Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
Is this an old thread or a new one that I missed? I'd like to read the rest of the thread if it is still available. Carcharoth Oops, I appear to have answered a mail of Marc Riddell's from 17 September 2008 - for reasons best known to my email client. It will of course all be online in the archives. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
On 30 April 2010 19:10, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Is this an old thread or a new one that I missed? I'd like to read the rest of the thread if it is still available. It's older than usual, yes :-) Those wanting to follow the original discussion can find it in October 2008: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2008-October/thread.html#95916 and January 2009: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2009-January/thread.html#98280 -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelgan...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana. What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement. In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments. Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial. -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking) To be honest, I wonder if there is a way to reformat dates by .js script... We could have two scripts... One 1 jan 2009 and one Jan 1, 2009. Then those that care that much can just go back to seeing what they want to see and we could avoid this whole issue. On 1/19/09, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelgan...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana. What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement. In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments. Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial. -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- Sent from my mobile device ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilh...@nixeagle.org wrote: The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking) Picking the correct format for a nation or culture merely involves checking format preferences in your computer. I doubt that there's much variation in the data used by Apple, Microsoft, Linux etc. They are all going to come up with International format for Brazil. Where there's doubt, either discuss it on the article talk page or stick with the existing format. You know, like we do for ENGVAR for spelling. As to Arbcom cases over date formats, could you point me to a recent case, please? Peter On 1/19/09, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelgan...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana. What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement. In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments. Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial. -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
Sure, we have one going on now just over the *unlinking*. Check WP:RFAR under current cases. We have had problems with types of English being an issue and going to arbcom, this is the same type of thing... Now that it is harder to set your settings to hide the wrong format (now it is as difficult as hiding the wrong English)... Those that care about these things will likely cause enough drama that arbcom will have to review it. Its the same preference style thing. On 1/19/09, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilh...@nixeagle.org wrote: The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking) Picking the correct format for a nation or culture merely involves checking format preferences in your computer. I doubt that there's much variation in the data used by Apple, Microsoft, Linux etc. They are all going to come up with International format for Brazil. Where there's doubt, either discuss it on the article talk page or stick with the existing format. You know, like we do for ENGVAR for spelling. As to Arbcom cases over date formats, could you point me to a recent case, please? Peter On 1/19/09, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Wily D wilydoppelgan...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra Because it's English Wikipedia. It's harder to claim there's a preferred dialect of English to use for the article on French Guiana. What on earth does the variant of English used in a nation have to do with the date format used? Date format is an independent variable, like the colours of the national flag or the units of measurement. In written English we commonly use two date formats, known as American (mdy) and International (dmy). All we have to do is pick the appropriate format for the subject, and we have reliable, easily accessed sources for nations and cultures to prevent arguments. Where there is no clear format, such as for an article on swans or the International dateline, then fall back on the rules as per WP:ENGVAR - stay with the established format unless there is a good reason for change. That's the thinking behind the Arbcom ruling on jguk - the actual variety of English used is immaterial. -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- Sent from my mobile device ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
Ah. I see. It's something else entirely. I was hoping for some input on the points I raised... On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilh...@nixeagle.org wrote: Sure, we have one going on now just over the *unlinking*. Check WP:RFAR under current cases. We have had problems with types of English being an issue and going to arbcom, this is the same type of thing... Now that it is harder to set your settings to hide the wrong format (now it is as difficult as hiding the wrong English)... Those that care about these things will likely cause enough drama that arbcom will have to review it. Its the same preference style thing. On 1/19/09, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:33 AM, Wilhelm Schnotz wilh...