Talk:Common Era/Archive 7

message: A user from the IP address 88.110.58.57 recently made an edit that described A.D. and B.C. as abbreviations, and AD & BC as something else derived from those abbreviations. I disagree and have reverted. I belive A.D., B.C., AD, and BC are all abbreviations, and it is just a matter of style which is used. To support this position, I point out this passage from the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., p. 460, §14.2:
It is often an open question whether or not periods should be used with particular abbreviations. The trend now is strongly away from the use of periods with all kinds of abbreviations that have carried them in the past....It is simple enough for user of this manual to omit periods if that is the style they wish to adopt.
--Gerry Ashton 21:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Abbreviation

message: The following argument was introduced into the Opposition section:
*Changing the original BC/AD notations in favor of neutrality would suggest that other religious terms like "Wednesday", named for the god Woden, should all have their own euphemisms. To do this for every word and phrase with religious or sectarian connotations would be very time consuming and pointless, as almost every word has an originally religious or sectarian meaning.
I have moved it here until such time as a source is provided for this argument. The argument seems reasonable to me, but neither the opinion of the editor who introduced this, nor my opinion, is a valid reason to include it in Wikipedia. --Gerry Ashton 17:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Upon scouring the history of this page, I discovered that there was actually a similarly worded argument in place around December 2006, and it was somehow removed unnoticed. It had a (shared) source, and upon visiting the source it clearly mentions the "Weekday names argument". I've put that argument back in, so the one above need not be added. Thank you.— OLP1999 22:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New argument in the Opposition secton

message: "Common Era" is a proper noun, it does not refer to just any era that fits the description of being "common"—it is a label for a particular era with a particular beginning year. As such, the term should be capitalized. Most (but not all) occurrences of "Common Era" in the article should be capitalized according to stylistic conventions in English. However, many of them are not capitalized. Unless someone comes up with a convincing counterargument, I plan to correct the inconsistent capitalizations to bring the article in line with normal stylistic conventions in that regard. --71.175.22.69 18:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of "Common Era" 

message: This explains the rationale behind a recent change to the literal translation of "anno domini", which was overwritten by later edits by JimWae shortly after.
I changed the "anno Domini" to "(in the) year of (the) Lord". I put "in the" and the second "the" in parentheses on the basis of them not being in the literal meaning of the original Latin phrase. In his remark on the changes he made, JimWae wrote:
 "of" is not there either -- Latin uses declensions for prepositions
My rationale for not putting "of" in parentheses is that it is part of the meaning of domini, although not written as a separate word.
I invite other contributors to share their thoughts on my use of parentheses. --71.175.22.69 19:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you read the reference for that sentence (Blackburn & Holford-Strevens). Your change is not supported by the reference, so you should have either refrained from making any change, or removed the reference and replaced it with something better. --Gerry Ashton 20:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not cite that reference. I was correcting a problem with the literal translation. You have a valid point about removing or replacing the reference to preserve consistency. --71.175.22.69 02:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would also point out that we are under no obligation to translate foreign languages literally, and when a certain foreigh phrase is translated into English frequently, the most common translation is probably better than a literal one. --Gerry Ashton 05:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literal meaning of "anno domini" 

message: This perspective that "crosses the aisle" may be useful as a possible resource for the article.  In it an evangelical seminary scholar suggests that BCE/CE be used in writing for a general audience.  --Blainster 18:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Scholar's essay

message: The article is currently relying rather heavily on this source, which it cites as "BBC". Let's be clear that this essay does not represent BBC policy and was not written by a BBC journalist. In fact, it's from a kind of "Wikipedia-lite" section of the BBC and can be edited by anyone. For this reason, it cannot be considered a Reliable Source in the Wikipedian sense. It's not a bad essay, and I've no objection to including it in the External Links section, but we should be looking for higher-quality citations.
: You are correct about the provenance of that piece, I should like to object to h2g2 being referred to as 'wikipedia-light'.  To quote from the Wikipedia entry on h2g2 "h2g2 was founded in April 1999 as the Earth edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the author of the series, Douglas Adams, and his friends and colleagues at The Digital Village. "h2g2" serves as a handy abbreviation for that rather lengthy title, with the advantage that most people are able to spell it.
:: It is true that listing the "BBC" as the source in the Notes section is quite misleading.  One could argue that linking to a Wikipedia-like source is almost tantamount to Wikipedia linking to ITSELF as a source.  Therefore the validity of using this citation is very questionable, IMHO.  Regardless, the Notes have been changed so that the source is now cited more correctly as "BBC H2G2 User-generated encyclopaedia" to remove any ambiguity regarding whether a BBC-sanctioned author wrote the article. 
The Tolerance is another one that tends to get more cred in these kinds of debates than it really deserves. Just to clarify things, none of the people involved in the site have scholarly credentials in religious studies or other relevant areas - the main author is a retired engineer. It's not a bad web site, by any means, but it shouldn't be treated as if it were a scholarly journal or equivalent - i.e., it's not a Reliable Source. CJGB (Chris) 16:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quality of sources (BBC, Religious Tolerance) 

