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{{Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive box}}
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== Numbers ==
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:::::This all started with [[Lisa del Giocondo]] using MDY, even though Italy used DMY and all related significant articles to that one use DMY... [[User:GiantSnowman|Giant]][[User talk:GiantSnowman|Snowman]] 18:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::Thanks, but I meant examples of "terminology used in the article" that is "tied to a certain order". [[User:Firefangledfeathers|Firefangledfeathers]] ([[User talk:Firefangledfeathers|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/Firefangledfeathers|contribs]]) 18:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I'll retract this for now, as I can't actually think of a good example. I'll update this if one pops into my head. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 19:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:I don't actually really care if you want to tweak the wording here. However, my ''strong'' position remains that we should use the local date format regardless of the language spoken. Remove "English-speaking countries" to reflect this. [[User:GiantSnowman|Giant]][[User talk:GiantSnowman|Snowman]] 18:01, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::I'm not at all opposed to changing the guidelines collectively so that they match your preference here. It's just that I do conceive of that as being a substantive change, and I'd like to see it run through the proper process. In the meantime, I think it's important that we have language in our guideline that is internally consistent. [[User:Firefangledfeathers|Firefangledfeathers]] ([[User talk:Firefangledfeathers|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/Firefangledfeathers|contribs]]) 18:19, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::I too think that {{u|EEng}}'s change (which was reverted by {{u|GiantSnowman}}) is constructive – it's very clearly just expressing what the current guidelines are ''meant'' to express, just didn't quite as clearly because (I suppose) nobody thought that the brief backreference to the more detailed language in DATETIES would be misinterpreted. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 18:24, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::I also agree that EEng's change was a good one that added clarity to established style. [[User:Doremo|Doremo]] ([[User talk:Doremo|talk]]) 18:34, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::I would agree with this, which reflects my impression of how most articles already are, except where someone has decided to make date format an issue. [[User:MapReader|MapReader]] ([[User talk:MapReader|talk]]) 19:32, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:"English-speaking countries" is appropriate in the guidelines. There is no reason why English-language material on Wikipedia should be subordinated to a pattern in a non-English language—whether this is date format, punctuation, alphabetization, calendrical system, numbering system, first/last name order, or any other language feature. [[User:Doremo|Doremo]] ([[User talk:Doremo|talk]]) 18:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::Actually, there are pretty clear distinctions there: some concern how a specific language is written, and others are invariant of the language being written. Also wait, name order? Are you suggesting we put every biography by default in given-family order, assuming there's not an existing English-language COMMONNAME? That's loony.[[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 18:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
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:That's not what anyone wants. DMY is preferable to MDY since we naturally don't use YMD. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 19:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::Yeah, the date formats used are DMY or MDY. In my experience Japanese topics tend to use MDY. [[User:GiantSnowman|Giant]][[User talk:GiantSnowman|Snowman]] 19:31, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Right, that's currently the case (since your suggested rule modification is not yet in force), but can anyone of us say with any certainly which date formats are usual in arbitrary non-English-speaking countries? If it's YMD or YDM or something like that, that would be quite awkward to try to mimic in English. Hence I think just striking "English-speaking" is not going to fly. