Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate

message: I moved this page back to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate as the move away was incompletely done (talk page got left behind) and there doesn't seem to have been any discussion regarding this move. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The talk page should have been moved, too.  I'm sure the box was checked.  You just didn't give Wikipedia time to catch up, before you changed it.  Gene Nygaard 08:20, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: Any solution that involves templates and/or CSS is a terrible suggestion. Frankly, it's a bad solution because it would require so much work to re-code the articles to make every year occurence fit this model, and because there is a serious negative server impact when you use templates on more than a very small percentage of pages. This, in short, can never be our long-term solution.   I would suggest that the developers be asked to provide an automated solution, just like the date formats (m/d/y) are a user preference today. -- Netoholic @ 19:22, 2005 May 16 (UTC)
:I agree this shouldn't be our long-term solution, and that a feature request be made to the developers. The developer/sysadmin team have an awful lot on their plate, so this is unlikely to be a priority for them. With that in mind, I think "terrible" is way too strong a word:
:# "So much work to re-code ... every year" - No. If there is one thing Wikipedians are good at it is making lots of trivial edits to articles. Particularly with bots. And of course it wouldn't be "every year" - a very large proportion of years do no need or have a disambiguator of these sort. Furthermore if the server side solution is implemented like the date thing was, all the instances of AD/BC/BCE/CE would have to be linked anyway - and I bet most are not at the moment.
:# "Negative server impact .. templates on more than a very small percentage of pages" - Well server-side preference-based processing will also have a negative server impact. We would need expert advice about which would be greater. What is a "very small percentage"? What percentage of page would need these templates?
:In short, your arguments against using this, particularly in the short term, are not strong so calling it a "terrible solution" is unduly harsh. Pcb21| Pete 07:38, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad idea 

message: This sections seems to have disappeared completely from the project page, unless someone can show where it is? So I've copied and pasted it here from the history. --Silversmith 15:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly - the current status of using what is appropriate for the article by the editors of that article is middle ground and what this proposal is trying to overturn. Trödel|talk 13:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All you are arguing, BlankVerse ∅ , is that this isn't an NPOV question and that we should keep the current policy in the Manual of Style. Why don't you just vote against the proposed change? Gene Nygaard 13:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not really an either/or vote, as voting oppose will stay with the current system, which allows for both. The reason we are really having this debate is because of the revert war on Jesus. I haven't voted as yet because my preference now is for doing the same for AD/CE that we do for the dates, Ie. user preference, which Angela and Chameleon have both suggested. Until we do something like that, I'm sure there will continue to be disputes and revert wars. --Silversmith 13:24, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Votes for some middle ground

message: Why is this page protected?  How can people vote? Jayjg (talk) 18:44, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It was protected because there were problems with the text: most of the proposal and discussion was duplicated and mixed up, making it way too long and impossible to follow.  I protected it when I was trying to fix these problems; when I fixed 'm, I unprotected it. 
===Why is this page weird-looking?===
On my watchlist, that is. El_C 21:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, it's fixed now. El_C 21:12, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is this page protected?

message: On my watchlist, that is. El_C 21:27, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, it's fixed now. El_C 21:12, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why is this page weird-looking?

message: I have implemented the preference-based date convention display using user style sheets and templates. Thankfully the suggestion Alphax makes works very well.
Please see User:Pcb21/ADCE_testing_page for the lines to add to your User:YourUserName/monobook.css page to change the display behaviour of dates wrapped in the  , , , ,  and   templates. 
Please note at the current time, this has been implemented as a way of getting feedback, and is not to be used on real articles whilst in this "beta" period.
Pcb21| Pete 19:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Preferenced-based date convention display implemented

message: Implementing this via the CSS display property is a bad idea, because the  wikitext then makes no sense without the CSS information. If you use a browser that does not support CSS (e.g. text-only browser, maybe also web-page readers), or any other program that tries to process Wikipedia data, it will get "year AD CE" (or the other way around), which doesn't make sense.
The proper solution would be do have the preference integrated with the date format preference.
--K. Sperling 01:46, 2005 May 17 (UTC)
:No-one has ever said that a full server-side solution wouldn't be better, but that is vapourware for the forseeable future. Text-only browsers have bigger problems with Wikipedia than this would be. Pcb21| Pete 07:18, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Any page on this issue somewhere else (not aware of one)? "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." () Are we going to do well on this if we cut out text-only browsers? I suppose it shouldn't matter, but I don't know. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 08:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote no 

