Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 68

message: There is a discussion going on at Talk:Daedalus class battlecruiser (from Stargate) regarding how the name of a piece of fictional technology should be written. Is it "Mark VIII tactical nuclear warheads" or "Mark 8 tactical nuclear warheads"? The name is only ever spoken on the show, and we have no written reference supporting either notation. Any comments? --Tango 22:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you tried checking the Stargate webpage? If it's mentioned there, use whichever they use. If not, "Mark VIII" is more traditional than "Mark 8" and therefore the more likely, so I'd opt for the former until such time as the show's webpage publishes something different. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't checked personally, but I doubt it will be there. It's just a throwaway line, I doubt anyone really considered what to name them, just whoever was writing that script picked a name out of thin air. If someone publishes an official "technical manual", then we're sorted, but I don't believe there is one yet. --Tango 10:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I say flip a coin! Rock, paper scissors? Alan.ca 10:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Definitely "Mark VIII"; that notation is overwhelmingly traditional for such things.  — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 18:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Slightly off-topic, but can I put out a plea that we try to encourage "Mark x" as opposed to "Mk.x" — note the lack of a space, as well as the abbreviation. It crops up a lot in automotive articles, with no official-usage justification that I've seen anywhere, and to my mind it looks sloppy. – Kieran T (talk) 23:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Often it's given as "MK-VII" or whatever, or "Mk-VII".  If there is an "official" reason (it is in fact the published, and reliably sourceable, name of the car), then go with that abbreviation; to "correct" it in that case would in fact be an error.  If it can't be sourced, spell it out.  This is really no different from any other case of abbreviating in Wikipedia:  "Died on Friday, 21 June 2006", not "Fri."; but "...in her memoir, Fri. and Sat. Nights in Vegas...", if the abbreviated version really is in the title of the book (or in the quotation, or whatever).  It's just part of the general maxim that the encyclopedia uses formal, encyclopedic writing, even if it seems longwinded to IM d00ds, LOL, ROFLMAO, but does not mess with quoted material, book titles, product and company names, etc.  L8R!— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mark 8 vs Mark VIII 

message: Isn't there research showing that even numbers as low as 2 read faster as numerals than as words? 216.179.3.122 17:11, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly so, but it's nearly universally considered bad English style, and can also encourage unnatural sentence constructions since sentences shouldn't start with numerals.  Since the style guide is mostly to standardize on something vaguely close to existing practice, I don't think we should go out on a limb and come up with our own "scientific style guide" based on cognitive science research, at least not in cases where predominant English usage is clear. --Delirium 03:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And the question remains, is there even such research at all? Even if there were, it is doubtful it was even conducted usefully. For example, "read faster" does not even equate to "understand better"; "freshman university students" that constitute many psychology studies does not equate to "Wikipedia readers". —Centrx→talk • 05:56, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Why?  Do you have some difficulty understanding the difference between "should" and "may"?  Gene Nygaard 23:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ouch.  That seemed a little harsh... — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numerals vs. numbers as words 

message: The page says "In country-specific articles such as Economy of Australia use only the symbol specific to the country, in this case $, with an italicized note placed at the top of the article to make this clear."
I think this is a very bad idea, because it clutters the articles, and distracs the reader from the actual introduction. Wikipedia has too many boilerplates as it is. Experienced users know to skip reading italic text before the article, but new users are distracted by all the apologies about capitalization in the title and whatever.
Anyway, why put the above sentence into this guideline and why? Was there any discussion leading to it? --Apoc2400 06:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I very strongly concur.  What should be done instead is the first occurrence should be AU$1234, and thereafter simply use $ because the context is now clear. Some might even argue for AU$1234 but I think this looks weird and is not as helpful. Some might also argue for AU$1234 the first time and AU$ unlinked thereafter, but I think that's a bit intelligence insulting and Yankeecentric, like every mention of a dollar that's not ours has to be disambiguated.  Pllllbbbb... — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 18:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note at top of page about currency is bad 

message: I can't seem to find any standard for this. Which one do we use? Associated Press style is "No. 1." Thanks! — Rebelguys2 talk 19:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: #1 is unknown outside North America, I think. But in what circumstances would you want an abbreviation for it? If it's the name of something, the spelling should be dictated by the source material. Stephen Turner (Talk) 19:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, I didn't know that about "#1." I guess "number one" should work; the press uses "No. 1" in the U.S. ... I guess I've somehow forgotten it was actually an abbreviation. Ha. Thanks. — Rebelguys2 talk 19:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Definitely spell it out as "number one" in general prose (and "number-one" when used as a compound adjective): "Its box office take was that month's number one"; "she was the number-one player that season".   "No. 1" is just headlinespeak and "#1" is adspeak; lazy and unencyclopedic.  But see ordinal numbers topic immediately below. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  #1 vs. No. 1 

message: When wikilinking the currency abbreviation (say, US$), should only the first use in an article (or section) be so linked, or every time it appears? Also, once it has been "introduced" (as "US$"), should it always be so written or is it subsequently permissible to use simply "$" (as long as it causes no confusion)? Askari Mark (Talk) 21:44, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say just wikilink the first, and you can abbreviate after first use (where not ambiguous, of course), just like any other editing case. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:21, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repetitive use of currency 

message: I thought I saw somewhere in Wikipedia the use of a template to collect and display both the birth and death dates of a person. I don't remember what it looked like, but I would hope that it would show the day/month/year formatted by user preference (but only if a full date is given), and also include a category tag for birth and death years, cutting that particular maintenance effort in half and eliminating the synchronization problem. (I edit people articles only infrequently, and even I've run into at least three incorrect birth or death dates in the past year, none of them apparently due to the ever-preesent vandalism, so this must be a not-uncommon problem.)
However, I couldn't find an obviously named template for this. None of the following somewhat overlapping templates do what I'd hoped for:
* 
* 
*  (and its redirect )
* , 
One other, , suggests the categorization element, but it doesn't seem to be in use yet, and I'm not familiar with the metadata syntax, so I'm not sure if it actually does what I expect.
I also found no allusion to any such templates in this guideline page's "Dates of birth and death" section, nor did I find anything in the past few archives (looking for "birth"). Is this issue being addressed somewhere I haven't looked yet? If not, might we consider it to reduce maintenance and synchronzation problems? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please bear in mind also the important potential of any such template to deliver the bday attribute of hCard (see also project microformats). Andy Mabbett 23:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Please bear in mind that  and  now deliver the bday attribute of the hCard microformat (see also project microformats). Andy Mabbett 13:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template for birth/death display & categorization