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 20:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::::The usual Japanese format appears to be Y-M-D, written out in numerals, with kanji after each number specifying what it is [https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/03/dates-japanese-date-format.html]. If we were required to follow national ties for non-English-speaking countries, some kind of Y-M-D format would be the one. Probably YYYY-MM-DD since that's the only one in that order that matches our MOS. {{u|GiantSnowman}}, if you want the guideline to be "follow national ties only for countries that have M-D-Y or D-M-Y format and otherwise do something else" then you need to be more specific rather than focusing the current discussion on following national ties more generally for all non-English-speaking countries. It sounds to me like your intended proposal is really "allow Americans to use M-D-Y and force all other topics to use D-M-Y", regardless of whether that is relevant for the nation in question. Your experience of what we have historically tended to use for our articles on topics from those countries is not particularly relevant. National ties means ties to a format used by people in that nation, not accidents of past Wikipedia editing. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 20:47, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::Since, for good reasons, the "Manual of Style/Dates and numbers" only allows the YYYY-MM-DD format for dates from the year AD 1583 and onward, and only for Gregorian dates, some articles with strong ties to some countries in eastern Asia would not be able to use the YYYY-MM-DD format. And what about other than dates containing the year, month, and day. How would a date like June 18 be formatted? Where would an English-speaking editor find that information? [[User:Jc3s5h|Jc3s5h]] ([[User talk:Jc3s5h|talk]]) 20:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::Nobody is suggesting we use YMD, given that that is not an established format on English Wikipedia. [[User:GiantSnowman|Giant]][[User talk:GiantSnowman|Snowman]] 17:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::::[[List of date formats by country]]? [[User:Hawkeye7|<span style="color:#800082">Hawkeye7</span>]] [[User_talk:Hawkeye7|<span style="font-size:80%">(discuss)</span>]] 20:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::Since "List of date formats by country" was written and is maintained by the same editing community that inhabits this talk page, except editors seem to pay less attention to it, I pay no attention to it. [[User:Jc3s5h|Jc3s5h]] ([[User talk:Jc3s5h|talk]]) 20:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::To the list, or to this MOS page? [[User:Hawkeye7|<span style="color:#800082">Hawkeye7</span>]] [[User_talk:Hawkeye7|<span style="font-size:80%">(discuss)</span>]] 21:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I pay no attention to the article, because I have no confidence in its factual correctness. I pay attention to the style manual because style manuals are arbitrary decisions by a publication. [[User:Jc3s5h|Jc3s5h]] ([[User talk:Jc3s5h|talk]]) 21:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Jc3s5h, unsure if you're trolling or having AI write your responses for you? [[User:GiantSnowman|Giant]][[User talk:GiantSnowman|Snowman]] 17:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
I understand {{u|GiantSnowman}}'s concern about using the local date format regardless of the language spoken. However, I also recognize the concerns of other editors, such as {{u|David Eppstein}}, that using local date formats could introduce non-dmy or non-mdy date formats, such as Japan's yyyy-mm-dd.
To address both viewpoints, we could add a new sentence to the manual of style, such as {{tq|For articles about non-English-speaking country, the date format used should generally match the one most commonly found in English-language sources from that country.}} For example, in the case of Japan, the mdy format is used because English-language sources from Japan such as [https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/ NHK], [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/ Japan Times], [https://mainichi.jp/english/ Mainichi], [https://www.asahi.com/ajw/ Asahi Shimbun]and [https://english.kyodonews.net/ Kyodo News] all use it.. What do you think about this suggestion? [[User:Ckfasdf|Ckfasdf]] ([[User talk:Ckfasdf|talk]]) 03:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::No, no, no. First of all, a provision addressing articles "about a non-English-speaking country" is useless, because it would only apply to the articles [[Japan]] and [[Russia]] and [[Rwanda]] and so on. Second, changing "ties to an English-speaking country" to just plain "ties to a country" is an absolutely terrible idea, as I will describe below. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 08:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
:Not sure why we are duplicating the discussion that is at [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#MOS on date format by country]]. Anyway...
:Beware that Japan does <u>not</u> have a default English language format. They use whichever format they have business partners with or whichever format the individual person learnt from his/her teachers. If they deal more with Brits/Aussies then they use DMY. If they deal more with yanks then they use MDY. The sources you listed are all closely tied to finances and the US leads the world's economy (rightly or wrongly), so therefore they follow MDY. Plenty of other sources from other industries in Japan use DMY too.
:I'm in favour of adding an extra rule something like {{tq|For topics closely tied to a country that uses DMY or MDY (the 2 formats used in English) then that format should be used}}.