message: We all agree that the only internationally standard numeration is the one that makes this the year 2006.  It is equally obvious to everyone that this system of numeration comes to us from Christians.  We may not like numbering everything forwards & backwards from a (historically erroneous) birth-year of Jesus, but we're stuck doing so anyway.  To me it is desirable to avoid stating, "Jesus' birth is the biggest, era-defining event in history."  But, to me, that is exactly what BCE/CE does, even moreso than BC/AD.
When I see BC/AD, I understand quotation marks, i.e., this is the year the Christians, who developed the numeration system I use, gave the name "300 before Christ."  Okay, duh, I knew that the reason I was stuck referring to pre-Christian antiquity according to this system was that some people considered a Messiah to have come around year 1.
What seems creepy to me about CE/BCE is that it takes a Christian numeration system and raises its authority even higher.  It says that Jesus' birth inaugurated a "Common Era."  This is so Soviet or French-Revolutionary in style, that it would be a nonsectarian modernization, except for the fact that the Common Era is still the Christian Era.  By using Jesus' birth as the basis of our system, rather than finding a nonreligious basis, and then applying grandly universalizing names to the Jesus-based numbers, we get the worst of both worlds.  If I don't accept Jesus' messiah-ship, or consider him the fulcrum of history, then with BC/AD I can see every date as saying, "Some Christians gave this year the name Year of Our Lord 1066.  Since I use their system based on their Lord, I'm not going to pretend it's anything other than a number based on the Year of (Their) Lord.  Until the world switches to Years of the First Internationale, this will have to do.  At least it's well-established."  But with BCE/CE, I'm endorsing the idea of a Common Era based on Jesus' birth.  Unlike BC/AD, this is no quaint tradition or something I can put mental scare quotes around—the whole point of BCE/CE is to get everyone referring to Jesus Years as "Common Era Years."  That's just too Evil Empire for me.
I'm well aware that my view is opposite to the intention of those who coined BCE/CE.  My point is that I think they failed miserably in their attempt to avoid the message that history revolves around Jesus.  I don't expect anyone else to share this view, but I offer it here, because as far as I can tell, no one else has given a valid reason why CE/BCE is objectionable because it creepily gives too much authority to the idea that the coming of Jesus as Christ established a "new era" for all of humankind.  Wareh 21:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: CE/BCE is just a more PC way of dating which is more universal. In any event, the turning point isn't actually the year of Jesus' birth, and people are far too lazy to switch over to a new calendar system. Indeed, any calendar system we use is arbitrary; what is year 0? We could come up with one, but how many people will use it? The year the US was founded? The year WWII ended/the year we dropped the nuclear bomb? The year we walked on the Moon? Titanium Dragon 06:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another Way of Looking At It 

message: I am not sure if this is relevant but BCE and CE are being interpreted by some as Before Christ Existed and Christ's Existence. It fixes the confusion of A.D. being actually 33 years too early, not accouting for Christ's life.
:: Does this mean that we'll have to find yet ANOTHER notation to satisfy the Christian-haters?
:::No, it just means WP needs better standards for forbidding voting as a way to resolve questions related to fundamental policies like NPOV (and maybe name-calling as well). Jmacwiki (talk) 06:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not even a very accurate re-interpretation, since (by an orthodox Trinitarian view) Christ has always existed as the second Person of the Trinity.    So we would want to refer to the date of birth rather than existence, if we were to use such an approach.  --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 13:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting Point on BCE/CE 

message: the standard academic and scientific notation for references to years is ce (common era) and bce (before common era). ad and bc are not standard scientific references. the use of bce and ce is not a slight against jesus, christianity, or any form of faith, it is simply the scientific way of referring a year. ad/bc implies a christian perspective, and then opens the door for a muslim to argue that we should date things with ah (anno hijra) or a jew to date the article according to the jewish calendar (which makes today the 13th of tamuz, 5768).
the scientific community uses ce and bce as the standard, neutral designations, which should be employed in wiki articles.  IsraelXKV8R (talk) 01:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nyet. Certain sections of the academic community maybe but if you actually run the searches on academic databases AD/BC dominates. Scientific notation doesn't actually use either at the moment (the last one it used was AD/BC). There are two sets of scientific notation in use at the moment. -/+ and BP. Neither of these are particularly useful as far as wikipedia is concerned since -/+ has a year zero which will appear to mess up a bunch of dates and BP lacks precision.Geni 03:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  bc/ad vs. bce/ce 

