Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

years and commas

Is there a policy on the use or not, of commas with years, as in "On June 10, 1993, blah blah ..."? Maurreen 07:07, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What most people would write in either normal form ("On 10 June, 1993, blah blah ..." and "On June 10, 1993, blah blah ...") would both work with this bracketting-comma use, and its form seems most prevalent, so...

James F. (talk) 08:27, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd write "On 10 June 1993, blah, blah..." -- Arwel 12:10, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What Arwel said. "On dd Month yyyy, I went..." doesn't take a comma; "On Month dd, yyyy, we came..." does bracket the year between commas. These are the two formats[—]with commas duly inserted and removed[—]as they are generated by the automatic date preference display setting in Special:Preferences. –Hajor 13:15, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

DD MM, YY may not be correct but it still displays correctly. Rmhermen 13:28, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dates in articles will be displayed according to the settings in the reader's Special:Preferences Date format whether or not a comma is included between month/day or day/month and year and regardless of their order, but only if both are wikilinked. The reader's view of the date will be displayed in the correct form even if the article's date didn't have a comma where it should have had one or did have a comma where it shouldn't have had one ("[C]orrect" means one of the four forms in Preferences[.]). Thus January 15 2001 can be correctly displayed as January 15, 2001 (note the insertion of the comma), 15 January 2001, 2001 January 15, or even 2001-01-15. Uniquely, only a single wikilink of the entire date is required if the article's date is in the 2001-01-15 format—then the reader's view of the article will show the month/day and year as separately wikilinked and in their preferred view. If the reader is not logged in (or has no preference), then they[sic] will see the nearest "correct" date format, but only if both month/day and year are wikilinked. — Joe Kress 22:03, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't follow all of that. But the comma is missing from the title and article on the September 11 attacks, and I can't change it with the current formatting. Maybe that's because it is a title.

The comma is also missing elsewhere. I didn't know if those cases were policy or mistakes. Maurreen 04:26, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[I].e., "September 11, 2001 attacks". Yes, I find the absence of a comma there jarring, too; the same goes for "Nashville, Tennessee is the country music capital of the world". But it's a common enough practice, and I'm not sure whether it's not considered pedantic to insist on those commas. –Hajor 04:39, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, it is simply incorrect to not have a comma between the day and year in Month Day, Year format or between municipalities, counties, states, provinces, countries, etc. - Centrx 02:16, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your comment, but I think you misunderstood what I was saying—I was referring to the "missing" commas, the ones that come afterwards, the comma that isn't there but should be, the one that would make those phrases read "September 11, 2001, attacks" and "Nashville, Tennessee, is where it's at". I think Maurreen meant those, too. –Hajor 02:35, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that dates can be used in different ways. When used in an adverbial phrase, commas may be used (though some would omit them):

On 5 November 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the English parliament; OR On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the English parliament.

As nouns and adjectives, no comma would be used after the year:

5 November 1605 saw Guy Fawkes try to blow up the English parliament; OR November 5, 1605 saw Guy Fawkes try to blow up the English parliamnet.

The 5 November 1605 plot was perpetrated by Guy Fawkes and others; OR The November 5, 1605 plot was perpetrated by Guy Fawkes and others.

So, coming back to 9/11, this could be referred to as

The 11 September 2001 attacks; OR The September 11, 2001 attacks.

I must say, however, and please take this as a pure aside, that when used as an adjective, even the American format of the date looks better without a comma to me, perhaps both with and without are correct there. Jongarrettuk 19:27, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I need to amend my comments in one respect! Would you believe it, I can only find US websites on the point. I'll revise the noun construction ([S]ince the format MM/DD/YY is American, I'll have to concede to US English on this one—though it is very jarring to a British eye[.]). This gives

November 5, 1605, saw Guy Fawkes try to blow up the English parliament.

I can find no examples of dates being used as adjectives. But I can see no reason to break the normal rule of having no comma between an adjective and the noun. Certainly, even if you find an American reference for it, I would argue strongly against it for an International encyclopaedia. Jongarrettuk 20:06, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I've just searched on [G]oogle under "September 11, 2001 attacks"—this version wins out easily. Jongarrettuk 20:19, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Are you people illiterate? Commas are for pauses. There are no pauses after adjectival dates, unless there are more adjectives. lysdexia 21:55, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Accuracy in number reporting

I, personally, couldn't care less whether Imperial or metric units are given first in any given article, and I agree that in most cases conversions are appropriate.

However, what I have seen lately has been a somewhat confused practice of putting the metric conversions ahead of the Imperial originals. Apparently some folks think that the metric measurements are more important (or whatever) and should go first.

In some cases this is fine, but when the source of the information has "5 inches" and the metric conversion is given as "13 cm" (or, to keep the same number of significant figures, 10 cm, which makes the problem even more apparent), it is essential that the original measurement goes first and that the conversion follow it in parentheses.