message: What is now the second paragraph of the Usage section has just been added by AncientEyes. I have some issues with the new paragraph.
#The citation to Toynbee is to a 12 volume work; I think it is unreasonable to give a citation to such a large work; specific volumes and pages should be given, or at least specific volumes and chapters.
#The citation to Toynbee is not properly formatted; the publisher should be given in this article, not in a Wikilinked article.
#Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources, so the wikilinks to recognition, mind control, and negationism are not references. Unless these portions of the paragraph are supported by Toynbee, they should be removed, or reliable sources should be found.
#The paragraph uses the weaselwords such as "Many people" and "some". Rather than vague references to some unknown group of people, surveys published in reliable sources should be quoted. --Gerry Ashton 00:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources for Usage section

message: It appears that the effort to include logical references to the opposition to this topic is disallowed on this site. Perhaps this is because of an underlying goal to change this traditional approach to history. The start of the Usage section is as Weasil as anything I wrote. I have thus proven here that the effort is to change a societal norm and replace it with one that is based only on the preferences of a distinct grouping of the populous that has rushed to control the editing of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.AncientEyes 05:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with AncientEyes' criticism of the first paragraph in the Usage section. I have provided a reference, and reworded it to only say what can be supported by the source. --Gerry Ashton 06:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Usage

message: How prevalent is this term in relation to the Common Era? Era Vulgaris redirects here, but does not seem to occupy much importance in this article. Should it redirect instead to Era Vulgaris (album)?–Skomorokh 13:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Speak up or the redirect gets it. Skomorokh 19:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that Era Vulgaris should continue to point to this article. One reason is that a person who comes across the term "Era Vulgaris" in old documents is more likely to need help finding an appropriate article than a person who is interested in the album. Also, I would guess that over a long period of time (say, 50 years) more people will be interested in the era than in the album. --Gerry Ashton 19:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the term ''Era Vulgaris'' 

message: I have moved the following argument here because there is no source provided:
*The use of "common era" suggests that the the "christian era" is a "common one", and thus may be seen to suggest in a subversive way the predominance of a colonial christian worldview 
Does anyone know where this argument came from? (One way to discredit this argument is to note that the common era is in fact commonly used throughout the world, whatever the reasons behind the usage might be.) --Gerry Ashton 05:34, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Argument without source

message: I think my main problem with using the term in the first sentence is that it is mentioned in the second sentence. "Christian era" isn't actually a commonly used term, whereas the Latin version is (or at least AD is). It just strikes me as a bit of POV to equate it with "common era": and yes, I understand we're talking about the same numerical years, but it's a subtle POV push, IMO, especially when it's mentioned in the very next sentence. Freshacconci 14:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the term "Christian era"" is appropriate in the first sentence because some readers will arrive at the article looking for information about the abbreviation "CE", and those readers should be alerted to the possibility that "CE" might be short for "Christian Era" in some contexts. Also, the CE disambiguation page mentions Christian Era, so I think this article should be consistent with that. --Gerry Ashton 15:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

text: i have personally read many religious citations to CE as Christian Era. that issue alone, IMO warrants acknowledgment of the term first off, to avoid confusion. Some thing 18:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I have to agree with Freshacconci. The use of CE and BCE merely seems to be the attempt of some people to throw off anything to do with Christianity. When you can interpretate CE to mean anything you want, it doesn't really mean anything at all. This article needs some unbiased editing, it should just give the facts instead of trying to push away the most commonly used "AD" and "BC" as radical Christian marks upon dating methods. I would also be very interested as to some information about why "CE" and "BCE" were invented, who invented them, and why. JazzFrog66 15:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Re: Christian era