:And we continue to avoid local formats that are not DMY or MDY from prose, using the existing first-come rule for anything else. <span style="border:1px solid blue;border-radius:4px;color:blue;box-shadow: 3px 3px 4px grey;">[[User:Stepho-wrs|''' Stepho ''']] <span style="font-size:xx-small; vertical-align:top">[[User Talk:Stepho-wrs|talk]] </span></span> 06:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::Yeah, that would be fine with me too. Broaden the "close ties" rule, but only for cases where DMY or MDY are locally dominant. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 06:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::As for duplicating discussions: I think this is the best place to have this discussion, since it's the talk page of the page where the rule is formulated. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 06:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
:I think this would be fine. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 06:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::Do you mean the proposed "should generally match the one most commonly found in English-language sources from that country" wording? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 07:27, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 07:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::::Hmm, the more I think about it the more I think that that particular wording would be highly impractical to actually use. We know that DMY is dominant in Italian-language publications, but it would shift the burden to English-language publications coming out of Italy. Which are those, and how do we find them? Do we have to make statistics on English-language publications from (say) Ethiopia before we can write about topics related to that country? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 07:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::I don't see it as that problematic? Something like {{xt|If there is a clear preference in English-language publications from the country, use that. If not, defer to the choice of the first main contributor.}} Maybe you see {{xt|clear}} as a qualifier that will just be argued over, but I think it works as a safety valve here? [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 07:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{midsize|Oh no, I've just realized that both English People's Daily and Xinhua use MDY. What have I done! SCMP uses DMY though.}} [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 07:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
::::::Right, so there we have one publication that uses one style and two that use the other one. Is that a "clear preference"? Almost certainly not – just find another publication and the score might be balanced. Also, do you know which date style English-language publications from Italy prefer? Even if ''you'' know (certainly only after doing your research, since you can't know without) where would the results of this [[WP:OR]] be documented so that others can know too? And why should we suddenly be expected to do OR here, which in Wikipedia is otherwise forbidden? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 08:32, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Aye, I think I've now come around to EEng's formulation. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 08:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*This suggestion ("a country that uses DMY or MDY") is flawed for several reasons. First, it would make the English dependent on the patterns of a non-English language (i.e., follow the patterns of Korean, Finnish, etc. when writing about Korea, Finland, etc. in English). Second, many countries are not monolingual, and so the editor would need to choose which foreign language to imitate in English (note that it is ''languages'' that use DMY, MDY, YMD, etc., not countries per se). Third, it raises additional issues involving subordination of English to foreign languages (for example, Slovenian does not use the [[Serial comma|serial/Oxford comma]], and so by analogy the English serial/Oxford comma would be forbidden in articles about Slovenia or Slovenian topics). Fourth, this places an onus on editors to conduct original research on languages: who really wants to study date format in [[Tucano language|Tucano]] or [[Khoekhoe language|Khoekhoe]] before editing English-language articles about them? If the suggestion refers to "English-language sources from that country", this raises the additional burden of more original research (determining which English-language sources from county X are representative or dominant) and the problem that English-language sources produced in countries where English is not a native language are not reliable sources of standard English usage. The status quo at [[MOS:DATETIES]] and [[MOS:DATERET]] has worked well for years and should be retained. [[User:Doremo|Doremo]] ([[User talk:Doremo|talk]]) 07:35, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*:{{Tq|The status quo at MOS:DATETIES and MOS:DATERET has worked well for years and should be retained}}{{snd}}Amen. There are two issues here:
*:*''Question 1:'' Was my edit [https://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=1229617603] a substantive change, or merely a clarification of what was undoubtedly both the intent of the guideline and the (almost) universal understanding of it?{{pb}}''Answer:'' Gawaon (commenting above) has it right: my change was (if I do say so myself) {{tq|very clearly just expressing what the current guidelines are meant to express, just didn't quite as clearly because (I suppose) nobody thought that the brief backreference to the more detailed language in DATETIES would be misinterpreted}}.
