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Note: This is the ending of an extended discussion on the linking of dates, during March and April 2006.

previous page: /archive46 < (long discussion)
archive48

Stephen's proposal

As I promised above, I'd like (with some trepidation) to present a new proposal for the whole section on Dates. You can find it at User:Stephen Turner/Date Proposal. Although I've made my own views on this subject clear, I've tried very hard in this proposal to be fair to everyone's point of view, while still keeping the style guidance concise.

This is a much more extensive rewrite than the earlier proposals P1–P8d. It also includes some text discouraging ISO 8601 dates, based on our earlier discussion. So everyone who is interested in date formatting in Wikipedia is encouraged to read it and comment. I really want to know whether both the linkophiles and the linkophobes can be happy with it. Or have I gone too far one way or the other?

I think it would be more profitable just to make comments at this stage, rather than launch another straw poll. (Polling discourages consensus).

Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations on your work. I like the side-by-side presentation for clarity. One minor point about this presentation: you have chosen red and green for contrast, but unfortunately use of red/green as the only code is the worst pairing for accessibility. Could you choose another pair and/or a non-colour method?
I am not sure what I think. It might work. I look forward to seeing what others say. bobblewik 20:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Re colours: Sorry, I didn't think of that. I was trying to avoid the blues and purples because links are those colours, which didn't leave many choices. I've changed it to khaki now, which also has the benefit of being a bit less prominent. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the attempt but red/khaki doesn't work either. The term 'red/green colour blind' is inadequate and even misleading as a description of the range of problem colour pairs. You can run a URL through the [http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php Vischeck simulator}. It is an interesting issue (to me). Forget about it, I will investigate later. bobblewik 21:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Stephen, thank you for the hard work you've put into this, and especially for the side-by-side thing, which is incredibly useful. The bottom line is that you've changed "don't link" to "do what you like." Maybe that's not so bad because the MoS isn't policy anyway, so it's always essentially saying "do what you like," although in fact people do tend to edit in accordance with it. My concern is that, in the event of a disagreement, your proposal would mean the MoS would be giving almost no guidance. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi, thanks, I like it. The only thing is that maybe the wording of the introductory paragraph of the section User:Stephen Turner/Date Proposal#Partial dates is a bit verbose and all in all not so clarifying (but that might be a good idea too), and that I'd not particularly rake up WP:BTW again - but it shortens some of the other stuff, and that's an advantage again.
Also it would better work together with my new guideline proposal (wikipedia:semi-bots) in that it avoids to say unilaterally that it is "important" to link one sort of dates and "important" to unlink other types of dates (that was the biggest problem I had with all the proposals that left Bobblewik's Tony1's formulation untouched). I like the idea of asking editors to weigh several ways of looking at the issue (which, I think, is somewhat the same as what Ambi named "judgement call") --Francis Schonken 20:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
You (Francis Schonken) say "important" is Bobblewik's formulation. That is false. It was added by User:Tony1 in October 2005. There are quite a few linkophobes (I like those terms). You are not the first linkophile to give me such status in controlling the Manual of style. Let us be clear: if I had as much control of the Manual of style that the linkophiles say I have, it would look very different. So please take a bit more care with your phrasing. bobblewik 21:15, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, sorry, you're right, should have been more careful. corrected above.
But I'm not a "linkophile". See? You make errors too! --Francis Schonken 21:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I thought you were a linkophile. Sorry about that. Mea culpa. And thanks for the correction to your phrasing.
Yes I do make errors. I admit it. I remember making an error in July 1982 when I thought I was wrong but I was actually right. [joke] bobblewik 21:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal as a whole, with the exception of the deprecation of the ISO 8601 format. ISO 8601 is the one and only world standard on date formats and should be explicitly allowed, or even encouraged. I do not share the thought that people would not understand it. It may look unfamiliar to some, but I never met anyone who didn't understand it immediately. −Woodstone 21:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent (applaudable!) breakup and overview of changes. Completely agree with all of your proposal. In the "Partial dates" (controversial) section, I'd like to suggest "(Generally, do not link)" be re-added, to the Tuesday and April examples. (or something similar). I think I'm right in saying that was in general agreement/consensus? Thanks. --Quiddity 22:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Me too. But 'Generally do not link' -> 'Generally should not have a link'. The former addresses itself to editors seeing non-linked text. The latter addresses itself to editors seeing linked or non-linked text. bobblewik 15:20, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

A couple of minor points:

1. I would omit the examples showing [[17 February]], [[1958]] and [[February 17]] [[1958]]. Yes, we can do them, and I've seen both of them that way many times on Wikipedia, and they will show up the same as the versions without a comma in the first case or with a comma in the second case as long as you are logged in and have preferences set. But when those two forms are used, people without preferences working will see something different from what people with preferences working see.

