Wikipedia talk:Eras

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[edit] Ready for the vote

I've gone through and worked on the main page now that it's at Wikipedia:Eras. Are there any last comments, amendments or objections before we open the vote? violet/riga (t) 08:39, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

While I have yet to be persuaded that BCE has merit, there may be articles in which it might be appropriate. Jehovah’s Witnesses use the term to emphasize their POV. One difficulty with BCE is that few are familiar with it. In their articles, here, the term is expanded. For example in Doctrines_of_Jehovah's_Witnesses#Creation_and_the_Flood we read: Adam’s creation as occurring 4026 Before Common Era and the flood as taking place in 2370 Before Common Era.. Therefore, I suggest, that in those instances where BCE is used, that it should be fully expanded to assist understanding. Could this existing practice be offered as yet another solution? btw I notice that the line Jehovah's Witnesses find the terms BC and AD objectionable because they imply that Christ was born in 1 BC which used to exist in Anno Domini see [1] has been removed.--ClemMcGann 09:44, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
I think that question could be decided at the individual article level, not Wikipedia-wide. The readership of some articles may be familiar enough with the notation that explaining it would interrupt the article flow. Alanyst 14:44, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm concerned that there is confusion about how binding this proposal is: is it a guideline like the rest of the MoS, or is it policy? The way I see it, we're prescribing a new Wikipedia policy on how to resolve disputes arising over changes to the era naming style of an article, and we're not directly amending the MoS itself. If that's the case, then the "Current wording" section of the project page seems to confuse the issue by making it appear that the MoS is being amended. Perhaps the only amendment to the MoS needs to be adding something like "Changes to an article's era naming style are governed by the Wikipedia:Eras policy"? Alanyst 14:42, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
The issues raised in the wording section are even more relevant if what you want to make is a "policy" (which is more formal than the guidelines of the MoS) for the enforcement of those guidelines. But it is a strange interpretation that the guidelines would not be changed by such a policy. Gene Nygaard 13:35, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I've altered that a little in order to make it a bit clearer. violet/riga (t) 15:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

On reading over some of the comments above, I do not think we are ready to proceed with this. The intent of this proposed policy change is unclear as is its future status. Moreover, and very importantly it is never wise to contemplate policy changes during a dispute (see List of kings of Persia). It is remains unclear from this dispute whether the problem is a matter of policy. It could be that the current policies are entirely adequate if people would only uphold them. Anyone who does not know what I am referring to should read Talk: List of kings of Persia. Sunray 16:40, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

It's not a policy change, it's a formal enforcement of an aspect of the MoS that is currently ambiguous. I really don't know how you can think the intent is "unclear" - it's intended to fix the situation we currently have whereby we don't really know if it's allowed to arbitrarily change between BC/AD and BCE/CE. Current policies do not cover this. As for not updated the policy during the disputes, well I totally disagree - it's the best time as it's fresh in all our minds, publicised and the evidence is all presented well. violet/riga (t) 16:46, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
We're still dealing with proposed wording which says "the policy" this and "the policy" that. Obviously we are not ready to vote yet.
Even if you perceive it as going into a vacuum (i.e., no current policies apply), which isn't true, creation of a new policy is still a "policy change". Gene Nygaard 13:35, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
The future status is of course unclear; it's a proposal that may or may not be accepted (and the final result depends on which variation garners the most support). The intent, as I understand it, is to formalize a method of resolving disputes over era name style in an article. It does not add restrictions to which styles may be used in Wikipedia, so it does not substantially change the MoS. And regardless of whether there is an ongoing dispute at List of kings of Persia, this proposal is timely: similar disputes have happened in the past (e.g. Jesus) and we can expect that without taking some action we will continue to see edit wars over the matter in the future. No current policy seems to apply here—3RR only slows down the rate at which reverts are made; NPOV is not universally accepted as applicable to the dispute; the MoS does not suggest how to resolve disputes over style and in any case does not carry the weight of policy, so people are free to ignore it. Wikiquette strongly advocates obtaining consensus before making controversial edits, but it too seems to lack the teeth necessary to quell the edit wars. If anyone can point to a current policy (not just a guideline) that does govern how to resolve style disputes, I'd like to see it. Alanyst 17:16, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Sunray (at last, I hear you say). I don't think we are ready for a vote - I think it will prove to be divisive rather than reconciliatory. Sunray and I have agreed on one thing before - namely that we should put readers first. Although there is some small opposition towards this as an overriding concept for WP, I was somewhat hoping that others would agree that this should be the principle on which we should strive to reach a resolution on this issue. I think that aspect would be a discussion well worth taking forward, jguk 19:44, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you want to achieve with waiting, really. I can't see how further discussion will lead to a consensus on which to go for, especially considering that some people haven't even taken part in it. violet/riga (t) 19:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
We already know the result of the vote as we have just had one, which proved somewhat divisive. I can't see how another one would help. If we can find some common ground, we might be able to discuss a resolution - but if we cut off discussion, we'll only end up perpetuating the dispute. Kind regards, jguk 20:17, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
But this is an entirely different type of vote, being for an update to policy regarding the provision of changeovers rather than forcing one scheme or the other. If we start the vote we can continue discussions and also see where it takes us - it may well lead us to an obvious, consensus-driven decision. violet/riga (t) 20:29, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Jguk, we're not looking to cut off discussion; rather, we seek to localize it. As I have said, what's appropriate for one article might not be (as) appropriate for another, so it doesn't make sense to craft a Wikipedia-wide policy that seeks to impose a universal standard. In other words, we still allow for finding common ground, but that common ground is to be found on each article's talk page when there is a dispute. What about this proposal do you think will be divisive? Alanyst 20:54, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Most votes are divisive, particularly when held so soon on a subject just voted on, jguk 21:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
I think the sooner we establish a policy on this the better, and if voting speeds that up so be it. The reason I say this is that things are getting out of control following the failed proposal by User:slrubenstein to adopt a BCE/CE standard last week. Despite the failure of this proposal to obtain consensus, its author and a small group of other editors have initiated widespread editing activities to change existing BC/AD articles into BCE/CE, thus prompting several dozen revert wars on the affected articles. IMHO this behavior is very improper while the dispute is still pending. The adoption of a policy will create a means of solving this problem before it extends any further. Rangerdude 21:47, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Your accusations are doing nothing to move this policy proposal forward. Please try to assume good faith, and if you can't, at least don't bring your accusations here. This page is not a place to discuss editors' behavior but rather to find a way to quell the edit wars surrounding BCE/CE and BC/AD. Let's move on, shall we? Alanyst 22:06, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

