are signals to the readers to make a brief pause, and so this slows down the reader (a tiny bit, but still). So I dunno.

Probably is should be treated like the serial comma (see MOS:SERIAL). Do whatever you want, but leave alone what you find. Herostratus (talk) 17:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I like that approach. E Eng 21:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

The serial comma is a touchy subject, and requires careful handling to avoid possible confusion. Even so, it says to use the same format throughout an article (it does not say to leave alone what you find). The comma after year has no such complexity; following the rule to always put a comma after the year never causes confusion and seldom offends one's taste (well, I could name one person). Dropping the rule would create a mess and lead to edit wars. This rule ain't broke; we shouldn't 'fix' it. Chris the speller ^yack 00:52, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

following the rule to always put a comma after the year never causes confusion and seldom offends. I'll show you where it offends:

On December 25, 2001 (which was Christmas Day), we all went...

That' an actual example I was given by someone claiming the commas was necessary there. Honestly, how tonedeaf can you get? I'll say it again: there are a very few places (e.g. restrictive vs. nonsrestrictive clauses) in which the presence or absence of commas matters either for grammar or for clarity. Most everywhere else they're a matter of rhythm, cadence and pacing (if those are all different... but anyway) and this is one of them. I think the guideline should say that commas after years are a matter of discretion to be worked out by article editors in context, period. E Eng 01:09, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree with EEng, but I also think there is value in consistency within an article. As Chris the speller said above, s/he added two commas after the year to make those two dates consistent with all the other dates that had a comma after the year. Before undoing those edits, Dilidor should have checked to see what style was used throughout the article. If s/he had, s/he would have seen that the style was to use a comma, and should have left Chris' edits alone. I'd like to add that, in my experience, Americans are taught to use the comma after the year – witness the Chicago Manual of Style. This is, of course, in the American date style format. The comma has nothing to do with pausing or not pausing; it is a visual marker to set the date off from the rest of the sentence. I don't think a comma is needed after a year in the British date style format. You are free, Dilidor, to start a discussion at the MoS, but I think you will come up against a lot of resistance to a new rule requiring, or a new guideline recommending, leaving out the comma after the year in the American date style format. I suggest leaving it as it is, and in a way similar to determining the variant of English used by searching the article and the article's history, we look for the preferred or dominant date style used in an article and work for consistency. I do recommend using the comma after the year in the American date style format, though. – Corinne (talk) 01:59, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Corinne, right now MOS:COMMA specifically says there has to be a comma, so "leaving it as it is" would mean zero flexibility.

And I don't think this is important or noticeable enough to warrant a "consistent within article" provision. I think editors should be free to write both of these

January 1, 1920 started like any other day.

Before we discuss the events of January 1, 1920, I'd like to set some ground rules.

in the same article without some fussbudget insisting on "consistency". I think the guideline should simply say that with or without comma is acceptable, PERIOD. I won't initiate such a proposal over at MOS:COMMA, but if someone's brave enough to do so, I'll support it. E Eng 02:16, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

But the comma in the second sentence is required because of the long dependent clause at the beginning of the sentence, regardless of the style of the date; this does not clarify the issue, it confuses it Chris the speller ^yack 04:05, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

And your arguments must be unconvincing even to you if you need to resort to the ad hominem tactic of calling another editor a "fussbudget". Let's keep this civil. Chris the speller ^yack 04:10, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

The comma is needed (not required) in the second example because it flows better with it – grammatically it could be there or not be there. One is unneeded (though not forbidden) in the first, again for flow reasons, not correctness. A strict rule in either direction forces one or the other example to be suboptimal.

People who can't write but nonetheless swoop down on articles to enforce imaginary rules are a pet peeve of mine, and I have no qualms about calling such people fussbudgets. (I'm not referring, BTW, to you, who do very precise and accurate work, in my experience.) E Eng 04:49, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

The most sensible solution offered so far is not my original suggestion (eliminate the rule) but that of EEng: make it optional, using the serial comma approach as precedent. This eliminates the sense of legalism and inflexibility.

On a different topic, Chris the speller is correct concerning the comma following the initial dependent clause in EEng's example sentence above—which is a pet peeve of mine. We can make the whole problem disappear by simply avoiding initial dependent clauses and interruptive clauses. And the world will be at peace. —Dilidor (talk) 11:19, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Dilidor: Thank you for your interest in improving Wikipedia. The rule "A comma follows the year unless followed by other punctuation" is not wrong. It agrees with the Chicago Manual of Style and other style guides. Please notice that the rule is footnoted, and the footnote links to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Commas, where it details it:

In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by other punctuation. Dates in month–day–year format require a comma after the day, as well as after the year, unless followed by other punctuation. In both cases, the last element is treated as parenthetical.

Incorrect:	He set October 1, 2011 as the deadline for Chattanooga, Oklahoma to meet his demands.
Correct:	He set October 1, 2011, as the deadline for Chattanooga, Oklahoma, to meet his demands.

In the Incorrect example, "2011" binds more tightly to the words "as the deadline" than it does to "October 1"; the comma after "2001" helps bind the date together. And in the same example, "Oklahoma" binds more tightly to "to meet his demands" than it does to "Chattanooga"; the comma after "Oklahoma" helps bind the "city, state" construction together. (Notice that I put "city, state" in quotes; without the quotes, the word "state" would bind more closely to "construction" than to "city"!) There are numerous online sources that support this comma, including:

"Commas". GrammarBook.com. Rule 9. Use a comma to separate the day of the month from the year, and—what most people forget!—always put one after the year, also.
Example: It was in the Sun's June 5, 2003, edition.
"Comma". The Punctuation Guide. When the date appears in the middle of a sentence, commas should appear both before and after the year.
Her arrival on April 10, 1988, was considered a turning point for the company.

—Anomalocaris (talk) 17:20, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't buy this binding idea. English is not a programming language. There are good style books that recommend or allow omission of the comma after the year, and good writers who do so. It's not a big deal, not an oh-my-god-how-embarrassing-we-do-this-wrong. What it is iss an opportunity to remove one little arbitrary command from MOS, allowing editors to just write what they think reads best in a given situation.

I should add that omitting the comma-after-year is one of the few situations in which I knowingly disobey MOS' command (sometimes including, sometimes omitting, according to the flow of the text) and I have never to my recollection gotten any pushback on it from anyone. No one seems to care but gnomes. What I said in my parody (linked above) stands: for God's sake let there be at least one zone of discretion where editors are allowed to think for themselves without Big Brother micromanaging every goddam thing. E Eng 18:37, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Please remember to capitalize the first word after a colon, as required by MOS:COLON. Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:21, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Well played, sir! E Eng 02:38, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

EEng, acknowledging that you've been editing here longer than I have and that I wouldn't tell you anything that I was certain you already knew, I have to question your fairly regular statements about "MOS commandments" and various synomolies (I know). Speaking only of the style guidelines, there is no mechanism, codified or unwritten, to "deal with" editors who write section headers in title case, link France three times in one article, or break any other MOS "rule". That edits being brought into line with a house style should be seen as "micromanaging" or any other disparaging term, seems to me to be the result of some sort of vanity, as though one's edits were already perfect as written. Certainly many readers do not care about consistency, which is to say, they are not bothered by inconsistency. Some are bothered by it, though, and I think I can safely say that no one is bothered by consistency. So really, these gnoming edits are an improvement for some and a lateral move for others. I can't see a negative aspect of it. Primergrey (talk) 04:04, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Well said. Dicklyon (talk) 04:30, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Well said perhaps, but simplistic. Bringing articles into line with guidelines is a good thing, of course – all other things being equal. But now and then all other things aren't equal.

Some of the guidelines (very few, I'm happy to say) overprescribe, usually due to the influence of Miss Snodgrass. They shouldn't be guidelines in the first place. They are micromanagement.
Even the valid guidelines are guidelines, meant to admit exceptions and to be applied with common sense. Yet we have a small number of editors who can't seem to understand that, and insist on "enforcing MOS" in every nook and cranny of the project, no matter how inappropriate a particular guideline may be in a particular case.

Yes, no one's bothered by consistency per se, but when consistency is insisted upon to the detriment of actual quality, that is bothersome.

As for vanity, I never met anyone who wrote anything worth reading who didn't take pride in his or her work. As the great Logan P. Smith wrote, "Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast." E Eng 06:37, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I'd like to respond in kind to observe that "pride in one's work" is also good thing per se, but can sometimes, I think, hurt an editor's ability to keep the greater goal of the project in mind (something that many gnomes have also been accused of, not always wrongly, I'm sure). I think the disconnect stems from the difficulty some editors have in imagining how I or anyone else could be proud of adding a comma or de-linking a country.

The fact is, I'm not. I also feel no pride when an editor has an issue with MOS compliant changes and I "get to win" because the "rules" support me. I, honestly, am proud when I've copyedited an already well written article and made it a well written article that is sync with so many others.

This is probably better suited for your TP, I know, but posting anything serious there is a daunting proposition (no offense intended). Primergrey (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree. All that leaves is the question of what "in sync" should mean i.e. what MOS should prescribe, and on what it should remain silent – the eternal question. E Eng 16:17, 27 April 2017 (UTC) I can't imagine how this conversation would be suited to my toilet paper. What a strange idea.

Possibly the best solution would be a line at the beginning of each article containing a couple dozen commas, and also some semicolons, quotation marks, and so forth. The reader could then be instructed to mentally sprinkle them throughout the text in whatever manner she finds pleasing. Herostratus (talk) 02:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

That's going straight into The Museums. E Eng 03:00, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

AD/CE for one- and two-digit years

The page currently says:

In general, do not use CE or AD unless required to avoid ambiguity[....]

I think this is fine advice for four-digit years, and maybe even for three-digit ones, but not for one- and two-digit years. It is not very intuitive for most people to interpret a bare small number as a year, in a phrase like Sextus Aelius Catus (consul in 4). Consul in four what?

It's true that the advice allows an exception to avoid ambiguity, but I'm not sure the phrase is ambiguous. It's not that there's another available meaning; it's that many readers may struggle to find even one meaning. But if you say consul in 4 AD, then it's clear.