2. One of my pet peeves is not addressed: links such as [[17 February]] [[1958 in music|1958]] 17 February 1958 or [[February 17]], [[1958 in music|1958]] February 17, 1958. Those of you with preferences set for one of these formats ought to be able to see the problem: look for either the extraneous comma in 17 February, 1958 in the second date, or the missing comma in February 17 1958 in the first date. Gene Nygaard 17:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to let this discussion run for a couple of days before replying. I'll try and find time to reply to various points tomorrow — anyone else want to make any comments first? Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, here are my reactions to people's comments so far. Apologies for the long message, but I really want to establish the views of the community before writing another version. Progress may seem slow, but I hope that it's thereby more likely to reach a genuine consensus in the end. Please feel free to reply to any of the following sections. Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Haven't really been following this, but I'll post a quick reply to some of these if it helps estabilish the views of the community (if others do the same). Please forgive me if it seems as if I've been overlooking something, or I've missed something. Neonumbers 00:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Can't see anything here that I would find objectionable. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
It is nice to have pleasant compromises, but how would all this help when editor-1 looks at an aricle, sees that year (for example) links are important 'for context'; and editor-2 looks at the same article and the same year articles and sees no context help whatsoeer and unlinks the years? Then we have an open or underground linking and unlinking war and a continuation of all the wasted time and emotion involved. Sorry, I don't see the solution here in this proposal. Thanks Hmains 00:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
In the usual way: by being bold on first edit, but by seeking consensus on the talk page if reverted, rather than getting into an edit war. Stephen Turner (Talk) 04:18, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Linking years

This is of course the most difficult paragraph. But I'm getting the sense, particularly from SlimVirgin and Francis Schonken, that I haven't got it quite right: that at the moment it's too vacuous. This wasn't quite my intention: I don't think enough of us can rally around "usually link" or "usually do not link", so I didn't want to give such definite advice. But I did want people to understand the issues and so be able to make an informed decision. Maybe I didn't quite accomplish that. Would it help if I dropped the reference to WP:BTW as Francis suggests, and just focussed on WP:CONTEXT? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm happy with yours as is, or with that suggested change. --Quiddity
Stephen, I'm putting my head in the lion's mouth, but really hardly anyone had a problem with "usually do not link". Consensus only began to break down when this was interpreted as "always unlink". I would have thought we could be fairly bold about this: "Only link if the link to the year will provide significant context for the article." Rich Farmbrough 23:06 29 April 2006 (UTC).
Either one is fine by me, although a BCE-CE type wording would avoid pissing contests over whether a link does or does not provide significant context. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Linking day and month names

Is Quiddity right that there is a consensus not to link these, except when particularly relevant? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

They're almost universally useless. I can't see a problem with this. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we should make any links that are unlikely to be followed. Where is this be actively discussed? --Username132 (talk) 09:57, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