It's no accusation to note the simple and easily verified fact that since the failure of User:slrubenstein's proposal to adopt a BCE/CE standard, he and other editors have proceeded to change several dozen articles from BC/AD to BCE/CE anyway. Nor is it an accusation to note that these actions have similarly sparked several dozen revert wars between proponents of these changes and proponents of retaining BC/AD. The problem here stems from the lack of a policy, and the widespread revert wars going on all over wikipedia are symptomatic of the need for a clarification...which is why we should start voting if that's what it takes to move this thing forward. Rangerdude 22:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

"He [Slrubenstein] and other editors..." Look again my friend. I've been very involved and have nothing whatsoever to do with Slrubenstein or his proposal. I've been discussing Common Era issues for many moons now (having edited that article long before Slrubenstein's proposal). I found the proposal interesting, but did not invest in it. Here's my view of what happened: One editor (SouthernComfort) wanted to change the era notation for the articles on Persia (most of which were imported from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica complete with BC/AD notation). SouthernComfort explained his reasons on various talk pages. When he made those changes he was immediately reverted. I and others (including Slrubenstein) supported him. I cannot infer anyone else's motives, but I can tell you that my actions were taken simply because SouthernComfort's proposal was entirely reasonable and worthy of support. Sunray 22:47, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

Back to the subject at hand, is the wording complete and ready to be voted upon? siafu 23:03, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

As I said a few paragraphs up the page, there is a an active dispute on this topic. Let's wait until that is dealt with before trying to make policy changes. Violet claims this isn't a policy change and I take her point, however, I do think it would be best to decide this matter when people have calmed down and are clearer on what has happened. There are still issues that have not been dealt with at List of kings of Persia. Sunray 23:10, 2005 May 26 (UTC)
No. Gene Nygaard 13:35, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

So the arguments seem to be:

  1. There's an ongoing dispute so we shouldn't vote.
    I disagree - those disputes, and future ones, are the reason we're doing this and in order to settle the current ones we need clearer policy.

I'm at a loss about other arguments against starting the vote. violet/riga (t) 14:07, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

You might start by addressing the issues which have been raised about the wording. After all, it was your proposed wording, and you did (unlike someone else we know) invite discussion on that point before bringing it to a vote. So you, more than anybody else, have an obligation to express your views on those questions and suggestions about the wording. Gene Nygaard 14:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree that some of the wording could be adjusted before the vote - I for one think options 2 and 3 under Favour the Change are basically the same and we should only have option 3. I have not been bold enough to just delete the option myself especially since I favor discuss first. Trödel|talk 15:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Even if you believe (as I do) that there is another precedent involved (NPOV), this vote still provides us with the best means of moving forward. Right now, I'm hoping that this will present us with a precedent that can end the stupid edit war that continues, unabated. Clearly if we just continue to argue and do nothing the conflict isn't going to go away. I am also confused by the resistance to this vote. siafu 14:34, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate option

