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Manual of Style

This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing. For information on Misplaced Pages's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Misplaced Pages policies of Misplaced Pages's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

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A question in MOS - WP:TIMEZONE

(Cross-posted from Village pump)

MOS states that: When writing a date, first consider where the event happened and use the time zone there.

However, in some cases, a historical event took place where the time zone in that particular location is different than what is today. That is, the time zone has changed since the event took place. MOS did not make note of this.

Example, 1920 Haiyuan earthquake stated that it hit at local time 20:06:53 (GMT 12:06:53), of which it is expressed modern China time zone, which is GMT +8. However, during Republic of China, China was divided into five time zones. The epicenter is at Haiyuan County, Ningxia Province which at that time is in Kansu-Szechuan Time Zone, which is in GMT +7.

Corresponding article in Chinese Misplaced Pages noted this fact and recorded in 19:06:53 (GMT+7).

Opinion on this? SYSS Mouse (talk) 04:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

GMT is an absolute clock. Clearly, the conversion should only be done with the local and temporal offset valid for the event. −Woodstone (talk) 08:18, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Care to explain the second part? SYSS Mouse (talk) 15:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Since time-zones are a matter of convention, where the clock-time of an event is given it should reflect the conventions then in effect—otherwise it’s useless (except maybe to a modern resident who wants to mark the ‘exact anniversary’). Assuming what you say about the time-zones prevailing in 1920 is true, ISTM that the Chinese WP article is correct. In such cases it’s probably best either to give the UTC or to indicate the local offset, as they have done. Would the guideline be clearer if it said “… consider where and when the event happened …“?—Odysseus1479 (talk) 06:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Use the local time of the event. It almost never matters what time it was elsewhere. If you are relating it to events that happened elsewhere, show the equivalent time in UTC in parens, calculated from the offset known to be in effect at the time. The fact that the difference between the two is different than it may be currently, due to summer time or legal change of offset, is simply the nature of time zones – any expectation on the part of the reader that the difference should remain constant is wrong, and can be corrected by their reading of the relevant linked time-zone articles. If, for some reason, the article keeps getting edited to incorrectly "fix" the times, explain it in an HTML comment in the text and/or the talk page. —— 01:04, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Please see Talk:1920 Haiyuan earthquake § Time. I believe you changed the wrong value. —— 01:27, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:ORDINAL

A question was just raised on my talk page re: WP:ORDINAL ("Centuries are given in figures or words using adjectival hyphenation where appropriate: the 5th century BCE; nineteenth-century painting."). Is the compound adjective "a 19th-century " (using "19th" rather than "nineteenth") also hyphenated, the same way we hyphenate the compound adjective "9-millimetre gap" as long as the unit (here, "century") appears as a full word? Thanks for your input. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Khazar, I think the short answer is "yes." Whenever "19th century," or any similar construction, is used as an adjectival phrase, it should be hyphenated, regardless of whether it is written in full as "nineteenth" or abbreviated as "19th." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:28, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks--that was my take, too. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:37, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

My take is the same as Dirtlawyer1's. Whenever the ordinal and the century are working together as a compound adjective, it is hyphenated. SchreiberBike talk 20:17, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

What's with the BC and AD versus B.C. and A.D.?

Is that a Wiki invention (or one of those language reformer things where people are trying to drive usage away from the norm)? I almost always see the periods in books and newspapers and the like. Has this been hashed out? (I searched archives but did not find much).TCO (talk) 16:54, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

My impression (I emphasize that it's only an impression) is that it isn't unusual to see BC/AD elsewhere without periods—but in small caps, which we don't use. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:06, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

We have the same issue with BCE/CE vs. B.C.E./C.E. -- Avi (talk) 17:58, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