ISO 8601

I really hoped this wouldn't be controversial, and I stand by what I wrote: I do not think that ISO 8601 dates should ever be used in normal prose. Take an example: "On 2005-12-03, Pakistan won the final Test match". Maybe the world would be a better place if all dates were always written like that, but we're meant to be writing normal English here. That isn't normal English, even leaving aside the question of whether some people might think it was referring to 12 March. Will anyone support me on this? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely support you. This date format for machine-reading, because it knows what order to expect, but humans have to guess. --Quiddity 21:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll support you on that one too. Neonumbers 00:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. This format is the one and only formal world standard and should be explicitly allowed. I can't see anything disturbing in the example. Generally numbers are not pronounced as written. If that were an objective it would have to be "the third of December two thousand and five". −Woodstone 04:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Woodstone, but I don't feel strongly against it. Would it be impossible for the software to be modified so that [[2005-04-25]] defaulted to one of the other options (like [[4 April]][[2005]] whenever a non-logged-in user sees one of those links? Neier 14:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm assuming that the software is as it as. If the software were to do what you said, then I agree we wouldn't need to discourage the format: but I'm not sure that's very relevant. Stephen Turner (Talk) 14:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Stephen Turner. This way of writing dates seems non-human to me and I know lots of people have troubles to remember the correct order. I always have to think for a couple of seconds. Jan.Kamenicek 19:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
The non-human form of the ISO date/time format is like: 20060504T1234Z, which is commonly used in communication between computers. I agree that is diffcult to read. The most common ISO format for humans is 2006-05-04 12:34Z, which in my experience is not confusing for anyone, just unfamiliar to some. −Woodstone 08:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
What you haven't understood is that "unfamiliar" is the most important reason to forbid it, regardless of whether it is or is not confusing, or is a better or worse system than the usual one. We should be writing the best standard English, as used by the best publishing houses. No scholarly work would ever use 2006-05-04 in preference to 4 May 2006 or May 4, 2006, so we shouldn't either. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
As it says at WP:PERFECT, "A perfect Wikipedia article...uses proper grammar, spelling, and writing conventions; follows all the accepted rules of modern English." Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:44, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
The whole point of this discussion is that there evidently is NOT a set of "accepted rules of English" for writing dates and times. However, there IS an accepted world wide standard. −Woodstone 10:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, no, the main point of this discussion is whether to link or not. Of course, there's no universal standard whether to use 4 May 2006 or May 4, 2006, as that's a regional variation; but there's a universal standard not to use 2006-05-04 in normal writing. Consult any style guide. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm happy with the forumulation that they should never be used in normal prose, but I'm not so sure about never linking them. Currently accessdates in citations, for example, are linked automatically be the relevant templates, which allows the date to respond to user preferences where they have been made. If the software responds to ISO 8601 dates when linked, I don't see the reason for not linking them on those occasions when they are used. —Whouk (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
The point is that they don't respond to users' preferences for anonymous and new users, because those users don't have any preferences. I'm arguing that there are no occasions when you want American users to see May 4, 2006; British users to see 4 May 2006; and users who aren't logged in to see 2006-05-04. If you want American and British users to see ordinary prose dates, then you should do the right thing by anonymous users too, and give them a prose date by writing [[May 4]], [[2006]] or [[4 May]] [[2006]] not [[2006-05-04]].
I have some history with this. For a while, I used to type [[2006-05-04]] because it was quicker. Because I had date preferences set, I saw a nice prose date instead. I had no idea that anonymous users didn't default to some sensible date preferences, and that they were seeing my geeky numerical dates in the middle of my beautifully crafted prose.
Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I can see the case for saying "don't use it unless you want it to appear like that", although I'd still be concerned that if someone has actually set a preference then they should be able to see ISO dates in their preferred form too. But if this does become the guideline, the cite templates definitely need to be altered. —Whouk (talk) 13:15, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I hadn't previously understood that you were talking about specific templates. I understand your point now. Maybe I should just rephrase it to say that linking doesn't get round the problem. Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Stephen on this point. I think that's enough said. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Gene Nygaard's point 1

I concur, and I think it's uncontroversial. This comes in the category of removing examples that people shouldn't use because they look wrong for readers without date preferences set. Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Neonumbers 00:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Quiddity 02:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a good point; and although I've been deleting the commas (I read somewhere else that it was beneficial to reduce server strain), I agree to it. Neier 14:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Gene Nygaard's point 2

I see the problem, but I'm not sure what your solution is. Are you proposing that you shouldn't link to a topic-specific year link if the year is part of a full date? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

If you ask me, that's the best way for now. (Ideally we'd be able to set date preferences without linking, but too much to think about, maybe...) Neonumbers 00:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree. "Shouldnt link" makes sense, until the date preferenes are unentangled. Then reexamine maybe.--Quiddity
I agree with Neonumbers. Neier 14:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little unhappy with "Easter egg" years anyway. Rich Farmbrough 23:08 29 April 2006 (UTC).

