Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Proposal on international date format

This Request for Comment is now closed. Please do not modify the archive below and instead participate in discussions at WT:MOSNUM. Thank you!

Please see proposed revision to the guideline in the quotation box below:

The two, big RfCs are coming to an end on Christmas day. Any rational, unbiased interpretation of that consensus clearly shows that routinely linking dates such as births and deaths is to no longer be practiced. A better MOSNUM policy for deciding upon the non-linked date format to use in our articles will be part of the various revisions that are coming.

A properly conducted RfC is a poll. On Wikipedia, the word “poll” has a very specific and important meaning. The following is from Wikipedia:Consensus#Participating in community discussions:

Polls are structured discussions, not votes. Opinion has more weight when you provide a rationale during a poll, not just a vote. Convince others of your views, and give them a chance to convince you. Pure argumentativeness rarely convinces others.

A message to all: All participants here are asked to conform to the above expectations in order to foster a spirit of consensus building. And to all Wikipedians intent on registering your opinion here: You may be assured that the soundness and logic of your pithy arguments count far more than do uncivil or illogical tirades. There is absolutely no need to respond in kind to incivility and provocations, nor should you feel intimidated by such tactics; just calmly state what you truly believe in order to have maximum voice. A consensus on Wikipedia is determined based on the total weight of logical and sound arguments.

Since…

1. As per Ohconfucius said above, editors should not have to go figure out which previous editor should be considered “the first major contributor” to an article, nor should there be arguments here or in RfCs or at ANIs over this issue over and over. It should not be so complex. Further, the personal practices of some previous editor two years prior isn’t even germane to what produces the best-reading article and shouldn’t be a factor in our considerations, and
2. Whereas there is a greater number of readers of en.Wikipedia who speak English as their first or second language who are not American than there are English-speaking Americans, and
3. Whereas this world-wide, English-speaking audience uses international-style dates (13 December 2008), and
4. Whereas articles not closely associated with American topics such as Italy, Austria, Basilica di Saccargia and Kilogram have a pronounced non-American readership, and
5. Whereas articles on, or closely associated with American topics, such as Spokane River Centennial Trail; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; American Revolution; and New York Yankees have a preponderance of American readers, and
6. Whereas Americans use American-style date formatting (December 13, 2008), and
7. Whereas Americans—who are insular and have *relatively* little knowledge of the customs of other countries (two big ponds on both sides, you see)—we probably do Americans some good by exposing them to the fact that the rest of the world formats their dates differently by having, for instance, our Italy article use Euro-style dates, and
8. Whereas Gerry Ashton, above, raised a good point that the burden should not be on editors to figure out what country uses what date format…

Hereby, my proposal is simple, as follows:

1. For articles on, or strongly associated with, the following countries and territories: The United States, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Wake Island, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Republic of Palau; editors should use the U.S.-style date format (“February 2, 2008”), otherwise, editors should use the international date format (“2 February 2008”) in articles.

Bear in mind that I am an American. But I simply think it is wrong that editors here are so territorial that we simply grandfather in random-ass date formats based upon a nebulous notion of who was where firstest with the biggest and mostest. None of that has anything to do with improving Wikipedia’s articles.

As for articles pertaining to Canada (which uses both date formats), I would propose that we invite Canadian editors (no one else) to come up with proposed guideline wording that they think is best. Greg L (talk) 00:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

---

What about Johnston Island, Guantanamo, a US military base on foreign soil, a US embassy on foreign soil, etc.? See this. Tennis expert (talk) 04:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

How do you want the RfC to read? Something like "RfC: Determining date formats based on the audience of the subject of the article"? If you are going to have a an RfC for a change that affects almost every article, you need to list something.--2008Olympian^chitchat 02:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Poll and comments

• Support All we need is a drop-dead simple guideline that asks “What is the subject?” Is it New York Giants; Spokane River Centennial Trail; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; American Revolution; and New York Yankees? Use American-style dates to make the text as natural as possible for the predominantly American audience. The Pietà?, Italy, Austria, Basilica di Saccargia, and Kilogram articles? They should use international-style dates for the large, international English-speaking audience that en.Wikipedia sees. A topic-only-based guideline is a much, much more sensible litmus test than endless arguing and RfCs and consensus-building to answer what should be a totally irrelevant question: “Should Roger be considered the first major contributor such-n-such article, (just one of the 6,821,400 articles on Wikipedia), or Tom, Dick, and Harry, who each contributed modest amounts and the article seemed stable for a while after their edits too.” All that debate is colossal waste of everyone’s time. With this guideline (or a similar facsimile of it based on the same basic subject-sensitive logic), the need would never arise for arguing over date formats so long as the initial author follows this new guideline at the outset. The two, big RfCs are coming to an end on Christmas day. A better MOSNUM policy for deciding upon the non-linked date format to use in our articles will be part of the impending MOSNUM revisions. Greg L (talk) 00:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Qualified support we should have a reader-centric and editor-friendly way of formatting dates and discourage article ownership. Reliance on arbitrary or difficult-to-ponder-which-should-be-the-proper-date dates should be replaced by an objective and bot-friendly way of assuring uniform presentation with articles and family of articles. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose

1. As per Ohconfucius said above, editors should not have to go figure out which previous editor should be considered “the first major contributor” to an article, nor should there be arguments here or in RfCs or at ANIs over this issue over and over. It should not be so complex. Further, the personal practices of some previous editor two years prior isn’t even germane to what produces the best-reading article and shouldn’t be a factor in our considerations, and

No one has to go through anything if the date format stays as initiated.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

1. Whereas there is a greater number of readers of en.Wikipedia who speak English as their first or second language who are not American than there are English-speaking Americans, and

But there are a greater number of readers who speak English as their primary language who are American. Those that speak English as their secondary language have their own native-language wikipedias to read.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh really? I'm a native speaker of Italian, but rarely read it.wiki, because it is much less comprehensive than the English one (except on Italian topics). And it is one of the largest ones. I doubt that many Maltese native speakers prefer to read the Maltese Wikipedia than the English one. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Whereas this world-wide, English-speaking audience uses international-style dates (13 December 2008), and

But most of the readers of this site use American-style dates.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

1. Whereas articles not closely associated with American topics such as Italy, Austria, Basilica di Saccargia and Kilogram have a pronounced non-American readership, and

This why this proposal is so unworkable. What about articles such as Humpback whale, Global warming, Space elevator? A million others? And, btw, on what basis do you even say that most of the readers of the article Italy are non-American? Considering the vast majority of all the readers of this site are American, this is probably not true. Most of the Italian readers of the site are going to read www.wikipedia.it.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

1. Whereas articles articles on, or closely associated with American topics, such as Spokane River Centennial Trail; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; American Revolution; and New York Yankees have a preponderance of American readers, and

Considering the vast majority of all the readers of this site are American, this is probably true.

1. Whereas Americans use American-style date formatting (December 13, 2008), and

This is also true.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

1. Whereas Americans—who are insular and have *relatively* little knowledge of the customs of other countries (two big ponds on both sides, you see)—we probably do Americans some good by exposing them to the fact that the rest of the world formats their dates differently by having, for instance, our Italy article use Euro-style dates, and

You are making a stereotypical judgment here without any evidence. It is not up to you to edify the nation. I want to be civil here, but this statement is pretty offensive.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

1. Whereas Gerry Ashton, above, raised a good point that the burden should not be on editors to figure out what country uses what date format…

Which is exactly what you are proposing.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Bear in mind that I am an American. But I simply think it is wrong that editors here are so territorial that we simply grandfather in random-ass date formats based upon a nebulous notion of who was where firstest with the biggest and mostest. None of that has anything to do with improving Wikipedia’s articles.