If we report "5 in[.] (13 cm)", then it is clear that the latter measurement is an approximation for the former. If someone changes that to "13 cm (5 in[.])", then it looks like the metric conversion is actually more precise, which is giving false information. (If the original measurement were "13 cm", it would have been better to put "5.1 in[.]". In this case the different is tiny and probably insignificant, but it can become more pronounced.)

I don't want to get into the Imperial vs. metric debate (and I don't think this issue is even entirely relevant to that debate), but I do think it's simple enough to say that whatever the original measurement was, it needs to be listed first to avoid confusing the round-off errors. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 14:53, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the idea, but it seems difficult to enforce. Maurreen 15:23, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No more so than anything else in the Manual of Style. "The original measurement should always be listed first and the converted value should go after it." There are many well-intentioned folks who just don't have the scientific background to be automatically aware of the inherent problems. I would like this to be written somewhere as a guide to the over-zealous on both sides of the argument. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 15:40, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would agree with such a policy in general. My point about enforcement is that it's not always obvious which was the original number and that it could take a lot of time to find out which was the original measurement. Maurreen 03:44, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If the original number is available with more digits than useful for Wikipedia, the problem does not arise, and the order of the values (each suitably rounded with a similar accuracy) can be chosen on other grounds.--Patrick 06:38, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

I'm not so much talking about going back and doing massive copyediting as not switching the order in the first place. If the numbers are reported in inches, that can be taken as "original" and should be listed first unless you know that it's an approximate number. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 19:38, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"September 2004" vs "September 2004"

The current style guide dictates that when specifying a month of a specific year, one should leave the month unlinked. This is very reasonable for months such as July 1903. However, more recent months, such as August 2003 usually have articles created for them. When copyediting, I have been adhering to the current manual of style, and replaced Month Year with Month Year, but in some cases it feels wrong...What do others think? — David Remahl 18:10, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. But when would be the cut-off year? Maurreen 04:04, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the problem. I didn't mean to suggest we select a year, but perhaps we could find some other solution...I'm just brainstorming here, but what about a software tweak, so that August 2003 links to August 2003 if it exists, or 2003 otherwise. It could also be done using approximately 60,000 redirects, but I think we should avoid that if possible ;-). — David Remahl 04:08, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There might be another technical problem, because the date is also a link, so the month would have to overlap somehow with the date and the year. Maurreen 05:05, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why not just link to the month if the month page exists, and not if it doesn't? Rule of thumb, it looks like we have month pages for all the months in 2001-2004. I suggest the format September 2004. - Nat Kraus e 05:40, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Because that involves trial and error and having to manually go back to all pages and check for January 1902 when that page is eventually created. — David Remahl 12:11, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why not just link it and let it show up as no article. If someone eventually creates the article, it'll be linked. Chuck 19:30, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Because red links detract attention from the content even more than the sometimes overwhelming amounts[sic] of blue date-links...Besides, September 1901 may be more useful than a red September 1901. It is a difficult problem to solve... — David Remahl 19:33, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If the red links are created, this would provide a guide as to which individual months needed articles created for them (the original reason for having red links in the first place IIRC). --Phil | Talk 09:00, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Degrees? space[,] no space

option 1: 90°

or

option 2: 90 °

When talking about angles, not temp., which is correct in SI world? I can't find a set rule. I know what I am used to seeing though. If it is option 1, then it is different then[sic] other units, where a space is put between number and unit designation (13 MHz). Hobie 00:29, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)

The signs for degrees, minutes and seconds are exceptions, taking no space: 0°0′0″. The international standard for this is in ISO-31, I think, but I don't have a copy here. As for degrees Celsius, style guides differ as to whether there is a space or not. The Canadian standard is 0°C, but NIST in the States uses 0 °C. I forget what ISO-31 has to say on the subject.--Indefatigable 14:14, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As has been said, the default is to use a space between value and unit symbol with the exceptions of angular degrees, angular minutes and angular seconds. This is also mentioned in the FAQ for the the[sic] newsgroup misc.metric-system http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/metric-system-faq.html There is no exception for temperature. The symbol is "°C" and that gets a space. You will see it used, as in "630 °C" on the official SI website. http://www1.bipm.org/en/si/history-si/temp_scales/its-90.html It is not an official SI matter, it may be in ISO 31 as suggested. Bobblewik (talk) 17:49, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Angles in degrees, minutes and seconds should look like this: 12° 34′ 56″ (that's 12° 34′ 56″). Gdr 12:21, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

Date formats

I recently found out that the two links

 [[January 15]], [[2001]]

are treated as a single date entity for formatting. This is not obvious. If the date is treated as one entity, surely it should look like one link, for example:

 [[January 15, 2001]]

Bobblewik (talk) 16:54, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Billion

A billion is a million squared in virtually all languages that use the term. France was briefly an exception (using it for a thousand million) and at that time the US borrowed their usage. For a long time this meant that in English there was a distinction between an "American billion" of 10⁹ and a "British" or "international billion" of 10¹². Nowadays the English-speaking world has almost entirely succumbed to American influence on the matter, with a billion being almost always 1,000,000,000 in Britain, Canada, Australia, etc. However, some traditionalists may still prefer the old billion. It may be advisable to avoid these names altogether and instead use scientific notation, or at the very least explain your usage at its first occurrence in an article. The same problem arises with other numbers in the ~illion family greater than a million. See detailed discussion in Number names.

