Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 88

message: The 2-digit year thing would be a snap, but I don't favor that format as much in lists as I do in running prose ("coached the Detroit Lions 1943–47 before moving to Bora Bora"). Before Tony's huge overhaul, I think the guideline more or less tolerated 2-digit years at the end of a range, but now it seems to downright favor 2 digits over 4, where allowable. Have I misremembered it? Is this now a case of clear consensus?  I think it would be easier to scan a list and find a person who died in 1956 if the list did not look like  this:
* Herman Dwizzlebot (1811–56)
* Elmer Fringthorpe (1798–1856) 
* Marvin Krummblatt (1922–56)
But if there is clear agreement that 2-digit years are preferred, even in lists, I can easily handle it. Chris the speller 20:52, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Abbreviating the years for some people would be ludicrous in any list where some of the people span centuries and could not be abbreviated. And the MoS doesn't require doing so now, and I'm glad of that.  As it is, I strongly suspect that the current project page, perhaps because of some of the recent changes in this area, go far beyond what is actually agreed upon as far as using two-digit years. Gene Nygaard 22:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur with Gene.  And to me it simply looks lazy and imprecise. I never (that I know of) use "1983-87" but "1983-1987". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 06:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To me, it is so much easier to read when only two digits are used, and as a reading psychologist, I'm pretty sure that 1983–1987 makes the readers work harder to determine that it's a five-year range than 1983–87. The two-digit closing year also more clearly indicates that the range lies within a single century. Since there is no clear vertical alignment in a list—the names are all of different lengths—there's no issue of neatness/alignment in using both nine- and seven-character ranges, as you see above (Fringthorpe). Repeating the century (18) helps to focus my eyes on the fact that the range occurs in two centuries. I think there was consensus for the wording on two-digit closing years at the time. I'd prefer that it was extended to include page ranges, which are ridiculous when big closing numbers are rendered in full: 12686–12689 versus 12686–89. The former is not uncommon in reference lists of schorarly/scientific journal articles and conference proceedings, and does no one a favour. Tony (talk) 06:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Call me crazy, but to me it's much harder to read ranges such as 1983–87. My thought process goes something like this: "1983 to 87? Hm, that's a range of almost -2000! Wait, this is abbreviated... OK, let's see, the first number starts with 19; 19 times 100 plus 87 is 1987. What was the original number again? Oh, 1983. Ok, they really meant 1983-1987". Sure, it takes only a moment to go through this process, but the momentary confusion it causes makes me severely uncomfortable. I never use abbreviated ranges like this. The same goes for page numbers even if they have five digits. --Itub 14:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um ... ok, you're crazy. Tony (talk) 14:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Crazy doesn't quite fit Tony, however—just a little strange, perhaps weird, not processing information the way others do.  Most people aren't going to see his span as five years in any case, whether it is written as 1983-1987 or 1983-87.  They'll just subtract the numbers and get four years.  Furthermore, while if you are talking about spans covering the complete years (or including seasons in a sport and the like), it is indeed the five separate years 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987, when it comes to lifespans most people's intuitive subtraction is more correct. In that case, it can vary from just over 3 years to just under 5 years (3 yr 1 d to 4 yr 365 d), and will average out at about four years.  Gene Nygaard 14:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree. I think there's an unconscious formal standard when addressing lifespans. After all, those were two of the most significant years in any person's life. Outside of that, I think two-digit "end" years are fine, if slightly informal. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Two-digit years