Total WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. But if most articles are started in American format, it's probably a pretty good indication of the proportion of readers who are American.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

As for articles pertaining to Canada (which uses both date formats), I would propose that we invite Canadian editors (no one else) to come up with proposed guideline wording that they think is best. Greg L (talk) 00:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it is probably a pretty good indication that the MoS used to only allow American dates.[1] -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yet another reason to leave it alone.--2008Olympian^chitchat 01:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This is completely unworkable. How are we to determine whether there is a predominantly American audience for articles like Lafayette (French general in American Revolution), United Nations (physically in New York), League of Nations (Wilson's baby), World Bank (located in DC), International Monetary Fund (located in DC), 1984 Summer Olympics (held in Los Angeles) etc.? I'm sure other editors can think of some more, lmfao.--2008Olympian^chitchat 02:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• It would help immeasurably if you would actually read the proposal and post an opinion based on what it actually and literally says, rather than what you think it says; otherwise what we’ve got here is “failure to communicate”.^listen (American date format).

  I also seem to have to come back to my post and update it since you persist at completely revising and deleting your posts after I have responded to them, thus orphaning my responses since what I am referring to has ben *conveniently* deleted. Your original post: here (difference). This is in violation of Wikipedia policy and is exceedingly rude. You (originally) wrote as follows: *Strong Oppose This is completely unworkable. How are we to determine what the predominant audience is for articles like Earth, Health, and News, much less United Nations, Lafayette and Iraq War, or even Telescope, Alphabet, and Butterfly? There are millions of articles that have no leaning one way or another. I'm sure other editors can think of some more, lmfao.--2008Olympian^chitchat 02:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC).

  (Finally) getting back now to my original response to your nonsense: Since (most of) the articles you cite (like Earth, Telescope, United Nations, Health, Alphabet, and Butterfly) are not “on, or strongly associated with” one of the named countries enumerated right in the proposal, then dates default to the international date format, as prescribed in the proposed guideline. Further, Lafayette is a “may refer to…” page so it’s anyone’s guess as to what you mean. This RfC proposal has absolutely nothing whatsoever with trying to determine what the predominant audience is. It is a super-simple guideline if you bother to actually read (international date format) it. This is not rocket science (international date format). Since the Iraq war article pertains to the U.S. and Iraq, and since there are clearly many more English-speaking Americans reading that en.Wikipedia article than there are English-speaking Iraqis, it should use the date format of just one of the participants in that war: the US. And for once, can we dispense with the Strong this and that? The value of one’s polling answer lies in strength of one’s stated reasoning and arguments; not in the adjectives and superlatives one puts in bold. Greg L (talk) 02:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• P.S Now that you have conveniently totally revised your initial post to work around the *inconvenient truth* of my response, I will respond to what you now have. And for good measure, I will quote your post (to circumvent your propensity to revise posts to which others have already responded). Your wrote: How are we to determine whether there is a predominantly American audience for articles like Lafayette (French general in American Revolution), United Nations (physically in New York), League of Nations (Wilson's baby), World Bank (located in DC), International Monetary Fund (located in DC), 1984 Summer Olympics (held in Los Angeles) etc.?