A lot of this is inappropriate for a style guide, which is not for historical discussion but for specific recommendation. It does not matter for the English Wikipedia whether other languages use "billion" in a certain way. There is also some bland POV, for instance in the use of the word "succumb". Also, this prose is not formal enough for the Manual of Style and, according to the article billion and to the OED, the increasingly common usage is 10^9. I have reverted the article to the meaning that was there before, as this is a controversial change that ought to be discussed here in the discussion page before changes to the article. - Centrx 21:15, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's so not controversial. Chameleon 21:42, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There is nothing controversial about Chameleon's version: everything he writes is certainly factually true. More so than the old version, in fact, which implied that billion = 10¹² was still widespread in the UK. But it does contain too much historical background, which makes it hard to find the advice that this page is meant to give. Suggest a much-condensed version like

The word "million" is unambiguous, but "billion", "trillion", etc. have more than one meaning in English. It is advisable to avoid these names altogether and instead write in terms of the million. Or, if appropriate, use scientific notation or SI prefixes. See detailed discussion in Number names.

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) in "Number names" under "Style for numbers, weights, and measures" still only mentions scientific notation in this regard. It should also specifically mention SI prefixes and engineering notation as additional options to avoid these number names. Gene Nygaard 19:48, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[[User:Smyth|– Smyth]] 08:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, two different people think the changes should be reverted, and apparently Smyth agrees that the changes contain too much background information. I am not asserting that the facts of the additions are controversial, only that the changes to the page are; it doesn't matter if the information is true if it doesn't belong, paragraphs upon paragraphs of true, but tangentially related, information could be added to the Manual of Style, but that doesn't belong. - Centrx 19:18, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is a reasonable amount of relevant information. Wikipedia is not paper and can cope with this short paragraph summarising the "billion" issue. Chameleon 19:51, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not paper, but the issue in question is covered properly on many other pages. This particular page is Manual of Style (dates and numbers), and it has to cover a lot of ground. Its content for each issue should therefore be limited to simple advice with simple reasons given for it, and links to pages where the interested reader can learn more. [[User:Smyth|– Smyth]] 21:01, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's quite short. Many other sections are longer. Furthermore, it is incorrect to claim that some dialects use it as 1,000,000,000 and others as 1,000,000,000,000. I used to use the latter and now I use the former. I haven't changed "dialect". What I wrote is a clear, concise picture of the facts. Chameleon 21:49, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Then, if those other sections are unduly long, they should be shortened. It is correct to state that the difference in billions is one of dialect: the general schism is between two subordinate varieties of the same language that arise from peculiarities of vocabulary in the Commonwealth and the US - Centrx 06:50, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Go to Talk:Earth. I removed the word billion from the article yesterday because billion is a word with ambiguity in its meaning. Then, later on, it was returned, with scientific notation also being kept. Does anyone have any opinions about the use of the word billion at Wikipedia?? 66.245.96.130 16:30, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As I understand it, although it is certainly ambiguous when reading a document from many years back, and while its cognates in foreign languages may have different meanings, in contemporary English "billion" almost always means the value 1,000,000,0000[sic], and any other use is increasingly seen as archaic or obscurantist. Certainly this is the case in the US,[sic] as far as I know it's the case in Canada and the UK. Are there places where this is not so? Do you have recent citations of it being used in any other meaning in English? -- Jmabel 05:14, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

In English, one "billion" is

10^{9}

, or 1,000,000,000. The problem may arise in other languages, where the loose translation of "billion" (in Spanish "billón") means 1,000,000,000,000; in other words, that's a million millions, or a trillion in English.--Logariasmo 06:59, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"In English"? That depends on American English, British English or the others. Billion is indeed ambiguous and should be avoided where possible, though I agree

10^{9}

is the most common definition now. violet/riga (t) 19:29, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's very vague. Again, I will ask: "Do you have recent citations of it being used in any other meaning in English?" - Jmabel|Talk 19:49, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but only in discussions of the difference between the [largely historical] British-based meaning of

10^{12}

and the (now more more common) American-based meaning of

10^{9}

. Certainly, the British government stopped using

10^{12}

about 30 years ago [1], and in my experience everyone in the UK these days would expect "billion" to mean

10^{9}

. However, I cannot vouch for the rest of the English-speaking world. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:14, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My point was that if there is some other way of stating the information then that should be preferred. Unfortunately, however, it's rarely the case that you can write it some other way. violet/riga (t) 20:37, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fortunately, it is usually the case that you can write "thousand million", which is easily understood and unambiguous. —AlanBarrett 21:22, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But we all trip over "thousand million" every time we read it. Just say "billion". I doubt that a Wikipedia article will flabbergast anyone on Earth, by introducing the word "billion" as meaning