While I realise that this proposal attempts to specifically remove itself from the NPOV dispute, the choices offered do not leave me an option to vote. Based on my interpretation of the NPOV policy, using BC/AD is not permitted in Wikipedia. I understand that other editors do not agree with this reading of the policy, but I think that an altenative option should exist for people who do not see any of the options as acceptable. Guettarda 20:29, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry but I think that is a very poor interpretation of NPOV, and the vote at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate basically proved that the removal of BC/AD is not a viable option. The whole point of this vote is that we need to choose a compromise. violet/riga (t) 20:38, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps Guettarda could elaborate on his point? If we cannot build on other editor's ideas, this marvelous project could turn into a Tower of Babel. Sunray 23:04, 2005 May 26 (UTC)
As I stated in the debate about the NPOV proposal, BC and AD assert the deity of Jesus, and thus are incompatible with the NPOV policy. I realise that this was not the interpretation of the majority of Wikipedia editors. Even if it is, as violetriga stated, a "very poor interpretation of NPOV", it is still my carefully considered interpretation of Wikipedia policy. Compromising on NPOV is not an option "NPOV is non-negotiable". I understand that more than half of the people who chose to vote on the NPOV proposal either did not see the assertion inherent in BC and AD as a big deal, or did not think that assertion was incompatible with NPOV. I can agree to disagree with those editors. However, I cannot be happy with a proposal in which all the voting options woudl require me to vote for a proposal which violates NPOV as I see it.
I do not see as a compromise a proposal which offers me no option to which I can in good faith give my assent. This is not a position that I take based on any antipathy to Christianity. I am a Christian. It is based on a careful consideration of NPOV. I am not saying that everyone must embrace NPOV as I see it. I am simply asking for the option of not being forced to vote for a proposal which would, IMO, conflict with the NPOV policy. Is that an unreasonable request? Guettarda 05:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
No, it is eminently reasonable and I, for one, concur. Sunray 06:44, 2005 May 27 (UTC)
But the point is that there is no NPOV system - BCE/CE is POV-loaded too, so I'm afraid I can't see your argument. violet/riga (t) 07:47, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
How is BCE/CE POV-loaded? Sunray 09:17, 2005 May 27 (UTC)
I'm assuming you've not read through the other vote and seen the numerous explanations? At its simplest, choosing one system over another is POV because it asserts that the one not chosen is incorrect. violet/riga (t) 10:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
This is exactly the type of non-consensus building absoutist position I was referring to above Trödel|talk