  You cite the United Nations as a *stumper*? Because it is located in New York?!? World Bank? Because it is located in DC? WTF? What part of “on, or strongly associated with” don’t you understand? Apparently, all of it. Greg L (talk) 20:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This "Default to the international format" was not in your RfC until now. Tony Blair will be grateful to know that the Iraq War had nothing to do with the UK. And no, I'll edit my own prose, strong or _weak as I see fit, thank you. I would advise that you are going to get really tired if you are going to argue with everyone who opposes this idea.--2008Olympian^chitchat 02:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Nope, the “default to international” was in both. Once again, you should have actually read what was being proposed rather than have a knee-jerk reaction to your imagination. And I am not really speaking to you; the inflexibility of your mind is quite apparent and I didn’t for a second expect that you would go “I’ll be darned, I didn’t actually read it and I’ll change my vote.” I am simply pointing out the fallacies of your argument for the benefit of the others. Greg L (talk) 02:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Ok, how about Lafayette (French general in American Revolution), United Nations (physically in New York), League of Nations (Wilson's baby), World Bank (located in DC), International Monetary Fund (located in DC), 1984 Summer Olympics (held in Los Angeles) etc.?
• I’m sorry, the answers to this are only too obvious. The shortcomings of your logic and your refusal to read and understand the proposal is exceeded only by the absurd length of your RfC poll statement above. Like I said, I’m not trying to change your mind. Greg L (talk) 03:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure ignore the holes in your proposal *grin back at you*--2008Olympian^chitchat 18:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The length of my answer is, as is obvious, dictated by the absurd length of your multi-point proposal.--2008Olympian^chitchat 03:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Why do you persist at demonstrating that you have a pronounced inability to read things here?? It clearly says above “Hereby, my proposal is simple…” which is then followed by the short, pithy proposal itself in the quotation box. The bullet points that precede the proposal merely explains the proposal for the benefit of those who would participate here. Greg L (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• LMFAO, you are fun! Umm, I'm showing I can read your premises for your little conclusion. Good argument style-don't accept flawed premises.--2008Olympian^chitchat 18:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support date auto formatting, because then we wouldn't need to consider garbage like this while writing articles. Oh wait, that's too simple. We need to control everyone here and force them to see dates how Greg L, Tony1 (and so on) wants people to see them. My bad, carry on forcing your way or the highway on the rest of the Wiki. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• You are correct, but it's like saying you don't want to vote on a highway b/c wouldn't it be better if we all had flying planes?--2008Olympian^chitchat 18:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Except in this instance we already have flying planes waiting for everyone, we just need people to stop subscribing to the drama of those with lots of stock in asphalt and oil companies... (seemingly, I've never come up with a logical reason for why people are so vehemently opposed to auto formatting). —Locke Cole • t • c 20:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Because date auto-formatting hides (some) inconsistencies from (some) editors, making them less likely to get fixed. As simple as that. -- Jao (talk) 20:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• What difference does it make what the underlying markup looks like if all readers see a consistently formatted output? —Locke Cole • t • c 08:41, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not talking about underlying markup, I'm talking about the displayed output. With the current system, "was born on [[22 September]] [[1941]] and died on [[March 31]], [[1990]]" looks consistent for some (those logged in with preferences set) but not for most (all others). With the linkless, defaulting system proposed, "was born on [[22 September]] [[1941]] and died on March 31, 1990" looks consistent for some (those with US-style preference set if the article defaults to international, and anyone without international preference set if the article defaults to US-style) but not for others. The latter, of course, is much better, but still not good. -- Jao (talk) 11:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose We could use a drop-dead simple system; but this proposal, which involves tweaking the better part of a million articles, is not simple; the twelve lines taken to express it are enough to show that. What nation are War of 1812 and List of post-1945 U.S. friendly-fire incidents with British victims "strongly associated" with, anyway? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, yes, exactly! I gave examples from which one cannot deduce whether there is an American association. You ignored them except for the Iraq War, claiming you weren't trying to convince me. So try these two, GregL, or you just going to keep your head in the sand as to how unworkable determining whether there is an American associatoin is going to be on so many articles?--2008Olympian^chitchat 03:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Since War of 1812, et. al. are associated with multiple nations, the articles would not be strongly associated with the USA - therefore these would be international articles for which international date format should apply based on this proposal. Dl2000 (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• • Correct, and all of this would be unnecessary if we had date auto formatting in the software (then editors could concentrate on real issues (verifiability, no original research and neutral point of view) as opposed to minor details like which date format to use in which article). —Locke Cole • t • c 02:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Simply rhetorical - why do we not simply use one date format, the international version, for all articles (with tables using the abbreviated version), save in direct quotes? I see any system that has an subjective result, whether who the first significant editor is, or what the "strong national ties" are, is going to be contested. That said, I think that if there was a strong definition of articles that would strictly fall under "strong national ties", it would help to make it more objective, for example: articles that deal with a nation's government and elected officials, its geography, citizens of that nation, and so on. There will be cases this doesn't cover but that may be cases that get filled in after this approach passes. --MASEM 02:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Because most of our primarily English-speaking readers, and probably most of our readers in general are Americans.--2008Olympian^chitchat 03:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• • But it wouldn't matter which were the majority; the same reason that we don't use one dictionary, either the OED or Webster's, applies here. Choosing one variety of English above others is divisive and inflammatory, and, above all, makes our articles measurably more difficult for the disfavored anglophones to write and to read. Doing measurable harm for no particular reason is no service to the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support The proposed amendment is clear and concise. I support it for reasons that I stated here. Wikky Horse (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I think we should just incorporate WP:ENGVAR as the guideline in philosophy and substance for dates. It's a durable solution that enjoys consensus support. There's no need to reinvent the wheel in a way that's likely to be divisive.--chaser (away) - talk 04:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, 'who got there first' is also a prevailing feature of WP:ENGVAR, but its relevance or applicability here is highly questionable. Whether one uses '1 December' or 'December 1' has precious little to do with the use of 'colour' and 'color' outside of Britain and the United States, so I don't really see how that will lead to a durable solution to this. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:32, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Put differently, local topics get local date formatting and topics not limited to particular geography get the "who got there first" feature.--chaser (away) - talk 05:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - per the well stated reasoning of 2008Olympian, Septentrionalis, and Locke Cole. A side note: the incivility and intimidatory tactics aimed at other editors by Greg L needs to stop immediately. Tennis expert (talk) 04:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support as it is clear and simple despite the obfuscation attempts here: Use the international date format unless it is an article that is on, or strongly associated with, the US. Choosing an article's format simply based on whoever added a date first is somewhat random and silly. Starting an RFC for every article one wishes to tidy due to mixed formats (as suggested to me elsewhere) is made unnecessary. Having a guideline like this would improve the appearance of Wikipedia by having a consistent format for related articles. DoubleBlue (talk) 05:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• You know what would be even better? If the software automatically formatted dates so we didn't have to have all this instruction creep in the MoS (thus making it utterly impossible to edit Wikipedia without having volumes of information memorized about what articles use which format and why). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Your Majesty, that's a bit reminiscent of "You, my queen, are fairest of all." Ohconfucius (talk) 07:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• The RFCs on autoformatting are actually here and here and, Mr. Cole, I've heard your song repeatedly and, despite your best salesmanship, I'm still not interested in buying the record. For others following this discussion, I argue that this is the opposite of instruction creep in that it actually simplifies and rationalises the guideline that already exists and every collaborative writing project benefits from a style guide to keep the project professional-looking and to improve reading ease. I'm opposed to autoformatting because, even if the feature request to add it for the vast majority of readers who do not currently have access to it was to be enabled, it would still require each and every date on each and every article to be marked up in some manner and I believe that every "improvement feature" has to be balanced against the cost to making the editing of articles less accessible to new and non-computer expert editors. The wiki principle to make editing easy and effortless needs to be upheld if we are to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I don't see how the benefit of having you see your dates the way you like is worth the cost of mark-ups for every date. DoubleBlue (talk) 07:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Which is simpler though for a non-technical editor: a) being forced to carefully review all the manual of style pages to ensure their edits meet compliance or b) being given a simple syntax that is easily explained along with the other first-time editor reading materials (the same material that explains wikilinking)? —Locke Cole • t • c 08:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• My concern is upon clicking the edit button, what does our prospective editor see. Errors or style issues are eventually corrected; losing a potential editor because the syntax is over-complicated or non-intuitive is not. DoubleBlue (talk) 09:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• The editor will see bracketed dates (if I have my way). The "patch" being discussed for MediaWiki would change how linked dates work by removing the links (but keeping the formatting), while allowing people to continue to link dates by preceding them with a full colon (:). As linked dates will be rare (see the other RFC's), this syntax won't be so hard to understand. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:41, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• "if I have my way". Just sums it up nicely, and no thanks. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Uh, obviously I had to provide some example syntax to continue the discussion so I presented the syntax I prefer. If you don't like it, perhaps you should suggest a better syntax? —Locke Cole • t • c 08:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• In this case, I agree with Locke Cole. He was simply explaining his preference as we all are doing in this poll. It's a bit off-topic in discussing syntax rather than what should be the guideline for raw text date input but nonetheless not inappropriate for him to state his personal preference. DoubleBlue (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Understood. It's my opinion that any such mark-up adds a level of technicality (and in this particular case non-intuitive) that is not sufficiently balanced by an improvement in the article. DoubleBlue (talk) 19:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support. It is a simple rule that would bring more consistency in date formatting across articles. Note however, that it does not solve all issues, because many articles do not have strong ties to a country. −woodstone (talk) 10:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "otherwise, editors should use the international date format". DoubleBlue (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Qualified support. I'm supportive of this proposal, not because I think the date format matters at all, as long as it's consistent within an article, but because the 'first major contributor' rule needs to be changed, for two reasons; (a) as Greg L has stated above, it's impractical, and (b) it needs clarifying that it should only be used as a last resort in a dispute. To give a specific example, 2008Olympian is interpreting it to mean that the date format in an article, once set, can never be changed, not even by agreement of the current editors. In Jana Novotná (and there are others), DateDelinker very reasonably converted to dmy whilst delinking the dates; no-one objected, but 2008Olympian, who had never touched the article before, undid the dmy conversion, quoting the 'first major contributor' rule as justification. My preference would be to say "use either date format, but if you change an article from one format to another and someone else objects, here is a set of questions you must work through to resolve the dispute: starting with the criteria given within this RFC and ending with, as a last resort, the 'first main contributor' rule. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I did that only because Date Delinker gave no reason whatsoever for the change. The policy says that any article can have its fate format changed, but for a good reason.--2008Olympian^chitchat 18:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• The good reason at the time, and I still think it valid, is that Czechs say 2 October. Undoubtedly, Czechs will come here wanting to edit the article, it would be more logical to have it dmy. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. I don't really mind this proposal personally, but I think we should avoid defaulting to one or the other format. In addition, I must say I continue to not see how this issue is so different from WP:ENGVAR. That goes for both Greg (if going by first contributor in kilogram is not too arbitrary and ownershippy for spelling, why on Earth should it be for dates?) and 2008Olympian (if finding out whether there are strong national ties is not "completely unworkable" for spelling, why on Earth would it be for dates?). -- Jao (talk) 15:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• WP:ENGVAR does appear to encourage ownership as I hinted at above, and I would be in favour of re-examining it. Using that issue to say date formatting should stay as it is is like trying to cite the WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS rule. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Not if read for what it actually says. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. It's a step in the right direction, but there's still too many articles that don't make the choice easy. The current method of not changing a stable date format works for me, but I do think another method should be worked out to avoid people being the original creator in order to force their date preference. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose—this "simple" rule is unlikely to work. First and foremost, what is important is consistency within the same article (since inconsistency is patently undesirable). From that point, the format used is largely irrelevant: as long as users can easily understand the date (which is reasonable as dates spelling out the month name are unambiguous) it is merely a minor point of style. Given that many topics have ambiguous domains, the goal should be consistency, with a few simple rules for resolving disputes when they arise. While, yes, this is similar to the rules on spelling (WP:ENGVAR), it's a system that works well enough for practical purposes, and is fair to our ultimate goal of consistency while remaining essentially neutral. I don't think that enforcing a hard-and-fast rule about using "international" formats is neutral in this regard, nor do I think it will resolve many of the cases which already come up, especially as "strongly associated" isn't actually defined. Where do we draw the line? While making rules simple is generally a good thing, I can't get around the weaknesses in this proposal. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 19:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. No less likely to lead to edit wars than the current status. Perhaps if all dates were autoformatted, this wouldn't be a problem. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose because the alternative proposal is much more sensible. Tennis expert (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - terribly flawed proposal. Americans do make up a substantial fraction of readership, but that's hardly here or there. This is simply "rules for rules sake" that contribute nothing to the quality of product but work to inhibit participation. In BC/AD BCE/CE a sensible comprimise was found - one designed to satisfy everyone and make editing as intuitive as possible. There's no cause to monger drama over date formatting. WilyD 21:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. I object to premises 3, 4, and especially 6. The presumption that Americans are so stupid as to not be comfortable with day-first dates is absurd. All dates should be day-month or day-month-year for consistency and simplicity. Period. Powers ^T 22:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I could not care less what format we use, but I must say I am amazed at your rather blunt characterization of all Americans as unable to understand the international usage. I am an American, and while I most commonly use "January 1", I do use "1 January" a significant (greater than 25%) amount of the time. I cannot imagine any sane literate person over five years of age who would not be able to understand it. Please remember that 1) there are more than 300,000,000 people living in my country and 2) the stupid people are the ones on the news, because all humans like to laugh. Thanks. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 06:16, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not certain but I believe you are directing this at Greg L, who is an American and did not say Americans cannot understand International usage but rather that many are not exposed to the customs of other countries. I agree with the remainder of your comment. DoubleBlue (talk) 19:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. The best practicable solution on offer. For me, the proposal is not ideal: I hold that 17 December 2008, with its elements ordered shorter to longer, is an objectively superior format. Add to this the fact that it has support in a majority of English-speaking cultures, and the case in abstraction is compelling. (China, by the way, uses 2008 December 17: also rational, because the elements are ordered from longer to shorter. But the information typically most needed is better at the start, so I favour 17 December 2008 over the Chinese way.) We are not, however, asked what is best in abstraction. A large proportion of Wikipedia readers and editors are comfortable with (or welded to) what I consider the irrational American standard, and there is no prospect of winning them over to a well-considered world standard, any more than we can wean Americans from gallons and pounds, and entice them into maturity and the use of litres and kilograms. That archaic system, along with the more comprehensible business of different spellings, is accommodated at Wikipedia with less Angst. I see no reason for dates to be any different. Most articles will fall naturally into two categories: provably predominantly American in content and relevance, and all the others. For the minute fraction that are not easily classifiable, other means could be used to determine the matter: perhaps more arbitrarily, perhaps using something like existing means. So be it. The world is not perfect, but we ought to be pragmatic and flexible enough to make it workable: at least for Wikipedia, which occupies an increasingly large portion of the world of international culture and community.–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 20:44, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• This type of argument is exactly what we needed. The American middle-endian date format just isn't rational. It reflects spoken American English only. Converted to the commonly-used numeric format, MM/DD/YY, it doesn't make sense and is wholly useless when it comes to sorting.