10^{9}

. Tempshill 23:55, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, does "thousand million" sound weird to some people? I did not know that. I never use the term "billion" (except in discussion about the term itself), and every time I read or hear the word "billion", I wonder what the speaker or writer means ([M]y bias is that I think of 1e12 as a "real billion", and 1e9 as an "American billion"[.]). —AlanBarrett 22:51, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's a part of the introduction to the Style Guide that may be relevant here: "One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, Wikipedia will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit." It's reasonable for us to select one meaning of "billion" to be used here. But in this case, it's not in fact true that one way is just as good as the other—using it to mean

10^{9}

is far more common. So why not make it official and use it that way all the time? Factitious 02:46, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

This is covered in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Maurreen 03:46, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. Looks like that issue has already been argued to death—avoiding the billion wording seems a reasonable solution in light of all that. Factitious 04:20, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

We should definately[sic] avoid this, as there are other, clearer ways of saying the same thing. It is like the flamable[sic]/inflamable[sic] debate. The amount of confusion is not worth being right. Mark Richards 03:15, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Proposed policy for "thousand million" and "million million"

I suggest that we create pages named thousand million and million million, and on those pages explain that "billion" or "trillion" are ambiguous, and in the style guide recomend that people use [[thousand million]] and [[million million]]. —AlanBarrett 23:04, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nah. Let's just accept that a billion is 1,000,000,000 these days. I'm as keen to avoid Americanisms as anyone (probably more than anyone!) but the battle is really lost on this one. A billion is now the same everywhere in the English-speaking world. The OED agrees, The Guardian agrees... I think we should recommend it in our style guide, though backing it up with scientific notation. Chameleon 23:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree, we should just standardize on billion. It seems that it is the major and increasing usage, and is supported by authoritative sources. Should this extend to trillion, and so on, in general? - Centrx 06:50, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I can accept the use of billion as 10^12, but in that case it should always be linked on first occurance[sic] in an article to thousand million or 1 E9, like so: [[thousand million|billion]]. — David Remahl 17:51, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please note that my proposal is that "thousand million" be written as a wikilink, in square brackets, like "[[thousand million]]". My recent edit to the style page (which was reverted) was not an attempt to preempt discussion of this proposal (it mentioned the phrases "thousand million" and "million million", but not the use of those phrases in wikilinks). —AlanBarrett 15:42, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Years vs. [n]umbers

I think that it is more logical for an article named something like "60" to refer to the number sixty. It can be distinguished from the date by titling the date articles "AD 60" or "60 BC". If a user searches for "60", doesn't it make sense that they want the number 60, not AD 60?

Perhaps, but if a user searches for 1997, it almost certainly means that he/she is looking for the article about the year 1997. Years are linked to in almost every article, so changing this would take a lot of work, both on the technical side and on mindset. — David Remahl 15:57, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand the rationale for the many number articles in general. Maurreen 17:26, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Many people find numbers interesting, and they have arguably encyclopaedic properties. — David Remahl 17:40, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

1997 is a prime number! So it is possible that the user is looking for information about this number! I think that 1997 is a number and in the Gregorian calendar it is associated to a year. But it is a number in first place. Fupis 20:43, 05 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sept. 11 attacks

You're invited to a poll at Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks over whether that should remain the article's title or it should be changed to "Attacks of September 11, 2001".

I favor the latter, because using two commas to set the year off is widely supported by US English reference books, and Wikipedia style says: "If a word or phrase is generally regarded as correct, then prefer it to an alternative that is often regarded as incorrect." Maurreen 07:35, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

quote and cite? lysdexia 21:55, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If you followed the link, you'd see my references. But that vote is well past anyway. Maurreen 07:49, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikilinking units of measure

It has currently come up on WP:FAC#Marginated Tortoise that some editors prefer to see all the units of measure linked—1 m (3.3 ft[.])—while others consider this to be "ugly". The style manual doesn't mention doing this or not doing it ([B]y not mentioning, perhaps there is a tacit statement not to link[.]), but it would be good to reach consensus. The style manual also suggests links like 1.5 m, which I've not yet seen "in the wild". Is that an optional convention, a recommendation, or a style policy? Mpolo 07:30, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to link units of measure as a general practice. And I don't remember what you refer to in the manual, but I might have missed it. Maurreen 07:47, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's on this "project page". It's never set out as a policy to link to the "orders of magnitude" pages, but it is done in two or three of the examples on the page. Actually, the example incorrectly links 1.5 m to 1 E 1 m instead of 1 E0 m. I don't particularly like those links—especially since several examples are somewhat "obscure" to say the least... Mpolo 08:33, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)

There's good reason for some units to be wikilinked. For example gallon has a different meaning in America as it does in Britain. Where ambiguous words are used, the ambiguity should be removed (e[.]g[.] by referring to US gallons or UK gallons) and a link should be made to help readers unfamiliar with the term used. The same should be true of units of measurement that may be unfamiliar with the reader. jguk 08:05, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reversion

I'm going to revert the edit by lysdexia, which included substantive changes that haven't been discussed, such as the style "1.56234e29". My understanding is that it is customary to discuss substantive changes to the style guide before adding them.

