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{{notice|The "Dates" section, and related sub-sections, have been locked so that only users with administrator privileges can edit them. Please discuss proposed changes on the ].}}
===Dates=== ===Dates===
{{ombox
|style=background-color: #ffe0e0;
|text='''Restriction regarding linking/delinking:''' According to the ], for six months, no mass date delinking should be performed unless the Arbitration Committee is notified of a community-approved process for the mass delinking. (] in place since 21:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC))
}}
* Misplaced Pages does not use ordinal suffixes, articles, or leading zeros. Misplaced Pages does not insert a comma between month and year; however, a comma is required between day and year. * Misplaced Pages does not use ordinal suffixes, articles, or leading zeros. Misplaced Pages does not insert a comma between month and year; however, a comma is required between day and year.


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{{shortcut|MOS:UNLINKYEARS|MOS:UNLINKDATES}} {{shortcut|MOS:UNLINKYEARS|MOS:UNLINKDATES}}


=====Linking===== =====Month-day linking=====
;Month-day linking
Month-day articles (] and ]) should not be linked unless their content is germane and topical to the subject. Such links should share an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. For example, editors should not link the date (or year) in a sentence such as (from ]): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either ] or ] are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.<p>References to commemorative days (]) are treated as for any other link. Intrinsically chronological articles (], ], and ]) may themselves contain linked chronological items. Month-day articles (] and ]) should not be linked unless their content is germane and topical to the subject. Such links should share an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. For example, editors should not link the date (or year) in a sentence such as (from ]): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either ] or ] are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.<p>References to commemorative days (]) are treated as for any other link. Intrinsically chronological articles (], ], and ]) may themselves contain linked chronological items.


;Year linking =====Year linking=====
Year articles (], ], ]) should not be linked unless they contain information that is germane and topical to the subject matter—that is, the events in the year article should share an important connection other than merely that they occurred in the same year. For instance, ] may be linked to from another article about WWII, and so too may ] when writing about a particular development on the metric system in that year. However, the years of birth and death of architect ] should ''not'' be linked, because little, if any, of the contents of ] and ] are germane to either Johnson or to architecture. Year articles (], ], ]) should not be linked unless they contain information that is germane and topical to the subject matter—that is, the events in the year article should share an important connection other than merely that they occurred in the same year. For instance, ] may be linked to from another article about WWII, and so too may ] when writing about a particular development on the metric system in that year. However, the years of birth and death of architect ] should ''not'' be linked, because little, if any, of the contents of ] and ] are germane to either Johnson or to architecture.


=====Autoformatting===== =====Autoformatting=====
Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of ] (even though in the past this was considered desirable).<ref>This change was made on August 24, 2008, on the basis of ]. It was further ratified in two December 2008 RfCs ] and ]</ref> Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of ] (even though in the past this was considered desirable).<ref>This change was made on August 24, 2008, on the basis of ]. It was further ratified in two December 2008 RfCs ] and ]</ref>

<div style="padding: 1em 1em 1em 1em; margin: 1em 1em 1em 1em; background-color: #ffe0e0; border: 1px solid #f00;">'''Temporary injunction regarding linking/delinking:''' Note that until the ] is decided or until otherwise directed by the Arbitration Committee, all editors are instructed not to engage in any program of mass linking or delinking of dates in existing articles, including but not limited to through the use of bots, scripts, tools, or otherwise. (] in place since 11:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC))</div>

Revision as of 18:09, 16 June 2009

Dates

Restriction regarding linking/delinking: According to the date delinking arbitration case, for six months, no mass date delinking should be performed unless the Arbitration Committee is notified of a community-approved process for the mass delinking. (Remedy in place since 21:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC))
  • Misplaced Pages does not use ordinal suffixes, articles, or leading zeros. Misplaced Pages does not insert a comma between month and year; however, a comma is required between day and year.
Incorrect Correct
9th May
the 9th of May		 9 May
May 9th May 9
May, 2001 May 2001
9 May, 2001
09 May 2001		 9 May 2001
May 9 2001
May 09, 2001		 May 9, 2001
  • If a date range is abbreviated, use the formats 5–7 January 1979 or January 5–7, 2002, with an unspaced en-dash.
  • A night may be expressed in terms of the two contiguous dates using a slash (the bombing raids of the night of 30/31 May 1942).
  • Yearless dates (5 March, March 5) are inappropriate unless the year is obvious from the context. There is no such ambiguity with recurring events, such as "January 1 is New Year's Day".
  • YYYY-MM-DD style dates (1976-05-31) are uncommon in English prose, and should not be used within sentences. However, they may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness. (If the only purpose why they are used in a particular table is ease of comparison, consider using {{sort|2008-11-01|1 November 2008}}.) Because some perceive dates in that style to be in conformance with the current ISO 8601 standard, that format should never be used for a date that is not in the (proleptic) Gregorian calendar, nor for any year outside the range 1583 through 9999.