I like how you brought up the U.S. measurement system. The scientific community uses metric units for good reasons: for simplicity in conversions within and between different dimensions of measurement and for practicality (it's decimal). While the prelude to the proposal had a blunt statement (number 8) about Americans that can easily be seen as rude, we should take a step back and think about it for a moment. Individual Americans may be well learned, but the representative government doesn't act as a good role model for America as a whole. Is America ignorant of the outside world or does it just not learn from its mistakes?

The proposal is not ideal, but that's not a reason to oppose it. The debate here is "Is this proposal better than what currently stands?" It probably all boils down to the following two points.

• Current MOS: For articles closely related to English-speaking nations, use the date format of that nation. Proposal: no change
• Current MOS: For articles not related to an English-speaking nation, use the date format of the first major contributor. Proposal: Follow a guideline.

I find the date format of the first major contributor arbitrary. Also, the American date format is inherently illogical, so I'd like to see the international date format used as much as possible. There's my bias.

Wikky Horse (talk) 06:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Support I'm American and I use the "International" date format anyway... I really think it is common sense to figure out if an article is American or not. I don't see why people can't just do it the same way people do the American and British Englsih changes: Go with whatever the original author used, unless there is a strong reason against that. Tavix (talk) 23:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Then you should be opposing this proposal, as "Go[ing] with whatever the original author used, unless there is a strong reason against that" is what the current guideline states.--2008Olympian^chitchat 06:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support—This would be much more straightforward for the whole project. It's good enough for the auto-date after all our signatures; US military should still be permitted to use international format. Tony (talk) 00:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
• Comment There are those here who appear to be fond of arguing how this is EN-WP, and how "[t]hose [who] speak English as their secondary language have their own native-language wikipedias to read". This is the ignorant xenophobic equivalent of saying "if you don't like x or y in [substitute name of any country], then you should go home". EN-WP is much richer in content than any other, as many non-natives come to edit here instead of bringing that knowledge to WP in their own languages. These contributors should be made welcome, otherwise, those insular Americans might as well bring out the white robes and the burning cruxifixes again. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Mild oppose. I agree that articles about a topic related to a specific place should use the date format used in that place for dates with the month spelled out in English. But I see no strong necessity to prescribe that article about some topic which has no clear geographical scope,^[1] or about some place where English isn't usually used, use one particular date format. It's like the color vs. colour issue. (Personally, I'd suggest that articles written in American English use the American date format, articles written in British English use the British date format, etc.^[2]) But anyway, if consensus does emerge that there should be a default date format to be used whenever there is no good reason to do otherwise, I'd vote 18 December 2008. (Also, do we need to list all those places there? Can't we just say "...or strongly associated with places where the American English date format December 18, 2008 is commonly used..."?

  [1] In most of those articles, anyway, it is rarely useful to give the day and month when something happened, rather than just the year.