message: When adding material to this article please restrict your entires to reliable sources, not any website you happen to find discussing the subject. http://studentsfriend.com/feed/topic11.html and http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1290168 do not qualify. Jayjg (talk) 02:51, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable sources 

message: I just noticed that a source that is cited 10 times in this article, number 26, is operated by the BBC, but according to a help page, "The Guide is written by visitors to the website - people like you". I suggest that this makes it an unreliable source (like Wikipedia) and the statements supported by that source should be reconsidered. --Gerry Ashton 01:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed the points in the Support and Opposition sections that were based on this source. One argument had other sources too, so I left it. I was able to find an alternate source for the accuracy argument. --Gerry Ashton 18:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: h2g2

message: Please rewrite. Who prefers this notation? 85.227.226.149 18:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As for "is preferred by some", I think this is a valid paraphrase of the article by Andrew Hermann that is cited at the end of the paragraph. That article says, in part, "The changes -- showing up at museums, in academic circles and in school textbooks -- have been touted as more sensitive to people of faiths outside of Christianity." --Gerry Ashton 19:06, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't see a reference to support the sentence that starts "Some criticize…" but I do see support for the sentence that starts "Others criticize…" The same article by Andrew Hermann says "The use of BCE and CE have rankled some Christians. In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention criticized the use of BCE and CE, calling them 'the result of secularization' and 'political correctness.'" --Gerry Ashton 19:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "is preferred by some" 

message: The whole section with the support and opposition of the idea seems very un-NPOV to me. It specifically shows opinions and does not have any disclaimer to suggest that these are opinions and not facts. In fact, some of them seem to be the starters of an edit war. I think this section of the article should be deleted, as per the article, it is already noted that there are ongoing debates on each use, there is not need to put your personal opinions and disguise them as a wikipedia article section Mishy dishy 05:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree:  The deletion of the CE/BCE vs. AD/BC section would improve the article's neutrality, IMO. There has been a great deal of discussion on this page about the problems of the section. The net result of these discussions has been the conclusion that it needed cleaning up. However, attempts to do that have failed and the section remains a drive-by repository for opinions. Let's be bold and delete it. Then if someone later wished to write a proper summary of the debate in narrative form, that might be fine. As it stands now, it is not neutral and has little redeeming value. Sunray 19:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. I don't think you can adequately explain the history and meaning of the era notations without outlining the areas of disagreement. You can't eliminate controversy by ignoring it, and an encyclopedic entry shouldn't be stripped of an integral part of the history of this type of notation. If you leave out the disagreements, people will put it back but minus any of the improvements that have been made prior. Avruch 13:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The support & opposition section does appear far from NPOV. Avruch is correct that the controversy is an intrinsic part of the BCE-CE/BC-AD articles. But either we have to stick that section precisely as it is here into the Anno Domini article as well (and keep them the same in the future, rather you than me), or it has to go to a separate page, e.g. 'BC-AD and BCE-CE controversy' with in both articles only a short (not necessarily identical) text in a section 'BC-AD versus BCE-CE' that at its top shows main article: BC-AD and BCE-CE controversy.I'm not suggesting this as a way to get a separated POV-pushing article (against which WP:NPOV warns) or to get the controversy far out of sight: Also on such separate page we must avoid the problem with the current lists, e.g. a sourced BCE/CE opposers' argument states "If we do end by casting aside the A.D./B.C. convention, almost certainly some will argue that we ought to cast aside as well the conventional numbering system itself, given its Christian basis." but in that opposer's section there is no counter-argument possible, e.g. that it makes a difference for people from other cultures and religions to accept the calender that is most widespread in the world they already accept to be internationalizing and mainly using the English language for international contacts, and these people themselves having to actually use phrases that mean "in the year of the Lord". The year of the Lord is now 2550, the Lord Buddha, I mean. Hence each topic that is used by supporters or by opposers, should be handled one by one with the pro/contra arguments for that topic (which will be more BC-AD for some argumentations, more BCE-CE for others, for many it will mainly depend on the reader), instead of an apparent competiton of getting the longest list of arguments, that also forces the reader to see each type of argument as belonging into the one camp or into the other, needlessly and very unNPOV-like jutting the reader to take a side in the controversy. — SomeHuman 08 Sep2007 03:01–03:09 (UTC)
I agree with Gerry Ashton, Sunray and SomeHuman that we should not have a "Support" vs "Oppose" section. It is structured in an unacademic way that invites users to type in their own preferred argument. Much of what is there is unreferenced, is not supported by the reference cited for it, or is referenced to something that is not a reliable source. That's not to say that we should ignore the controversy surrounding the usage of BCE and CE. Avruch is certainly right in saying we would be wrong to ignore it, and Sunray also notes that "if someone later wished to write a proper summary of the debate in narrative form, that might be fine". (My only disagreement with this is that I think someone will have to write a proper summary of the debate in narrative form at the same time as they remove the current "Support" vs "Oppose" section if they are going to have much of a chance of getting the removal to stick.)
So in summary, I believe the "Support" vs "Oppose" section should go, to be relaced by a proper summary of the debate in narrative form. Foula 17:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV? 