It's parallel with the acronyms at WP:ACRO which also says "Note that Misplaced Pages generally avoids using full stops in upper-case acronyms." I suspect it's just a style choice that was made at some point in the past and there hasn't been any reason to change. SchreiberBike talk 18:04, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Technically those aren’t acronyms, because they‘re spelled out when pronounced—they're in the larger category of initialisms, in turn a subset of abbreviations. Sometimes the first two are differently, e.g. setting only acronyms in small caps: “The EU and NATO have some members in common.”–Odysseus1479 01:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

This is an ENGVAR thing; see Acronyms#Orthographic_styling. The use of full stops looks incredibly old-fashioned to me, as someone used to writing British English. Maybe it doesn't to those used to American English? It would be possible to allow the style to follow the ENGVAR of the article, I guess, but at the expense of further increasing the variability of styles in the English Misplaced Pages. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

What's with WP:DATERET?

Hi, I've had a bot telling me 21:48, 28 May 2013‎ AnomieBOT (talk | contribs)‎ m . . (1,429 bytes) (+14)‎ . . (Dating maintenance tags: {Use mdy dates} (undo) now I'm informed of WP:DATERET saying "don't listen to AnomieBOT". What gives? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:39, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Have you read Misplaced Pages:Simple diff and link guide? If you do, you might be able to restate your question in a way we could respond to. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:43, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, Sorry, lack of caffeine and connectivity problems. I was confused having never seen it before. What I (mis-)saw was template {Use mdy dates} being dated by a Anomiebot, not the bot telling subsequent editors to correct to dmy format. This is new to me, hadn't seen WP:DATERET before obviously. Question resolved/answered In ictu oculi (talk) 03:49, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Exact birth and death dates in the lede

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Misplaced Pages style and naming Biographies History and geography When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Exact birth and death dates in the lede interrupt the flow of the sentence. They are intrusive and repetitive. Why are they required? A year range should be sufficient, as in most encyclopedias I've seen. Please comment below, giving the reason why they are required. Thank you. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:27, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

You're right. Yet how would you go about enforcing this long standing practice?JOJ 17:36, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Gentlemen, I for one disagree that the exact birth and death dates should be replaced by only the years of birth and death. These two data points are among the most basic biographical information that readers are seeking, and I don't see the inch to inch and a half of text that the parenthetical requires as disrupting the flow of the first sentence. if you want to address a very real problem that actually does disrupt the first sentence of biographical leads, find a way to address the proliferation of redundant phonetic pronunciations, transliterations and translations of names that have been inserted into many bios, and now occupy a complete line or more of text in the first sentence of the lead. Now, that's disruptive, with very little benefit to the overwhelming majority of out readers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:03, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Agree they are disruptive. I would not write the first sentence of a report in "the real world" like that.TCO (talk) 20:07, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I made my bold change in the MOS, stating "The exact dates (month and day) of births and deaths are not required in the lead sentence. Only the years are required, if you have them, as Jane Blow (1932-1982). The full dates are given at a logical place in the article." GeorgeLouis (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted you. The proposed change of style may be a good one, and may have community support (the two are not always coupled!), but such a change, affecting many thousands of articles, requires a wider discussion, not least involving the biography project, and so should be centrally advertised. So far, there isn't even consensus among the four people who have so far discussed this here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:07, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree and will do my part in publicizing. Shall we make this page the place for discussion? Also, I never got an answer as to when the present policy was put into effect. I don't remember there being any discussion, but that may be neither here nor there because now we can have it. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 21:19, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting points, the infobox is usually the place for exact dates anyway. --Nathan2055 20:41, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree it's clutter that we can eject from the opening sentence, per WP:SUMMARY. There's plenty of room for in the body and within infoboxes. This excessively detailed for the lead. -- Ohc _{¿que pasa?} 22:55, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that I don't think TCO's argument that "I would not write the first sentence of a report in 'the real world' like that" is a good one. This is an encyclopedia, not the real world (it's not even the Simple English Misplaced Pages). The lede can contain whatever information may be useful to the reader that might be welcome from a resource document that you wouldn't necessarily include mid-sentence in a report, because encyclopedias can do that. The question is whether we should. Personally, I see it that:

• The information (e.g., dates of birth/death, pronunciations, alternate names) is useful;
• It is helpful to have the information at the start of the article;
• It is helpful to have the information in a consistent location (regardless of whether an infobox is present);
• The information is set off by parentheses and can be easily ignored if a person is not interested in that data.