  [2] A quick glance at the table at WP:MOSS suggests me that most articles could get away with claiming that they're using Canadian English, and thus would be allowed to use either date format, anyway.

  Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support - Wikipedia is not Ameripedia, it is supposed to be Worldipedia. we currently use the prevailing international formats for measurement and internal time measurement: we ask for using SI by default in abscence of a cultural reason otherwise; and Wikipedia runs on UTC, intl date format (e.g. signatures) by default. This is simply another stepping stone. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I actually would prefer all articles go with international date formatting as this is an international project and we write for an international audience but it will be a few years before American dominance is this regard loosens up. -- Banjeboi 07:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Then you're looking for #Alternative proposal 2 below. Powers ^T 15:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Not really. I think eventually we will use international date formatting but I agree that respecting some cultural nuances is also needed. The world has crept closer to using the metric system but that's been in the works for a while as well. We aren't in a rush. -- Banjeboi 03:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose mainly due to preferred support for the global consistency in AP#2. However, this main proposal is a reasonable fallback choice which would still promote movement towards consistent use of international date format. Perhaps the main proposal could be a temporary measure (1 or 2 years) before fully phasing in AP#2. Dl2000 (talk) 04:20, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support. The system we use for dates should mirror what we already use for units of measurement, currency values, spelling etc. We use what is appropriate for the topic. Some of the arguments above are bogus. Sure, French people have their own French language Wikipedia, and sure, Americans are the largest group of readers of the English language Wikipedia, but nevertheless, we use SI units (litres, metres etc.) and Euros in our English-language articles about French topics. And note the spelling - litres, not liters. --Pete (talk) 22:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• Weak oppose as largely unnecessary and unworkable. Everyone knows that "January 7" and "7 January" mean the exact same thing. I notice it when a page says "7 January" and it sticks out as something I wouldn't ordinarily see, but it doesn't bother or confuse me. Does anyone actually care about this? WP:ENGVAR works relatively well for which articles get "-er"s and which get "-re"s, so I can see where this proposal is coming from, but I just don't see the point, especially since the way we used to do it worked out just fine (January 7 and 7 January both still look like whatever users want them to). I'm an American, but my editing definitely takes me to articles with international interest. I tend to user "-er"s and "January 7" whenever I write because that's just what comes naturally to me, and it would take a lot of beating a lot of people over the head with this for it to get ingrained enough that everyone did it automatically. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 06:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose to avoid validating nitpicking proposals like this one. Honestly, either is understandable. Just use the style already used on the article, and don't be an ass and change it. — Werdna • talk 08:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. This will only encourge the usual crowd who go around making useless noise edits changing dates to their preferred format. Keep the current system, which strongly discourages any date changes one way or another, unless the article is strongly associated with a specific English-speaking country that strongly prefers one format (the US, Canada, Ireland, UK, Australia, etc.). --Delirium (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support as an eminently sensible proposal. (I personally would like to see DA links retained, with a MAGIC word controlling the format on a per-article basis [overridden by preferences and by the originating IP address when the devs get to it] - among the simplest of solutions) As a member of the Canadian contingent left twisting in the wind though - got any ideas on that one Greg? :) Franamax (talk) 08:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Apart from that in tables and where space is scarce ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD should be allowed. Standards like SI units, UTC time etc are used so should it be with date formats. TechControl (talk) 04:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support. It just makes sense, and would avoid any unnecessary confusion, time-wasting bickering, and edit-warring, which obviously doesn't help to improve the encyclopedia. But I don't want to see a mass change in date formats to already existing articles, but that for future articles there's a clear guideline. Any articles not related to America or American topics should default to international date format, Canadians can do whatever they want because they're Canadian, and astronauts can use stardates. :P -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 00:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments

• To Olympian and your 02:18, 15 December 2008 post: How do you want the RfC to read? Something like "RfC: Determining date formats based on the audience of the subject of the article"? If you are going to have a an RfC for a change that affects almost every article, you need to list something. It seems clear enough that people can vote here. If you can fix perceived shortcomings in good faith, go up and fix the problem as you see fit. In advance, thanks. Greg L (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah I wrote this before the RfC was posted, and also removed it before it was posted. Glad I was out of town for your waste of the admin's time the past couple of days. Ciao.--2008Olympian^chitchat 19:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

What about Johnston Island, Guantanamo, a US military base on foreign soil, a US embassy on foreign soil, etc.? See this. Tennis expert (talk) 04:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Common sense will almost always suffice. The proposal reads “For articles on, or strongly associated with…” So if the article is about the United Nations (a supposed *stumper* 2008Olympian raised above), then, a simple *grin test* says use Euro-style dates. There will no-doubt be articles that are real stumpers. But, when there is a fight raging on some remote talk page on some article on en.Wikipedia, it will usually be far more convenient (and better serve the interests of our readers) to simply decide whether or not the article is strongly associated with one of the listed countries than try to decide who should be considered the first major contributor. Greg L (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Adopting a uniform rule of 'international except strong association with USA', only those articles which are potentially ambivalent in terms of date format could result in conflict between editors. Without (ie sticking with the 'first significant contributor'), the scope for potential conflict is considerably wider - perhaps ten-, hundred-fold, or more. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Could anyone draw a map like Date.png, but only considering dates with the month spelled out in English? Places with no significant usage of English would be gray. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Should a closure date be established for this discussion, so that sufficient notice is provided to active and would-be participants? Dl2000 (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Please, let's close this. There has been no consensus to change anything.--2008Olympian^chitchat 06:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
• What will be the "default date" format if its difficult to decide which nationality to associate an article topic with? Hypothetical eg. A band has members from the US and UK? A fighter jet was jointly developed between the UK and US? MegX (talk) 02:15, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Based on the main proposal, such articles would not then be strongly associated with the United States or its possessions and are therefore multi-national in nature. Therefore the international date order (dmy) would be used, and therefore should be the default. The US date format on the other hand is not the norm for multi-national use (e.g. UN, EU) and would have a greater tendency to attract objections such as for systemic bias. Dl2000 (talk) 02:40, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

The objections to "first major contributor" misread what WP:MOSNUM says; it applies to a few articles. But it is not necessary, so I propose the following, which is what Wikipedia actually does for this, differences in spelling, and the AD/CE form of Date Warring :

1. Both December 15, 2008, and 15 December 2008 are widely used and acceptable formats for English dates.
2. The Arbitration Committee has ruled that the Manual of Style is not binding, that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.
3. If an article has been stable in predominantly using one of these formats, it should not be changed "without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style". Date Warring is discouraged.
4. It is acceptable for the editors of an article to reach a consensus that it is so strongly tied to some English-speaking country that most readers will be used to one format; if so, the article should use it.
   • Amended to Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common English date format for that country after discussion.
5. If an article is divided between formats, pick one. It may be helpful to discuss this on the talk page to see if other editors have opinions on the matter.

