Revision as of 08:29, 27 March 2009

This page's designation as a policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion. Please see the relevant talk page discussion for further information.

 The poll is not open yet so please do not vote. At present, the expected start date of the poll is 30 March 2009. Please feel free to review the current format and make suggests/comments on the talk page.

This poll deals with issues regarding date linking/unlinking and the use of autoformatting (software that automatically changes the date format displayed to logged-on editors' set preference). The poll will run from (date to be determined) 2009 and will conclude (two weeks later) 2009.

The history of the dispute

After a long debate at MOSNUM talk and elsewhere, a poll and subsequent debate in August 2008 led to the deprecation of date linking for autoformatting purposes. Several editors then moved forward with a large-scale manual, automated and semi-automated unlinking of dates. However, several editors indicated their opposition to this change, at WT:MOSNUM and the talk pages of the editors who were unlinking dates. Discussion continued at WT:MOSNUM on whether enough editors had previously provided input on the issue to accurately represent community consensus. Toward the end of November, two parallel RFCs regarding date linking/unlinking and autoformatting were launched, receiving input from hundreds of editors:

• Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM
• Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC

Although these RFCs offered guidance on several points, there is disagreement as to whether that guidance has resolved all aspects of the debate. There have also been claims of an inherent bias in the wording and structure of the questions. This RfC seeks to clarify (i) whether a form of date autoformatting is desired, and (ii) whether the linking of date fragments should be used, and if so under which conditions.

Poll

The poll will commence on 30 March 2009 and will run for two weeks. Users are encouraged to review the proposals and vote in all the sections. After the poll has closed, there will be a two week period in which the results are discussed and a second poll will be constructed looking at how the results of the first poll will be implemented. The second poll will open on 27 April 2009.

Autoformatting

Background statement

Does the Misplaced Pages community support the concept of date autoformatting?

Scope Autoformatting is a way of marking up dates to allow registered users to choose their preferred display format. A variety of methods have been proposed by which this might be implemented. The question posed here is whether the community desires the basic, common elements of autoformatting.

What is a date format? Two main date formats are used by English-speakers: March 11, 2009 (“MDY”, mainly in North America) and 11 March 2009 (“DMY”, mainly elsewhere). Other date formats are less commonly used in running text, but frequently used as input parameters to templates: 2009-03-11 (“YMD” an ISO-style format).

What is date autoformatting? It is a system that allows dates displayed in articles to automatically change to reflect a registered user's settings under "Special:Preferences/Date and time"; unregistered users ("IPs") cannot access the "preferences" settings. The existing autoformatting system (“Dynamic Dates”, outlined here), introduced in 2003, requires use of the double-bracket link syntax to identify dates for autoformatting.

A recent update to Misplaced Pages's software allows dates to be autoformatted through the use of a function ({{#formatdate}}) instead of with the link-based markup (] ]). This function displays autoformatted plain-text dates per a registered user's preferences, without links ("30 March 2009"). It has the option of defining a default date format for unregistered users (e.g. {{#formatdate:30 March 2009|mdy}} would produce "March 30, 2009" for anyone who has not set a preference). As with the original system, all dates in an article would require markup to guarantee consistency.

What happens if autoformatting is accepted? Consensus will be sought on specifications, which will then be put to developers to code a system based either on a modified version of the existing software or on a new markup or template scheme; dates will be marked up accordingly.

What happens if autoformatting is rejected? The markup used by the previous system will continue to be removed, and any dates that are inconsistent with the overall format for their article will be corrected, manually or using automatic means.

Statement for

Date autoformatting is about giving users more options. It allows users to exercise personal control over the way in which dates are presented. This is not a new concept; Misplaced Pages's existing system has been in use since 2003, and personalized date formats have been an option in operating systems for decades. It is a natural extension of the trend toward increased user choice in how we interface with our computers, iPods, mobile phones, and every other type of personal technology.

Beyond that goal, autoformatting enhances our ability to present a consistent date format. At present, the Manual of Style allows dates to be formatted in either DMY or MDY style, based on regional usage and editorial consensus. This flexibility for per-article formatting can lead to situations where articles are individually consistent, yet stylistically at odds when considered as a collection of articles. This differs from other encyclopedias, which employ a consistent format across the entire publication.

Much has been made of the supposed "complexity" of autoformatting, but the reality is that Misplaced Pages's editors have been using date markup for almost six years now. Yes, dates do require special formatting to enable the feature – but this is no different from what is required of virtually every display option on Misplaced Pages. Markup enables us to enhance the presentation of articles, from the most basic options such as bold and italic text or section headers to more complex features such as templates and tables. As for the impact on novice editors, Misplaced Pages has never expected them to master every aspect of the interface. In fact, new users have always been encouraged to contribute without worrying about spelling, grammar, or formatting options.