message: We have no real policy on this matter so pages randomly get a smattering of dates using different dating systems. It looks ugly when you go from one article to another and end up with AD or BC instead of BCE or CE. It has been several years, and while I'm sure there would be another argument about it, I think this subject should probably be revisited. Titanium Dragon (talk) 03:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No uglier than when you go from one book to another, or from an article using color to one using colour. I strongly oppose opening this subject again, or changing our present guideline, at WP:MOSNUM - one of its few uses. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is more divergent than that.  Issues such as this are unlikely to be resolved.  ClemMcGann (talk) 02:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:   Not only that, the Crucifixion was around 33AD.  So you'd be 33 years out.  And while I'm not a Christian, I thought the major tenet of their faith was that Jesus didn't die.  The debate is about Before Common Era vs Before Christ.  Ganpati23 (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: This is ugly

message: *There are many different calendars in existence with different year-numbering systems (ex. Hebrew Calendar) that we wouldn't use here because -aside from being less common in the western world- they wouldn't be NPOV. Wikipedia moves toward NPOV, not toward any one culture. BC/AD favors one POV/culture.<BR>
*The terms BC & AD have a religious connotation, maybe not in everday use, but from an encyclopedia POV, mainly because we DO have a neutral designation available to us : BCE & CE, thus rendering BC & AD non-neutral by comparison. This is similar to the denigration of the word "handicap". Better, more neutral terminology came along ("disability") and usurped the old.<BR>
*Would those that back BC/AD do so if the desgination used stood for "Being the year in which we praise Allah"? The point being, because the numbering system itself does not change, thus requiring no conversion to use, arguments for the continuing use of AD/BC smack of subterfuge for an agenda to push a non-NPOV.
*Ideally, a culturally neutral system wouldn't even use the Julian-Gregorian calendar but doing so would require a numerical conversion time consumption. What we CAN do, however is use CE/BCE because anybody confused by this is only confused once as it requires neither calculation nor extra time.
*Academia is moving toward CE/BCE; why shouldn't Wikipedia follow academia? Furthur, Wikipedia in many cases leads academia!<BR>
*More importantly: BC/AD are misnomers in the first place. Nobody knows when the historical Jesus was born. BCE/CE therefore has accuracy on its side Ipso Facto. (Our year numbering system is from the Julian Calendar, the Gregorian was just an adjustment, therefore "Common Era" is a more accurate term).<BR>
CONCLUSION</B><BR>
This is an argument for accuracy. CE/BCE is more accurate, more scholarly, in turn lending increased authenticity, befitting of Wikipedia.<BR>
Tangverse (talk) 10:35, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Loads of old terminology are abandoned for the sake of accuracy. Let's be "current", not "handicapped". 

message: Why does Wikipedia have to be neutral?  Where are its headquarters?  In a Christian country!  (Try basing yourself in elsewhere in the world and you might not be able to be neutral!)	 
 	
CE and BCE can stand for 'Christian Era' and 'Before the Christian Era' - an own goal to the political correctors
	
BC and AD - if these are offensive (and what most people mean by 'offended' is false indignation), we should also refuse 'January', alluding to a Roman God.  As a Christian, I might find that 'offensive'.  Oh dear, I am dreadfully offended, look, 'Saturday' - more Roman Gods ....... grow up.  We've always used BC/AD.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by T A Francis (talk • contribs) 16:11, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: There are further questions and comments.

message: delete this article plz 94.134.108.8 (talk) 15:42, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: ce isnt common era its chistian era ditto 4 bce 94.134.108.8 (talk) 15:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  delete this article plz 

message: I sugest we change all dating systems across the entire planet (chinese calendar, arab calendar, inuit, maori, etc). 
We must endeavour at all cost to rename everything, all attributes of all things since ever. 
Also, in the same spirit we must keep renaming everything for ever. 
We alone can stop the horrors of names that other people give to things everywhere. 
Tldr=
remove and rename all:
Dates, 
Atrributes, 
References,,
Descriptions, 
Clacifications, 
measurement systems. 
Please add to the list where relevant.
Thank for you cooperation. 94.252.80.211 (talk) 12:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  chinese calendar, arab calendar... Etc. 

message: The Gregorian Calendar corrected the Julian Calendar. It was a scientific accomplishment by the Vatican clergy and scientists that took a long time to realize. Therefore, they are entitled for a acredit. If they elected to use AD and BC, their election must be respected. Using CE and BCE instead is  an infringement that must be rejected. Nabil Swedan. Nabilswedan (talk) 03:58, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common Era infringes on discovery