On a possibly related note, there was a convention until not too long ago that articles on AD/CE years appeared at the bare number (like 1972). That was confusing for small numbers, many of which were more intuitive as articles about the numbers themselves rather than the years. So now all one- and two-digit bare-number links are either to the article about the number, or to a disambig page including links to the number and the year.

I propose that the guidance be amended to allow (and possibly even encourage) AD/CE for one- and two-digit years, even if not "ambiguous" per se. --Trovatore (talk) 09:58, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Subject to the approval of my esteemed fellow editors, I added a bit to suggest that including the era with one- and two-digit years might be "more natural" at times. [33] I hesitate to say even something as strong as the era "should" be included. As I've done it, the idea is put in the editor's head without twisting his arm. E Eng 22:30, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks; I think that's an improvement. --Trovatore (talk) 02:16, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

getting an error for one such date

On Bibliography of biology#Zoology, I'm still seeing an error, no matter what I do to the Pliny reference. Any help? = paul2520 (talk) 18:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

If you're talking about the Pliny, it's because of the circas. Ask at Help talk:Citation Style 1, though I warn you the answer there often is to tell you you shouldn't want to do what you want to do, instead of helping you do it. E Eng 18:39, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd say the problem is you're trying to use the citation template to cite a work in abstract terms, but the citation templates are intended to cite a specific edition of a work that an editor actually read. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you didn't read a book that was actually written on paper in c. 77 to c. 79. What you're doing is perfectly legitimate; describing in abstract terms a book written back then which has come down to us through the copying of manuscripts. But it isn't what the citation templates were designed for, so I suggest you don't use them. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Time of day

"Context determines whether the 12- or 24-hour clock is used ... " says the guideline, and that's all. This has been used as an excuse by Europeans from non-English speaking countries, when writing in English on enWP, generally to impose 14:35 rather than 2:35 PM pm (for example) upon all of us working with this project, no matter what the actual context. Being bi-continental, and a translator, I have grown up with these problems and worked with them for over 50 years. It is my firm conviction that military time, aka the 24-hour clock, normally is confusing to people in English-speaking countries and is not normally used (knowledgeably) in English text. Even in Britain, that time format is only used on a few formal documents and a bits of rare transportation information. Google seems to clearly bear me out on that. Couldn't our guideline be more specific as to what is meant by "context", since "context" is now being interpreted as "do as you please even if most people will be confused". --SergeWoodzing (talk) 11:20, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

It's only called "military time" in North America, see para 3 of 24-hour clock. Para 4 gives the history, which is possibly a lot longer than you might think. My working life has been spent in the computer industry and probably that's why I tend to use the 24 hour clock in ordinary life (and I'm a Yorkshire-born Brit who's spent all his life here, not a European). Certainly it is used widely, not rarely, in all forms of transportation and virtually exclusively for things like tide tables and almanacs. I agree that some people often take a moment to add or subtract the 12 hours, but you do the population a disservice to state that it "normally is confusing".

The question of which form to use in Wikipedia shouldn't rely on perceptions of common colloquialisms however. Wiki tries to be an encyclopaedia and use a more formal, precise language. I would suggest to you that you need to frame your proposal from this standpoint, and you also need to address "pm" or "p.m." (by the way, "PM" is not acceptable, see MOS:TIME) and that's assuming that Latin abbreviations don't upset other editors. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:14, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Can you give some examples? I think it would be difficult for us to give precise guidance. For example, in my experience 24 hour times are common for transportation in the UK, but not in the US. Any guideline we try to write would be full of exceptions and corner cases. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Have y'all googled this? E.G. "is military time used in Britain"? I know we cannot use informal Internet Q&As or blogs as sources, but the confusion we cause seems obvious with something like this and, to me, is totally unnecessary. 2 pm isn't going to go away as standard English. Wouldn't it be better to have people try to pick up on, and get used to, what's normal in English text, all over the world, rather than trying to teach (force upon) them what's normal in Swedish (Swedish language) text, but not in English (English language) text?--SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:50, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I have not "googled" anything. You brought this up. The burden is on you to give us examples of where the MOS has failed, and a proposal as to how you would like to fix it. So far you have given one example, which looks more like a content dispute to me, and no proposals. Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:14, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

As usual (and per Kendall) there's no point in talking about this until we see some actual examples in actual articles. Until then it's just the usual MOS philosophizing. E Eng 18:41, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

As usual (in spite of over 10 years experience regularly with Wikipedia) there is no point in my trying to get something discussed, when I see something that I really think is wrong, because I obviously never (never) know what I'm doing, get dismissed accordingly and the problem is still there. Someone suggested this forum. I'm sorry it is just not possible for me to research more examples you for several days. I thought one might be enough, plus the very obvious attitudes of the general public (Google). I should have known better. Maybe I'll try an RfC on the article's talk page. Bye! --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:53, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I mean, right. Come on, User:SergeWoodzing has said it's a problem he's run into, so I'm inclined to believe that it's a problem he's run into. True, though, a few particular examples would help to illustrate.

"Context determines whether the 12- or 24-hour clock is used" is, after all, pretty vague. If we had for instance "Context determines whether BC–AD or BCE–CE should be used" with no shred of further guidance that would be considered unsatisfactory. Right?

The current rule, with no further elucidation, does seem to imply "do what you like". Which possibly is best, I dunno. But if so it should maybe say so directly, with a prescription against changing what you find, except that articles should be internally consistent, as is done for the serial comma.

Unless it's a WP:ENGVAR thing, IMO it ought to say "Use the 12 hour clock", basically. The 24 hour clock is not used in America as a rule and is confusing to American readers probably. If the default in Britain etc. we can add the usual ENGVAR langauage or just say some variation of "its an ENGVAR thing, see ENGVAR.

We obviously have to leave some wriggle room. There may be contexts where the 24 hour clock is appropriate (although I can't think of any right off, at least for America; even in a military context I think we would say "the attack commenced at 10:00 pm" rather than "the attack commenced at 22:00" since we are writing for a general audience and not writing an after-action report for our colonel. Of course direct quotes that use the 24 hour clock shouldn't be changed.

So "Use the 12 hour clock, generally, unless a specific need to use the 24 hour clock is demonstrated" or something. Of course leaving the wriggle room leads to "it happened in Europe, so that demonstrates a specific need to use the 24 hour clock" which is tedious. But you have to leave the wriggle room. Herostratus (talk) 11:46, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

is confusing to American readers probably I doubt it. --Izno (talk) 12:20, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

What is the reasonable basis for your doubt? We have quite a variety or readers here. And your edit summary was "23:59 is not hard to understand". I think what you meant to say say is "23:59 is not hard to understand for me personally". And that's different. Herostratus (talk) 12:28, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

What reasonable basis do you have for your assertion that Americans may be confused by the notation? Please don't flip the burden of proof. --Izno (talk) 12:36, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Getting back to the original post, SergeWoodzing made several questionable assertions. This has been used as an excuse by Europeans from non-English speaking countries, when writing in English on enWP, generally to impose 14:35 rather than 2:35 pm – where's the evidence that it's people from non-English speaking countries who use the 24 hour clock here? I would always do so in formal writing because it removes ambiguity. Even in Britain, that time format is only used on a few formal documents and a bits of rare transportation information – nonsense; it's used on every bus, railway and flight electronic information board I've ever seen in the UK and in the corresponding printed timetables, as is easy to demonstrate by searching online. The guideline is fine as it is; if it were changed it should move towards suggesting the least ambiguous format, namely the 24 hour clock. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:05, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

See Sittinbourne & Kemsley Light Railway timetable for example. Interesting that it uses both formats! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:59, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Why complicate matters unnecessarily? (after 50 years of trying I still don't understand what is meant by 12 am, or 12 pm). If in doubt, the 24 hour clock should be preferred, for the reasons given by Peter coxhead. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 15:02, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't clear. When I said there's no point in talking about this until we see some actual examples in actual articles. Until then it's just the usual MOS philosophizing, I meant that we need to see examples of article editing situations where either "the wrong outcome" was arrived at, or excessive editor time was consumed before arriving at the "right" outcome, and changing the guideline would fix that. If it's not possible to give such examples, there's no point in changing the guidelines. E Eng 16:07, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe. On the other hand, if people are writing stuff like "By 15:30, the fire had spread to the main building..." in articles, that's a problem even if people aren't fighting over it, because it's hard to read, for Americans anyway.

OK. It sounds like this is a WP:ENGVAR thing, and nothing wrong with that. We should set it up as an ENGVAR thing thing.

@User:Izno, the reasonable basis that I have for your assertion that Americans may be confused by the notation is that I live in America and I know. You don't or if you do don't get around enough I'd say. You have not met my in-laws apparently. Nobody -- and I mean, literally, basically nobody -- uses 24 hour notation in America. I don't believe I have ever once heard somebody say "off to lunch, back at thirteen-thirty". It would be considered both peculiar and opaque. Timetables don't work like that, TV schedules don't work like that, very little works like that except computer system timestamps and the Army.

Yes, sure, I get it that many, maybe most, literate Americans are familiar with the concept of what we call "military time" and can translate 24 hour time: "OK, 'By 15:30, the fire had spread to the main building...' let's see that's... 12-13-14-15... 3:30". Why slow down the reader that way for no gain? Many literate Americans can also translate "au contraire" or whatever, but we don't just randomly write "Strauss had hoped this would expand sales, but au contraire revenues actually fell" for no reason.

And of course, some subset of Americans can't translate 24 hour time. Schoolkids for instance. I mean, 46% of American voters voted for Donald Trump. Not to cast aspersions, but just as an actual question, how many of them do you think understand 24 hour time at all let alone facilely? I mean some, sure, but...

There's two ways to handle this. The MOS:SERIAL way -- "Do what you like, but leave what you found", which is basically what we have now, or the WP:ENGVAR way, where it depends on various factors such as the article topic. Where the Canadians and Australians etc. fit in I don't know. Articles should probably be internally consistent I guess. Whether it should say "American-subject articles should use 12 hour time, English-subject articles should use 24 hour time" or "American-subject articles should use 12 hour time, English-subject articles can use either 12 or 24 time, depending on the first edit establishing a time, please maintain consistency within articles" is up to the British to say.