Full date formatting

In general, the following formats are acceptable:

  • Month before day: February 14 and February 14, 1990 (comma required)
  • Day before month: 14 February and 14 February 1990

Date formatting in an article is governed by the following three guidelines.

Format consistency
  • Dates in article body text should all have the same format.
  • Dates in article references should all have the same format.

These requirements apply to dates in general prose and reference citations, but not to dates in quotations or titles.

Strong national ties to a topic
  • Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the U.S. this is month before day; for most others it is day before month. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently.
  • In certain subject areas the customary format may differ from the usual national one: for example, articles on the modern U.S. military often use day before month, in accordance with usage in that field.
Retaining the existing format
  • If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic.
  • In the early stages of writing an article, the date format chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it based on strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no clear sign of which format is used, the first person to insert a date is equivalent to "the first major contributor".

Dates of birth and death

Shortcut

At the start of an article on an individual, his or her dates of birth and death are provided. For example: "Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was a British ..."

  • For an individual still living: "Serena Williams (born September 26, 1981) ...", not "... (September 26, 1981 –) ..."
  • When only the years are known: "Socrates (470–399 BC) was..."
  • When the year of birth is completely unknown, it should be extrapolated from earliest known period of activity: "Offa of Mercia (before 734 – 26 July 796) ..."
  • When the year of birth is known only approximately: "Genghis Khan (c. 1162 – August 18, 1227) ..."
  • When the years of both birth and death are known only approximately: "Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470 – c. 540) ..."
  • When the year of death is completely unknown, it should be extrapolated from last known period of activity: "Robert Menli Lyon (1789 – after 1863) ..."
  • When the reign of a sovereign is uncertain: "Rameses III (reigned c. 1180 BCE – c. 1150 BCE) ..."
  • When the individual is known to have been alive (flourishing) at certain dates, ] is used to link to floruit, in case the meaning is not familiar: "Osmund (fl. 760–772) ..."
  • When the individual is known to have been alive as early as about 660, and to have died in 685: "Aethelwalh (fl. c. 660–685) ..."
  • Locations of birth and death are given subsequently rather than being entangled with the dates.

In biographical infobox templates, provide age calculation with {{birth date and age}} for living people and {{death date and age}} for the deceased when the full birth or death date, respectively, is precisely known in the Gregorian calendar (adopted in 1752 in most English-speaking countries). See the documentation for those templates in order to use them properly.

Other date ranges

Dates that are given as ranges should follow the same patterns as given above for birth and death dates. Ranges that come up to the present (as of the time that the information was added to the article) should generally be given in ways that prevent their becoming counterfactually obsolete, e.g. from 1996 onward (as of October 2007), not from 1996 to the present; "the present" is a constantly moving target. In the main text of articles, the form 1996– (with no date after the en-dash) should not be used, though it is preferred in infoboxes and other crowded templates or lists, with the caveat that they may need to be examined by editors more frequently to see if they need to be updated; it is helpful to other editors to add an HTML comment immediately after such constructions, giving the as-of date, e.g.: <!--as of 10 October 2007-->. The form since 1996 should be used in favor of 1996–present in article text and infoboxes.

Linking and autoformatting of dates

Shortcuts
Month-day linking

Month-day articles (February 24 and 10 July) should not be linked unless their content is germane and topical to the subject. Such links should share an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. For example, editors should not link the date (or year) in a sentence such as (from Sydney Opera House): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either June 28 or 2007 are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.

References to commemorative days (Saint Patrick's Day) are treated as for any other link. Intrinsically chronological articles (1789, January, and 1940s) may themselves contain linked chronological items.

Year linking

Year articles (1795, 1955, 2007) should not be linked unless they contain information that is germane and topical to the subject matter—that is, the events in the year article should share an important connection other than merely that they occurred in the same year. For instance, Timeline of World War II (1942) may be linked to from another article about WWII, and so too may 1787 in science when writing about a particular development on the metric system in that year. However, the years of birth and death of architect Philip C. Johnson should not be linked, because little, if any, of the contents of 1906 and 2005 are germane to either Johnson or to architecture.

Autoformatting

Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting (even though in the past this was considered desirable).

  1. This change was made on August 24, 2008, on the basis of this archived discussion. It was further ratified in two December 2008 RfCs Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM and Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Date_Linking_RFC
Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Datestempprotectedsection: Difference between revisions Add topic