message: The article states, "major museums in the English-speaking world," but then goes on to give examples of American institutions. Likewise, most of the rest of the usage section talks about usage in the US, and the sources have a heavy US bias. I would say that either some effort needs to made to find a wider supply of sources, or that the article should explicitly say that the use of BCE/CE is predominantly an American usage. --DrHacky 04:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that more sources external to the US should be found, but I disagree that lacking those sources we should imply that the sources do not exist (i.e., that the use "is predominantly an American usage"), as I'm fairly certain that the use of BCE/CE is actually more common outside the US than within. I'm sure some non-Americans can and will find and supply such sources, so my disagreement is presumably only academic (assuming I'm right). Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 13:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: CE/BCE is not well-known outside the US - I would suggest. However, I would like to take issue with one of the points used to support CE/BCE. National Geographic Society publications are cited as an example of where the usage is "typical". Nonetheless in the August 2007 edition the article on the Maya civilization uses BC/AD. I don't know if this particular use is atypical, but if the NG uses a mixture then I would suggest it is not a good reference to use in support of the CE/BCE notation. 86.31.116.163 17:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When it's said that the National Geographic Society typically uses CE/BCE, where is this typical usage to be found? In the August and September issues of their magazine AD and BC are repeatedly used and CE and BCE aren't used at all. The use of NG in the context of support for CE usage is clearly not a good one. I'll remove it from the "Support" section of the article unless anyone can come up with a good reason why it should stay. 86.31.127.31 17:14, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears that National Geographic's policy on use of BCE is similar to that of Wikipedia's. To permit use of BCE by authors for non-Christian subjects. Examples: ,  , . Sunray 19:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

text: There is a difference between permission and prevalence. I used the phrase "permit the use of BCE." Obviously the use of BC/AD is much more common. That doesn't change the fact that NG allows the use of BCE/CE. Sunray 14:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The current phrasing currently reads, however, "the Society typically 'uses the terms BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era).'" This apparently is not true (and is also unsourced). Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 15:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, indeed. Since the word "typically" was not part of the quote, I removed it. Sunray 15:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Don't know where that quote comes from. I was just reading what it said. I'm going to put a citation needed tag on it. Sunray 20:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough. Citation tag rather than deletion is perhaps more appropriate. On the subject of citation tags, there seems to be a lot of them, in both the support and opposition sections. I would contend that the points being made, apart from that relating to NG and recently tagged, are axioms and don't require citation. Should we remove all these unsightly tags? 86.31.127.31 17:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of the tagged arguments are cleary true, but we have no proof that people who support or oppose the (B)CE notation actually use these arguments in support of their positions. Do we really want a Wikipedia article to be making its own arguments for or against the notation, even if the arguments are true? --Gerry Ashton 17:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It's tagged with a "citation needed" tag, so I think we should give people enough time to find a cite. If I cite cannot be found, the statement should be revised to just say that NG uses the term — since they do. Sunray 18:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll wait a bit longer to see if someone can provide a citation, then. I would note again that google searches show that fewer than 1% of their onsite articles that have cause to use BC or BCE notation use BCE notation. That is indicative either of NG's house style being to use BC, and the proofreader just overlooking changing BCE to BC in those articles, or otherwise that only a very, very small proportion of their contributors make a free choice to use BCE notation rather than BC notation. Whichever of the two it is, it hardly constitutes much in the way of "support" for BCE. Foula 18:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because of the renown of NB, the fact that BCE/CE is used at all is noteworthy, IMO. Sunray 18:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Foula. NG appears to use BCE on an occasional basis. As such, it can hardly be used as an example of an institute that supports the notation. I concur with the suggestion that the paragraph should be removed immediately. 86.31.127.31 22:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: "*The National Geographic Society (2006) states that because "Many scholars and editors working today in the multicultural discipline of world history use terminology that does not impose the standards of one culture on others," the Society "uses the terms BCE (before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era).""
This is on the grounds that, not only is it unreferenced, it also appears to be wholly wrong. The NG website uses BC notation over 99% of the time, with the instance of BCE notation being consistent with there being a small number of proof reading errors. An earlier user has noted that NG's main publication continues to use BC notation. If someone provides new sources that would support the re-insertion of the statement I have removed, or the insertion of a slightly modified version of it, then fair enough, but until then, I do not think we can make the claim. Foula 15:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Widespread usage 