Or we could do nothing. Nothing might be OK too. The current guideline is mediocre, but it's not a crisis I guess. This would leave it at "do what you like".

(As to 12:00 am and pm, these are specialized cases where it is best to write "midnite" and "noon" and we should probably say so (FWIW midnite is 12am as the new morning begins on the stroke of turning 12, and noon conversely is 12pm)). Herostratus (talk) 16:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Herostratus: I also live in America--why else would I question you? You should review what your assertion was re Nobody [...] uses 24 hour notation in America, since I have not disputed that statement. The statement I disputed was is confusing to American readers probably. And then you get wormy about Americans having to do the translation. You seem to continue changing your goalposts. --Izno (talk) 17:06, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Hero (one of my favorite editors) says, On the other hand, if people are writing stuff like "By 15:30, the fire had spread to the main building..." in articles, that's a problem even if people aren't fighting over it. Well, if people are writing that stuff, and it's a problem, and someone can shows us examples of it, why hasn't that person attempted to change it in those articles? If not, then for all we know this could just be fixed in those articles, with no debate and no need for a guidelines change. That's what I mean by Until then it's just the usual MOS philosophizing. "Problems" that were never even the subject of talk page discussion aren't problems. E Eng 17:13, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

@EEng: ah, but the real work (i.e. developing articles) is hard; MoS philosophizing is so much easier – no need to find, understand and summarize sources, just say whatever you think. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:38, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I prefer to take the more generous view that the philosophizers are taking a break from the hard work of article-building. E Eng 18:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Quite. I believe "slumming" is the operative term. I'll let be known I have been labeled a "bloviator" by Wikipediocracy (If I can now just get them to call me a "public scold" and a a "shrill harpy" I can fill in my bingo card), so where else would I be found but at MOS discussions. @EEng:, who is well advised to avoid violations of WP:NPC: yes you and I often in agreement that "let the editor do what she wants, the world will not end, and there are morale benefits". This, though, is a reasonable thing for an MOS to address and adjudicate, I think. Herostratus (talk) 22:05, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Show me the article-talk discussions that would have been avoided, or which came to a "bad outcome", because this guideline wasn't different from (than?) it is. E Eng 22:13, 5 May 2017 (UTC) You're still my Hero.

Wikipedia: where the dearth of self-awareness leads to people sneering down their noses at style discussions when they do not interest them, only to carry on protracted debates when they do. Primergrey (talk) 12:18, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, point (although I think the gentleperson noted that here we have "no need to find, understand and summarize sources, just say whatever you think", although maybe they were being sarcastic). OP averred that it had happened to them. But even one diff would be helpful. User:SergeWoodzing, can you produce such a diff? Herostratus (talk) 22:23, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Impressive discussion now, thank you all!

Actually, when I posted here, I had overlooked this "Prefer vocabulary common to all varieties of English.", which, as placed at the top of the guideline, already sort of settles the matter, ay? There is only one option in this case, as far as I know. And none of you seem to have asserted that military time is "common to all varieties of English" in giving the hour of, say, a terrorist attack in Stockholm? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:04, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Well then, everything is all Sir Garnet. This puts a new colour on matters. Perhaps this bit of advice can be brought down to the body of the time-of-day rule to avoid further confusion, and everything will be shipshape and Bristol fashion. Herostratus (talk) 22:05, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Searching on "at 15:30" randomly I found that:

Most uses were British or European or anyway non-American subjects. (IMO there's a difference between "a bus departing Claverham at 15:30" at Hooe, East Sussex (mostly local interest) and "At 15:30 on 26 May, Hitler ordered the panzer groups to continue their advance" at Dunkirk evacuation (universal interest), but I recognize that this an argument that can never be won.)
Some were in situations where local conditions don't apply, such as "Closest approach of 200 kilometres (120 mi) at 15:30 UTC on 10 July 1992" at List of missions to comets, describing an event in outer space where there is no "afternoon". Arguable. "...over twenty times greater than the estimated age of the universe: approximately 292 billion years from now, at 15:30:08 UTC on Sunday, 4 December 292,277,026,596" at Year 2038 problem describes when all our computers will stop working. I can see how "At 3:30pm on Sunday, 4 December, 292,277,026,596" sounds a bit off, and anyway applies everywhere.
However, a few were American: "At 15:30 UTC on October 15, Hazel made landfall just west of the North Carolina" at Hurricane Hazel. "arriving at her berth at 15:30 13 March 1999 to a crowd of citizens, dignitaries, veterans, and civic officials" at USS Massachusetts (BB-59).

I think these latter, at least, are wrong. It's not crisis, but it a low-level degradation of the accessibity of the material. I understand where they probably came from: source documents from weather scientists in the first case, military people in the second. IMO it's lazy to not fix these these.

"The race was held over a duration of 24 hours, starting at 3:30pm on Saturday, January 28" at 2012 24 Hours of Daytona, would, if changed to "at 15:30", be even worse. However, it doesn't say that, and no point inventing theoretical problems.

IMO MOS:COMMONALITY would tend to indicate use of 12 hour time generally if it is common in Britain (and Canada etc.). If a British person were to read ""At 3:30 pm on 26 May, Hitler ordered the panzer groups to continue their advance" and think "well that just looks odd" MOS:COMMONALITY might not apply. If they had to think "OK... that means... hold on... yes, 15:30" to understand the time of the event, then MOS:COMMONALITY would definitely not apply. I don't know if this is the situation or not.

Indian and other non-Anglosphere readers might matter some. They're a secondary consideration, but many of our readers are ESL cases, some of whom might have enough trouble already accessing the material, and if "3:30 pm" makes them pause and stumble, that's a data point.

@User:Izno, I guess we just disagree. Have you graduated college perhaps? That could be the problem right there. Most people have not graduated college. This is something to keep in mind I think. And Americans are pretty provincial. Most speak only the one language and know less about the world than outsiders realize, I think. Herostratus (talk) 00:27, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh, great. First you drag in Trump, and now Hitler. E Eng 00:36, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Serious points: when "UTC" is used, it does seem wrong to use the 12 hour clock: "1:03 pm UTC"?? Readers who don't understand the 24 hour clock will surely not understand or be interested in "UTC" either. In running text in non-specialized contexts, I agree that the 12 hour clock has the merits of MOS:COMMONALITY. The existing guideline covers this perfectly well. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:43, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Everyone knows what UTC is -- it's the barcode they scan at the cash register. You think we're all yokels or something? E Eng 09:17, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I thought it was a mistake to switch from GMT to UTC for most common things. The difference is negligible in most cases, and people were just starting to get comfortable with GMT. I bet we even have some articles that incorrectly give UTC times for historic events that originally were marked in GMT. Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:36, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Aren't they the same? UTC says "For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT".

Tunis has "On 7 May 1943, at 15:30 in the afternoon" which at first seems an error, but on reconsideration might be an attempt at a functional belt-and-suspenders solution, and it got to me thinking that maybe all we need is an addition to {{Convert}}. It should be simple. Thus "...attacked Lobau at 16:30" would be "...attacked Lobau at 16:30 (4:30 pm)" or ""...attacked Lobau at 4:30 pm (16:30)". Wouldn't this the best solution? Herostratus (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

UTC is, like, 573/8,000,000 of a second different from GMT because of the relativistic effects of the drag Jupiter imposes on the angular momentum of the sun. Or something. Other than for astronomers and network administrators, they're the same.

Please, let's not suggest a dual presentation. [Later clarification: By this I mean let's not have a dual presentation of 12-hr format and 24-hr format, nothing to do with GMT/UTC.] In about 5 seconds someone can learn to convert from one to the other. E Eng 21:44, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

@EEng: I don't think it is the GMT/UTC issue that Herostratus is suggesting, it's the 12/24 conversion. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I understood that, and my post was confusing because it involved both the GMT/UTC issue and the 12/24 issue. We do, in fact, sometimes present times in both a dual "local + UTC" format, but never a dual "12 + 24" format. It was the latter I was discouraging. E Eng 23:26, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, a dual format is better than a just-24 format which -- I seem to be having trouble convincing people of this, but that doesn't make it any less true -- many people can't read easily, and a non-trivial number can't read at all. Yeah people can learn to convert, but the same is true of kilos/pounds and meters/feet and we convert those.

I mean, I would have thought that a 12-format (when we're talking local time) would be the solution. But apparently British people find this either odd or actually opaque? I'm not sure, but maybe. And if so then we need to be converting so as to offer a format that everyone can read. Herostratus (talk) 04:33, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

In speech, my experience is that people in both English-speaking North America and the UK are much more likely to say "a quarter to three" than "2:45" or "half past seven" than "19:30", so this form is more quickly understood in both countries. Should we use it here? No. Speech and formal writing are different: the former has a context and uses language not employed in the latter. In formal writing there are contexts where the 12 hour clock is right, and contexts where the 24 hour clock is right. Leave the present guidance alone, and stop trying to micromanage editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:43, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

You may have been hoist with your own petard on this one, Herostratus. E Eng 12:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Enh, I think this is different. Sure, you don't want to micromanage editors on a lot of stuff. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have rules when it serves the reader. In this case its a matter of serving the reader.

It's kind of like a feet-meters thing. If an editor was of the mind "I want to write '12 meters' here and I don't want to use the {{convert}} template or otherwise specify the distance in feet, as I don't actually believe there are any readers who don't understand the simple English statement '12 meters', so please don't micromanage me on this", I wouldn't really support that approach, and invoking the magic term "micromanage" would not much change my opinion.

Some American readers don't understand military time, and a lot more of them don't read it easily. Apparently some editors above don't believe this. That they don't believe it doesn't make it any less true, though.