However, this does make me think of something else. I didn't consider suggesting that people should link to topic-specific year links, if they're going to link at all. I have even done this myself (despite my linkophobia!): recently I wrote an article on Will Jefferson and I included a lot of links from year numbers because they were actually to the very specific 2005 English cricket season etc. not just 2005. Is there a general agreement that links like [[2005 in sports|2005]] are more useful than [[2005]]? Or are readers so conditioned not to click on year numbers that the link is no more useful? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

While topic-specific links are more useful, that doesn't make then useful. I could understand, though. Neonumbers 00:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I prefer topic-specific links, but only when actually more useful. Completely case-by-case judgement. --Quiddity
What Quiddity said. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

More contributors to this discussion

I'm a bit disappointed that more people haven't contributed to this discussion, although I realise everyone is thoroughly sick of this issue by now. Is it appropriate to invite everyone who contributed in the earlier debates to read this? But in some ways I just want people who are the most interested to read it, and I don't want to turn it into a divisive debate like we've had before. Any suggestions? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd say invite the most vocal and articulate of the earlier debators to come back, the obvious 4 users, plus 3 or 4 more maybe. --Quiddity 02:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
To jump in, I agree with almost everything that Bobblewik has said/done. As a compromise though, perhaps we could at least restrict each year (years by themselves) to having at most one link? I don't know if that's been mentioned, because these discussions are very long and I might have missed something. Ardric47 04:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Stephen's changes (with Gene's suggestions). Neier 14:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Your rewrite looks very fine to me (and thank for going to all this effort). I do not feel strongly on date linking issue but I have been affronted by those who block editors and rollback edits that do not conform to what they would like the MoS to say. Without any contribution from these editors I wonder if this might continue regardless of your rewritten guidance. For the "controversial" dates I would say "do not link, remove links if you feel like it, do not revert anyone reverting your changes" but I was somewhat persuaded by SlimVirgin's proposal "However, as with all style issues, going through the encyclopedia with the sole purpose of changing from one style to another is discouraged (whether it involves date delinking, changing British to American English, or BCE to BC), because those who oppose the style change will see your actions as provocative" [1]. Maybe this would have to be explicit in the proposed guidance because it has become such a fraught matter. Thincat 16:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I sort of understand that idea, and those that have been delinking have deferred to it. However that would also apply to removing POV, linkspam etc.. Rich Farmbrough 23:11 29 April 2006 (UTC).

Colours

And finally, anyone who can suggest better colours for colour-blind readers, please do. My dilemma is that I want to avoid blues and purples because they hide amongst the links, and that really only leaves me the red and green dimensions to play in. Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

This task is on my wishlist but I don't think I will get round to doing it. If we can't solve it here, at least it is good that more people might be aware now of this important accessibility issue for the future. bobblewik 19:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Revised proposal

I've made a new version of my proposal, addressing as many of the points in this discussion as I could. You can find it at User:Stephen Turner/Date Proposal as before. Please let me know what you think of it now. I hope we're nearing consensus (although I may spoil that by inviting some more people to the discussion :-) ). Stephen Turner (Talk) 18:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I've invited six more people, including Ambi, to come along and comment. I chose the people who appeared to be the heaviest contributors to the previous debate, and who are not on temporary or permanent Wikibreak. Stephen Turner (Talk) 19:24, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I fully and wholeheartedly support. And again, this is an applaudable effort and method towards an amicable resolution. --Quiddity 19:38, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
What he said. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Kudos. Fully support. Noisy | Talk 10:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Cyde's reponse

I mainly have two issues. For one, I don't understand why you are explicitly encouraging against ISO 8601 when it is the only World Standard representation for dates. And secondly, you haven't considered any MediaWiki software modifications. If there is a consensus to change something in the software, it will get done (e.g. semi-protection). I think the best proposal that solves most of these issues can be found here; basically, it would create a new syntax that would have a date be formatted according to preferences but wouldn't link it. --Cyde Weys 19:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

As for ISO 8601, I think my reasons are already spelled out in the proposal and in the discussion above, so I don't need to repeat them in full here; but basically, while the format is great for all sorts of things, it's not yet widely accepted in English prose. I wish it were, but it isn't.
I realise this part of my proposal is proving more controversial than I imagined (it seems "obviously correct" to me, but others obviously disagree). Don't worry, I'm not going to force this section through under cover of the other changes.
And as for the software changes, I absolutely agree. I would dearly love to see those changes, but the Manual of Style isn't the place to discuss that. Obviously if the proposed changes ever did get implemented, the Dates section of the MoS would change completely.
Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Stephen on the ISO issue, although once I thought it was the way to go. We should be as accessible as possible. And when the software enhancement is done there will be a lot of work to do! Rich Farmbrough 23:13 29 April 2006 (UTC).
Yeah, it would sure as hell be a lot of work for even a Beowulf cluster of bots. I'd probably end up coding a bot to go through all of the "What links here" for years and dates and replace the [[ ]] syntax with whatever the new syntax ends up being. But at over a million articles that would take a looong time. It recently took Cydebot (talk · contribs) three days to make just 25,000 edits. 1,000,000 articles, a good number of which have date/year links, would take a looooooong time. --Cyde Weys 23:24, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Once again, I agree with Stephen. These dates are a nuisance, and there is no good reason for including them in prose. Ambi 03:49, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

OK to make changes tomorrow?