message: There is a note at the top of this section that says "It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Calendar era". This links to a discussion on Talk:Calendar era that happened in January 2007, where four or five users supported the merger, with one opposing.
It still seems sensible to me that we should merge the "Other calendric eras" into the article on Calendar era. The section really offers nothing about the Common Era, other than perhaps highlighting that there are alternatives to the Anno Domini-Common/Christian Era dating system. I think it would be better to do this by having a short paragraph saying this, and then linking through to Calendar era, rather than give all the details of alternatives. Before doing so, since the original discussion stalled some months ago, I thought it would be appropriate to let others comment on the proposal, if they so wish - hence this post. Foula 17:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Seems non-controversial, but I agree it's best to allow others to weight in. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 20:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I object most strongly in the way this is being done.  Before deleting the paragraphs from his article, the article into which they are to be merged should be updated - then, once the merge has been done is it time to start deleting text from this article.  Am undeleting pro tem. WLDtalk|edits 19:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would also say that the point I made previously about the proposed merge still stands: "The information in the Common Era article should be retained in that article, as it prevents giving the (false) impression of a dichotomy between the use of AD/BC and CE/BCE." WLDtalk|edits 19:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other calendric eras - merge? 

message: A major omission on our section about usage is that it does not refer to usage in Jewish publications. Searching on the internet, I have been unable to find any Jewish online publication anywhere in the world that uses BC notation. This is generally untrue of any other possible groupings of people I search under. BCE notation appears to be very rare outside the US, with only a small number of exceptions about. It's surely worth noting that Jewish publications take the opposite approach, especially as it is Jewish academics and Jewish publications that popularised the term.
Does anyone have any ready references to support this? If not, I'll add comments based on things I can justify through web searches (eg it's easy to search the Jerusalem Post or Jewish Chronicle). Any other ideas on how to improve our content in this regard? Foula 17:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a great excerpt from what appears to be a reliable source:Jews do not generally use the words "A.D." and "B.C." to refer to the years on the Gregorian calendar. "A.D." means "the year of our L-rd," and we do not believe Jesus is the L-rd. Instead, we use the abbreviations C.E. (Common or Christian Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era).I am strong with the Google-fu, but my writing is not so good, so feel free to rewrite what I add. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 21:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage - a major omission 

message: The book written in 1716 by Prideaux was The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations. However, it was written by Humphrey Prideaux (not Bishop John Prideaux, who lived much earlier). Humphrey was a D.D., definitely a Christian & apparently an anti-Deist, anti-Jewish & anti-Muslim - but never a bishop. Pieces of the book are available for free download at http://www.exorthodoxforchrist.com/augustus_neander_and_more_books.htm - but the text seems incomplete & is not searchable by computer. The online pieces are from a 1845 reprint of the book (it had many). It does not appear to me that the full work is downloadable even if you pay. Perhaps someone can find where he uses vulgar era (AD & BC & such are there aplenty). Perhaps somebody can find it online (JSTOR?) It seem the religioustolerance website was the original source of this info. Also see: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Humphrey_Prideaua --JimWae 06:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  First usage of "Vulgar Era" or "Common Era" in English 