• I don't insist on point #4, but it is present standard practice. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Support Wow, a workable idea that doesn't require approval from the MOSNUM mounties and a million edits to existing articles. --2008Olympian^chitchat 18:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose This is just a lame attempt to put lipstick on a pig and declare it a prom date. It is also not functionally different from what we currently have. Further, it has a mean-spirited streak (I think) by declaring that the “Manual of Style is not binding”, which amounts to a clear shot across the bow that the author responsible for this *guideline* is intent on doing whatever he darn well pleases. Greg L (talk) 18:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• How odd; should I have used quotation marks? Point #2, to which Greg so vehemently objects, is a verbatim quote from the Manual of Style; "not binding" is the wording of the Arbitration Committee itself. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Support And thanks, Septentrionalis, for finding the Arbitration Committee decisions that support what the MOS specifically says. Tennis expert (talk) 20:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Weak support. I could live with this, especially if it would put an end to needless bickering. Powers ^T 22:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
• This is a better wording for precisely what the guideline is now. It does not remove the idea of first contributor at all. I don't disagree that edit warring over the difference between 15 December and December 15 is a lame waste of time and effort but does this not more encourage than discourage it? Whoever adds a date first, that is how it stays unless a discussion reaches consensus to change it. If it is now in mixed format, then have a discussion on the talk page. I don't say it's wrong, except for grandfathering the first contributor's style choice, it's pretty much the consensus decision-making model that we use, but I don't see how it can do what it implies in reducing edit-warring or removing the idea of first major contributor. DoubleBlue (talk) 02:51, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • This is intended to give present best practice the support of an explicit guideline to use as a clue-by-four; that's what our best guidelines do.
  • Where does this say "first contributor"? In practice, if the first contributor's choice is harmless, why not leave it? If it isn't, any three or four editors can form a consensus to change it.
  • It should decrease edit warring; as far as I tell, ENGVAR has decreased the color/colour war down to the occasional clueless newbie, who can be suppressed. This is intended to work exactly the same way. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I thought that the preamble to this whole discussion here and on WT:MOSNUM was that it is not best practice. Just cause it doesn't use the words "first contributor" doesn't make it not so as you admit. Edit warring, you surely admit, is more likely under this proposal which asks contributors to be in first or argue for their case to change it than under Greg L's proposal which spells out when each format is preferable. It requires discussion on talk page (or WP:BRD) for the instances of mixed-use which need sorting out. In the end, I honestly think that far fewer people really care which date format is used than care which spelling is used and I think it's useful to simply have guidance on which is suitable where and just go with it. DoubleBlue (talk) 03:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Greg L and one or two other editors object. It is not clear to me that they understand what the present practice is, or the grounds for it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Why so strongly tied for point #4? DoubleBlue (talk) 03:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • The full construction is so strongly tied that..., which is a minimum. Just leaving it out would make the text ungrammatical; but I have no objection to recasting #4, or any of this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I think something more along the line of what is there now under "Strong national ties to a topic" except that I would change to "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular country should generally use the more common English date format for that nation." DoubleBlue (talk) 03:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
      • That would be acceptable to me; it would be clearer if it included English-speaking; what is the "more common English date format" for Argentina? . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose a "compromise" solution which brings little additional clarification while continuing to entrench territorial disputes. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Strong support—this is both what's done already with spelling, and totally neutral. It's what should be done, and problem cases aren't relevant (as they would be problem cases in almost any other system as well). {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 23:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Weak support. I agree with the general idea. But I think the wording "it is so strongly tied to some English-speaking country that most readers will be used to one format" is somewhat too strong. Many of the readers of articles such as Led Zeppelin aren't from the UK, and many of the readers of articles such as Guns N' Roses aren't from the US; but it is nevertheless the standard on Wikipedia to use British English in the former and American English in the latter, not only in spelling, but also in grammar (e.g. band names are singular in the former and plural in the latter). I don't think date format should be an exception. Also, it'd be extremely hard to determine that "most readers will be used to one format" for any article. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • What would you say to Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common English date format for that country? (per DoubleBlue, slightly tweaked) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

    Sounds all right. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 15:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - AP#2 is more effective and it's where the world is going to. Also, the notion that both US and international styles are "widely used and acceptable formats" is faulty, as there are systemic bias concerns with the former, and global presence and acceptance of the latter. Dl2000 (talk) 04:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not a crystal ball to tell where the world is going to, or what New Order it will have to submit to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:49, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
    • The trend is readily apparent. International dating, the metric system, decimal currency - all are more widespread than a decade or a century ago. Maybe the world will revolt against more logical formats, but just quietly, I wouldn't be putting any money on it. The fact remains that in this international project of ours - and English is very much an international language - only a few nations use US dating. --Pete (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. We're pretty clear on what formats are in use in English speaking countries. It's the articles with strong national ties to non-English speaking countries, and the international articles that are the problem. Get rid of "English-speaking" in the current wording at WP:DATE and the problem solves itself. --Pete (talk) 22:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Codifies the longstanding consensus, which is that changing articles from US to UK English or vice versa (date formats included) is generally uncivil and counterproductive, and should be prohibited without extremely good reason. --Delirium (talk) 00:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternative proposal 2

1. All dates will be in the format Day Month Year, as in '13 December 2008' (omitting parts as necessary, as in '13 December' or 'December 2008').