BC and AD assert the deity of Jesus. In a case like this, NPOV policy says that we should describe the assertion, rather than make the assertion. Rather than call this era "the [era] of the Lord" we should call this era "what Christians consider to be the [era] of the Lord". The closest we have to this is CE. The "common" era is the one we are in, the present period of Christian (Gregorian) reckoning...in effect, "what Christians consider to be the [era] of their Lord". Unfortunately I must agree with Trödel to some extent. My position is absolutist - I believe that NPOV is non-negotiable, and I do not see BC/AD as compatible with the NPOV policy. On the other hand, I must disagree with the second part of his statement. I do not see people who disagree with me as POV pushers. I see them as people who either interpret the facts of the situation differently, or who do not see the NPOV policy as absolute. Many people do not see BCE/CE as less POV than BC/AD. At least 17 of the negative votes appear to be based somehow on that idea. Other people believe that common usage is more importance that absolutist interpretations of the NPOV policy. At least 13 people appear to have based their votes on this factor. I believe these to be positions adopted in good faith. I am asking that you consider that my position is also based on good faith. Restricting people to options which they cannot in good faith support is not conducive to consensus building. Guettarda 15:34, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I do consider your arguments as having been written in good faith, I did not mean to imply anything different. (feeling stung by the irony of having infered/implied) :) Trödel|talk 18:22, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Guettarda has argued persuasively that there are good reasons to not proceed with this. I will add another. The "revert war" on the Persian pages is now over and clearly the evidence from those pages is that there is no need for a change. I've reached this conclusion after sifting through all the discussion on all the Persian pages about this matter. The problem is most likely not a failure of policy but rather a failure to correctly apply policy. We have a very good guidline in the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). In a vacuum it would not be sufficient. However, when one considers it in light of Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia: Assume good faith it becomes entirely adequate as a guide.
What happened on the Persian pages, IMO, was that some people were not abiding by consensus. We do know that pages on Buddhism and Taoism have long since adopted BCE/CE notation by consensus. Five out of the six editors on the pages related to Persia indicated a preference for BCE. It would appear that some people had trouble accepting that as consensus (yet it is, if you read the policy). Let's all work harder at understanding what consensus means and forget this vote. Sunray 16:15, 2005 May 27 (UTC)
Sunray - while it seems that consensus has produced an agreeable result one way or another, it doesn't always work that way. The recent incident on the Jesus article produced a very different result and a lengthy revert war. One side proposed changing to BCE/CE. The other side objected and reverted back. It went back and forth from there and now the article is awkwardly using both. Attempts to establish consensus drew participation from about 40+ editors with no clear favor for either side - opinions were split. This became very problematic because there was no consensus for the change established on the talk page yet proponents of the change went ahead with it anyway both before the discussion was conducted and in spite of it. It seems in cases such as this one a policy specifying use and how to resolve these revert war disputes would be useful. A policy stating, for example, that in absence of consensus it reverts back to whatever was originally used or that if the proposed change is contentious and meets strong opposition, it should not be implemented until consensus is obtained or a compromise is made. Otherwise we get revert wars and revert wars become very bitter very fast. Rangerdude 20:03, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you make a good point. There is no magic bullet, I suppose and consensus cannot solve everything. Moreover, you have to have players who are prepared to abide by a consensus decision, which was not the case in the Jesus page dispute. Sunray 00:20, 2005 May 28 (UTC)
Why do you say that “BC and AD assert the deity of Jesus”? Perhaps a millennium or more ago, they did. But why do you think they do so today? Does Thursday assert the deity of Thor? Perhaps once, but now? Does April assert the deity of Aphrodite? I suggest that they are mere curiosities to the modern reader. On the other hand BCE is used deny the Christian deity. It was started by groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses. They did so to emphasize their own POV. Few, if any, pause when they read AD/BC. otoh, BCE is novel and unusual (and unknown by some). It will cause the average reader to pause. If Wiki accepts BCE, then Wiki will be perceived by many readers as biased. There is little point in ensuring that articles are written as NPOV, when they have an indicator (BCE), larger than either POV templates, indicating bias. It is my hope that those who favor BCE, will consider the effect that it can have on readers. This is an issue of greater import in some articles than in others. --ClemMcGann 16:29, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Thursday is "Thor's Day". It is not "the day of Thor who is God". We could call it Donnerstag or miercoles, but we don't have another widely used name for it in English'. Calling the time periods "before Jesus" and "since the birth of Jesus" would be NPOV, as is AH, since it derives dates from a historical even, the flight from Mecca. These do not make the assertion that Muhammad was or was not a Prophet of God. "Thor's Day" can be seen as on par with "MLK Day", only with much longer usage and the lack of an alternative in English.
  • I see BC and AD as asserting the deity of Jesus. The argument that the passage of years has diminished this meaning to the point where that meaning no longer exists is a valid one. I don't agree that this is the case, but I concede that it is a subjective judgement. I wish the argument was only about something as simple as this, because we could probably come to consensus on this.
  • Wikipedia cannot change endorse Christianity. Guettarda 03:59, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
Thor was/is a god. Calling Thursday after Thor was/is to honor Thor. It was for that very reason that the early Quakers numbered the days and the months rather than using pagan names. Similarly, the French revolution renamed the months to “eradicate superstition”. --ClemMcGann 15:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Guettarda, you seem to be wanting everything in BCE/CE. While I accept that as your preference I don't see how adding it as an option will help build any consensus. The other vote proved without any doubt that BCE/CE should not entirely replace BC/AD. To me that's the end of that choice. It'd be just like us enforcing BC/AD on every article - something you'd oppose just as much as others oppose BCE/CE. violet/riga (t) 17:14, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Violet, I think you are misreading what Guettarda is saying. He states his absolutist postition that the use of BC/AD is POV, but recognizes that others have different understandings. He then concludes: "Restricting people to options which they cannot in good faith support is not conducive to consensus building." Sunray 17:41, 2005 May 27 (UTC)
Here is a short summary of why I think that using BC and AD is a Neutral Point of View. As stated above, the objection based on NPOV is predicated upon the position that "BC and AD assert the deity of Jesus." In order for the latter to be true the reader must know/believe/do the following:
  1. Know that BC and AD are abbreviations (as opposed to words themselves)
  2. Know what the abbreviations have historically stood for:
    AD for Anno Domini
    BC for Before Christ
  3. Know the definition of the word Christ and Lord
  4. Know that the Christ and Domini refer to Jesus
  5. Believe that the use of the words Christ & Lord make an assertion about Jesus
  6. Think "before Christ" and "Year of [the] Lord" each time they see the abbreviations
This is just not what I think most people do when they see the abbreivations, they just pass them by. Since no assertion of divinity is normally made when the BC and AD are referenced they are NPOV. In fact the most frequent use of the word Christ I hear is usually because my officemates just lost some work on their computer and even though they are being clear in using "JESUS CHRIST." It is not reasonable to assume that they are asserting that Jesus is the Christ.
For me the abbreviations, like symbols, have the meaning that each of us give them. Thus I can easily think BC means Before Common. And then there really is no need for AD or CE except in unusual circumstances where it is not clear that the current time period is being referenced. I really don't see the abbreviations making any kind of assertion at all. Trödel|talk 18:22, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. It doesn't really matter if "most people" ignore abbreviations. We can't misspell words simply because most people don't know how to spell. We cannot use common malapropisms. Ignorance of our readership is not grounds for "getting it wrong". Words mean what they means regardless of whether the reader understands that meaning or not. Guettarda 04:31, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
But there is no NPOV implications for using a word whose etymology we may not like if the current meaning does not assert the etymology. AD and BC are words with their own meanings. Trödel|talk 15:48, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
The point here is that "BC" is just a date marker. It has no other meaning than that. You are right in that that is all it means, regardless of whether the reader chooses to misinterpret it or not. Consider, for instance, the sentence "Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC". That sentence just imparts knowledge about Caesar. It does not mean "Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC and Jesus is the Christ", jguk 07:47, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. It says exactly that - Julius Caesar was born 100 years before the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Guettarda 15:32, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Where, Oh where, can you see the word "Messiah"? -- Posted on Monday, in honor of the Moon God, in the month of May, in honor of the Mother Goddess, Maius; a title passed on the Mary, Queen of the May. ClemMcGann 15:46, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
Christ is Greek for Messiah. "In honour of the Moon God" says that the day is named in honour of the Moon god, much as July is named in honour of Julius Caesar. Not the same as saying that the Moon God is God; similarly, the Senate's elevation of Caesar to god-hood does not mean that he is God. Guettarda 19:16, 31 May 2005 (UTC)