I still haven't gotten a clear picture on whether British (and Canadian etc, and also ESL non-native-speaker European etc.) readers understand 12 hour time easily. If they don't, we need a convert function. If they do, we should use 12 hour time except in specialized cases, such as when we are not describing an event in local time. Herostratus (talk) 11:53, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Having lived in most of the English speaking parts of the world, I'm pretty sure there is no place where 12-hour clock is not understood, and I don't think anyone in this discussion is saying that. There may be places where it seems odd in certain contexts, like the example above of a Panzer attack that starts at 3:30 pm or a bus that leaves at 4:15 pm, but it would certainly be understood. I do not find the ESL argument persuasive. We can't guard against the possibility of using any English expression that might not be understood by non-native speakers. The prospect of including a conversion for every appearance of time-of-day in every article is too horrible to contemplate. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:09, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Arbor-treeish break

I'm aware there are a few topic areas (hurricanes/weather events, military history, maybe others) where guidelines (maybe informal) call for use of 24-hr format. Can someone point to examples of other articles where there was argument over which format to use? I agree that 12-hr format should be universally understandable, if not always the natural format for some readers for some topics. E Eng 15:22, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't see why we should adopt the approach "if its about weather or military, we'd just as soon some of our readers don't know when it occurred". What's the benefit? What, specifically, is it about weather and military events where we want to throw a shade of mystery over the time when they occurred?

Is it because the native primary sources use 24 hour time? That seems weak tea. We recast technical jargon all the time into terms understandable to the reader, and should. And when we don't, its because to do so would cost precision, which is not an issue here. 13:20 is not more precise than 1:20 pm. Herostratus (talk) 03:01, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I can see the argument for using 24 hour time when you're using UTC maybe, as when there's no local time for the even (non-localized events such an eclipse for instance). Other than that... Herostratus (talk) 03:01, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Erm, UTC is the "local time" for the UK, parts of Europe and parts of Africa. There is life east of Cape Cod! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:45, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Right. But I mean, certain events don't really have a local time, because they don't occur on the Earth or else occur over a large area (more than one time zone for instance) simultaneously, and UTC is used for those as a matter of convention I believe. Like if describing an exact time that a spacecraft entered Saturn's rings or whatever. You could indeed say "The spacecraft impacted Pluto at 3:28 pm UTC" and that'd be fine, but in this case "...at 15:28 UTC" might be OK. The reason being, "3:28 pm" helps the reader put the event in context -- "Oh OK in the mid-afternoon with a few hours of daylight left" or whatever. That context doesn't really apply to events on Pluto etc. It remains true that "15:28" is still gibberish to some people though, so not sure about what's best here. Herostratus (talk) 09:19, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't approving of those practices, just reciting them. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of just saying everything should be in 12-hr format (with the exception of UTC). E Eng 03:30, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

This thread seems to neglect the main benefit of the 24-hr clock, which is its avoidance of the discontinuities through 12 noon and 1 pm. If a bus leaves Bath at 11:15 and arrives at London at 13:30 I can tell at a glance that the ride takes 2 hours and 15 minutes. If that same bus departs at 11.15 am and arrives at 1.30 pm, how long does it then take? The same of course but the simplest way of working it out is to first convert to 24-hr notation. Why make unnecessarily hard on the reader? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hate to tell you, but if a bus leaves Bath at 11:15 and arrives at London at 1:30, I can tell at a glance that the ride takes 2 hours and 15 minutes. It's second nature. However hard that may be on some readers, it's nothing to how hard it is on some readers who have no idea what 13:30 means. (Honestly, if you told me a ride lasted from 11:15 to 13:30, the first thing I'd do is mentally turn 13:30 in to 1:30pm, then figure that 11:15 to 1:30 is 2 1/4 hours.) E Eng 23:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Anyway, I suppose that most uses of time are a single time rather than a range -- over 90%, I would guess (searching on the string "16:30" just now, the ten results were not ranges. (FWIW eight were start time of European or international sports events, the other two were international stock exchange opening/closing times). Searching on "4:30 pm" returned three of eleven as ranges -- all three were opening/closing times ("9:30 AM–4:30 PM", "8.30 am to 4.30 pm", "8.30 am to 4.30 pm") where, perhaps, the actual times of the events is the major data. But... if you did want to calculate the range, I do agree that "08:30-16:30" makes it a little quicker than "8:30 am - 4:30 pm".

Of course probably many time ranges don't include noon (although all three of my quick sample did), and those that pass midnite aren't much improved in terms of calculation (IMO it's no easier to calculate elapsed time with "he was alone on the ice from 22:30 to 03:30" than "...10:30 pm to 3:30 am"). So "ease of calculating ranges which include noon" is a point IMO, but maybe a minor one.

(I also note that some people use a dot ("8.30") rather than a colon ("8:30"), and some use uppercase AM/PM and some lowercase am/pm. If I was really micromanaging those are the kinds of things I would be going after. But I don't care about that and don't think anyone should -- but of course the MOS, which says "we have no idea ('Context determines')" on the 12-24 clock question, specifies the colon and lowercase undotted am/pm. See Bike shed discussion). Herostratus (talk) 17:58, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

"But I don't care about that and don't think anyone should". But many people do. Enough, in fact, that a site-wide MOS was created and continues to be adjusted and amended (in many cases by people who love to tell us all how much they don't care). Any micromanaging taking place is not of editors, but of articles, as it should be on a project with high standards (style and content). Primergrey (talk) 19:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

After a bit of WP:EDITWAR I have started an RFC here on this topic. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 13:52, 18 May 2017 (UTC)rfc

Based on what's going on there I'm more and more convinced that here at MOSDATES we should indeed give more guidance. E Eng 12:39, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Question about fractions at Japanese units

Over at Japanese_units_of_measurement, one user has added precise unit conversions in the form of what seem to be astonishingly large fractions, such as "62,500,000/158,080,329" (n.b., commas are part of what that user included). Is there a formal MoS position on such fractions? Editors here are invited to weigh in on the talk page there. Rhialto (talk) 20:05, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

"Vol." and "no."

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Overcapitalization of "vol." and "no.", which is also relevant to MOS:NUM (including proposal of merging some material to this page), but is addressing material presently in the main MOS page. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:21, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

names of units: singular or plural?

Has anyone noticed the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(plurals)#.27Measurements_involving_two_or_more_units_.28such_as_pounds_per_square_inch_or_miles_per_hour.29_should_usually_have_the_first_word_in_the_plural.27? The question is whether units like metre per second and foot-pound should be renamed as metres per second and feet-pound. The discussion has far reaching consequences and could result in widespread renaming of units from singular to plural (or limited renaming from plural to singular, depending on the outcome). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:14, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I mentioned it at WT:Manual of Style/Archive 192#Unit plurals: pounds per square inch but did not notice much interest. Johnuniq (talk) 04:51, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

I mentioned it at WT:MOS again. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:22, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Section 3.5 - Dates and numbers#Decimals/Grouping of digits/Grouping with narrow gaps - Typo?

In section 3.5, Dates and numbers#Decimals/Grouping of digits/Grouping with narrow gaps, the following sentence appears to contain a typo:

Digits are generally grouped into threes. Right of the decimal point, usual practice is to have a final group of four instead of a lone digit (e.g. 99.1234567 or 99.1234567).

Shouldn't the 'or' be a 'not'?

Digits are generally grouped into threes. Right of the decimal point, usual practice is to have a final group of four instead of a lone digit (e.g. 99.1234567 not 99.1234567).

It seems that it should, but I didn't want to make a change on an important guide like this one without double checking. Thanks! - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 11:38, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Also red, not green. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:19, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

My reading of that text is that both forms are permitted, which is why both are green. In other words, follow the 3-digit rule if you like (3+3+1 digits) or make an exception with a final group of 4 digits (3+4+0) if you prefer it that way. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:07, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

If that is the case, then the sentence needs to be rewritten. Something like:

* Digits are generally grouped into threes. Right of the decimal point, you may use a final group of four instead of leaving an 'orphaned' digit at the end of the sequence, e.g. 99.1234567. However, one or two digits at the end of a sequence are also acceptable, e.g., 99.1234567.

- Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 14:59, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

For the consideration of my esteemed fellow editors, I have boldly installed something based on MDWP's proposed text [34], but condensed. E Eng 01:34, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Looks great to me E Eng. :O) - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 04:30, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Seems reasonable too, with the caveat that a lot of people hate this "spaced numbers" style regardless of twiddles to it. PS: I'm disinclined to continue opposing it, as long as we're clear that this needs to be done with a template that does not use actual space characters but just inserts visual spacing with CSS that doesn't mess up copy-pasted numbers. We need a bot that at least detects likely mis-formatting with real space characters (of various sorts) and reports them for cleanup, since mangled numbers like that are both a WP:ACCESSIBILITY and WP:REUSE problem. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:25, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

One-and-a-half in prose

What's the guideline for "one-and-a-half" in article prose -- to use words, or numbers? I've read the "Fractions and ratios" section of this page but I'm still not clear on which is recommended. "these single-family homes are narrow, one-and-a-half story brick structures", or "these single-family homes are narrow, 1+1⁄2-story brick structures"? (Pinging @Chris the speller:, re this edit.) — Mudwater^(Talk) 21:10, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, for starters a --> one. I fear the right answer is one-and-one-half–story (hyphen, hyphen, hyphen, ndash) but you might consider "narrow, single-story structures with an additional half story in the rear" (or whatever), since I think a lot of readers might need a bit of explanation anyway. E Eng 21:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

You might want to use {{engvar}} here. One and one half sounds very stilted to English ears, for articles written in British English use one and a half. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:05, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

It also sounds very stilted to American ears. I wouldn't recommend anyone changing a --> one. Chris the speller ^yack 23:00, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I guess I'm getting stilted in my old age. E Eng 23:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mudwater: The guideline says "Mixed numbers are usually given in figures", so it favors the second option above. Just as "a two story structure" needs a hyphen ("two-story") because of the compound modifier, the first option above needs a hyphen after "half", but that would create "these single-family homes are narrow, one-and-a-half-story brick structures", and I thought that four words strung together with hyphens (or perhaps an en dash) would be a little unwieldy, so I went with the second option. The main purpose of my edit was to put a hyphen into the compound modifier, not just to change words to figures. Chris the speller ^yack 21:55, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

If you do spell it out for some reason (which seems pedantic to me unless it's necessary because it's in a section that is dense with numerals being used for other purposes) the correct format is "one-and-a-half-story" (or "-storey", depending on ENGVAR), all hyphens; there is no cause for an en dash anywhere in that construction, since it's just a compound adjective, as in red-and-black-spotted frog. Also agreed that the a→one change is not necessary; either style is recognizable, and a is more common today. It only needs to be a avoided in constructions that would be confusing, especially for screen readers (e.g. "a one-and-a-half ..."). As with anything that can seem stilted, only use one[ |-]half when there's a real reason to do so, and look for a way to rewrite to avoid it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:37, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Date format for a duo where one is from U.S. and one from UK

The Kipper Kids article mentions a duo where one is from the U.S. and one is from the UK. Which date format should be used? Right now the DOB is in the format for the particular person. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 03:33, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

The article says one was born in Argentina, the other in England. They were both born in d/m/y countries, and apparently did most of their work in Europe (presumably western, due to the dates involved), which is also d/m/y. Based on the information in the article, d/m/y seems correct. While one might well be currently *in* the USA, that doesn't make him *from* the USA. Rhialto (talk) 05:33, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Using a connection to a particular county only applies to English-speaking countries. Since a number of countries and regions are connected to this article, either format would be acceptable. What looks to me like the first non-stub version of the article uses MDY, I would use that for all dates unless a different consensus is established on the talk page.

