Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/sandbox

message: Anyway all this aside, I do not belive it is constructive to have one user (Oldak) running around doing one thing and others running around reverting it. Wikipedia is not a anarchy (if it were the strongist/most active would win). Rather it is a proper democracy were (almost) everything is up for discusion but it must be democratically agreed. And the looser should stick to that agrement. The point is, their needs to be Wikipedia pollicy one way or the other. We should debate it but stick to it. Other then this talk page were should this debate take place + Do you agree with that Oldak (if not why not?) --JK the unwise 10:51, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Every user has his or her idiocincracies: some prefer British spelling, other prefer American. There is no reason why the two cannot coexist. Also, I am not the only user promoting BCE/CE - there are many others (just take a look at the number of articles featuring this spelling). No: Wikipedia is not truly anarchic in that it has a form of power structure (administrators drawn from the general usership for goodwork, surefootedness etc. and the GodKing) however, in terms of content Wikipedia is fairly free in its accepted styles. I do not believe we should allow a mob rule where the simple majority opinion is the be all and end all: I reiterate that the two systems can exist in equilibrium. Further, I believe the more minimal the policy the better: we should remain as free as possible in every sense of the word. This freedom should only be restricted when the alternatives are harmful and counterproductive. --Oldak Quill 14:16, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Where we go from here should be to recognise that users should not take it upon themselves to change articles that adopt one style consistently into another style. OldakQuill needs to reconcile himself to the fact that there are comparatively very few articles that adopt the BCE/CE style, and most of these are connected with Buddhism (where WP practice is to use BCE/CE almost exclusively) or Judaism (where some articles use BCE/CE and others use BC/AD). And also that neither he nor any other user should use WP to "promote" the BCE/CE notation, jguk 19:00, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not simply taking it upon myself, I am part of a wider change. There is no policy which limits the "promotion of BCE/CE" - similarly there should be no promotion of BC/AD. They are able to coexist between the secular and non-Christian and the Christian articles. --Oldak Quill 23:25, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary - per the MoS you should not change the style adopted by an article (this works both ways here, of course). Also, you are welcome to your political views, but on WP, you should not impose them on others. (Not to say, quite frankly, you'll only get beaten down, as in this case, and just end up wasting everybody's time in pointless revert wars - and very long pointless discussions like this one:) . ) jguk 23:35, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: All articles are fluid: they should be changed as appropriate to the content. The use of AD is fundamentally political and religious: it asserts that CE years are "of the lord". I have been doing BCE/CE conversions with many passively for months and have not been reverted until you. --Oldak Quill 23:37, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: I have not claimed that anyone "should" prefer BCE/CE - I have only stated that it is less POV. I would also like you to back up your claim that "the overwhelming majority of people actually prefer BC/AD" or I shall simply put it aside. I see absolutely no reason to stop these conversions, and you have not yet provided any convincing arguements. You have so far claimed that it should be used because of convenion, despite POV; you have claimed people "like it" (I doubt many care either way). It is not simply convention, it is a continuing assertion by Christianity that the messiah has visited this world to redeem our souls - hence "year of our Lord". You may have CE stand for "Common era" or "Christian era" as you will - I do not care either way; they are both largely NPOV. I simply opt for it to mean "Common era" myself. The idea that Wikipedia should do something because of simply majority preference, especially something with so little impact, is quite new and outrageous. Wikipedia has never done things before because of simply majority preference, despite POV - see my above example of Inuits. Preferred notation to whom? To scholars, academics, and the East? No. To Joe Average Westerner, perhaps - this does not validate its continuing use, nor does it entirely refute it. The fact still remains on the issue of POV. I believe BCE/CE and BC/AD in coexistance is an acceptable inconsistancy for the time being: the latter is suited to Christian articles (it is largely unrealistic to expect otherwise). This is nothing to do with my own person political or religious views: I do it because I believe it is the only path to NPOV. I do it for Wikipedia. I do it to make Wikipedia a viable source of non-biased information. I suggest we cease this discussion and get on with more productive work for the project. I won't give up minor conversions but then, I also won't step up my pace. We are not talking more than several a week. I have enjoyed our discussion and hope that you, like I, keep doing good work for Wikipedia. --Oldak Quill 10:17, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: I think it's better to leave as is - but with a note that it is not helpful for OldakQuill to go round imposing his views on articles that already are consistent. It's time for us all to get back to improving articles, and I think a wider discussion would not resolve anything - after all, this discussion between 3 users that's hidden on OldakQuill's talk page has been lengthy and timeconsuming - and probably won't change a thing. I see no point in having a similar, but even more lengthy discussion with 20 or 40 other WPians also chipping in, jguk 13:05, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine if Oldak and yourself agree not to edit war over it.--JK the unwise 13:14, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If OldakQuill does not change articles that consistently use BC/AD notation to BCE/CE notation (which started this whole discussion off), then there will be no edit war from me, jguk 13:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Are you just misusing the Wikipedia jargon "NPOV", or are you claiming that it shouldn't apply in this situation?  Gene Nygaard 11:44, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where to go from here? 

message: The current style is that either way is generally acceptable. I think that's fine. And I think the form should usually not be changed within an article. Maurreen 19:17, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: and if you are going to edit in an outside editor, you should turn off "smart quotes" or whatever it is called, so you don't end up changing all the apostrophes and quotation marks in everyone else's entries in the section you edit, so we get all those ugly ampersand-number combinations.  Gene Nygaard 20:55, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Current style, article changes

message: The proposed style guide recommends the continued use of BCE/CE for articles related to Buddhism and Judaism. This seems to be a tacit acknowledgement that the BC/AD terms are religiously biased and are not necessarily suitable for some topics. So why should they be used for any topics, with the possible exception of Christianity itself? I feel that a consistent standard should be applied across all articles, without exceptions for specific religions. Pburka 22:24, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why the exceptions?

message: Do we vote on this proposal, and if so, where? ~~~~ 19:00, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voting 

message: Most recipes write 1/2 lb; 1 lb; 1 1/2 lbs; 2 lbs. Shouldn't it be the same in Wikipedia? I'm used to see the metric units not pluralized, but the US units usually have an 's' when it's more than one (at least in cook books)
:That's largely a result of the fact that explicit rules for not changing unit symbols in plural is a recent concept, implemented after the standards keepers stopped worrying much about writing rules for anything other than SI units.  In a cookbook using only English units, the discrepancy may not be so noticeable, but in Wikipedia which rarely uses English units without including metric conversions, a discrepancy in standards is more glaring.  There is no reason whatsoever why any symbol for any unit of measure should add some language-specific variant in the plural.  Gene Nygaard 14:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plural of pound 

message: The section on Incorrect date formats mentions no piped links refering to the music wikiproject, but there seems to be not much discussion of it there discussion there. It should therefore be removed from the proposal or discussed further. Tim! 23:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect date formats 

message: The 'Natural number section' claims:
:In Wikipedia, "natural number" unequivocally means "non-negative integer", as the natural number article explains.
In fact, the natural numbers article has had a consensus since 2005 not to take a stance on whether 0 is a natural number, but allow either as reasonable, widely used interpretations. This also seems to be the working consensus of WP:Wikiproject Mathematics, reflecting practice among professional mathematicians.
The lowest friction remedy would be simply to delete this part of the sentence and ignore the fact that the maths articles do not accord with the MoS. Alternatively, we could reopen this can of worms. — Charles Stewart (talk) 07:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claim about definition of natural numbers not supported by link