*:*''Question 2:'' Instead of changing DATERET's "country" to read "English-speaking country" -- thereby making its wording consistent with DATEVAR -- should we instead change DATEVAR's "English-speaking country" to just "country", so that everything now just says "country"?{{pb}}''Answer:'' This would be a disaster. The reason DATEVAR and DATERET are what they are (i.e. the test is ''English-speaking'' country, not just country -- even if DATERET is elliptic on that point) is this:
*:**American editors (for example) find it dissonant to read that Roosevelt died {{nobr|"12 April 1945",}} while British readers feel the same about Churchill dying {{nobr|"January 24, 1965"}}. The strong-ties provision says what to do in those cases, and edit-warring is avoided.
*:**But what about [[Philip II of Macedon]]? Should he die {{nobr|"21 October 336 BC"}} or on {{nobr|"October 21, 336 BC"}}. Should we use strong ties to figure that out? If so, are his ties to Macedonia, which doesn't exist anymore? Greece, maybe? OK, let's say we eventually settle on Greece -- then we have to research, and maybe argue about, which date format is used in Greece. And for what? Greek readers are reading the Phillip article on the Greek Wikipedia, not ours. We're not going to get a lot of editwarring over Phillip's date format.
*:**This is why the guideline recognizes only ties to ''English-speaking'' countries: it's a restricted set of articles where "strong ties" are relatively easy to determine, where the associated country's date format is well known, and where editwarring to "correct" any Roosevelt-Churchill dissonance previously described is relatively likely. None of that applies to Phillip, and that's why the "first major contributor" test is the path of least resistance for that article (and other articles with no strong ''English-speaking'' country ties). (This isn't the best explanation I've ever given in my life, but it's the best I have time for.)
*:The purpose of the guideline is avoid style churn and editwarring, not to have the "just right" format for articles about Ethiopia. The idea that we're going to debate the {{tq|clear preference in English-language publications from the country}} is either a joke or part of a plot to destroy Wikipedia from the inside. I modestly propose that we adopt my extremely excellent edit (linked earlier) -- which doesn't actually change anything, but rather clarifies what already exists -- and drop this mad idea of changing "English-speaking country" --> "country", which would open a Pandora's box to no benefit at all. All in favor? [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 08:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*::In favor. Restore the clarification [https://en.wikipedia.org/?diff=1229617603] by EEng and maintain the status quo. [[User:Doremo|Doremo]] ([[User talk:Doremo|talk]]) 09:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*::Support the status quo ante (DATETIES applies only to English-speaking countries and DATERET applies in all other cases). Also support date formatting choices for readers (like we had 20 years ago). —[[User:Kusma|Kusma]] ([[User talk:Kusma|talk]]) 10:11, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*::In favour, let's keep the status quo, but including EEng's clarification which (while not changing it at all) makes misreadings less likely. I wasn't opposed to changing the rules to encourage DMY for countries where that's locally the default (many European countries at least), but making a clear-cut rule of out that seems more trouble than it's worth. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 10:43, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*::I say '''just so''' to EEng's edit at 8:45 in the morning on the 19th day of June in the year of our Lord 2024, Greenwich Mean Time. [[User:Jc3s5h|Jc3s5h]] ([[User talk:Jc3s5h|talk]]) 11:47, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*:::[https://m.youtube.com/shorts/DBswlZS8mFQ Shirley] you mean UTC. GMT went out with the horse and buggy. Jeesh. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 17:50, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*As stated by others, the purpose of a style guide is to make arbitrary style decisions once, so they don't have to be debated repeatedly. The guidance on strong national ties and retaining the initial variant in one sense acts against this principle, but it tries to avoid needless churn by allowing editors interested in a given topic to use what would be a natural format for them. Having to evaluate the preferred date format on a country-by-country basis for English-written texts in that country just opens up the door further for more debate, with little benefit since all these formats are understood by all readers, even if it's not what they're most used to. [[User:Isaacl|isaacl]] ([[User talk:Isaacl|talk]]) 14:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*: Why couldn't you have posted your short, incisive explanation last night, thus preempting me from inflicting my long, rambling post on everyone? [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 16:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*::It's all part of the process—you ramble, I ramble, I realize I'm wrong, we all grow a little bit. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 16:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
*:::It takes a Wikivillage to raise an editor. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 22:16, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
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