Perhaps it would be more ideal if the information could be expanded/collapsed like one of those "show"/"hide" switches, but that might be a bit pie-in-the-sky. —sroc (talk) 23:20, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I assume that you mean in the introductory sentence ("Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch (1304–1374) was an Italian...") rather than the whole lede section. OK, a couple of things on that:

This has been discussed a lot. That doesn't mean it can't be discussed again though. There was huge discussion a couple years back (some 80-100 active commentors I think), and though it was never formally closed I don't think, the result was:

• There was no agreement on a formal rule, so it remains up to the individual editor. As a practical matter, the first person to write the introductory sentence decides, and absent a pretty good reason that should be left alone, on the same principle as WP:ENGVAR to avoid sterile back-and-forthing.
• Neither the arguments for or against using just the years was enough stronger than the converse argument to close on strength of argument alone.
• With some 100-odd participants, there were enough nuanced views to make a headcount difficult, but I'd say there was a significant majority (but not really a supermajority), in favor of using just the years as a general thing, but only provided the factors shown below are not in play. (If the factors show below are in play, many editors still favored using just the years, but by a much thinner majority.) The factors are:
  • If there's no infobox, that's a factor in favor of including the dates as well as the years. Presence of an infobox removes that factor.
  • If the person's birthday or death day is a national holiday, or is celebrated or even just remembered by any significant number of people, the dates as well as the years should probably be included. (Both of the dates, for parallelity.)
  • If the article is short -- one or two paragraphs, say -- that's a good reason to put in the dates as well as the year. Otherwise you have the years in the introductory sentence, then withing a few sentences you're repeating the vital info in order to specify the exact dates. This clutters.
  • If it's a long article, and the death date is somewhere toward the end of the article, that's possibly a reason to put the dates as well as the year. Otherwise the readers who just want the vital dates have to go fishing through the article.
  • If the person is alive (and there's no infobox), and the birth date is stated anywhere in the article that's a reason to put the birth date in the introductory sentence, since that allows the reader to quickly deduce the subject's age. (A number of editors held that for WP:BLP privacy reasons the birthdate should not be stated anywhere in the article. Some people might consider their birthday to be private information, and that datum does not usually contribute to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject, unless you believe in astrology.)

One reason is that this is a vexing issue is that there's some tension over which is the controlling authority: Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers or Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Biographies. Herostratus (talk) 23:02, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

A very thorough summary. That's why I like "The exact dates (month and day) of births and deaths are not required in the lead sentence. Only the years are required, if you have them, as Jane Blow (1932-1982). The full dates are given at a logical place in the article." Short and sweet. GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:44, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

¶ I'm all for laissez-faire and letting an article's active editors (not those whose only interest is format) decide among themselves without appealing to Some Greater Authority, and using the first-primary-editor rule as a tie-breaker only if consensus can't be reasonably reached without undue delay or contention. I don't recall (being a partially-reformed lurker/participant in MoS-&-descendants talk pages) the 100-editor discussion mentioned above, but I did take part in a smaller discussion about the trickier, related question of whether to include or exclude places with the dates. Practice among printed reference-works (e.g. Petit Larousse) varies greatly. Again I think this should depend almost entirely on relevance to the article's subject, without any overarching Uniform Rule. But combined with day and month of birth & death (let alone those phonetic hieroglyphs and audio links), they could become a bit unwieldy though sometimes appropriate . —— Shakescene (talk) 16:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• A great big "Amen" to choosing context over pettifogging. --Kevjonesin (talk) 17:06, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
• Another possibility is a simple edit that would leave most of the MOS intact, i.e. "When full dates of births and deaths are used at the start of articles (not required), this form is used:" So I just did made that change in the spirit of WP:BRD, and don't tell me I am out of line because boldness is a virtue. Just ask Bert Lahr. GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:25, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• STRONG Keep exact birth dates. Exact dates in an article's lead have always been used in Misplaced Pages, for good reason. They provide useful information to Misplaced Pages readers in that they are always found in the same place in every article. Not all articles have infoboxes (where dates are always exact), so without exact dates in the intro, our readers may be forced to comb through main body text to find the exact birth and death dates. Since the goal of Misplaced Pages is to provide useful information to our readers, keeping exact dates in the intor is the sensible thing to do. Truthanado (talk) 23:49, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