-- Powers ^T 22:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose, I'm afraid (and which do you mean? Month Day Year would be Decenber 13, 2008); this is much simpler than the original proposal, but has the same weakness: it privileges one usage over another. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, complete brain fart on that one. I've fixed it. While you're right, that it privileges one usage over another, I find it that more desirable than constant bickering back and forth. Powers ^T 00:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I must make that Very strongly oppose. OhConfucius's irresponsible arguments for permitting bots to mangle direct quotations will coubtless be repeated if this goes anywhere, so it had better not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Yeah, I support as it seems reasonable for an international encyclopedia, has the ultimate in consistency and ease of use, the format choice improves readability (in my opinion) by eliminating the parenthetical comma around the year but I'm sceptical that it will be accepted by the majority of US editors on US-related articles. DoubleBlue (talk) 03:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support unified approach, which reduces risk caused by ownership issues; newspapers (and I dare say all publishers) all have a unified format for each publication, and it's all the reason to adopt this global approach. Actually, I don't much care if it's dmy or mdy, so long as the date format is no longer be arbitrarily determined. It would be a deliberate act of policy. The added benefit is that we can send a bot around to clean it up because of the complete lack of ambiguity. Ohconfucius (talk) 07:23, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Provided the bot can recognize quotes and usage examples, of course. That might be easier said than done. -- Jao (talk) 11:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Book or article titles are the bigger problem; quotes with the dates in the wrong order will never confuse anyone - although such dates could always be rendered in prose form. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
      • But they will fail to turn up on searches. Literal accuracy is more important in the computer age. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
        • If you didn't like my idea, and it seems to be the case, there's more than one way to skin a cat: first, there's always wikiquote, then there is always to option of taking out the quotes, writing in the indirect form - which I have done quite a few times to avoid problems of WP:COPY. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
          • Not sufficient. A close paraphrase can be a copyright violation, without being helpful to the computer searcher. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
        • There is always the square brackets which are often used to indicate format changes (capitalisation, substituting nouns for pronouns, etc) Ohconfucius (talk) 15:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
• Strong oppose While I don't care which would be used, any proposal which arbitrarily decides on a single regional style project-wide is simply unacceptable as non-neutral. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 23:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • So why don't we suggest nothing; any date format you like is acceptable 2008-16-Dec. DoubleBlue (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
    • "Nothing" would be acceptable, except that many date formats are difficult to understand, ambiguous, or incongruous in prose, and thereby unpractical. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 07:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Arbitrary? I beg your pardon! Perhaps you would care to enlighten us how it is more arbitrary than first-come, first-served which we have now? Ohconfucius (talk) 01:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I probably erred here in my wording. The word I would search for is more relevant to the base of the word "arbitration" than the sense of "random". In any event, the word is unnecessary: it would probably have been sufficient to say "[…] which decides on a single regional style […]". For the record, I must note that "arbitrary" isn't necessarily negative: random distribution between spelling or date variations could be acceptable (if not ideal), using the bases of my argument. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 07:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Thankyou for the clarification. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
• The only "regional style" in this discussion American/mdy date format. International/dmy format is used throughout Earth, including the US in some contexts and therefore is more accurately portrayed as a worldwide style. Nobody could seriously declare the metric/SI system to be a "regional" system of units these days. Dl2000 (talk) 02:25, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• • Oh, and please could you also explain, while you are at it, how using a date format other than a "free for all" would be non-neutral?? Ohconfucius (talk) 01:46, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Please avoid straw man arguments. I never mentioned any "free-for-all". I think that deciding on a single regional style would be non-neutral as it would inherently favour whichever region's style was selected. I further believe that even if a majority prefers one style, we should not give in to a tyranny of the majority. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 07:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
      • My turn at bad terminology. What I meant was what you described below as "drift". Ohconfucius (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
        • I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean in that context. Would you please clarify your statement? {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  • And what exactly would be a neutral proposal? I haven't seen one proposed yet. Powers ^T 02:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
    • A neutral proposal would be "blind" to which format is used. Which format is used is irrelevant to quality: what is relevant is consistency. I think that it is reasonable to say that consistency within any particular article is good. Consistency across articles would similarly be desirable, except that in practice, implementing it requires consciously choosing a standard for those articles, which is non-neutral and thereby undesirable. I think that the system used for spelling is reasonable: while it does allow for "first come, first served" situations, this applies for all variations and can be overridden by consensus (we all agree article X should use spelling Y), regional relevance (article X is primarily relevant to area Y, so it should use spelling Y), or drift (article X starts using Y, isn't standardized, drifts to using a lot of Z words with expansion, then is standardized Z), etc. It's possible that there's a better system: in any event, choosing any particular regional variant as standard isn't neutral, and we should not be minded to accept an obviously flawed proposal merely because of the lack of an immediately available alternative. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 07:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
      • We agree on the desirability for consistency, certainly among families of articles. There are only two date formats which have been deemed 'acceptable' here. A publisher may decide to use British English in the copy destined for the UK and Australia, but may choose US style for international markets. WP only has one [global] market. From my travels, I have noticed a large number of articles with many wrong (inappropriate to the US or international context) or ambiguous (ie mixed) date formats. I always attempt to unify these into either mdy or dmy, and very seldom meet with opposition as to the format, which leads me to suspect that WP does not 'decide' on the issue of date formats - just small handful of editors choose to turf-war on this as if it was their article. I suspect it's the same as color vs colour. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
      • But no one has proposed anything that would be blind to the format. At worst, every proposal only allows two date formats, privileging those over all others. Why not just take that extra step and restrict it to one? Then no one has to go through the trouble of a) determining the level of association a topic has with the United States, or b) determining who was the "first major contributor". Powers ^T 12:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
        • No, the proposal is clearly worded: "All dates will be in the format Day Month Year, as in '13 December 2008'". Maybe you were confused by me saying I didn't care what date format was, so long as it applied to all articles. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
          • I don't think I was confused by anything you wrote. My question was directed to Nihiltres. Powers ^T 13:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
        • I noted above that "many date formats are difficult to understand, ambiguous, or incongruous in prose, and thereby unpractical" (emphasis added). Practicality overrides mere concerns of style, so, in practice, only the "DMY" and "MDY" formats are used. Were there a third format which was practical (there may be), it would be acceptable. Eliminating practical styles ("restrict[ing] it to one") is what is non-neutral and thereby undesirable. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
          • So you don't think it's impractical to have two competing formats and have users have to decide which one to use? Powers ^T 21:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
            • It is impractical. What is to be differentiated, however, is practicality for the reader as opposed to practicality for the editor. While practicality for the reader allows us to eliminate impractical formats (since they're "difficult to understand, ambiguous, […]"), the mandate of neutrality overrides practicality for the editor. If I did not argue for practicality for the reader, I would suggest we use ISO 8601… :) {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 19:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

• Unworkable, impractical, and smelling of Anderson's destructive peeves. Tony (talk) 05:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Impractical? I fail to see how this is any more impractical than the other proposals. And I have no idea what you mean by "Anderson's destructive peeves". Powers ^T 12:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. No reason why an American topic should be forced to use an un-American date formata date format other than the one most commonly used in the US. (And I'm European...) -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 12:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • There's no such thing as an "un-American" date format. We Americans can use any date format just fine, thank you very much. Powers ^T 13:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Nevermind, then. Sorry. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support because i favour consistency in style and clarity in guidelines, and "international-style" includes the US. Sssoul (talk) 09:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose The vast majority of the readers are Americans. This would be a great disservice to the vast bulk if the audience of this site.--2008Olympian^chitchat 09:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • ^{[citation needed]} ... but even in the unlikely event this could be the case, there would remain a systemic bias concern given Wikipedia's global aims. Dl2000 (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Reasons: 1) Wikipedia uses international time format (UTC) and for consistency should use international date format as well. 2) Wikipedia doesn't favour a US-centric viewpoint in other international issues.--S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support, assuming exemptions for quotes, usage examples, and in very rare justifiable cases WP:IAR. Regarding arguments about "privileging" the usage, it should be noted the existing policy already privileges two styles over other available formats as 2009 January 6 or 2009-01-06 (ISO 8601) or 6.I.2009. The ordering of mdy (January 6, 2009) frequently raises US systemic bias issues for WP's global audience, whereas dmy/international date format tends to be seen in most global regions (English or otherwise) and is the accepted format in international contexts. In other words, dmy is the most consistent format on a global basis. Some internationally-based examples include the UN's communications [2] and the European Commission's style guide [3]. As mentioned already, dmy is often encountered in some US government usages anyway. However, it may be appropriate to phase the application of this - that is, focus on updating dmy in non-US articles first and generally leave existing American-topic articles alone for the short term (perhaps 1 or 2 years). Dl2000 (talk) 04:07, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Wikipedia is an international project. We should use International format dates. --Pete (talk) 22:55, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Nuclear oppose. This makes no more sense than forcing every article to say "January 7" rather than "7 January." If people actually do care about/are bothered by this whole issue, this proposal would have the potential to be awkward and unwieldy for millions of readers and articles. Counter-productive doesn't begin to describe it. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 06:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Logical flaw heads-up. Wikipedia is an International project, not an exclusively US-only project. Forcing U.S. format dates on an international publication would be an act of parochialism. --Pete (talk) 07:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Nowhere did I advocate forcing US format dates. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 09:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Red herring. I'm just pointing out the flaw in your logic, not putting words in your mouth. You do see this, don't you? --Pete (talk) 14:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