In any case, the date format should be consistent throughout the article, rather than depend on who or what is being discussed in a certain passage. Jc3s5h (talk) 10:54, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Rhialto is right, one's from Argentina, and based on the fact that they met in the UK to conceive of the ideas that would favor DMY. What threw me off was that most of their Wikipedia notable writeup concerned activities in the U.S. I guess that it would be a coin flip if the duo did have origins from two countries with different date formats. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 12:59, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I would say go with the ENGVAR of the page as a whole. There don't appear to be strong national ties, so go with established variety if there is one, first major contributor if not. If both of those come up empty, then go ahead and pick one, maybe after asking on the talk page if there are any strong opinions. If there's a strong consensus at the article itself, respect it, even if it doesn't seem to be exactly what the seventeenth tiebreaker seems like from the written guideline. --Trovatore (talk) 20:53, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Yep, go with the ENGVAR of the page as a whole. We don't flip date formats in mid-article, and the TIES arguments here are weak. If one were to be made, it should be made to set the ENGVAR article-wide, not to twiddle with date formats in particular. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:41, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

First major contributor

A question about this sentence from MOS:DATERET: Where an article has shown no clear sign of which format is used, the first person to insert a date is equivalent to "the first major contributor".

Does this mean the first person to insert a date in the article's text, or does it mean the first person to insert a date anywhere, even citations? MOS:DATEUNIFY seems to say that the format used in the article's text may influence the format used in citations, but not necessarily the other way around. Bmf 051 (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

It means the main text. Various citation formats use date styles that are never used in our article body text at all. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:10, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

"Unacceptable date formats" table error

In Chrome on Mac OS, I'm seeing an error in the table (but have not gone and fixed it, in case others do not see it on other platforms).

The "Do not use a leading zero in month or day, except in all-numeric (yyyy-mm-dd) format" cell in the Comments column is spanning the "2007-4-15" example in the "Unacceptable" column, which is not an example of what the comment proscribes.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:02, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

It illustrates the except bit i.e. that in yyyy-mm-dd the mm and the dd should be zero-padded. E Eng 19:58, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Very unintuitive, and better as a separate point about what to do, rather than an inference one has to tease out of an "except". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:19, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it would be clearer to have separate explanatory comments:

09 June	9 June	Do not use a leading zero in month or day, except in all-numeric (yyyy-mm-dd) formats
June 09	June 9
2007-4-5	2007-04-05	Do not omit leading zeros in all-numeric (yyyy-mm-dd) formats

Peter coxhead (talk) 20:48, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

For the consideration of my esteemed fellow editors, I've adapted a technique used in the units-of-measure table: [35]. E Eng 21:14, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

For the sake of simpler English, may I suggest that the instructions be re-written as positive statements rather than negatives?

09 June	9 June	Remove leading zeros in date formats that have months written out as words.
June 09	June 9
2007-4-5	2007-04-05	Include leading zeros in all-numeric (yyyy-mm-dd) date formats

Rhialto (talk) 21:28, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

That's inconsistent with the rest of the table. This is the "naughties" table. E Eng 22:04, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

The "naughties" table. Love it! ;o) - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 06:37, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Or in French, Le tableau de neau-neaux. E Eng 07:09, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm quite sure Thatcher would have said Le tableau de neau-neau-neaux. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about Era Notation Intertia

Currently the manual states that if a specific page has dates set using a certain era notation (BC vs. BCE) then it should remain that way unless their is a specific reason for this. I do not understand the motivation behind this and think it should be amended. If a user is willing to take the time to change a page to have more modern and proper notation (BCE-CE) then that should be appropriate and encouraged, specifically on pages regarding mathematical or scientific topics which should use the most current notation and be devoid of any of the religious connotation that BC-AD holds.Lessconfusedthanbefore (talk) 16:59, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I flat-out reject your belief that BCE is better than BC. Further, you can't prove that most English-speakers prefer BCE over BC. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

-Jc3s5h, I'm not interested in whether a "majority" believe one way or another. Rather, respectable organizations like Chicago Manual of Style and Smithsonian declare a prefrence for CE and it seems that in order for Wikipedia to be a more inclusive and credible resource, it would behoove us to follow in their stead.Lessconfusedthanbefore (talk) 01:02, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no religious connotation over using BC/AD, just as there is none over e.g. calling the first month of the year January (after Janus), or today’s day Wednesday (after Odin). Other than that the guideline makes it clear that both forms are acceptable and widely used, neither is better than the other. You simply have a preference for BCE/CE, which is fine. Use it in any article you write. But do not change the style in an existing article, unless there is some other good reason for it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:46, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm interested in knowing, what makes you think Chicago Manual of Style and Smithsonian prefer CE over AD? Smithsonian's main site for current exhibits uses BC, no BCE to be seen, and the Chicago Manual of Style explicitly addresses this question, answering that they DO NOT recommend one over the other, in fact their wording of this answer suggests more that they dislike the use of BCE, if anything. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 14:34, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Lessconfused, you are unknowingly stepping into a minefield. This has been an extremely contentious issue; there's even a special section of archives for this page devoted to it. Search the string BCE in the archives using the box at the top of this page, and you'll see. There are some doors man was never meant to reopen. E Eng 19:27, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
Aside from the central question, some cleanup edits needs to be made now. "Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change" as an emphatic commandment is against policy and must be reduced, since this is a guideline, to a recommendation, e.g. "It is advisable to seek ...". The specific demands in the material following this to use particular subject lines are WP:CREEP, are unlike anything else in MoS or any other guideline, and need to be removed. They don't serve any purpose anyway; "Why is this article using 'BC'?" is much more apt to attract discussion than a subject line of "Era". The "how to discuss things" material in the sentence after that is also CREEP.
As for the central quetsion: EEng is correct that this topic is a stylistic warzone and has been one for a long time. However, the assertion by JohnBlackburne that "there is no religious connotation [to] using BC/AD" is absurd on its face, since the religious connotations of it are the source of the recurrent controversy, on and off Wikipedia, and were the very reason that CE/BCE alternatives were ever implemented. Etymological arguments about "Wednesday" are false equivalence through analogies that are not actually analogous. No analogies are ever going to get around the demonstrable fact that people on and off WP object to BC/AD specifically because of its tie to Christian dogma. The recurrent dispute here (which is a rather obvious WP:Systemic bias matter) is never going to go away until we revise MOS to use BCE/CE by default and to reserve BC/AD for topics in which those are especially appropriate (biblical and Christian church matters, and the history of Christendom before the modern era, including its interactions, e.g. the Crusades, with neighboring cultures). Whenever I encounter BC/AD used in articles that are not within the appropriate purviews (i.e. "there are reasons specific to [the article's] content" for a change), I change it to BCE/CE dating (especially in science articles, including archaeology), and am very rarely reverted on it. There appears to me to be a general editorial consensus on the matter, which we've simply not updated MOSNUM to include. I generally oppose substantive (versus clarifying) changes to MoS at this stage of its development, but we should continue to make those that tie off disputatious loose ends and which will curtail recurrent strife.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:09, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Curiously, what makes you think the "Wednesday" comparison is false equivalence? Both are religiously-derived elements of the multicultural Western calendar, one just happens to originate within Christianity and the other European polytheism. One claims the third day of the week as Woden's day, the other claims the era beginning 2,016 years ago as "the year(s) of the Lord (Jesus)", I'm not seeing how these things aren't directly comparable? I understand that the reactions to them in terms of modern sensibilities are wildly different, but remember that the Quakers once "secularized" the weekdays out of concern for using pagan terminology as well, just as Jewish academics did with BCE and CE—it's just that one took off, the other didn't. The only true difference here is that Christianity is still widely extant as a world religion, European polytheisms are (or were, until the late 20th century) largely dead, and that has spurred differing reactions to each respective calendrical element. So as for your suggestion that we use BC/AD only for Christianity-related topics, that sounds as nonsensical to me as using only Norse pagan-derived terms in Norse pagan-related articles. — Crumpled Fire • contribs • 14:57, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Topic ban

Resolved

– Appeal already concluded.