It's time to bring this discussion to a close. There seems to be almost universal agreement that the majority of the text is acceptable. The only controversial point is the ISO 8601 issue, and I think there is enough of a consensus to change that too. I count six people in favour of that section: Me, Quiddity, Neonumbers, Jan.Kamenicek, Ambi and Rich Farmbrough. Against, I see Woodstone and Cyde Weys and a weak objection from Neier. So call it 6 to 2½, 6 to 3 at worst.

So at the moment, I plan to implement the changes tomorrow. But I wouldn't mind someone else verifying my conclusions on the ISO 8601 issue — I realise I may be too involved to be objective. We could have a straw poll on this issue if necessary, but I'm reluctant to do that because I don't want it to turn into a vote with lots of people invited to come and join in etc.

Final chance to comment before I make the changes.

Stephen Turner (Talk) 23:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Please proceed. I'm a bit dismayed the ISO 8601 discussion got mixed in to this while the solution of the longer running issue (the linking of dates), finally solved, was not implemented on the guideline page yet - seemingly delayed for the ISO 8601 discussion. As for that issue, I don't have a real opinion, but if you must: count a ½ vote in on my account for the current majority view. --Francis Schonken 10:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Apart form the ISO issue, I agree. In the limited set of opinions here, there may be a majority on the ISO issue, but no consensus. Therefore I would prefer not to change the manual of style on that issue. So a line should be kept to state that the links like [[2006-05-06]] are allowed as well. An international medium like wikipedia should not forbid to follow world standards. −Woodstone 11:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I know you don't agree with me on the ISO issue, Woodstone. But I've tried to proceeed slowly so as to establish what the mood of the community really is, and I do think 6-2½ is a consensus. Only you and Cyde Weys argued against it; Neier just made one tiny comment. Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
      • After understanding the readability issue with users who are not logged in, I agree that in descriptive sentences, ISO dates should be avoided. However, I wonder if a provision should be added so that for lists, such styles are permissible. Readability isn't such a large issue in that case; and it is likely that within a few dates, the pattern of YYYY-MM-DD would become obvious to the reader without any confusion over which field represented which interval. Neier 21:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not really believe till now that people were considering banning it. So I am speaking up. I agree with Woodstone that An international medium like wikipedia should not forbid to follow world standards. Furthermore, we should only give guidance if:

  • the issue is clear and present in Wikipedia articles
  • the issue frequent enough to worry about
  • the guidance will result in a change in editor action

On the basis of at least one of those criteria, I do not think a ban on ISO dates is justified. bobblewik 15:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Bobblewik, you replied just after I had changed it. With Neier's comment, opinions had reached 7-2 in favour (excluding Francis, whose "vote" was just to speed things up, not to express an opinion on the subject).
At the last moment, I added a paragraph to emphasise that the guidance only applies in normal prose, which I hope will allay some of the concerns that the format is being "banned". (And of course, the MoS is only a guideline for normal situations, and WP:IAR applies).
Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:02, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Done!

Stephen Turner (Talk) 04:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Changes

I think that any major change to Wiki Manuals should be 'announced' in a manner that Wiki editors can become aware of the change. I do not see anything in the Community Portal or in broadcast messages or anywhere else regarding this change or other changes. One cannot just hope that Wiki editors will periodically read all the manuals and spot changes that have been made. Creating changes/ improvements is good, but not good enough. Editors need to be made aware of changes so they can take them into account in their editing work. Thanks Hmains 16:06, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

A short summation in the "Notices" on the Community Bulletin Board would be perfectly appropriate. -Quiddity 16:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Stephen's dissection of the changes was so well done, it might be a good candidate for a short Wikipedia Signpost article, if we have any willing writers here...? -Quiddity 19:25, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
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