And I thought that Christ was Greek for ‘anointed’. Actually does ‘messiah’ actually mean ‘God’. The Jehovah Witnesses, who were early users of BCE/CE, if not its inventors, agree that Jesus was ‘messiah’ but deny that he is ‘God’ – hence their use of BCE/CE. It is a term to emphasize a point of view.
On the other hand how can you say that to honor the Moon God is not claiming that there is such a God? How can you say the Senate's elevation of Caesar to god-hood does not mean that he is God. If the seanate did not mean that Caesar was a God, then what did they mean?
The reality is that once upon a time, a long time ago, these terms did refer to various deities, including the Christian deity. Except that May got directed to Mary. But now these are all just historical curiosities. Many, if not most, are no longer familiar with their implications.
On the other hand BCE/CE is new, its novel, its unusual, it needs explaining. That leads to a question – why? And the anwer is that is exists only to promote a POV --ClemMcGann 20:16, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
AFAIK, Christ is Greek for Messiah (although, to be honest, I know it only from Church or biblical commentaries, not from any knowledge of Greek). Messiah is not God, but the claim that Jesus is/was the Messiah is equally controvertial. Muslims see Him as a prophet, and Jews as not even that. The Messiah is the specific Promised One. The idea of Jesus being God first appears in Paul's epistles. BC says "before Christ". Jesus' being "Christ" is an opinion, it can't be taken as a neutral fact, and thus is not NPOV. Of course, you can argue that the passage of time and common use has diluted it to the point where the meaning of BC and AD is lost. I would accept the dilution argument with regards to days of the week or months of the year, although I would be inclined to see them as "named after" such-and-such...I don't see the dating system as "named after" Jesus, but rather centrally based on His life and directly referencing his God-hood. AD presupposes that Jesus is a Living God, not a dead prophet or rabbi. The dilution argument for Thor or Tiw has the added weight that few people worship them, and there is no (or almost no) continuity of devotion. They have become "Small Gods".
I am not especially attached to BCE/CE. I think it's the best established alternative system, it's widely used academically, and it has the advantage of keeping dates recogniseable. I wouldn't want to use BP, or Unix time. I have no problem with using BC/AD, I have no problem making the assertion that Jesus is God - I just think it conflicts with the NPOV policy, and given that NPOV is one of the few non-negotiable policies of Wikipedia, I don't see how we can use it. Guettarda 21:09, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
So, it would seem that even we are uncertain of the meaning of and implications of the term ‘Christ’. The average reader is equally unaware of the significance of BC/AD. No doubt, over a millennium ago, it could be termed as POV, but then that pov was universally accepted. Just as a millennium before that the deity of Thor was accepted. The vast majority, if not all, of those using the conventional BC/AD are just using a date; they are not proclaiming the Christian deity. Its use is just too widespread to maintain such a theory. On the other hand, this novel BCE is used by groups who specifically want to emphasize their denial of that deity. What we have here is an attempt at mass deception. There are those who wish to promote their own point of view. Perhaps for noble reasons, they want (as the French revolution did when it renamed the months) to suppress superstition. Like big brother in Huxley’s novel we rewrite history. They maintain that BCE is NPOV. They assert that it is preferred in academia. That may sound sweet, reasonable and plausible. However it is and remains a deception. A small minority, some promoting their POV, others mislead into following them use BCE. Try Google on some of the terms which have seen edit wars here: kings-of-persia bc has 4,000 hits, while kings-of-persia bce has 364 hits, starting with the wiki article. diamond bc has 966,000 hits while diamond bce has 56,600 hits. BCE is, by any measure, unusual. There is no evidence that AD/BC is, today, used to assert the Christian deity. There is evidence that CE/BCE is used to deny that deity. I have yet to see any evidence that BCE is preferred in academia. There is no advantage in such a change, only confusion, doubt and bias. There will be no point in maintaining a NPOV policy. If Wiki is to adopt CE/BCE it will be effectively placing a warning of bias larger than any neutrality disputed template in the eyes of many readers.--ClemMcGann 10:27, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
From Christ: Christ, from the Greek in english known as Χριστός, or Khristós, means anointed, and is equivalent to the Hebrew term Messiah.
Google usage is not grounds to overrule the NPOV policy. BC asserts that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what the words say. AD says He is God. So to say that "There is no evidence that AD/BC is, today, used to assert the Christian deity" is absurd. It says that the person born ([around] Year 1 (a) is the Christ and (b) is God. That person happens to be Jesus of Nazareth whom we Christians believe to be God. The argument that readers don't know what words mean so we can use them to say whatever we want makes no sense. And, yes, NPOV is deeply revisionist. It's an extremely radical idea. History is always written by the victors, language is controlled by the dominant group. NPOV says that's not the way to go - we present both sides, we report rather than assert. It doesn't matter if Brittanica asserts that Jesus is God, it doesn't matter if Brittanica takes a highly Western-centric view on things...we cannot.
Wikipedia cannot endorse Jesus as God, nor can it deny that He is. BCE/CE is the best system to do that. You may see it as a conspiracy to deny Jesus as God. You are entitled to your view. Without any evidence beyond your view, Wikipedia cannot work from that assumption. Regardless, if we discard BCE/CE we need an alternative which conforms to our NPOV policy. We cannot discard NPOV. So we need to conform to NPOV, not conform NPOV to our view of the world. Guettarda 15:39, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Many people believe BC/AD is NPOV, and that's the underlying problem here. We will not be using BCE/CE as a chosen standard any time soon (just like we won't use BC/AD as a chosen standard) and the whole point of this discussion is to reach a compromise. Arguing over the relative merits is just distracting from the issue. violet/riga (t) 15:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I am disappointed with your response. When AD/BC is used, it is not asserting the Christian deity. I wrote that "There is no evidence that AD/BC is, today, used to assert the Christian deity". If you disagreed then I would expect to see some such evidence. Yet your reply is “is absurd”. How you can extrapolate from the use AD/BC to claims of divinity, is beyond me. On the other hand the evidence that BCE/CE is there to promote a point of view is illustrated by its use by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As you say “language is controlled by the dominant group”. So, even that fact, which used to be on Wiki, has been excised. I used to Google example to illustrate that BCE/CE is novel, new and unusual, as well as to question the assertion that it is preferred in academia. I am disappointed in that you pay lip service to NPOV while, in reality, rejecting it. Using AD/BC no longer endorses any belief. BCE/CE does. You say that “The argument that readers don't know what words mean so we can use them to say whatever we want makes no sense.” But it does, because the meanings of the words have changed. English is a dynamic living language. You had to look up definitions to conclude that BC (once) implied deity. Perhaps it one did. But if you have to research the term, it does not do so today. You said “You may see it as a conspiracy to deny Jesus as God”. I wrote: “Perhaps for noble reasons, they want (as the French revolution did when it renamed the months) to suppress superstition.” I see this as an effort by some administrators to promote their own agenda; to put a stamp which conforms to their own point of view on Wikipedia. Given that they won’t take no for an answer, they will probably succeed. Then it will not matter how neutral any article is. If it has a BCE/CE, that will indicate bias to readers. So much for the empty words “we need to conform to NPOV”--ClemMcGann 16:23, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Your arguments are contradictory. You say that "Using AD/BC no longer endorses any belief". Then you turn around and say "BCE/CE, that will indicate bias to readers". If BC/AD is not a Christian POV, then the absence of it cannot be an anti-Christian POV. It can't be both ways.
As for your statement: "How you can extrapolate from the use AD/BC to claims of divinity, is beyond me." - it comes from the word Domini. BC/AD are arranged around the birth of Jesus (roughly). Domini applies to Jesus. Anno Domini means "the year of the Lord". That Lord is Jesus. Thus, Jesus is Lord. So if I say that this is AD 2005, I am saying that Jesus is God. That is not an NPOV statement. If I say 54 BC I am saying 54 years before the birth of Christ. Again, the Christ is Jesus. To say that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah, or Annointed one) is to say that he is the promised one in the Bible. It doesn't say that he is God, but it does say that he is the Promised One. Since many Jews are still awaiting the Promised One, the statement that Jesus is the Christ is not NPOV. To say that there is a Promised One at all requires that the Bible is true and that there is a God. Not NPOV statements.
You said: "I wrote that "There is no evidence that AD/BC is, today, used to assert the Christian deity". If you disagreed then I would expect to see some such evidence." You are asserting that the words do not mean what they said. I cannot be expected to prove a negative. The onus is on you to provide evidence for your position. The default position is that words mean what they mean. The idea that common usage has devalued them to the point where they no longer mean what they say is a viable argument, but I do not recall anyone providing any evidence of this. An assertion must be backed up with sources. Otherwise we just have the established meanings of words. I would love a compromise - but it must be based on facts.
We are faced with an inflexible rule in Wikipedia. NPOV is non-negotiable. That is the core of Wikipedia. That idea will offend everyone at some point in time. Here, it offends many people. Maybe BCE/CE is not the best alternative for dating. Without some evidence that BC and AD are compatible with NPOV I am forced to oppose their use. The only other alternative is to modify or discard the NPOV policy. We cannot allow exceptions because some people find the alternative offensive. Guettarda 19:06, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is precisely because we have the NPOV policy that we should always use BC/AD. This is the notation most commonly used - by a long, long, long way. It's not even close - 90%+ of English-speakers in the world would use BC/AD over BCE/CE. So we should use it - and if anyone asks why, the answer is that we use it because it is the most common notation used by the vast majority of English-speakers. (And this carries with it the implication that should general usage change, so will we.) We do not use BC/AD because we are making a point - we use it because we are not making a point.