There is a discussion at WP:AN#Appeal my topic ban regarding a topic ban which I have suggested could still apply to MOS/MOSNUM, but active editors here may think that unnecessary. 92.19.24.150 (talk) 22:08, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Strong national ties question

I did a search through the MOS talk archives. I can't say I read through every thread, but I have not yet seen a clear explanation of "strong national ties". It seems like I regularly see people act as though any person, place, thing, event, idea, company, etc. that was born, formed, created, invented, or otherwise primarily existed in a given country has "strong national ties" to that country such that WP:DATERET does not apply. "Strong national ties" suggests it's also possible to have "weak national ties" or "moderate national ties" that would not be sufficient to change the date format on the basis of such ties. I would not say that being born in the United States gives me "strong national ties" to the United States, for example. If I were also an employee of the Federal Government, if I were a Founding Father, or if I ran for President of the United States, then there would be "strong national ties". Similarly (at the risk of belaboring my point), a book that happens to be published here has no strong national ties unless, say, it's a book about American exceptionalism or the Constitution. I'm intentionally omitting the specific examples that led me to ask this question, since I'm looking for best practices rather than dispute resolution. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:17, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

One thing I can address is that place of birth gives strong ties for the purposes of this particular convention. I may or may not agree with it, but when wielded by nationalistic types, it's pretty unassailable. Primergrey (talk) 19:12, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not being flip when I say that we might not need a clear explanation, absent evidence that editor time is being wasted arguing this question on individual articles. E Eng 19:14, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

So my question is whether this has been clarified. The implication here is that the answer is no. I haven't proposed anything such that digging up diffs to provide evidence would be sensible, but I also would be surprised if most of the regulars on this page had not seen disputes concerning the "strong" in "strong national ties". How about I rephrase: why is "strong" there at all? It seems like it's typically taken to mean any national ties, and when there are ties to multiple nations then deferring to the stronger of them. If there's such a thing as "strong national ties", then, as I said, there must be a "[less-than-strong] national tie" that doesn't qualify for the purposes of changing date format (or, I imagine, ENGVAR, etc.). Absent competing claims, if strength of the national tie doesn't matter, that seems awfully unclear (the kind of unclear that indeed saps editor time). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:30, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I think you're right that, in practice, it reads "...strong[est] national ties". I also agree that it probably does sponge a lot of time, but if that time is spent in a "which ties are strongest" debate, it falls into a concensus-reaching realm. Which is positive. Primergrey (talk) 20:41, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

My view is that "national ties" is a special case, and should be used only when the ties are clear. Biographies, places, legal issues specific to a country, that sort of thing. For example Kurt Gödel would have American ties because he was a US citizen, but Gödel's incompleteness theorems does not inherit the ties and is governed under WP:RETAIN.

I do think, though, that a bio of a person who was born in and lived as a citizen of an English-speaking country ordinarily does have strong national ties. Persons from non-English-speaking countries, not so much. A special case is someone who was, say, born in the UK and moved to the US, or vice versa — in those cases, I would say the ties are unclear, and we should fall back to RETAIN. --Trovatore (talk) 22:16, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

@Primergrey, EEng, and Trovatore: Thoughts on Lucien Conein who was born in France, settled in US at age 5, briefly returned to France at the outset of WWII, then served in US military and government? The ties seem stronger to US, but wondering what others think. -Location (talk) 03:08, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I believe we have a team of rabbis for questions like this. E Eng 03:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to point me in that direction. Thanks! -Location (talk) 03:48, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

My take: France is not an English-speaking country, so it doesn't enter into the equation. Conein was apparently an American citizen and lived most of his life either in the States or working for the US government.

So I would say the article plausibly has strong US ties, not the strongest I've ever seen, but not a stretch either. However, if it were clearly written in British English and that was not a recent change, I'd leave it be. --Trovatore (talk) 08:55, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

That was my initial interpretation reading MOS:DATETIES, too, but I wasn't sure if there was a rule for subjects tied to non-English speaking countries that place date before Month. Thanks for the feedback! -Location (talk) 13:56, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Concur with Trovatore. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:02, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of interest

Here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#BL_article_naming Primergrey (talk) 06:55, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Messy situation, but the matters are all routine MOSNUM, MOS, and DAB matters. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:10, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Abomination

I know it's been there since the year dot (thoughtfully trashed by an anon recently), but I hate most of it—especially that weird rule about not starting a sentence with a numeral. I disregard it in my professional editing and writing. Tony (talk) 13:17, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Don't confuse my stewardship of the established guidelines with my personal views. Personally I ignore it sometimes. [36] E Eng 14:58, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

We're all in that boat; I've said many times that if I had free rein to make MoS say what I wanted, I'd change at least 50 things in it. And we all use different styles in other contexts (much of the writing I do at another wiki, following their style guide, would be considered stylistically abominable here and in many other contexts). It's a hallmark of a good WP:POLICY editor (and a good policy writer in any off-WP endeavor) that they can separate their personal preferences from shepherding the stability of the ruleset at hand.

However, this rule is common to most style guides, and WP and its readers are probably best served by sticking to it for consistency, comprehensibility, and avoidance-of-chaos reasons. If it were excised, we'd end up in a year or less with probably hundreds of thousands of pointless cases of people beginning sentences with numerals out of sheer laziness, not because they had any contextually important reason to do so. It really doesn't take much writing practice to avoid starting sentences with numeric figures that (e.g. in a maths or science article) shouldn't be converted to spelled-out number words like "twenty-three". And the rule really has no effect on editors; those who don't want to follow the rule or aren't aware of it don't get yelled at; WP:GNOMEs just fix it after the fact as part of their general copyediting maintenance. We already have an exemption for formal and proper names. Are there any other variances that really seem needed?

Another way of looking at it is that so many people are familiar with and certain of this rule as a general English usage matter (outside of specific contexts that permit sentence-initial numerals, familiar to some writers) that eliminating the rule here would probably manufacture a tremendous amount of dispute over a long period of time, which is the opposite of what MoS is for. To the extent non-trivial changes are still being made to MoS, they're mostly to address: disputes that were once rare and have in time become recurrent and tendentious; poor wording that needs clarification because some subset of editors misinterpret it; and (rarely and often contentiously, as at MOS:JR and MOS:IDENTITY) actual shifts in real-world usage. There are aspects of MoS that are weird, like our list-item style (start with capital letter, do not end with semicolon – a habit borrowed from Powerpoint presentations and probably not found in any major style guides). But we've had them so long that changing them would cause a lot of strife and a lot of content churn over trivia without objectively improving articles. The "sentences don't start with numerals" rule is surely in that category.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:04, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Date ranges and commas in prose

Here's the sentence in question from the article Toronto Maple Leafs:

Between October 17, 1992, and October 15, 2016, the Maple Leafs took a unique approach to retired numbers.

The general rule is that, with that date format, there is always a comma after the year. There's no exception to that in a range spelled out with "and" instead of a dash, is there? —C.Fred (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to make a secret confession to you, C. Fred -- don't tell anyone: This comma-after-year obsession is the one and only bit of MOS I intentionally ignore. Except in a few situations (e.g. setting off nonrestrictive clauses) most comma placement is a matter of rhythm and cadence only – nothing to do with grammar or correctness. In your case I'd write:

Between October 17, 1992 and October 15, 2016, the Maple Leafs took...

To be clear, if we were using DMY dates, I'd recommend:

Between 17 October 1992 and 15 October 2016, the Maple Leafs took...

Just to really rankle the rigid-rule crowd, I'll even say that I'd write:

After 2016 the Maple Leafs took...

For the intermediate case, I might write either of the following

After October 17, 1992, the Maple Leafs took...

After October 17, 1992 the Maple Leafs took...

depending on the pacing of the rest of the sentence and the surrounding text.

If no one's arguing with you about this, I suggest you just do what feels best (and see User:EEng#Why_every_goddam_thing_needn.27t_be_micromanaged_in_a_rule). Remember, don't tell anyone what I said. E Eng 20:28, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

What EEng chooses to ignore isn't really of any relevance. No, there is no exception for the case you outline, C.Fred. If EEng has a case to make for changing MOSNUM on this matter, he can make it and we can collectively weigh it. I'm fairly certain it will not achieve consensus, since the format he prefers is idiosyncratic and hard to parse, grouping "1992 and October 15" into a false clause. PS: Since it's a Canadian-English article and both date formats are common in Canada, you could switch the article to the DMY format, unless consensus on the article's talk page goes against the idea. "I don't like this one comma" seems unreasonable as justification for the change, but I'm not sure anyone really cares that much. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

SM, are you're really this compelled to respond to everything, no matter how stale? E Eng 22:18, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Nah, just didn't notice the date. I've also reduced my watchlist markedly, so I have fewer pages I feel like commenting on (ergo my commentary on them "distills" a bit). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:14, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Deprecation of ordinals

Is there a credible rationale for why ordinals, e.g. the 1st of November, etc., are deprecated; and if there is, is it worth inclusion in the article? Graham.Fountain | Talk 10:17, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Most manuals of style, including Chicago and MLA, say not to do it. Grammar Girl has an explanation here: [37] Kendall-K1 (talk) 03:28, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Actually, that example doesn't explain why, only saying that it should be spoken and written differently, not why each is correct in its context. And the article isn't even clearly against the use of ordinals in all situations, stating the following:

'The instance in which it is OK to use an ordinal number is when you are writing the 1st of January, because you are placing the day in a series: of all the days in January, this day is the first. For example, your invitations could say, “Please join us for a party on the first of January.” In that case, it's correct to use the ordinal number, first.'

However, that doesn’t cover why it shouldn’t be the fifth [day] of January, or any other ordinal. Arguably, in the British format, they are always ordinals, which is why they are always spoken as such.

As to MoSs, neither ‘'Hart's rules’' nor ‘'The Oxford Guide’' are of any help on why it is what it is, i.e. the disparity between written and spoken forms. Just that it is. Hart's may be a bit of help, in suggesting that written ranges should always be expressed in the minimum number of characters, i.e. 1841-5 for 1841 to 1845, etc.

But, the question is, why is there this disparity between written as spoken forms? If it is only, as might be inferred from Hart’s comment on minimizing the character count, to save ink and paper, then the next question would be why this applies to an electronic format like Wikipedia, where the cost per character is essentially irrelevant? It’s not as though the inclusions of st, th, or rd would slow or distract the reader who is unaffected by ridged notions of style.

Graham.Fountain | Talk 09:32, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

A number of times I have had trouble distinguishing 1st (first) and lst (common abbreviation of last) - especially in some fonts where 1 and lower-case L are pixel perfect identical. Not a full or authoritative answer but certainly something that has annoyed me in the past. Stepho talk 10:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Anyone who writes lst for "last" should have his head examined. E Eng 11:13, 1 August 2017 (UTC)→

I don't think it's about the (pointless) effort to save characters -- it's about clarity. Even when directly quoting a verbal speech, we don't write "...cost three hundred dollars", but "...cost $300", even though that makes the "dollars" appear out of the spoken order. We do this to make it quicker and easier for the reader to understand, even if that ignores a technical detail of quoting accuracy. Does adding ordinals in dates make things easier to read? I don't see how. "31st August" just adds a couple letters of clutter over "31 August"; if reading this out loud, I'd bet most people would say it the same either way. Numerals are preferred over spelling out numbers for a reason. That same reasoning should discourage inserting character hints of ordinals in dates, where they are assumed to be ordinals anyway.