Changes also included taking the commas out of large numbers (against stated style), changing "BC" to "BCE" (against custom of letting either stand), and changing "period" to "dot" (which is not needed). Maurreen 07:49, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

. Jongarrettuk beat me to it. Maurreen 07:50, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

20m or 20 m, etc.

So why is there no space after say "20m"? i thought 20m was the accepted form and 20 m was incorrect? that's the way we always did it at school. 20 metres, but 20m (no space) SpookyMulder

Maybe it's a national difference. I'd prefer that units are spelled out. For one thing, that avoids confusion between meters and miles. Maurreen 15:24, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's good typesetting practice to put a space between a number and unit. ISO 31 uses a space. In printed typesetting this would normally be a thin space ( ) but on HTML that doesn't have the "non-breaking" property of   (one could achieve a non-breaking thin space using a Unicode "word joiner" character but that isn't yet supported by many browsers). See the archives for this talk page, and also [2]. Gdr 16:51, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

See SI#SI writing style. For metric units, there should be a space between the number and the units. Also, there are official symbols (not called "abbreviations") for metric units, and we should ban the use of abbreviations that cound be confused with such symbols. (For example, ban the use of "m" as an abbreviation for "mile".) For non-metric units, there are often no standardised symbols, so it's probably a good idea to avoid abbreviations of units that are already fairly short (like "mile"), but I see no harm in using abbreviations for units that have long names (like "BTU" for "British Thermal Unit". —AlanBarrett 22:14, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

20⁠ ⁠m (20⁠ ⁠m) seems to be supported by several browsers, including the Mozillas and Apple's WebKit (including Safari). I guess that "many browsers" primarily means Internet Explorer, as usual... However, I'm not sure I want to encourage the use of 24 characters between the value and the unit in wiki markup. — David Remahl 07:05, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There is a Unicode character named "NARROW NO-BREAKSPACE" at U+202F ( ) which might work, except that my browser (IE6) fails to render it properly (like this). --Phil | Talk 11:54, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

Eras

Stating use BP or MYA for prehistory is too vague. Use MYA, then kYA (thousand years ago - especially useful when talking about the Mesolithic), then BP. Then in late prehistory, start using BC, optionally for the Neolithic, definitely anything about the Bronze Age or Iron Age.

Another issue is that authorities differ on use of BCE. Some people use it interchangeably with BC. Some academics, however, (notably a certain prehistorian in my department), insist there is a year 0 CE (but not AD 0, 0 BC, or 0 BCE), meaning that if someone writes 404 BCE, it is ambiguous as to whether they meant 404 BC or 405 BC. The relevance of this discrepancy is limited almost solely to the Mediterannean after about the 8th Century BC, so in most cases the ambiguity doesn't matter.

Another thing which might need mentioning is that bc and ad mean totally different things from BC and AD. 1500 bc isn't the same as 1500 BC, nor is 1400 bc exactly a century after 1500 bc. Lower case bc and ad refer to uncalibrated radiocarbon dates, and should strictly speaking be quoted with a standard error. You will also see a (rather confusing) convention of giving uncalibrated radiocarbon dates in BP (as radiocarbon dating being of use doesn't overlap TOO much with the part of prehistory in which one starts talking about BP rather than BC) and calibrated ones in Cal AD and Cal BC.

Anyway, the article as it stands is a bit simplistic on eras, so some of this at least probably should go in. (Anonymous comment from 82.36.26.229)

I added kYA and a note about BCE not having a year 0. I didn't act on your other comments: the Manual of Style can't and shouldn't explain everything, lest its length prevent people from reading and following it. The details of prehistoric dating, and of calibrated and uncalibrated dating should have articles in the encyclopedia proper to which the Manual of Style can briefly refer (in the way it currently refers to detailed articles at New Year and Gregorian calendar). Perhaps you would like to expand the relevant sections at Prehistory and Radiocarbon dating? Gdr 11:36, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)

I've reverted your additions. I think kYA is little known and do not think we should encourage using it. Instead of encouraging more usage of confusing abbreviations we should discourage them. This also applies to usage of BP, MYA, etc. (at least unless those terms are defined when first used in an article). On the BCE point, I'm not sure we need a comment to disambiguate from the usage by one prehistorian. Although, if there really is a body of academics who use the term differently from everyone else, perhaps we should change and require BC/AD. jguk 19:55, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Requiring BC/AD is no solution. Until quite recently, virtually all Maya historians assumed that a year zero existed between BC and AD as can be seen by the ubiquitous statement that the epoch of the Long Count of the Maya calendar was in 3113 BC, whereas it is in 3114 BC when no year zero is used. One historian narrowed it a bit by explicitly stating, in print, that a year zero does exist between BC and AD in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Julian calendar. The current statement that "there was no year 0" in the Wikipedia timeline is acceptable, and the link serves as a disambiguation for other year zeros which do exist in astronomical year numbering, and Hindu and Buddhist calendars. — Joe Kress 20:32, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting a 0 BC or AD 0. If what you say is true, it sounds like a genuine mistake. I was surprised at the claim that some claimed there was a 0 BCE or 0 CE, but am open to persuasion on the point. jguk 23:25, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Traditional dates.