That is a strong statement. They have not always been used. If you say they have, then prove it. GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:24, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The only reason I put the exact date in the lede is because I don't have a better place to put it. There are biographical articles I've been trying to do clean up on where if the exact date isn't in the first sentence of the lede then either I have to put it in a paragraph of otherwise unrelated material or put it alone in a paragraph by itself, which conflicts with my trying to avoid paragraphs of only one sentence. RJFJR (talk) 14:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The sense and sensibility of the writing should be paramount. If the exact date is better in the lede, use it. If it is cumbersome and breaks up the flow of the writing, save it for later. My beef is with the editors who have nothing better to do with their time than to ruin a perfectly good lede, already written and vetted, by riding up, sticking in the exact dates, thereby clunking up the flow of the sentence, and riding off again. And then "justifying" their vandalism by citing some supposed "rule." GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The following wording was in place until GeorgeLouis's bold edit on 1 June:

"Dates of birth and death are provided in articles on people, most notably at the start of articles. For example: "Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist ...""

There have already been several changes to this wording whilst this has been under discussion. IMHO, the original wording should remain in place until a consensus is reached. Misplaced Pages:Consensus policy requires discussion of contentious edits and, where there is no consensus, the version before a bold edit will usually remain.

Additionally, I have a problem with the current wording, as noted in my edit summary before GeorgeLouis reverted it:

"When full dates of births and deaths are used at the start of articles, this form is used: "Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist ...""

The words "this form is used" implies that the date–month–year format shown in the example should be used, which is incorrect; the date format will depend on the format used throughout the article. The choice of wording is poor. This is another reason to discuss proposed changes before implementing what you think is right, especially in a style guide that others will use as reference throughout Misplaced Pages. We shouldn't be in such a rush to get our own way. —sroc (talk) 02:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

On the actual issue, I think the dates of birth/death are amongst the most important details that can clutter the opening line. IMHO, pronunciations, translations and AKA names are more disruptive. Translations and AKA names can be re-worked later into the lede to avoid disrupting the flow of the opening line. However, I'm not convinced that reducing the birth/death dates to years only is necessary, nor that it is the best way for achieving the objective of de-cluttering the lede.

Also, there are various encyclopedias and similar resources that use full dates. For example:

• Britannica:

"David Sedaris, in full David Raymond Sedaris (born December 26, 1956, Johnson City, New York, U.S.), American humorist and essayist…"

• New World Encyclopedia:

"Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist."

• Reference.com:

"David Sedaris (born December 26, 1956) is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor."

• The Canadian Encyclopedia:

"Louis-Joseph Papineau, lawyer, seigneur, politician (b at Montréal 7 Oct 1786; d at Montebello, Qué 25 Sept 1871), the son of Joseph Papineau, a seigneur and moderate liberal member of the Assembly."

