Talk:Gaius Valerius Flaccus (consul 93 BC)

message: Although this Flaccus commanded the largest number of troops in the western empire during the turbulent 80s, as far as I've been able to determine no account of his generalship per se exists -- that is, not one of his battles is narrated. If those of you from the military project have sources that indicate otherwise, but not the inclination to incorporate the material yourselves, please leave a note here. I would be glad to work in any additional information. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  military significance 

message: Note. The following discussion has been copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#dating conventions and is presented here unedited. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: When it was created, BCE was used, and according to WP:ERA that's what it should remain. We don't require consistency between articles. Some of our Ancient Egypt articles are BC, others BCE. Starting to require consistency would overturn the current compromise, as it could then be argued all articles should be BC/AD. Dougweller (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:ERA says: Do not change from one style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change, and consensus for the change with other editors. I completely replaced the content of the stubbish article that was the original, using "BC" in accord with my sources. The editorial consensus is implicit in the use of BC at List of Roman consuls and in the naming of articles on consuls who are disambiguated by means of consular year — this was discussed on the project page (see epic discussion here, where BCE was not even in play); I believe all of these disambiguated consul articles now use BC, unless some slipped through the cracks, and presumably the body text accords, so whether or not the era appears in the article title, there's 'substantial reason' for using a consistent system among the consuls, in part to make the consul box consistent throughout their articles. The other articles on Valerii Flacci also use the BC convention. Is that not collectively "substantial"?  Cynwolfe (talk) 17:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason for the provision in WP:ERA was to discourage the drive-by changing of dates, usually by editors who do nothing else and are playing factional politics. Changing the era as part of a thorough rewrite, in order to assure consistency between articles, is entirely reasonable, and an example of what is meant by "substantial reason". We could also settle this by using AUC, citing Varro, Obsequens, Niebuhr, and Mommsen, ;->  but on the whole I think that no service to the reader.  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the issue is how far does this go. What happens if someone then says that another set of articles covered by this Wikiproject should be brought into line? If we can draw the line here, and there was a discussion, I'm happy. If it then gets extended to another group of articles, I won't be happy at all. I've experienced this elsewhere, where someone was changing AE articles 'to make them consistent', but in that case there had never been any discussion. Dougweller (talk) 17:55, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The article in its present form had used the BC convention for almost two years before someone decided to change it. No reason for changing it was given, other than the stub had used it. More than a year and a half ago, I completely replaced the content, using BC (actually BC had been used as early as 2007). It's been that way since, except for another time when someone drove by and changed it to BCE, and then again it was changed back to BC. For a while, "BCE" was used in the article title, because I didn't know about doing a move when I was new at this. Then it was decided, against my wishes, that the date be removed from the article title completely (there are several Lucii Flacci who were consuls, and only one Gaius; still, I thought the year was useful, because praenomina are easily overlooked or confused, there were at least three Valerii Flacci running around at the time, and the date helped orient the reader); if the date were there, surely it should not be the only article on a consul to use BCE. The application of a guideline shouldn't result in an anomaly — especially since this guideline says there are exceptions, given good enough reason. There's no precedent being set here, other than allowing an edit to be made without weighing whether it makes sense for the kind of subject matter dealt with; notice (but visible only in edit mode) that ALL the articles to which this one links use the BC convention. Also, it belongs to the category "1st-century BC Romans," not "1st-century BCE Romans." Since the guideline permits exceptions, I don't see why my reasons for using BC in this article are outweighed by nothing other than "somebody created the article by copying word-for-word an entry from an 1870 dictionary, but decided to use BCE to sound hip." Cynwolfe (talk) 18:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Once you start taking about making the era style consistent between pages you are fundamentally overturning the current compromise and is a compromise that I consider it to be a big mistake to touch.  To argue that a substantial rewrite justifies a change would not contradict  current policy and, if everyone is happy with that principle, I would be happy to  subscribe to it.Dejvid (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there seems plenty discussion here and Cynwolfe's first sentence (in the post immediately above Dejvid's) seems reason enough to use BC in the article. If we're going by era-policy, that seems enough. What if it had been BCE, though? I can entirely see the point in discouraging era drive-by warriors but as per PMA (and QED) above, that has nothing to do with this. Wikipedia era-policy keeps shtum on consistency within categories, as far as I can see. Perhaps it shouldn't. I've no strong feelings on the matter, and no argument to offer for or against. (Additional comment: on the other hand, and off the cuff, Cynwolfe's argument for seems pretty convincing). But I feel very strongly that we should respect and value the era-preferences of those who do the work; in this case, the expansion of a rather stubbish affair into a well-written, fully cited and wikified article. Anything else seems, on a human level, frankly absurd. Haploidavey (talk) 22:04, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Cynwolfe.  Consistency in a set of related articles is a factor worth considering in deciding the format of the title.  It shouldn't necessarily determine the outcome of every case, and I certainly understand that "drive-by editors" are a concern.  But in this case we have an established editor revising the whole article and working to improve the entire field, not just slavishly altering titles to suit her preference.  I think such changes are reasonably warranted and ought to be allowed.  P Aculeius (talk) 22:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