Currently, ongoing discussions between editors and Misplaced Pages's developers are focusing on ways to resolve concerns expressed about the existing system, chief among them the links and what unregistered users see. These issues are being addressed through the active development of an improved system, elements of which have already been incorporated into the system software. Other options under consideration would add enhancements that improve control over site-wide standards while allowing individual articles to be tagged with page-specific default date formats where desired. Looking down the road, date markup has also been identified as central to the development of new features such as automated time lines, automated "this day in history" pages, and improved efficiency with database dumps. Autoformatting would also replace the current need for "dateformat" parameters in templates.

The benefits are obvious for readers and editors alike. Date autoformatting allows greater consistency in how our articles are presented to all readers, it assists editors in presenting a uniform, professional look, and it gives registered users the option of personalizing their interface. In short, this discussion is about offering increased choice to all of Misplaced Pages's users.

Statement against

There is no problem to solve in the first place: Whether day or month comes first (3 January; January 3) is trivial—all English-speakers recognize both; the US military uses DMY, as do many Canadians; by contrast, many publications outside North America, including newspapers, use MDY. Given this mixed environment, it is unlikely that readers even notice, let alone care, which format is used in a Misplaced Pages article. Featured articles—which represent our peak standards of professionalism—abandoned autoformatting last September and now exclusively use simple, fixed-text dates; this has barely rated a mention at featured article candidates. More broadly, one user has unlinked and corrected dates in more than 7,000 articles, yet has received only a handful of objections.

All users and editors should see exactly the same date format: This is a basic principle to avoid the mess of underlying date formats that became masked by the old autoformatting system.

Metadata fallacy: Markup is quite unnecessary for producing metadata. We already have a powerful set of tools for searching Misplaced Pages, including the much-underused Misplaced Pages-constrained google search (site:en.wikipedia.org), and category searches. Indeed, for markup to be of any such use, an option would be needed to enable editors to see all marked-up dates as though “linked”—yet another layer of complication. In any case, the What links here function for a date or year page produces a list of thousands of articles ordered by time of creation, with huge numbers of false positives. This is of little added value to editors of future time-based projects.

Laborious and complex: Surrounding every date with curly/square brackets or a template such as {{templatename|March 11, 2009}} and specially tagging every article to establish a default date format would be a significant burden on users, complicating matters for new and casual editors. Users would inevitably be faced with inconsistent date formatting in edit-mode.

Development risks: The failure of the original autoformatting was largely due to the ad hoc imposition of a design by programmers acting without agreed specifications. Without specifications, Misplaced Pages does not know what it is getting. The so-called demonstration page is not a demonstration, but a vague, incomplete and faulty list that has not been agreed to by the community. It's not that parts of a scheme couldn't be programmed—it's whether an integrated program could work for all aspects, by tacking on "solutions" bit by bit over the next few years, risking complications that are out of the reach of the average editor. Among these issues would be AD/BC, slashed, ISO, and Gregorian/Julian dates. Date ranges—impossibly clunky under the old system—would be a significant challenge. A new scheme would have to apply new markup to tens of millions of dates.

Editors need to retain control over date formatting: that is why the community is now taking a conservative view on proposals to re-invent autoformatting. Notably, WikiMedia's Chief Technical Officer, Brion Vibber, stated: "My personal recommendation would be to remove all date autoformatting."

Autoformatting responses

I support the general concept of autoformatting

I oppose the general concept of autoformatting

I am neutral on the general concept of autoformatting

Comments regarding autoformatting

Month-day linking

Background statement

Month-day linking is the use of linking markup (double square brackets) on an adjacent day and month (]) that creates a link to a specific date article (March 24). Month-day linking has been used by editors between 2003 to 2008 to create links to such articles and to autoformat dates (see above).

Advantages of month-day linking

1. Provides easy access to date articles.
2. Populates "what links here" pages with possibly relevant data.
3. Offers editors direct control over a link's destination, as opposed to the less precise "search" function.
4. Uses a simple syntax that is logical, easily understood, and has been in widespread use since 2003 by the editing community
5. Provides useful links on occasions in which readers may reasonably wish to see the article on the date, including:
   • Links to birthdates and deathdates
   • Links to dates of celebration: March 17 from Saint Patrick, 5 November from Guy Fawkes, and so on.
   • Links to articles for which the month and day are the conventional name; such as August 10 for 10 August 1792 – such as links to 18 Brumaire.

Disadvantages of month-day linking

1. Little or no relevance to an article's topic. These include, in almost all instances, links to:
   • birthdates and deathdates;
   • dates of celebration: the list in March 17 is irrelevant to Saint Patrick/Saint Patrick's Day, as for November 5 and Guy Fawkes.
2. Dilutes high-value links through overlinking.
3. "What links here" for dates typically generates many false positives and sources of questionable utility or relevance. There are already powerful tools for searching these items, including the precise "search" function and by adding "cite:wikipedia.en" to a google search for dates.
4. Can be highlighted and/or piped by "gateway" links in the See also section to avoid cluttering the main text. This particularly applies to "convenient names" such as 18 Brumaire.

Advantages of month-day markup (whether or not it entails linking)

1. Clearly indicates which strings refer to dates directly (as opposed to, for example, dates appearing in quotations, which would not be marked up, or coincidences ("In June 19 planes were shot down").
2. Simplifies automated processing of article text (i.e. the gathering of metadata).