—sroc (talk) 02:47, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to sroc for the research. There actually is no consensus among encyclopedias, just as there is no consensus among WP editors. Our esteemed colleague sroc is also correct about the other blocks to comprehension, the foreign lettering (Chinese, Japanese), the pronunciations, etc. What a joke! Write simply: That's the key. This is one of those areas when the spirit of Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules and WP:Assume good faith should definitely be implemented. GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Pointing out also. The examples given above by sroc I assume are from encyclopedias whose style is to list the exact birth and death dates just once. In Misplaced Pages, I have seen them listed three times—once in the lede, once in an infobox and once in the text. We really need them just one time, no matter where they are located. GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:35, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

However, they all use some form of the whole date (when available) in their lead sections.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

This isn't really an Misplaced Pages:ignore all rules situation. We're (re-)writing the general rule! There may be individual cases where we ignore the MoS in particular cases when it makes sense to do so, but this is where we should set the standard (if there is one).

BTW, my research obviously is not exhaustive. There are heaps more encyclopedias out there and I haven't the time, but that was just to counter-balance the argument that all/most encyclopedias use years only. As GeorgeLouis notes, there is no consensus amongst encyclopedias. —sroc (talk) 23:11, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I also believe that we should only list birth and death years in the lead sentence, and add the other data later on where it is relevant. The lead is supposed to summarize the important points of the article and the exact dates and places are usually not among them. I think we do need a change to the MOS on this issue, to allow simplified birth and death dates, because as it is now if we try to write our articles that way the wikignomes will just come along and fill in the details again thinking they are making an improvement. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:44, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

FYI, this has recently been discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#Birth and death dates .2F Infoboxes, too. —sroc (talk) 23:34, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Strong keep. There is no reason whatsoever to change our longstanding practice of adding full dates in the first sentence. They are basic biographical information and are included in most encyclopaedias that I've seen. In no way are they jarring or intrusive, as the nominator suggests. They are what I expect to see in the first line of a biographical article. They are in fact far better here than in the body of the text and certainly better than infoboxes, which should contain no information which isn't elsewhere. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:36, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
• While I'm fuzzy on whether we should allow just years in the opening sentence (when we have the data), I'm strong that we should not require just years. Too many of our articles are stubby little things; giving that requirement would lead to either the destruction of the date information or the creation of dense redundancy, with the opening sentence containing the years being followed a sentence or two later by the sentence with the full dates or being adjoined by an infobox with little but the dates, and then that being the article in whole. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:37, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Keep full dates. Per Truthanado and Necrothesp, full dates provide useful information; it is useful to have them in a consistent place regardless of whether there is an infobox in individual cases; readers should not have to pore through the article to find this basic biographical data; full dates should not be banished to the infobox only, as this should only summarise information included in the article; the inclusion of full dates is not overly obtrusive. The addition of other information (e.g. pronunciations, other names, etc.) may make the opening sentence unwieldy in individual cases, however:

• IMHO, this is not a good reason to dispense with full dates against the countervailing benefits;
• Consideration should be given to how the other elements that may actually clutter the introduction could be better handled (this discussion really should be had elsewhere);
• In individual cases where the opening sentence becomes unwieldy due to the culmination of full date, pronunciations, alternate names, etc., this can be dealt with on an individual basis by either re-writing the lede (e.g., shifting the alternate names out of the opening sentence) or ignoring the general rule if necessary.

I might support a change to the MoS to the effect that full dates are preferred rather than years only unless: (a) the opening sentence is otherwise too cluttered with parenthetical data; (b) there is no better way to reduce the clutter to an acceptable level; and (c) the full dates are already included elsewhere in the article (including in the infobox, as an exception to the general rule). However, I do not support changing the MoS to discourage the use of full dates in the opening line generally. —sroc (talk) 02:14, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• Keep full dates per all of the above. Canuck 02:18, June 8, 2013 (UTC)
• For my part, it usually makes sense to have just the years. "1389-1453" tells me 99% of what I want to know: the person was active in the first half of the fifteenth century. In almost all cases, knowing his exact birth and death dates is of no more use in getting a handle on the person than knowing his eye color, and less use than knowing his height and weight. It's traditional in many publications to include the exact dates in the opening, and that's exactly what it is: tradition, habit, that serves no very useful purpose. But, I think the system we have is fine: if you're writing the article, do what you like (we have too many rules as it is), but don't change it in an existing article absent a very good reason, described on the talk page. And our MOS should state both of those de facto practices specifically. Our rule pages are mostly supposed to codify existing practices. Herostratus (talk) 04:27, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