text: If we are going to make a decision that a particular category should be consistent by era then the fair way to do it is to propose a discussion to decide how all the pages should be irrespective of what the current majority of those pages currently conform to.  However, I think it would be mistake to do so because when the issue is so controversial, making a decision that covers a large number of articles always pisses of a large number of people who did not participate in the discussion because they heard of it after the event.  Just look at the controversy over the delinking of dates.Dejvid (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That wasn't what was proposed.  The question was whether it was appropriate to rename a specific article that was conspicuously inconsistent with all of the related articles with which it was grouped (and also inconsistent with the text of the article).  The reason for the policy against renaming articles in this way does not seem to apply to this case, because this isn't an arbitrary decision by an otherwise disinterested party, but a logical decision by one of the article's main contributors.  In fact the case for not renaming it is especially weak, because the author is merely restoring the original title, which was apparently changed from "BC" to "BCE" in precisely the arbitrary manner that the policy was written to discourage.  Applied to these facts, it seems clear that the article title ought to use "BC".  Since a broad new policy would indeed be controversial, I think it would be better to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis.  As long as editors use common sense, most changes won't cause conflict.  P Aculeius (talk) 01:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

text: The elephant in the room is that for historical reasons pretty much all categories currently have a majority that are BC.  Hence virtually all BCE articles are inconsistent and no BC articles are inconsistent.  If argue that a major rewrite taking a stub up to a full article justifies an era change that would equally allow a change from BC to BCE if the person doing the change did an similar amount of work as Cynwolfe has.  That principle would not give preference to either era and hence is in line with the current policy.  When you make the first justification  that the article  "was conspicuously inconsistent with all of the related articles" you are outlawing any change from BC to BCE while at the same time declaring open season against the minority of BCE articles.  Surely that is incompatible with the current policy?Dejvid (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not what Cynwolfe is arguing; but her argument is below. On the  general point, if BC is the most common style, we should not be changing to BCE anyway; we are not here to reform the English language, least of all in advance of its readers. If, in some particular subfield, BCE is more common in current reliable sources (and there are some where this is the case), that might well be "a substantial reason" for discussion and consensus to redo the whole cat. But, again,  that's not what we[re discussing here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:55, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Policy is that era-convention can be changed for a 'substantial reason.' I've said what I have to say on this, for believe it or not, how we date his era is perhaps the least interesting thing we could discuss about dear Flaccus. The bottom line is (and what I did or didn't do to the article is beside the point) there's no good positive reason to insist on using BCE in this article. The only reason I've seen stated is that one should lockstep "obey" a guideline (not even a policy) that explicitly states there can be good reason to make the change anyway. If we ask the question "how does using BCE benefit the readers of the encyclopedia?" I can come up with no answer. Using the same era convention used in the scholarship and in the most intimately related articles seems to me to be a positive reason and of some slight cognitive help to the reader.  WP rules are a matter of evolved consensus and are always subject to discussion and reevaluation anyway. Surely we all have better things to do than haggle over this, though as always I appreciate the eloquence and care with which P Aculeius expresses himself. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

text: I agree. I don't see this as any kind of casus belli or precedent. It's the simple application to a single article of the existing guideline: leave it as it was ab origine, unless there's 'substantial reason.' Cynwolfe (talk) 16:02, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: One additional note: when I referred to the dating convention used by the scholarship, again I was limiting that to only the scholarship used to create the article in its present state — not making any generalized case about how usage in the scholarship should in principle be applied to WP articles. That is, the usage in the scholarship cited here caused the article to be created with that dating convention, replacing the stub that had been copied from a PD encyclopedia; another anomalous point is that the original editor changed little if anything in posting the stub directly the source except the era convention, which was BC in the encyclopedia entry copied otherwise more-or-less verbatim. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Views from the Greece & Rome Project