Compare that to the situation if we adopted a lesser common notation system, such as BCE/CE. How do you answer the "why?" question without expressing a political opinion? Why have you decided that an expression that has a Christian etymology is bad? Should we exclude every word with a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Sikh origin? What about words with mediaeval Norse, Roman or Greek religious meaning?

The point is that as soon as you diverge from using the most common terms around to describe something, you open yourself up to the question - why? You also mention that we shouldn't be concerned if some people get offended by adopting a NPOV approach (and here it is clear that BC/AD is the only NPOV approach). Isn't it about time that those who have taught themselves to be offended by BC/AD when they know full well that those using it have no intention to cause offence decide to teach themselves that it is not offensive after all? jguk 20:38, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're missing the point. Wikipedia cannot assert that Jesus is God. It has nothing to do with origins, it has to do with the meanings of the words. Can someone who believes that the words have lost their meaning through common usage provide some evidence of this, some reputable source that addresses that? The NPOV policy does not allow us to use something that is POV simply because it is widespread. If this were 1930s Alabama (2005 Alabama??) we could not assert that blacks are inferior even though most people thought so. Common usage is meaningless if it is POV. It isn't about references - BCE/CE still references the birth of Jesus. AH would be NPOV because it is based on an even that is not contentious (the flight from Mecca is not POV, Muhammad's being the final messenger of God is).
You say "and here it is clear that BC/AD is the only NPOV approach". I find that statement baffling. How can the assertion that Jesus is the Messiah/Jesus is God possibly be "the only NPOV approach? How is Unix time, BP, etc., are NPOV - they just are too uncommon to be useful. BC/AD is among the most POV of the available options. The only question is whether or not that POV has been diluted enough through common usage to just barely slip under the NPOV filter. Guettarda 20:54, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"The NPOV policy does not allow us to use something that is POV simply because it is widespread." You're simply wrong. Everything we use is a POV of someone or other. That's precisely what we do use. NPOV does not mean "be neutral, never use anything that is biased". It means "represent all views fairly without bias on your own part". You are, of course, pushing your own bias: which is that "BC" says that "Jesus is god". This is very much a minority view (Jguk's point) and is simply not tenable given BC's wide use by nonChristians. BCE is not to my knowledge much used outside the States. Are all the rest of us pronouncing the godhood of Jesus? Hardly.