Perhaps these no special handling, but what is the best way to deal with dates that are tradional within a relgious or other group. Specifically the Mahabharata is tradionally said to have been composed in 1316 BCE. I want to indicate the status of this date, especially in lists where a long discussion of the date is inappropriate. Is "trad. 1316" clear? Also which is better, "c.", "c." or "about". Zeimusu 06:11, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

How about: "The Mahabharata is traditionally said to have been composed in 1316 BCE." Maurreen 06:42, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just want to note that we shouldn't use the abbreviation "trad." (at least without introducing the term in that article). Though it may seem obvious to you what it means, some people would see it as jargon. The Manual of Style (dates and numbers) suggests we use "c." when identifying an approximate date as opposed to any other abbreviation, but is not explicit in this. You may, however, prefer Maurreen's suggestion anyway. jguk 09:23, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maurreen's suggestion is good. It would be even better to cite the source for the tradition. For example, "according to Livy, the Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC" (it's a traditional date, but Livy is our best source for the tradition). Another example, from History of Japan: "February 11, 660 BC is the traditional founding date of Japan by Emperor Jimmu Tenno. This however is a version of Japanese history from the country's first written records dating from the 6th to the 8th centuries" Gdr 13:40, 2004 Nov 21 (UTC)

I've added a note to this effect to the project page. Zeimusu

Superscript ordinals

There seems to be a recent fad for superscripting the suffixes ordinal numbers, making century links read something like [[20th century|20<sup>th</sup> century]], for example. I think this looks particularly ugly, even when browsers don't mess about with the leading to make the text fit. I'd like to suggest we make it a policy not to do this. Opinions? — OwenBlacker 16:39, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

I agree, we should discourage superscripting such suffixes. —AlanBarrett 17:23, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with OwenBlacker - ban them. Then search for them and deleting them. No point in just discouraging them - people will only say it's not a ban and so has no effect. jguk 18:22, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, ban them. Gdr 11:28, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)

ISO 8601

The Manual of Style allows dates to be stated in ISO 8601 style, requiring hyphens to separate the year, month, and day, which is the extended format in ISO 8601. When using this form, Wikipedia properly converts the year to the other acceptable forms, but only from year 0001. Although the 1988 first edition did not mention earlier years, the 2000 second edition requires that earlier years be given in astronomical year numbering, with a year 0000 immediately before 0001, and year -0001 immediately before 0000. However, the Wikipedia software does not properly convert these years into the Wikipedia timeline of 2 BC, 1 BC, and 1. Even ignoring the year 0000, the explicit use or a minus sign should signal the software to convert -0010 to 11 BC, but it actually converts -0010 to 9 BC.

In addition, the new edition explicitly requires all dates for years before 1583 to be given in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, yet the Wikipedia software does not convert them into the Julian calendar. Admittedly, most people would probably ignore this latter requirement, and give all early ISO 8601 style dates in whatever form they found them, usually in the Julian calendar. — Joe Kress 21:20, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

It would be disastrous for Wikipedia to display or require dates in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. Gdr 22:07, 2004 Dec 1 (UTC)

"22:00" or "22:00 hours"

Should times be written with or without "hours" following them? ("It happened at 22:00." or "It happened at 22:00 hours."?) — Flamurai 20:16, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would stongly recommend against including the word "hours". It's redundant: the colon, along with the context, will always make it clear that it's a time of day. In spoken English, it occassionally may be helpful to use "hours" to remove ambiguity, but it's never necessary in writing. Indefatigable 21:31, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree; "22:00" is fine.

James F. (talk) 03:22, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I concur. I think it's an issue of Americans not being used to the 24-hour format. — Flamurai 06:44, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think "hours" is a US military thing. We're international civilians here, so "22:00" is fine. Gdr 10:13, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

IX Century

We don't appear to say anything about the use of the form "'roman numeral' century". Is it to be avoided. It shows up a lot in Polish pages I have noted. Rmhermen 04:19, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

The well-established practice in English writing is to use Arabic numerals: "14th century". In French, and possibly other European languages such as Polish, Roman numerals are often used ("XIV^e siècle"). When you see a Roman numeral, it's probably a non-native user of English accidently bringing the habits from his or her native language, similar to forgetting the capitals on "proper adjectives", such as "english" or "asian". Roman numerals should be changed to Arabic for uniformity's sake. Indefatigable 05:10, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have been. I was just wondering if we needed to note this in the Manual of Style. Rmhermen 19:28, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but not so much for uniformity (if that were such a worthy concern we'd be systematically Americanizing the spelling) as for immediate comprehensibility: Roman numerals beyond about VI are esoteric (and thus slowly decoded) for native speakers of English, being used almost exclusively for

pretension (Superbowl XXVII), or
clockfaces (but i think that's completely last-century).