• Short, but Wait: This seems like something that WikiData can solve. Once the dates, places, alt names, and pronunciations are moved to the database, the user's style sheet could be used to control the visibility of the various parts. Personally, in the lead, I would prefer (yyyy–yy]) only, with a mouseover popup that has the rest in it. This fits well with the purpose of the lead – to summarize significant data, like the era during which the subject lived. Add the alt names and pronunciations to the Infobox (if not already there). —— 14:02, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Dionysian Era

I suggest replacing the term Dionysian era used in the discussion of Era style with the more commonly used Christian era. The section opens with this passage: "By default, years are numbered according to the Western Dionysian era (also referred to as the Common Era)."

While the term Dionysian era is theoretically appropriate, it seemed decidedly unfamiliar. I checked the Google Books NGram Viewer and found that the alternative Christian era has consistently been used more than 250 times as often as either Dionysian era, Julian era, or Common era.

Given these statistics, I suggest replacing the two appearances of the term "Dionysian era" with "Christian era".--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:05, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

You're probably right, and the Ngram is convincing. Certainly the term "Dionysian era" should not be used in articles, at least without explanation (except maybe articles concerned with the technical nomenclature of dating). This page is an internal guide for editors, though, so it doesn't really matter, as long as the meaning is clear. I would just add "Christian era" everywhere that "Dionysian era" is used, simply for clarity. About nobody has heard of the term "Dionysian era" and has to either puzzle it out or look it up. How is that helpful in a guide page? If there are no objections to this let's do it. (If there are objections, I hope they take the form "This would be confusing to editors seeking guidance here, because _______" rather than getting into Western imperialism and so on, which may be appropriate for articles but less so here.) Herostratus (talk) 17:02, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think those statistics are meaningful. A simple search for "Christian era" in Google books, upon which the Ngram data is based, returns a predominance of results for many different meanings of "Christian era", where the term refers to things other than calendar dating. For example using the term in a general context similar to "jazz era" or "enlightened era". In just a casual examination of the first page of results, I'm not sure that any of them are using it in a context synonymous with Dionysian era... Mojoworker (talk) 21:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'd hazard that very few people know what "Dionysian era" means. I suppose (not sure) that more know "Common Era", which is a coming term, and I'd guess that more know "Christian era" than either -- maybe a lot more. In a article, we want to be clear, but we also want to be correct, which means NPOV, and it's possibly arguable that "Christian era" is not NPOV, I suppose. But this is a guidance page. Clarity trumps everything here. Herostratus (talk) 04:39, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Above all, let us not be stuffy. You could use both terms, one after the other, i.e.: "Dionysian era, or Christian era," or "Christian era, or Dionysian era," setting the second phrase off with commas to indicate it is an explanation. GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:03, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:SEASON

I was under the impression that "in the summer 2012" was incorrect and that it had to be "in summer 2012". Now that I've read the guideline more closely, I'm not sure it's clear whether "the" is prohibited, required, or optional. Does anyone have an opinion on the correct interpretation? Regardless of how you interpret it as it's written now, what should the guideline be on this issue?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the guideline is all about whether "summer 2012" is more or less appropriate than "January 2012" (or whatever month the event being described occurred). The guideline is not addressing whether the season may be preceded by "the". As for what the guidance should be, I think both usages are correct so it isn't necessary to mention "the" in the guideline. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No, “in the summer 2012” is unidiomatic, but “in the summer of 2012” is fine. The version without an article reads like a headline or abbreviated point-form, but it might be okay in some contexts.—Odysseus1479 00:15, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Based on its current wording, "summer of 2012" is wrong; look at the examples.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:20, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

What is the context here? References to seasons are generally discouraged, particularly in reference to times of a given year, unless there is a particular "seasonal" context.

