Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Locke Cole (talk | contribs) at 02:45, 7 November 2008 (→Date links: for Tony). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Date links

Can you please stop removing links to dates as there seems to be more discussion about this at WT:MOSNUM of late (and IMO, there doesn't seem to be consensus for removing date links at this point)? —Locke Cole • t • c 12:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are right that there is no consensus for removing date links then there are a lot of editors that need to know. Please can you announce this at WT:MOSNUM. Lightmouse (talk) 13:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The style guides are quite clear about this: dates and date fragments should not be linked. Please stop criticising editors who are working hard to improve WP. Locke, perhaps you'd like to offer to assist rather than sniping from the sidelines. Tony (talk) 14:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The style guides reflect what I can only describe as a small group of people trying very hard to push through their point of view. Also, I don't appreciate that you believe simply because you (and a handful of others) insist on unlinking dates that it automatically means people who don't are "sniping from the sidelines". What work would you have me do? Perhaps I should follow Lightmouse around and revert his edits? Afterall, that's my position, but then I'd be no better than you or Lightmouse. So I ask again, please stop until this has been sorted out rather than forcing your point of view. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As you may or may not be aware there is actually already ongoing discussion at WT:MOSNUM. In the interests of keeping people from having to revert your edits should it be decided to keep date links you really should stop (it's borderline disruption since you are now aware that there's an issue with the lack of consensus). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

If you believe that the MOS is a small conspiracy to make Misplaced Pages worse, then it should be easy for you to get a larger group to support a change to the MOS. It is not an issue for my talk page. Lightmouse (talk) 11:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Locke Cole, I wish you'd give it a rest. A lack of consensus appears to be very much part of the way you see it, but strategic linking is just too great a trend on WP for that to matter. Tony (talk) 11:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I've gotten a dev to respond to me about making autoformatted dates work for IP editors/users, and as that was the primary concern with linked dates (AFAICT) that should be enough to warrant stopping for now. See WT:MOSNUM. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Would that involve every single Misplaced Pages reader choosing which date format they would prefer? --Closedmouth (talk) 02:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. A default could be chosen by the community which could possibly be overridden on an article by article basis. My point is that carrying on with unlinking dates is not consistent with carrying on a good faith discussion for other options... —Locke Cole • t • c 03:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

• I fear that the developer's time is being wasted. The IP-sensitive route has been discussed to death and the realisation was that there's a viper's nest of technical and other issues that will never be solved. What will you do for Canada, or India, where both formats are in use, for example? Above all, you seem to be fixated on the order of the month and the day. I never saw you riling against the international date that appears after everyone's signature, nor the one at the bottom of every WP page. Do they cause nausea? Tony (talk) 02:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
  • First the devs wouldn't respond to you people. Now that I've gotten a devs attention you're saying it's a "waste (of time)"? Did you even read my messages on WT:MOSNUM? I explicitly stated that we may be able to add a magic word/syntax to specify the time format for an article and use a default where no specifier is present. Others have suggested using the headers sent by a readers browser, though this may require using Javascript (since doing it on the server side might have cache issues). There are options and if you'd step back and take a breath, we might be able to move forward with something the community will accept. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

You haven't answered my key question. Tony (talk) 13:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

As I indicated at WT:MOSNUM (BTW, thanks for flaming the ForestFire) I'd rather we agreed on one format for all articles and then provide a tag/markup to change the format on specific articles (something like __NOTOC__ which could be stuck at the top of the article but obviously with a way to specify an alternate date format). Unless there was some other "key question" I missed. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

References

Linking dates within <ref>sections, as you did is somewhat inappropriate. The proper correction is to turn a non-templated reference into a templated one. The templates have date fields, and any date issues can be dealt with automatically in the template. This also allows using the date in the template to pick the correct link in the Internet Archive if the original link goes dead. --John Nagle (talk) 17:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken, I didn't link those dates. Please look again. Lightmouse (talk) 18:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what John was speaking about, but the script did kind of muck up one date delink. Check the very last changed item...someone tried to apply date formatting inside the external link code, which I assume is what cause the error. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 20:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Aha. Thanks, I see that now. The script uses a built-in function that protects web references. There is a known issue with that function and it reveals itself like that occasionally. I reported it and have spent several hours trying to fix it myself but on balance, the protection of web references is still worth tolerating that issue. John was talking about templates and referred to me 'linking dates' so I think he was talking about something else. Lightmouse (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Dates of birth and death

Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Can_the_MOS_be_changed_because_an_RFC_to_change_it_failed.3F. Lightmouse (talk) 19:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Relief at last

Lightmouse, think of all the people who've been annoying you over the past few days. I can think of quite a few. Here's the remedy. Tony (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Lool. I have done those before. Yea you both need to go for picnic to relax. --SkyWalker (talk) 14:57, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Tick the "Manic model" box. Like a machine-gun. Tony (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I have done that. Pretty cool. I have send the link to my sis. She is one who keeps doing it whenever she finds that sort of cover. Not sure what is the name of such cover. Do you know?. --SkyWalker (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Bubble Wrap. –xeno (talk) 19:20, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno. :D I will remember that. --SkyWalker (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Haha, funniest thing I have ever seen here. Lightmouse, I'm glad you have a sense of humour. As do all your fans. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)