message: * The idea that years designated as "AD" are a common era is a bit misleading.  Many social, political, religious, technological, scientific and even agricultural revolutions and discoveries have been made since the first century. Various other dates have been offered as substitutes for a new "common era," such as:
2001 - The year of the Terrorist attacks on the WTC,
1969 - The year Apollo 11 landed on the moon,
1961 - The year Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth,
1947 - The inaugural year of the United Nations,
1945 - The end of the second World War,
1865 - The end of the U.S. Civil War,
1815 - The end of Napoleon Bonaparte's reign, and the end of the French Revolution,
1789 - The adoption of the U.S. Constitution,
1492 - The year of Columbus's discovery of the New World,
--24.86.187.84 07:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from Article - unsourced & some very US specific 

message: It's heavily and properly cited, highly informative, and follows NPOV appropriately. Overall, given the sensitivity due to the nature of the matter and its religious contexts, this is a really well done article, moreso than many other articles. All in all, what exactly is the reasoning behind this article not being given a Featured consideration or review? As can be witnessed from this discussion page, this article hasn't even been given a rating of its quality assessment, showing that this article is being completely snubbed. Why exactly is this? Given its state, I say this article deserves more recognition than that.  Sage of Ice 02:23, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is a good article. 

message: Jclerman edited the article to try to explain that Common Era and Anno Domini dating uses index 1. I see a number of problems with this edit:
#The meaning of "index 1" is not immediately obvious in this context.
#The Wikilink went to a disambiguation page; that's always a bad idea.
#Once we figure out that "index 1" means that the year that begins at the beginning of the era is labeled "1", that still does not tell us that AD 1 coincides with 1 CE.
#The era was created by Dionysius Exiguus, but because either he did not adequately document his reasoning, or because his documentation did not survive, we don't know whether Dionysius considered the era to begin in what we would now call 2 BC, 1 BC, or AD 1. Thus, it isn't clear if "index 1" applies or not. --Gerry Ashton 05:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Index 1

message: Since AD and BC are, numerically, synonymous or eqivalent to  BCE and CE, the following applies also to these last two.
Both eras, AD and BC, are defined with counting origin (i.e., the first cardinal number assigned to them) "1" rather than "0". The number asigned as origin of a set we are counting can be any number. Most frequently used are "1" and "0". The "year 0" is introduced by some when they join both eras consecutively, AD and BC, in a sequence. Some thought that there should be a "0", for misunderstood arithmetic needs. 
We all use, sometimes inadvertentedly, origin 0 and origin 1, and ordinal and cardinal numbers to denote, describe, count the same objects, depending on, frequently, historical reasons. E.g., hardware was developed by engineers using origin 0. Thus the hard drives in our computers are numbered 0, 1, 2, ... n. When we use ordinal numbers to refer to them, we call them the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ... nth drive. Software might refer to them by letters.
:All calendrical articles, in fact, could be condensed in a few statemnts. Of application to the Gregorian Calendar, as defined:
:** The AD and BC eras are counted with origin "1". 
:** The AD era increases to the future.  
:** The BC era inceases to the past.
:* Corollary: there is no "year 0" intercalated between both eras.
:Suggested TODO:
:Recast sentences using the appropriate wikilese, insert the few relevant references, and for deference to the zero and zeroth confusion explain that both scales don't need to be in sync, e.g., the 1st term can be 0, or -679, or any other number. This applies also to deconvolute the elaborate discussions concerning an  inexisting 13th floor. The 13th floor exists always, but sometimes it is assigned the number 14. 
:Jclerman 21:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The explaination suggested by Jclerman does not belong in this article. If it belongs anywhere, it is in the Anno Domini article, because that article is about the substance of the system, while this article is merely about why some people prefer one term over another. This article should just explain that a given year has the same number whether it is labeled AD/BC or CE/BCE. --Gerry Ashton 12:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  counting - let's use origin rather than index 

message: * Wikipedia:Eras is closed to discussion at present. David Lauder 14:24, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia:Eras