I don't think this issue can be resolved by a vote. The most reasonable solution, I think, would be to use "BC/BCE" where appropriate, because this recognises both views, which is what NPOV demands. Also, AD 2000 should not be used. 2000 AD/CE would be fine. I'd say AD is just as commonly written after the year these days -- precisely because those using it do not know that it is supposed to be read "in the year of our lord..." and do not recognise a solecism in postpositioning it.

But what does reason have to do with it? Grace Note 03:39, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You can nit-pick over what may be imprecise wording, but the point still stands - common usage does not make something NPOV. There are two elements - one of which says that we have to represent all views fairly (which would necessitate that we include dates in all dating systems). The other element of the NPOV policy is that Wikipedia cannot endorse a POV. To use BC and AD is to endorse a POV. Which violates the NPOV policy. Which is non-negotiable. Therefore we cannot use BC/AD.
My POV, as you call it, is that words have meanings. Since this is a written document which needs to stand on its own, without someone standing over the reader's shoulder telling them what we really mean when we say "X". Thus, we cannot say "X" and mean "Y" because we know that everyone reading it will know what we mean. The point of Wikipedia is the be the free encyclopaedia available to the impoverished school in Africa. We need to approach metaphors with caution, because we are dealing with a situation in which not all our readers will share our cultural backgrounds (as if we don't have enough problems like that already).
You say: "The most reasonable solution, I think, would be to use "BC/BCE" where appropriate, because this recognises both views, which is what NPOV demands." BC asserts that Jesus is God. BCE is more like saying "some people believe Jesus to be God". The former is against the NPOV policy, the latter complies with it. Where is it appropriate to break the NPOV policy, pray tell? We are supposed to describe the POV, not endorse it.
You are arguing that BC and AD no longer mean what they say. Can you provide any referenes in support of your position? If it is the case that BC and AD are diluted by common usage to the point where the words have lost their meaning, then someone must have written about it. If this is a "done deal" as you are asserting, then there must be literature which supports that point of view. Surely, if you are appealing to "reason" you must be basing your position on facts and not simply on your POV? Will you please share with the rest of us these references upon which you have based your reasonable position?
But what does reason have to do with it? - really, that's highly insulting. My position is based on two things - compliance with the NPOV policy, and the assertion that words mean what they mean. How is that not reasonable? Guettarda 04:43, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Words mean what they mean? Does a beautiful day make you feel gay inside? Do you enjoy watching the geeks perform at the circus? If you have a stoic expression, do you look like Zeno? Do you converse with everyone you meet, and do you find satisfaction in such intercourse?
Note that in order to communicate the obsolete meaning of those words I had to expressly use a context for each that jarred with modern usage so you could use the correct interpretation. Used in a neutral context ("a gay man", "a room full of geeks", "stoic behavior"), the terms take on their modern meanings, just as BC/AD in a neutral context take on the meanings of "before the current era began" and "after the current era began". In order to express a POV in BC/AD, I would have to use it in a manner that distinguishes it from how it is normally used.
Insisting that BC/AD still communicates a Christian POV is like insisting that the gay rights movement must be concerned with defending the rights of all people to be cheerful, or that a computer geek must perform bizarre acts with electronics at circuses, or that a stoic man must be knowledgeable about Greek philosophy. You're free to do so, of course, but you can't expect everyone to be such a strict constructionist about everyday words, and you certainly shouldn't ban terms that are POV only when their modern usage is ignored. And we shouldn't be surprised if nobody has written a paper about how BC/AD is now a neutral term, simply because of the obviousness of it. Do you think I could get a paper published about my discovery that "gay" now means "homosexual" or that "geek" now means "socially awkward technophile"? More to the point, can you show evidence for your claim that modern usage of BC/AD retains its original meaning? (Not just that some people interpret the original meaning, but that it is the predominant meaning.) Alanyst 20:47, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You make a good point, but in a sense you support my request for references. There's a lot published on the shift of meaning of gay (not so much on geek, I was not aware of the original meaning). At the same time, these illustrate shifts in meaning. BC/AD is a dilution rather than a shift. And don't get me wrong, I buy the dilution argument as true, I am just unconvinced that the meaning is sufficiently diluted to the point where it could be considered a shift in meaning.
Of course, I suppose to be consistent I should question whether "gay" as a synonym for "homosexual" is NPOV. Ah, great, force me to choose between my political beliefs and NPOV. Nice corner you have painted me into! :) Guettarda 21:06, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just have to applaud the excellent contribution of Alanyst above – beautifully put. violet/riga (t) 21:24, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Ideal Solution

Ideally, this could be solved technically with code changes to the Wiki software. Dates (and other units) would be typed in a notation that allows them to be displayed differently based on a user's preference.