BTW, the Roman-numeral centuries are German, too, IIRC.

--Jerzy (t) 20:05, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

Percent symbol with space?

Assuming a context where it's inappropriate to write out "percent", what are (or what should be) the guidelines on how to format a number with a "%" symbol? Are there regional or journalistic vs scientific writing styles? I'm confused because NIST [3] (as well as ISO-31) requires a space between the number and the "%", yet you're much more likely to find "10%" instead of "10 %", even in articles that are clearly 'SI'. Femto 13:26, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think using a space is unusual. Maurreen 17:54, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Those guides are already referenced for several other Wikipedia number style issues. So far they're the 'most correct' international English scientific style recommendations that I know of. Obviously, this doesn't appear to be the preferred way of writing the percent symbol, and I don't know which style to use, let alone how to copyedit existing articles. Could there be some clear and simple recommendation in the Manual of Style, and what should it say? Femto 22:46, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The de facto standard in use in (as far as I know) all English speaking nations is to not use a space. However, there is no readability issue, IMO, either way.

If the Manual of Style should recommend anything, it should be not to use a space. However, is there a pressing need for the MoS to specify anything about this topic? We should avoid instruction creep in situations like this. So far, we have identified that:

Common written English usage is to format without a space
Scientific style guides specify the use of a space
This is an inconsistency.

However, IMO, for something to be included in the style guide, it should be to address actual problems, not just mere inconsistencies. I can't see a problem being identified above, unless one is of the mindset that inconsistencies and lack of clear instruction is a problem. If we leave well alone and don't put a ruling in the MoS, what are the consequences? That's what we have to address. To my mind, the consequences are:

Most Wikipedia editors continue to enter percentages as they always do, without spaces. This poses no readability nor intelligibility problems.
Some scientifically trained editors used to writing in the style specified by NIST, ISO et al. write percentages as they have been taught to do, with a space. This poses no readability nor intelligibility problems.
The overwhelmingly vast proportion of Wikipedia readers neither notice nor care.

As far as I can see, the only possible problem is that some over-zealously correct editor takes it upon themselves to reformat all percentages in Wikipedia to conform to their personal preference (spaced or spaceless), and a flamewar erupts. This might be a sufficient future possibility to put a line in the MoS saying 'Both forms are acceptable on Wikipedia', but I think that is the most the MoS needs to say on the subject, and I'm frankly not even convinced it needs to say even that. —Morven 00:40, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the size of the style guide needs to be managed, but I disagree that a style issue has to become a problem to make it worthy of inclusion in the MoS, whose declared purpose is to "make things easy to read by following a consistent format" — There is a format inconsistency (if not a readability problem though, or even a very big one) that cannot be resolved by turning to other sources, but which would be easy to avoid. It should be of equal importance to work towards an uniform article style as it is to keep the rules simple.

The MoS includes many little rules of standard usage that are not necessary (in the sense that they are non-controversial and can be found elsewhere) but which are useful to have all in one place nevertheless. Among them is that, in a non-technical context, percentages should be written in natural language. But nothing about % in a technical context, even though there really are varying standards.

In my opinion the principle of least astonishment should be extended to what is not expected not to find on a page. I came earlier to this guide expecting to find examples on how to write common things such as the degree and percent symbols, but was disappointed there. My suggested edit would be to insert after "The reader should see a space between the value and the unit symbol: thus 25 kg and not 25kg.":

An exception are angular (but not temperature) degrees. It is also common practice not to put a space between a number and the "%" percent symbol (against some scientific styles).

and to include in the examples

There are 360° to a full circle.
The metal alloy melts at 71.7 °C (161 °F) and contains by weight 50% bismuth, 26.7% lead, 13.3% tin, and 10% cadmium.

Femto 13:05, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I confess to not reading the whole debate before sticking in these two points:

Logically (he said, with a laugh at the idea of logic ruling any human behavior, let alone speech), the space is offensive. Percent is from Latin, something like "per centum" meaning "for [each] hundred". "16%" means

"16 out of a hundred" and thus
"percent" modifies "16" into "not really 16, but rather with a frequency of 16/100", whence
the odd-looking symbol "%" surely comes from "0/0" which presumably is
an impressionistic evocation of "/100", with the "obviously" needed 1 omitted as inferable and redundant, and the order of the remaining 3 symbols changed to speed cursive writing of them. (The fonts i am typing and reading in, and my %-key's label, represent % as simply circles or ovals, and a slash, but i still write it by hand as i was taught, joining the left circle to the top of the slash with a ligature, so they are really more like a "degrees" circle welded to a 7. The ligature helps the reader perceive % as a unit, and speeds writing by saving lifting the pen.)

So IMO omitting the space helps strengthen the association between the abstract symbol and its logical and historical meaning (16% is more like a mathematical expression than like "16 meters"), which helps the brain unconsciously assign the correct meaning to it with less competing mental noise like "Wait, what's the role of the space?" and "No, the thing after the space is unrelated to the thing after it." The number and the symbol constitute a unit of meaning (just as ".16" does) and perceiving that meaning is disrupted by separating them (as ". 16" would do).