I'm not sure that means our MOS should banish these ordinals, but I think it's one argument to do so. --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:27, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

And I'm not sure there isn't almost necessarily a tension between style and clarity: one man's clutter is another man's ornamentation.

I think another point is, which of these causes the man on the Clapham omnibus (unaffected, as I assume him to be, by ridgid notions of style) to pause longest (albeit only ever minutely), and go (at some subconscious level) "Oh! It means 'the first of August'." ( I assume for the 'man on the Staten Island Ferry' that's "... 'August first'.",): "1 August" or "1st August" {or even "the 1st of August"} ("August 1" or "August 1st" on the ferry)?

The overarching question is, whether there's a real need to mandate a specific wikistyle for this, or whether there might be room for the personal taste and style of the contributor? I don't think putting "photographs... taken on 1 November 1977" is better, in any quantifiable way, than "photographs... taken on the 1st of November 1977". Indeed, I personaly think the former looks ugly in comparison, and stops me 'dead in my tracks', as it were.

Graham.Fountain | Talk 09:33, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

It's not about better or worse. The purpose of MOS and MOSNUM is to harmonize style for the sake of clarity. Allowing a free for all, with each editor adopting his or her personal preference, would not contribute to this goal. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:54, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Precisely. Random variation between styles is the worst option. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:04, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Have to agree, we already have too many variations in style for dates, some of which are ambiguous, trying to get something reasonably standard should be a goal. Keith D (talk) 17:44, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed on both parts of that. We should be cutting out more date formats, not adding new ones. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:09, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

"Why" is irrelevant. MoS is not an article, and isn't here to provide linguistic history research. Its purpose is to produce consistently formatted output, and to reduce editorial squabbling over stylistic trivia, sometimes with rules that are essentially arbitrary (though few of them actually are, and usually have clarity, comprehensibility, usability, accessibility, etc., rationales). If you really demand a reason on this one, it's because "21st of December" format is not concise, and it forces a specific sounding-out interpretation on the reader's brain. Not everyone, at all, actually reads aloud "21 November" as "21st of November"; some give it as "21st November" and others exactly what it says, "21 November". The "21st of November" date format looks and sounds old-fashioned, even stilted, to many. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:09, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

My understanding is that this was a regional English thing, with US English tending to prefer cardinals, and UK English traditionally preferring ordinals, although some UK manuals of style (eg Guardian, UK gov, and Oxford) seem to be switching over to ordinals for days of the month (while keeping cardinals for century numbers). Rhialto (talk) 09:29, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be more of (or at least as much) an age thing. A tremendous number of older Americans use ordinals. Even if it were a regional thing, WP has no need to care. ENGVAR applies to things that are consistently matters of national dialect, and about which WP doesn't have any reason to prefer a particular standard (as it does with many things that would otherwise be ENGVAR matters, like quotation marks usage, names of units, etc., etc.).

To address a comment (by Graham.Fountain) that I missed: "there might be room for the personal taste and style of the contributor" – WP:NOT#BLOG. WP doesn't exist for personal expressive catharsis, it exists for readers, and providing them with information in the clearest and least ambiguous way.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:41, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Bad example. The names of units (eg meter vs metre) is one of the things that engvar is specifically intended to cater for. Rhialto (talk) 08:09, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

But only for meter/metre (and derived words); the rarity of the exception proves the general applicability of the rule. We do not permit "3ft", "3′ ", "3'", "3-foot", "3 ft.", etc., etc. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:02, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand the comment above that suggests that Americans "prefer cardinals" (I'm assuming you're referring to dates). We may write January 10, but we say January 10th (or even "the 10th of January"); we may write March 27, but we say March 27th (or "the 27th of March"). It's the same difference between the written and spoken forms mentioned for British English. Nobody says "January ten" unless they are making a special effort to be extra-clear, such as over the phone. – Corinne (talk) 15:30, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I didn't get it either. I've given up trying to follow these date discussions, unless a realistic proposal for change begins to emerge, in which case I rally the forces to stamp it out mercilessly. I'm the one who added the box at the top here It has been X days since the outbreak of the latest dispute over date formats. (Also the anagram, if you had any doubts.) E Eng 16:21, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd just like to add, neutrally as well, that no change is needed. I prefer my modern thrillers, science, maths, textbooks, liberal press and encyclopedias to read e.g. "They set out 21 November 1900" or "November 21, 1900" (or similar) and my conservative broadsheets, period thrillers, faded-memory or patched together histories to read "They set out on the 21^st November 1900" or similar. I note superscript too is heavily deprecated on the basis that it really is considered twee. Putting things in the latter format immediately is read in my head in a bygone times tone and with proper formatting at the time, certainly not in a bad way; preferred in that context as it is actually how (approx.) regular story-writers and diarists wrote back then. I mention this here essay-style because it is what is already seen in this encyclopedia: more twenty in history and more 20 elsewhere! Authentic enough.- Adam37 Talk 14:35, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

What people say varies by age, region, and professional background. I actually say "January ten, twenty-seventeen" if I read aloud "January 10, 2017". The "tenth" version sounds stodgy to me, as does reading "10 January 2017" as "the tenth of January, twenty-seventeen". I come from a technical background, in which one is more apt to treat a character string like "January 10, 2017" literally and without alteration. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:41, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata and the English Wikipedia's stylistic integrity

Fellow editors,

It's likely that we'll be living with increasing amounts of Wikidata-generated text on the English Wikipedia. Yet it's being generated in Berlin by developers and programmers in the German chapter without reference to the stylistic consensus that has painstakingly evolved on this site over the past 14 years.

I believe we should be taking more than a little interest in the style and formatting of Wikidata outputs. I've sounded a warning at the Wikidata state of affairs discussion that has been playing out during September. That page contians many expressions of caution, dismay, and alarm at the potential pitfalls of Wikidata's ability to roll out text at its whim, and at the lack of control we will have over the inevitable encroachments on en.WP.

Wikidata is an important project that will be riding the transition from biological algorithms (that's us, as creative editors) to electronic algorithms (that's machines that generate and read WP text). It's the latter that will slowly grow to dominate WMF sites from the mid-2020s onward, in a process that will be occurring in the economy at large in the first half of the century.

I urge editors to keep abreast of the developments, and to be ready to insist that Wikidata consult us on style and formatting before releasing on our site each displayed text that it proposes. This should be a matter of established protocol, in my view.

Tony (talk) 10:23, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@Tony1: I share your concern about Wikidata and the loss of control that may ensue, and I strongly support the need for consultation. However, the problem is that insisting on human oversight of each and every displayed text negates a large part of the value of the algorithmic approach, namely that it's not restricted by the limited availability of human editors, which is already a problem in many parts of the English Wikipedia and is even more of a problem in other language Wikipedias. A particular difficulty in the English Wikipedia is the wide range of ENGVARs and styles that have been embedded into the MoS. We already see bots and semi-automated edit tools having difficulty in respecting accepted variable styles, such as date formats, citations and spellings. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:41, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

RFC on accurate dates in citation metadata

I have begun an RFC about accurate dates in citation metadata: Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#RFC: Accurate dates in citation metadata. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:00, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Date ranges and source titles

Does WP:DATERANGE apply to the titles of sources, i.e. those linking to Wikisource? Please see Template talk:Cite DNB#Hyphens and dashes again.--Nevé –selbert 06:11, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Answered at the original thread [38]. Short version: normalizing to the correct character is not "required" by MOS:DATERANGE (you can't get in trouble for not doing it), but is certainly permissible per MOS:CONFORM, and regularly done by off-WP publications. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Non-breaking spaces

In the section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers #Numbers as figures or words, there are examples of markup that have no reason behind them. In particular:

Other numbers are given in numerals (3.75, 544) or in forms such as 21 million. Markup: 21{{nbsp}}million

I fail to see why "million" is any different in general from any other word.

The guidance at MOS:NBSP is "It is desirable to prevent line breaks where breaking across lines might be confusing or awkward." If you examine the sentence "Over 60 million people live in the UK", what is confusing or awkward about breaking after the 60? It does not impart any alternative meaning, so is not confusing; and starting the next line with "million" is no more awkward than any other word. Of course starting a line with an abbreviation or unit symbol, or punctuation like an ellipsis would be awkward, but we have MOS guidance already asking us to avoid those circumstances.

I do understand that sentences like "She sold the company for £5 million." would benefit from having a non-breaking space before the million. But that is simply because the currency unit appearing before the ordinal allows the fragment "She sold the company for £5" to have a very different meaning and a cognitive dissonance occurs if the reader then encounters "million" at the start of the next line. Nevertheless, those cases are already covered by MOS:NBSP's "prevent line breaks where breaking across lines might be confusing", so why should we be requiring a non-breaking space in all cases of an ordinal followed by "million" (or "billion", etc.)? --RexxS (talk) 18:29, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. No one minds the avoidance of wrapping in display mode, but it makes our edit mode even less friendly to newbies and casual editors. If only we had a less cumbersome mark-up for it. Tony (talk) 01:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

We do have one: {{ns}}. This should probably be merged with {{nbsp}} since they serve the same purpose (including spans of multiple non-breaking spaces). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't see an issue with using a non-breaking space in that example, but I suppose the main reason to use a non-breaking space is that whatever numerical value precedes "million" is modified by that unit of scale. For what it's worth, a cognitive dissonance would also occur with a sentence like the following if a line break occurred between the numeric value (1.5) and the unit of scale ("thousand"):

"The average weight of a [car make and model] in kilograms is approximately 1.5

thousand."

Compare that to the example provided above:

"She sold the company for £5

million."