message: I am perplexed at the argumentative value of some of the arguments brought in support to this notation, especially the first three:
:*The label Anno Domini is almost certainly inaccurate; "scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before A.D. 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating."
Then CE / BCE is also inaccurate because it the years are numbered identically in both. This is a valid point against the etymological accuracy of the AD/BC system, but not necessarily a supportive point to CE/BCE in particular.
:*It is simple to change from BC/AD to BCE/CE notation, since the years are numbered identically in both (e.g., 33 BC becomes 33 BCE), Documents with years that do not have AD designation do not need to be changed at all (e.g., 1066 remains 1066 in AD and in CE systems).
So? I can devise any arbitrary system with any arbitrary name which copies the existing one. This statements merely says that the new system will be absolutely identical to the previous one. But then why this should be in support of changing?
:*Both BCE and CE are used as suffixes, unlike BC/AD where BC is used as a suffix and AD as a prefix. This can be beneficial for computer usage
This happens only in English as, for example, in Italian both a.C. and d.C. are suffix. The same argument could be brought supporting a system which replaces AD (prefix) with AC (suffix).
:*Evidence that AD and BC have not lost their religious significance is the fact that much of the opposition, some of it intense, to switching to usage of CE and BCE has been on religious grounds.
Uh? :?:
Honestly, the only argument that has a meaning is the fourth:
:*"Use of BCE and CE shows sensitivity to those who agree to use the same calendar, but are not Christian."
That is, the true reason behind the usage of this system is that some secular westerners want to remove the traces of their religious heritage from their convention. I don't blame those who want to live in a secular society where the choice of religious not based on rational facts will not influence them, but I don't see why a convention bound to the history of Europe, and thus deeply connected to Christianity, should be changed for absolutely no reason. As a secular person myself, I can see this not being a tribute to Christianism - just the acknowledgment of its importance in the history of our civilization.
Apologies for not logging in, it's been a while since I used Wikipedia. --81.1.121.116 01:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some Support arguments are nonsensical

message: The Common Era cann't be identical to the Christian Era, since at the most a third of all human beings on Earth are christians. See the new Common Era Calendar, starting with a defined exceptional not-leap year zero for the first 365 days of AD 1792. -- Halloo 007 21:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The new Common Era 

message: "...we ought to cast aside as well the conventional numbering system itself, given its Christian basis."?
Conventional numbering system is Hindy-Arabic, brought in Europe in 12th-13th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals). Other more or less common numbering systems (Roman and Greek) where present before Christianity. Link given just contain already given sentence without any further reference.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanenbau (talk • contribs) 15:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, this statement is troublesome. I'm sure that's why it was directly quoted instead of reworded as a factual statement... It falls apart under scrutiny. I interpreted it as a reference to a base-10 number system, it's rather ambiguous. Oasisbob (talk) 12:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbering system? 

message: There are many details about how Dionysius came up with the year he did for the Incarnation of Jesus. Do we really want to work on this in two different articles, and have to patrol two different articles for the introduction of any of the many misconceptions that surround this topic? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved some information from the footnote to the article for three reasons. First, most Wikipedia articles contain only references in footnotes, not content, so people who only want to read content will never see content burried in a footnote. Second, one of the notations for BC, "BCE", redirects to this article, so information related to the origin of BCE is relevant in this article. Third, this article lacks an alphabetical list of references, so any reference that does not occur in the first few words of the footnote will probably be missed by a reader.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry Ashton (talk • contribs) 00:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dionysius details in this article?

message: The real question here is not if "CE" refers to "Christian Era" or "Common Era," and it seems that the meat of the matter was left off the page.
The meat of the matter is simple - AD/BC are measuring the time before Christ and After Christ, give or take a few years.  Thus, this is definitely the year 2007 AD (as of this posting).
CE/BCE should be measuring the time before and after a "common era."  This common era is undefined, however.  There is nothing that happened at the year 1 CE to create a "common era" in any part of the world.
I believe the argument should be added to the "opposed" list, but a source seems to be needed.  If a source is not found, then there is truly something wrong with people today.  Once a common era has been defined and agreed upon, then a proper CE/BCE dating system can be implemented.  This will, however, change the year.  People will not be willing to change the year they use from the AD/BC system to the CE/BCE system so readily, another reason to be opposed to it and should be added to the list.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.196.225.72 (talk) 11:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the usage of "common" is in referral to its "common usage within the Western and expanding world", not an actual event that occured at or near 1 AD.—Steven Evens (talk) 21:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the "Common Era"?