Disadvantages of month-day markup

1. Complicates the editing process and contributes to instruction creep.
2. Redundant for avoiding ambiguity, when standard punctuation and the correct pronoun are used: ("In June, 19 planes were shot down", versus "On June 19, planes were shot down").
3. Possible "metadata" have not been specified, so it's unclear whether/why they warrant the use of special markup.

Disadvantages of guidance on this subject.

1. Any specific guidelines on year links that do not apply to all links are instruction creep.

If supported through consensus, one of the following four proposed guidelines (Proposal 1, 2, 3 or 4) would be added to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Linking and autoformatting of dates and Misplaced Pages:Linking#Chronological items. Please respond below to the four proposals.

Month-day: Proposal #1 (conservative approach)

Month-day articles (February 24 and July 10) should not be linked unless their content is germane and topical to the subject, sharing an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. Editors should not link the date (or year) in, for instance, a sentence such as this (from Sydney Opera House): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either June 28 or 2007 are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.

References to commemorative days (Saint Patrick's Day) are treated as any other link. Intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, 1940s) may contain linked chronological items.

Month-day: Proposal #2 (commemorative links only)

Month-day articles (February 24 and July 10) should not be linked unless the article is about (or includes, as primary article) a commemoration which usually occurs on that date. For example, Christmas might link to December 25 (although that seems to be disputed in the article), or Saint Patrick's Day (but not Saint Patrick) might link to March 17, even though it is occasionally celebrated on a different day due to Lent.

Month-day: Proposal #3 (#2 plus "first occurrrence")

Month-day articles may also be linked on their first occurrence in an article, regardless of how relevant the two articles are to each other. Determination of whether a month-day link is appropriate, as with other article links, may be made on a case-by-case basis.

Month-day: Proposal #4 (no separate treatment)

Remove all special language mentioning Month-day links from the Manual of Style and related pages, which will have the effect of treating them like any other potential link. (This need not include mentions of linking in the context of autoformatting; whether these are current guidance or a historic note depends on the question on autoformatting above.)

Month-day responses

Views on Proposal #1

Views on Proposal #2

Views on Proposal #3

Views on Proposal #4

I have another proposal

Comments regarding the linking of month-days

Year linking

Background statement

Year linking is when a specific year is linked to in an article (1987), or a pipe link to a year article on a specific topic (]).

Advantages of year linking

1. Provides easy access to year articles.
2. Populates "what links here" pages with possibly relevant data.
3. Allows readers to browse freely through global historical context via year.

Disadvantages of year linking

1. Rarely relevant or useful to achieving a greater understanding of an article's topic, with a few exceptions.
2. "What links here" often generates many false positives and sources of questionable utility or relevance; the search box can easily be used instead.
3. If added indiscriminately, articles may become overlinked and high-value links would be diluted.

Advantages of year markup (whether or not it entails linking)

1. Simplifies automated processing of article text (i.e. gathering metadata).

Disadvantages of year markup

1. Complicates the editing process and contributes to instruction creep.
2. There are already powerful tools for gathering "metadata", including the search box and by adding "cite:wikipedia.en" to a google search for years.

Disadvantages of guidance on this subject.

1. Year links do not differ significantly from other links; year articles should be treated like any other articles for this purpose. Any specific guidelines on year links that do not apply to all links are instruction creep.

If supported through consensus, one of the following four proposed guidelines (Proposal 1, 2, 3 or 4) would be added to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Linking and autoformatting of dates and Misplaced Pages:Linking#Chronological items. Please respond below to the four proposals.

Years: Proposal #1 (conservative approach)

Year articles (1795, 1955, 2007) should not be linked unless they contain information that is germane and topical to the subject matter — that is, the events in the year article share an important connection other than merely that they occurred in the same year. For instance, Timeline of World War II (1942) may be linked to from another article about WWII, and so too may 1787 in science when writing about a particular development on the metric system in that year. However, the years of birth and death of architect Philip C. Johnson should not be linked, because little, if any, of the contents of 1906 and 2005 are germane to either Johnson or to architecture.

Years: Proposal #2 (less conservative, include birth/death years, etc)

Year articles (e.g. 1795, 1955, and 2007) should not be linked unless the year is particularly relevant to the topic; that is, a seminal event relevant to the subject of the article occured in that year. Examples may include the birth and death of a person and the establishment and disestablishment of an organization.

Years: Proposal #3 (link on first appearance)

Year articles (1795, 1955, and 2007) may be linked when they appear, but only in their first instances in an article, in order to prevent overlinking. Determination of whether a year link is appropriate, as with other article links, may be made on a case-by-case basis.

Month-day: Proposal #4 (no separate treatment)

Remove all special language mentioning Month-day links from the Manual of Style and related pages, which will have the effect of treating them like any other potential link. (This need not include mentions of linking in the context of autoformatting; whether these are current guidance or a historic note depends on the question on autoformatting above.)

Year-linking responses

I support Proposal #1

I support Proposal #2

I support Proposal #3

I support proposal #4