@RexxS: Any time that a unit of measurement precedes a numeric value that is modified by a unit of scale (e.g., thousand, million, billion, etc.), the same issue arises; it's not unique to cases where the unit of measurement is a currency. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:00, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Sure. You don't even need a unit of measurement to generate ambiguity, whenever you write a multiplier as words: "The number of people affected was estimated to be 10 thousand". That ought not to break between "10" and "thousand" and a non-breaking space would be helpful in cases like that. Of course you can always write "The number of people affected was estimated to be 10,000". Just as you can write "The average weight of the car is approximately 1.5 thousand kilograms, which I would find much more natural and wouldn't cause any problem if the line broke before either of the words "thousand" or "kilograms". Or just use "1.5 tonnes" in that particular case – still doesn't need a non-breaking space. --RexxS (talk) 03:14, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

You make a fair point; however, referring back to our discussion at Talk:MDMA, I still think the use of non-breaking spaces in that context should just be left up to individual editors.

Also, this is sort of a tangential point, but we really should have an article, or at least a redirect to an article section, about "unit of scale" / "units of scale". Potential content references: [39][40]. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:23, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough, and I agree with you about the usefullness of an article or redirect. But you're never going to convince me there's any value whatsoever in putting a non-breaking space anywhere in the sentence "In 2014, between 9 and 29 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 used ecstasy". --RexxS (talk) 15:51, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

"Miles" in prose

There does not seem to be any guidance in this Manual of Style on what units to use in prose writing and whether to convert them (such as this edit: "they used bamboo pipelines to transport and carry both brine and natural gas for many miles" to "they used bamboo pipelines to transport and carry both brine and natural gas for many kilometres."). WP:UNITS seems to state use SI (kilometers) "In all other articles" without "strong national ties", but it seems to just cover actual unit measurement, not prose. Using the unit "miles" without converting in prose seems to be supported by this Manual because it is cited twice as an example, "He walked several miles", "Miles of trenches were dug". Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:44, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Those examples seem irrelevant to this question. I don't see why prose would be any different from any other use of units. In this particular case I would go back to the sources (why are there four of them?) and see what they say. And use SI units with optional conversion, as there doesn't appear to be a strong national tie for this article. Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:11, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are two scenarios: (i) where you have a direct quote from a source; (ii) where you are writing a prose summary of one or more sources.

In the case of the direct quotation, there's little doubt that "for many miles" is best, if that is what the source states. Fidelity to the source is essential.

Where you are paraphrasing and summarising sources, you have more flexibility. You may ask yourself in those cases whether you need to write either "for many miles" or "for many kilometres"? If there is some more precise indication of distance like "for about 30 miles", that could easily be written as "for about 30 miles (50 km)", which increases the breadth of audience who would find it easily comprehensible. Obviously, constructions like "for more than 50 miles (80 km)" are just as useful.

If there really isn't any better indication in the sources about the distance, then I'd recommend using either phrases like "He walked several miles" or "He walked several kilometres" (but not both), depending on what system is the primary one used in the article (i.e. imperial or metric) – if there is one. That has the advantage that you're not altering whatever scheme is already in place in the article, so you're slightly less likely to get into conflict with the pedants who insist there is only One True Way™. HTH --RexxS (talk) 19:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Great answer. E Eng 01:52, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Yep. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:44, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Markup for math variables

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Mathematics variables section is wrong and needs updating
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 05:40, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Decades

The example given "1960s Boston" - since it is referring to "Boston of the 1960s" I believe it should be written with an apostrophe in this case! i.e., "1960's Boston." Be good! 238-Gdn (talk) 07:39, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

No. 1960s is a plural not a genitive. Your example "1960's Boston" would be refer to Boston in 1960, not for the ten years as a whole. By the way be careful of "decade". To be strict (which as an encyclopaedia we should) the decade runs from 1961 to 1970 inclusive, not from 1960 to 1969. See the discussion on the page. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:47, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

No, your second point is wrong. A decade, as the article says, is any period of ten years. There is absolutely a decade of the 1960s, and it runs from 1960 to 1969. There is also a "seventh decade of the twentieth century", which runs from 1961 to 1970. --Trovatore (talk) 16:50, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Ah, you're right that it's a plural, but it is also genitive (or possessive). In that case, it should be 1960s', with the apostrophe after the s. By the way, it's not my example, but one of the examples offered in the text, which is not accurate, and is therefore confusing. I suggest changing the example and writing a new paragraph with examples in which use of the apostrophe would be required. Be good! 238-Gdn (talk) 10:11, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

[41] It's no more a possessive than are 1963 Boston or 19th-century Boston, though constructions such as from the nineteenth century's strictures to the 1960s' permissiveness are conceivable. E Eng 10:42, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Don't use an apostrophe. It's not necessary, and it will just inspire people to insert the apostrophe all over the place ("in the 1960's"). The "1960s Boston" case is not a possessive unless you are engaging in farcical anthropomorphism. It's simply an adjective, in exactly the same form as "nineteenth-century Japan". It is possible to conceive of "the nineteenth century's Japan" but this is silly poetics, not encyclopedic writing. PS: The fact that one has a hyphen and the other doesn't clearly illustrates that the two constructions are different in nature, which was harder to detect with a single-word case like "1960[']s". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 21:29, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Separators other than hyphen

Let's stop arguing this through edit summaries.

It seems we have three separate concerns. Stanton doesn't like changing between singular and plural in the same sentence. EE notes that the other entries in the table are plural, and points out that you can say "letters other than X". My concern is that "hyphen" is not the name of the hyphen in the same sense that X is the name of the letter X.

Is that an accurate summary? If we agree on the problem, we might have a better chance of finding a solution. --Trovatore (talk) 16:40, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh for crying out loud, this is a table of minimalist instructions:

Do not abbreviate year
No comma between month and year
Comma required
Do not abbreviate year (and, yes...)
Do not use separators other than hyphen

It's not supposed to be full sentences with all the trimmings (Do not use any separator other than the hyphen) and the particular choices made depend in part on the examples involved, and the surrounding injunctions. (I'm the primary author of the table – with the help of various of our esteemed fellow editors of course – so call it ownership if you want.) But if it keeps you up at night, knock yourselves out. I can't guarantee, though, that years from now I won't forget and tinker it back. E Eng 17:31, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

But it is supposed to be written in English, not Pidgen. There is a clear difference between "Do not use separators other than hyphen" and "Do not abbreviate year", since 'year' in that context is standing in place of an actual year: the latter is tantamount to saying "Do not abbreviate 1849 to '49"; while the former isn't an injunction against writing 'yr' or some other abbreviation of the word 'year'. A hyphen is itself, the name of the separator, and in that context requires an article when used in the singular, otherwise it reads jarringly. I'll just repeat here for completeness that other singular terms in the table like "a dot", "an abbreviated month", "a leading zero" are rendered complete with an article, and quite rightly. --RexxS (talk) 18:14, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

OK, whatever. A table like this is meant to give short, punchy injunctions that can be taken in at a glance; they're as far away from the formality of article text as you can get. Next you'll be turning Comma required between day and year into A comma is required between the day and the year (or maybe, I suppose, The comma is required between a day and a year, or maybe some other combination of definite and indefinite, according to some elaborate analysis). You guys are being silly.

And don't forget to change No comma between month and year --> The/A comma must not be used between the/a month and the/a year. 'Cause articles are important.

E Eng 18:58, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The fact that you can say "letters other than X" is kind of irrelevant. I can say "I don't drive any cars but Toyotas" and that comes off better than with a singular "Toyota". Same issue here. I really don't care that much, other that by doing the "Do not use separators other than hyphens" plurality agreement, we also get rid of the "I don't like your telegraphic 'Do not use separators other than hyphen'" objection someone had; two birds, one stone. I have no idea why EEng thinks that "hyphens" is objectionable here when clearly it isn't. The fact that "hyphen" isn't linguistically impossible to use here doesn't make it the better choice, when it solves nothing and raises two (or is it three?) independently observed problems. But I really WP:DGAF. I was just responding to REVTALK minor editwarring triggering my watchlist, by providing a solution that both sides should find acceptable. If they won't, there's nothing I can do about that. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 21:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Watch out, someone'll tell you you should write "I don't drive any cars but Toyota's". If we settle on Do not use separators other than hyphens I probably won't unthinkingly change it years from now. E Eng 21:33, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

In het Nederlands zou je kunnen zeggen "Ik rijd geen auto's behalve Toyota's" :p Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:50, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The only people who would tell you to write that are all Grocer's. --RexxS (talk) 23:30, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Um, "I don't drive any cars but Toyota's" is entirely correct (if a bit odd-sounding – which is why I was joking that this crowd might want to impose it). Compare "I don't like any fish but mama's". E Eng 23:47, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Seems a bit "if Mark Twain had a time machine". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:04, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

User:EEng#Museum_of_If_Mark_Twain_Had_Been_a_Gynecologist. E Eng 18:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Can we agree on Do not use separators other than hyphens? E Eng 04:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Sure. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:04, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Of course. --RexxS (talk) 17:39, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Done. E Eng 14:08, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Punctuation of sports scores and vote tallies

I notice that the page says "Sport scores and vote tallies should be given as figures, even if in the zero-to-nine range (a 25–7 victory; ...)". Can I interpret this as expressing a preference for an en-dash as the preferred punctuation mark in such instances – versus, for example "a 25-7 victory" or "a 25:7 victory" or "a 25 : 7 victory"? —BarrelProof (talk) 20:38, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

I also found "a 51–30 win; a 22–17 majority vote;" at MOS:DASH, which seems to confirm that this is the preferred convention. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes; that's prescribed at MOS:DASH. The hyphenated "a 25-7 victory" is news style (in which WP is not written), and thus just a minor style error in encyclopedic/academic writing. "A 25:7 victory" is just wrong, and not a minor error but misleading/confusing, because that markup (with or without spaces) expresses a ratio not a count: "a 25:7 solution of [whatever in whatever]". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 21:47, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

[1] Pearson, Malcolm (2010) [First published 1993], Reed's Skippers Handbook for sail and power (6th ed.), Bloomsbury, pp. 6–7

[2] IEEE Std 260.1™-2004, IEEE Standard Letter Symbols for Units of Measurement (SI Units, Customary Inch-Pound Units, and Certain Other Units)

[3] IEEE Std 260.1™-2004, IEEE Standard Letter Symbols for Units of Measurement (SI Units, Customary Inch-Pound Units, and Certain Other Units)

[1]

[1]

[1]