Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 63

message: *Within a context or a list, style should be consistent. Example: There were 5 cats, 12 dogs, and 32 birds. or There were five cats, twelve dogs, and thirty-two birds.
Is there a clearer definition of "context"? Something like "He is nth place in RBI (three-digit number) and nth place in stolen bases (two-digit number)" would be confusing because it looks like there are two contexts intertwined (and often viewed as one context). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vic226 (talk • contribs) 18:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (Damn, got caught by HagermanBot :( ) Vic226(chat) 18:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure it's possible to be definitive about what makes a "context", because it could be very subject-specific. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that sentence, I would consider the two places in the same context, and each of the numbers in parentheses in their own contexts — but then again, you could apply the "list" one to that sentence, because if you remove everything in parentheses, you'd find that it's sort of a list.  Neonumbers 10:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Context (Number in words) 

message: *April, 2006
*April of 2006
Which one should we standardize on? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 10:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Pardon? What would be the need to standardise on anything here?
*:We don't need to even create an online encyclopedia, yet we do. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 11:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: *: However, we don't create Wikipedia guidelines for the fun of creating them. If there's no issue to address, this is called rulecruft, per Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep. "Instruction creep" is the equivalent of "non-notable" in main namespace, and gets deleted. So if you can't demonstrate making a choice between "April, 2006" and "April of 2006" is beneficial for the encyclopedia, there's not going to be a rule about it. Further, if you'd have read the below, you'd have gotten the hint that, as far as page names are concerned, current standardisation seems to go toward April 2006, and neither "April, 2006" nor "April of 2006". No problem for me to add that to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Articles on other standard time periods --Francis Schonken 11:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: **:Done, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Months --Francis Schonken 12:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Only for page names, arguably, some standardisation *might* (that is if this would be a real problem, as in: matter of dispute) be in order. In which case Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) is the relevant guideline, and not this MoS page. Note that May 1968 is an example on that NC guideline page, in this paragraph (I added some bolding):If a time indicator is used in the title of an article on an event that doesn't recur at regular intervals (or didn't recur at all) there's no "standard format" for the representation of the time indicator, so there is for instance: Crisis of the Third Century; German Crusade, 1096 (one of the developments of the First Crusade); May 1968, etc... The format of the date depends, in these cases, from established practice in history books and the like. In general, however, abbreviations for years or months are avoided (e.g., May '68 → May 1968); for centuries numerals are given in text, capitalised (e.g., Crisis of the 3rd century → Crisis of the Third Century)So, neither "May, 1968" nor "May of 1968" as page name for the content (but both can be redirects of course). And in all other articles you use what is most appropriate. Which may be "May of 1968" or "May, 1968" as you choose, for example for something that happened in the US, and has no relation to what is described in the May 1968 article. --Francis Schonken 11:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Note also that currently April 2006 is a page name, without April, 2006 nor April of 2006 redirecting to it. Feel free to create these redirects. --Francis Schonken 11:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

text: ...ummm, yes, April 2006 is the correct format, and has been for quite some time, and neither month nor year should be linked.  Neonumbers 23:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Month and Year only