So what you're saying is might makes right? More people use "8 January" than "January 8," so "January 8" must be pushed aside at all times? That's the reasoning I "nuclear"ly oppose. If anyone suggested putting "January 8" in every article, scores of people would be opposing it. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 05:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything of the sort. Just pointing out the flaw in your argument above. You do see the logical shortcoming I highlighted? --Pete (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support. There is already systemic bias with the existing system. I believe we need to move forward and embrace the language of the global community. We already use an international time format, why not an international date one as well? A-Kartoffel (talk) 00:20, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is equivalent to saying, "use UK English rather than US English always", but limited to the case of dates. The English Wikipedia's longstanding policy has been to accomodate all major dialects of English, and to strongly discourage editors switching articles from one dialect to another unless the article is particularly associated with an English-speaking country (e.g. it's acceptable to change an article on a UK Prime Minister to use British English in all respects, including spelling and date formats). Delirium (talk) 00:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternative proposal 3

=== Full date formatting ===

In general, the following formats are acceptable:

Month before day

February 14 and February 14, 1990 (comma required)

Day before month

14 February and 14 February 1990

Each article should use the format used in the dialect of English used in the article. For example, February 14, 1990 should be used for articles in US English, and 14 February 1990 in articles in British English.^[1] In conformance with WP:ENGVAR, if the article topic is an English-speaking place, or it is strongly associated with such a place, that will be the English dialect used there.

There are dialects, such as Canadian English, where both formats are in common use; nevertheless, an article written in such a dialect should consistently use one format (except in quotations). If such an article already uses one format consistently, do not change it unless there is consensus that there is a good reason to do so; if the article is divided between formats, pick one. It may be helpful to discuss this on the talk page to see if other editors have opinions on the matter.

[1] In certain subject areas the customary format may differ from the usual national one: for example, articles on the modern U.S. military often use day before month, in accordance with usage in that field.

Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 16:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support. (But I do not like the present implementation of {{xt}}.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • There cannot be any implementation of {{xt}} which is liked by everybody, mainly because there cannot be any implementation of it which looks the same way with all browsers. We have to compromise. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 15:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Date formats are not tied to spelling differences and trying to impose such an association is artificial and unwarranted. Powers ^T 20:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • The differences between various English dialects aren't only in spelling. There is no obvious reason why one shouldn't say Guns N' Roses are and color (or Guns N' Roses is and colour) in the same sentence, yet few people would do that, right? I think the date format has a more-or-less equal stance. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 15:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I disagree. While your examples have clear and consistent usage on their respective sides of the Atlantic, date formats do not. Powers ^T 18:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Again, the vast majority of readers are Americans. I think that dates should be in mdy format unless strongly associated with an English-speaking country other than the US or Canada.--2008Olympian^chitchat 09:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • again, ^{[citation needed]} ... but even in the unlikely event this could be the case, there would remain a systemic bias concern given Wikipedia's global aims. Dl2000 (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Powers, and because AP#2 is much neater and better. Dl2000 (talk) 04:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Date formats are not tied to English-language variety. They are tied to whatever date format a nation or an oganisation actually uses. --Pete (talk) 22:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternative proposal 4

The ISO 8601 international standard for dates has been around for years, yet no one can agree on using it. The US government has adopted the international date format for official government usage (ex: 4 July 1776), so there is no consistent date usage even in the United States. Why should we Wikipedians believe that we can solve this problem?

I propose we keep it simple. Both 2 February 2008 and February 2, 2008 are easily understood by all who speak English, and even by many of those who don't. Therefore, I propose the following:

In all articles, either the international date format (“2 February 2008”) or the U.S.-style date format (“February 2, 2008”) may be used, so long as all dates in the article conform to the same format. Articles containing dates in different formats should be copyedited so that all dates have a consistent format, that format being at the discretion of the editor who is making the dates consistent, using this guideline: Write the date in a format so that the person most likely to read it can understand it.

Truthanado (talk) 02:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
modified (see description below) Truthanado (talk) 22:19, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support, but prefer alternative 1. I would prefer the leave well enough alone present in WP:ENGVAR. (This also lacks the "strong ties" idea, but I don't really care about that; if it hasn't worked itself out by now, it won't.) This has the essence of the matter, however. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is too vulnerable to attack. A user can use a sock puppet to add a date in his preferred but inconsistent style, and then change the other ones to that format as well, based on this rule. −woodstone (talk) 21:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
  • That would be obvious bad faith editing, which normal dispute handling will take care of (or the addition of a clause about "established styles"); the user is reversing several dates on the basis of one, changed by an anon. We are not writing an Inland Revenue code; this is a guideline. Septentrionalis PMAnderson21:53, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• I'm going to institute preferential voting. This is my fall-back preference. I favour the clarity and consistency of all dates in international format and the clear rules of Greg's "here are where US-style is favoured" proposals but this one I support if they cannot go forward. It's not as consistent or clear as those proposals but is better than the current or grandfather proposals in that it has some common sense in that if the article is already consistent, we need not change it and if it's not, then we need not search out who started it but just make a reasonable choice. DoubleBlue (talk) 23:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support. I can support this because I think it will reduce contentious editing. Powers ^T 23:33, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• Support—makes sense. I prefer alternative 1, and suggestions which include the wisdom of "leave well enough alone" that PMAnderson mentions, but this is essentially reasonable. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 14:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
• Updated proposal. Having read some of the comments here and elsewhere, I have added some text to the proposal that provides an additional guideline: Use a date format that the typical reader of the article can understand. That is why we are here after all, isn't it? Truthanado (talk) 22:19, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
  • While I don't see anything objectionable in it, I also don't see the point. Which date format would the reader be unlikely to understand? What is your motivation for adding it and how would you foresee that guideline affecting editors' choices? DoubleBlue (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree it's redundant; both approved formats are perfectly understandable by any proficient reader of English. Powers ^T 23:27, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

yep, that phrase is indeed ill-formulated, and not what the proposal needs anyway. judging by the above comments, what supporters feel it needs is something like "if all or most of the dates in article are already in one of these formats, keep that format". Sssoul (talk) 09:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose I think all articles should use mdy unless associated with an English-speaking country other than the US or Canada as the vast majority of our readership is American.--2008Olympian^chitchat 09:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
  • ^{[citation needed]} {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 20:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Also note that usage of a date format based on an American-based date format, representing a small fraction of global population, raises systemic bias concerns. Dl2000 (talk) 03:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per woodstone, and because AP#2 is much neater and better. Dl2000 (talk) 04:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Not helpful enough. A greater degree of consistency is desirable. DGG (talk) 18:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Oppose all proposals

• To save writing it out multiple times, I'll start a new section. I see no need to change the rules we have at the moment, which are reasonably simple, obtained consensus in a widely-advertised discussion just a few months ago, and are consistent with the way we deal with issues like spelling differences. If we were designing a policy on this from scratch I would support Greg's version, but for stability's sake, let's just leave it as it is.--Kotniski (talk) 12:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
• I concur opposition to the aforementioned proposals. The way it is now is accepted, and I don't think it needs to be changed so soon when consensus was achieved so recently. – Alex43223 ^{T | C | E} 01:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Support This would be the wisest choice.--2008Olympian^chitchat 06:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

• no, it seems obvious from the discussion above that the existing state of affairs is not generally satisfactory. DGG (talk) 19:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)