The nature of standards is all over the map:

Some exist to encourage adherance to an already dominant practice.
Some are mechanisms to forge a mutually beneficial agreement within an industry without running afoul of anti-trust law.
Some are futile attempts by idealists to cram what is logical, or illogical but theoretically desirable, down the throats of illogical and self-defeating humans.

We should include

Wikipedia is not a marketing department for Official Standards.

Taking notice of standards is good; acting as if they were laws of nature or otherwise automatically deserving of adherance is just, uh, the kind of behavior that should be expected from people still suffering from the effects of a blow to the head.

--Jerzy (t) 19:26, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. It convinced me that I shall not further pursue the issue whether the Manual of Style should contain examples of common and preferred usage in this case of conflicting styles to choose from. I will strengthen the advance of cultural diversity and aid your cause of clear and thematically coherent contributions to Wikipedia by not following any of the suggestions in its style guide. Femto 21:14, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Links on non-full-length dates and centuries

What is the reason for necessarily linking to a date that is not directly relevant to the context of the article? Links should only be to articles relevant to the context of the article (aside from peculiarities like the date preference feature), and linking to all dates clutters and is makes linking less useful. - Centrx 02:39, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether there is a policy, but I agree with you. Maurreen

I would agree, except for the fact that this "linking" is what makes the Wikipedia "Preferences" you can set for display of dates on your browser work. Gene Nygaard 19:33, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

But that's irrelevant for just links to years, for example. Maurreen 19:48, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Long-term, we might have the ability to transform calendars, as well as displays. Then it would be... a pain to go back through all the text and re-add the links.

James F. (talk) 03:43, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Linking dates highlights that you are referring to a date rather than a number. It's not always obvious when some is referring to a date, particularly when dealing with dates in the first millennium, or with round number dates such as 2000 or 1500, jguk 23:17, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So, then it should be policy that only numbers that are dates should be linked, otherwise there's nothing exclusive about the year linking, and any automated calendar system would be severely flawed..? - Centrx 21:50, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Interesting numbers are located in article names such as 1 (number), 13 (number), 28 (number) and so on. I imagine there's only an occasional need to link to one of these anyway (a mathematical article???) and that where you are linking to them it is obvious from the context that you cannot be referring to the year. I'm not sure what you mean by an automated calendar system, so I can't respond to that point. Kind regards, jguk 22:17, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Whether the article is referring to a date or just a number should be made clear by the writing, not by a link. Even if that is the purpose, it is not well served. Maurreen 04:50, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The only good reason noted for linking to non-full length dates was that, in the "Long-term, we might have the ability to transform calendars, as well as displays", which is what I mean by automated calendar system, and if that system were in place then the problem would then become links to numbers that aren't dates. Other than that reason given here, it seems there is no good reason to link to non-full-length dates, and if that calendar reason is valid, then it seems that numbers should not be linked to. - Centrx 21:32, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Proposed revision

I have put a proposed revision on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/proposed revision. I am proposing that we explicitly state that "The general philosophy behind these rules is that date and number styles should be chosen so as to be readily understandable to as many people as possible. Remember, you are writing for the reader, not for yourself!" However, the revision also includes some slight tweaks to policy. Slight, because although some articles following current policy would not comply with the revision, the number of those articles is quite small.

Put simply, I think what I call "the general philosophy" above is important to have in an encyclopaedia that seeks to have a wide international readership, with readers from all backgrounds and schoolings. The emphasis should be to try to produce articles that everyone understand. No doubt this aim cannot always be achieved, yet it is good target to aim for, jguk 20:17, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would like to see the changes from the current version highlighted in some manner so that what you propose is easier to comprehend. —Morven 20:30, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

Oops, I arranged for that and forgot to tell anyone. I pasted the current article onto the proposed revision page when I created it, and then revised it to the proposal. The changes can be seen on this diff. As I note, it is the basic philosophy that I think is most important. The remaining changes are a corollary of that, jguk 20:38, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with this proposal. Also, because the proposal would be a major change, I will give it the publicity it deserves. Maurreen 01:09, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There might be a few minor changes I would support, such as changing 'mi/h' to the more familiar 'mph'. But otherwise I would point out:

The correct abbreviation is 'e.g.' not 'eg'.
'4–7' is equivalent to '4 through 7', but neither is equivalent to '4 to 7'. (It would however be equivalent to '4 to 7, inclusive', but why bother with the extra word?)
I'm thinking anyone who bothers changing all the date references from [[February 12]], [[1809]] to [[12 February]] [[1809]] has too much time on his hands. —Mike 02:24, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

BCE in Y/M/D format

How is BCE used in representing a date in year-month-day style? I have been working on several articles which employ BCE dates and want to employ a stylistically correct form before proceeding furhter. Denni ☯ 01:59, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

See also