@nixeagle.org wrote: The problem is picking the correct one involves lots of drama and arbcom cases. Drama that we did not have before the unlinking of dates. (This I a direct consequence of date unlinking) Picking the correct format for a nation or culture merely involves checking format preferences in your computer. I doubt that there's much variation in the data used by Apple, Microsoft, Linux etc. They are all going to come up with International format for Brazil. Where there's doubt, either discuss it on the article talk page or stick with the existing format. You know, like we do for ENGVAR for spelling. As to Arbcom cases over date formats, could you point me to a recent case, please? -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Skyring wrote: There's very little debate on which date format should be used for articles on U.S. or UK subjects, but for articles on (say) France or Brazil, there is a push to use U.S. date format, despite both of those nations using International format. There's no such push at all, and it's a bit disingenuous to claim so, as the only people making a push to convert date formats from one to another are those in favor of a day-month-year universal standard. The long-respected status quo is that if an article is on a subject that isn't strongly tied to a particular dialect of English, then it uses whatever the original author used, including for spellings, date formats, etc. Changing from one to another is discouraged, as it's a noise edit, and rather impolite to change one correct English dialect to another, especially as there are much more important things to work on. With respect, you are pushing U.S. date format on nations that don't use it. Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Brazil as an example. Finding the date formats for various nations and cultures is easy: http://www.obout.com/calendar/tutorial_dateformat2.aspx is one of many online tools. Just because six or seven years ago some nerdy American wrote the first stub of an article using formats he was used to, never imagining that Wikipedia would grow to become a respected international project, is no reason to carry over inappropriate formats. I can't see any reason to stick with whatever the original author used when there is a clear reason for change following our established practice of using local units of measurement and currency. You wouldn't want to use miles and pounds and U.S. dollars for an article on France, would you? Would you? -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
Delirium wrote: Andrew Gray wrote: The old link all dates is now deprecated, and we're advised to just write them in a standard form (14 November 2000 or November 14, 2000). It'll be interesting to see if this helps reduce overlinking The old system was laudable, but really only worked for a small minority of readers, usually active editors themselves. For everyone else, it just got confusing... The old system did, however, tend to reduce the number of tendentious editors going around mass-changing date formats to their preferred format, because such editors could just set their preferences and not have the wrong format grate on them henceforth. Anecdotally, there's been a big spike in the past few weeks of that sort of garbage editing. Reviving this thread, that does appear to be taking place (contrary to some more optimistic predictions that it wouldn't). The biggest offenders seem to be people whose hackles are raised by what they perceive as American provincialism, and who feel that an international encyclopedia ought to use the international date format, rather than follow the usual Wikipedia dialect practice, where we accept all the major variants, and strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. Previously, such folks could be accomodated by simply changing their date preferences, keeping them from ever having to see an odious Amerikkkan date, but now they're required to resort to a crusade to get rid of Americanist date formats, preferably entirely, or at least confine them to US-only articles. There's even some proposals to change the current MOS (which basically says don't change date formats unless it's a UK/US/Australian/etc. subject) to accomodate their views: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Proposal_on_international_date_format -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
Regardless of who speaks what, the original poster is referring to debates over which format to use when. Ex: January 1, 2009 ; 1 January 2009 ; or even 2009 January 1. With the automatic date formatting... People that *cared* about which one they saw when reading articles could just change it in their preferences. Now the only way to see dates in their preferred format is to change articles to their format. This creates tension and disputes, similar to how the spelling differences of Canadian, English, US, Australia, etc cased disputes. (and still do cause disputes). I think there are a few entries in [[WP:LAME]] on that topic. If auto formatting is tossed aside long term, we will have to create conventions for articles similar to how spelling works to prevent more lame editwars. On 1/17/09, Skyring skyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Delirium delir...@hackish.org wrote: Delirium wrote: ... strongly discourage edits that change one to another, unless the article's strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country where one dialect predominates. I'm puzzled here. Why is it only English-speaking nations that use dates? -- Peter in Canberra ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Linking Dates
Skyring wrote: There's very little debate on which date format should be used for articles on U.S. or UK subjects, but for articles on (say) France or Brazil, there is a push to use U.S. date format, despite both of those nations using International format. There's no such push at all, and it's a bit disingenuous to claim so, as the only people making a push to convert date formats from one to another are those in favor of a day-month-year universal standard. The long-respected status quo is that if an article is on a subject that isn't strongly tied to a particular dialect of English, then it uses whatever the original author used, including for spellings, date formats, etc. Changing from one to another is discouraged, as it's a noise edit, and rather impolite to change one correct English dialect to another, especially as there are much more important things to work on. -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