As the seasons are reversed in the northern and southern hemispheres—and areas near the equator tend to have just wet and dry seasons—neutral wording (in early 1990, in the second quarter of 2003, around September) is usually preferable to a "seasonal" reference (summer 1918, spring 1995). Even when the season reference is unambiguous (for instance when a particular location is clearly involved) a date or month may be preferable to a season name, unless there is a logical connection (the autumn harvest). Season names are preferable, however, when they refer to a phase of the natural yearly cycle (migration to higher latitudes typically starts in mid-spring).

It seems like a rare instance where it would be appropriate to refer to a season of a particular year, but I suppose if an article happened to be about a seasonal occurrence in a specific hemisphere in a specified year, a reference such as the crops grew in Oregon in the spring of 2012 would be appropriate phrasing. —sroc (talk) 02:31, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I wish we could have fewer rules about this stuff. Let the writers write. Every time you prescribe some rule about stuff like this, you annoy some non-trivial number of editors, and there's cost to that. I don't know about seasons, but I know if I write "In April of 1941", which is one of the ways that people actually talk and write and is perfectly grammatical and IMO sufficiently formal, someone will change this to "In April 1941", which is annoying. It's pointless to annoy editors to no benefit. We don't have rules that say you can't write "In 1941, he declared that..." but must write "In 1941, he said that..." and so on, so why rules on months and seasons. Some people like to write rules. They shouldn't necessarily be indulged. Herostratus (talk) 04:58, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

The rule about seasons is sensible. Saying something happened in spring of 1949 is vague, as it could refer to the northern spring (Sep–Nov) or southern spring (Mar–Jun), which depends on context; it makes sense to avoid this by using more precise phrasing such as in October 1949. I do also believe that in October 1949 is better than in October of 1949, although I probably wouldn't go out of my way to change it. I'm not sure why you find such edits "annoying". Remember, no one owns the articles and anyone editing them is probably acting in good faith. —sroc (talk) 19:16, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

By the way, we do have guidelines about the synonyms of "say"; see Misplaced Pages:Words to watch#Synonyms for said. Peter coxhead (talk) 00:19, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

It annoys me a little bit if I write in an article "In April of 1941..." and someone comes along and changes it to "In April 1941..." because that is not an improvement and certainly doesn't make it any clearer, it's just roiling the text to no benefit. Usually I just let it lie, because whatever. But if I change it back (which is my right per WP:BRD) on the grounds of "It was just as good before", and then someone tells me there's a rule about that so I can like it or lump it, it's considerably annoying. You want to minimize the number of times you are saying to editors "You cannot do X, period, per our rules, and if you don't like it you can go edit some other encyclopedia" (which is the subtext of any enforceable rule). If "X" is "insert your own opinions" or "insert unsourced material" or "call other editors assholes" and so forth, then it's worth it. If "X" is petifoggery such as "write 'April of 1941' instead of 'April 1941'" then it's not worth it. Herostratus (talk) 20:10, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

This is why the Manual of Style is loathed, ridiculed and/or ignored. An individual writer of good English, in any of its many regional variants, will regularly use more than one form for phrases like this. There are many things for which a Manual is needed: for example, editors aren't always aware that "summer", "winter", "autumn" (or "fall") and "spring" can mean quite different things in different hemispheres, different latitudes or different climates. But as Herostratus says, the fewer and more pertinent the rules, the more likely they are to be consulted and followed. ¶ In the case of this "rule", I think some proto-editor's teacher corrected "April of '41" to "April 1941" in a seventh-grade essay because it was better usage in that particular sentence, but was either too lazy or too ignorant to explain why, and instead declaimed some dumb and easy-to-remember rule like "Never put ‘of’ between a month and year." No reason to impose that on all English-language Misplaced Pages editors all the time. 21:30, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

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