For example, the raw text "Julius Caesar was born in ||100 BC||" would be displayed either "Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC" or "Julius Caesar was born in 100 BCE" depending on how you configure your user preferences. Similarly "||100 kg||" could be rendered either "100 kg" or "225 pounds" (or even "100 kg (225 pounds)").

Just throwing that out there. I know I'm not contributing to the debate for which this page was intended. BeavisSanchez 19:39, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

The problem with this seemingly promising approach is that of spurious precision. 100kg conveys a different precision to 225 pounds. Further, when converting calendar dates, individual days could move to different years (not all calendars start on 1 January. The Roman calendar used to start on 15 March, to take one example. So 10 March and 20 March in the same year in the current calendar would be in different years in that calendar).

If such a solution is introduced, please be careful that it does not inadvertently introduce errors into existing pages. NantonosAedui

If you can get a developer interested in doing this, let us know - it would solve a lot of problems! jguk 14:35, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm a software developer with lots of php experience. I might be willing to do this, but I have no idea who to talk to. So if you have any access to the powers that be, let me know (on my talk page). BeavisSanchez 23:18, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Is anyone with appropriate experience/knowledge willing to help me draft a submission to Bugzilla to request this software feature? --Theo (Talk) 22:36, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the discussion

Just wanted to thank everyone for the discussions going on here - I really think that we can come to some sort of happy compromise when this all goes through. violet/riga (t) 22:21, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Approval voting may be ok for candidates, unacceptable for issues

The proposal now says that it will use approval voting. That is a method some find acceptable for choosing a candidate—usually a person running for a job, but as the article points out, it could also be used in choosing a place among candidates for a state capital. Even in those situations, this type of voting is used only in a very small minority of cases. In any case, it is used when the choice is among discrete objects. We do not have discrete objects here.

It is wholly inappropriate as a means of setting policy. No legislative body uses "approval voting" to pass its laws. No business uses "approval voting" to set its rules and policies. No organization amends its by-laws by "approval voting".

We should not set policy by choosing the lesser of 16 evils.

One of the biggest problems is that the options presented here are not mutually exclusive. We could come up with an enforcement policy that includes elements from more than one of these options.

It is especially bad in this case, where as it stands now Violetriga has created four different categories, and two of them with no subcategories, but two of the other categories are divided into three and four subissues, each siphoning off votes from the other. One of the additional problems is that, no matter how well you explain it, this is unfamiliar voting that some of the voters are not going to understand.

It might serve a useful purpose in a straw vote to see where we go from here. It might point the way to writing a clear, fleshed-out proposal for policy (rhat than the one-sentence summaries we have so far). I could accept using this for a straw vote for this purpose; I will fight tooth and nail against using this procedure to set policy.

If it comes to a policy-setting vote on this basis, the safest option for anyone who disapproves this type of voting for this purpose is to vote for no change, and to vote only for no change. Otherwise, your vote may only help to pass something totally unacceptable to a large majority of Wikipedia editors. Gene Nygaard 12:38, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I very strongly disagree with what you're saying. The option that gets the most votes is clearly the most favoured choice and is the one to go with. The choices represent all the best possible solutions to the problems. There are different variations because it enables people to choose their preferred options, and they are grouped together simply because they are similar. violet/riga (t) 13:25, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Approval voting is entirely inappropriate when we are going for consensus. It ends up being divisive. It was a complete nightmare on Whig's vote on prefixed styles, when it seemed only he understood how to interpret the result. He also selected a method that (according to the WP article on it) means that by voting for your preferred option you can make it less likely to win. We really should avoid this voting method and leave its use to vote-fixing politicians, jguk 14:33, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see how it would be divisive or difficult to understand. People vote for all the options that they don't mind being implemented and the one with the most votes wins. If either of you have a better way forward then you are free to suggest it, but for now it seems that you must both be happy with current (non)policy. violet/riga (t) 15:06, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
How about a compromise? Do approval voting to narrow the choices down to the top 2 vote-getters then do a widely publicized vote between them for the final policy. Or narrow it down to one highest vote-getter and do a yes/no vote on its adoption.Rangerdude 17:24, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I always understood that we sought to determine policy by consensus. It would be better to continue discussion rather than voting - but a vote should be a simple yes/no for each proposal with 80%+ required to demonstrate a broad consensus, jguk 19:49, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that there should be consensus work done here as applicable, but sooner or later it's going to require a vote of some sort. There are simply too many people who are taking absolutist positions on this issue and thus will never be in consensus with those seeking some sort of middle of the road solution. Some editors have repeatedly stated that they want nothing other than a complete adoption of BCE/CE, which failed miserably to obtain consensus when proposed yet still has proponents. As long as we have absolutist positions like that in either direction there will be an impediment to obtaining a moderate solution, such as a policy stating that the original dating system used should be retained unless clear consensus exists for a change. Also, I don't object to a high threshold for that vote either - 70-80% range is good. I just see approval voting as a way to narrow down the alternatives some, which moves us closer to where we could potentially obtain an up down vote on something with 70-80%+ consensus as the threshold. Rangerdude 20:29, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm coming late to this discussion -- primarily because I had to make a determined hunt for it in order to join in. And there are some issues that desparately need to be considered before a vote is taken -- my apologies to everyone who has worked hard on this & thought the chore was done.

  • I believe that the policy concerning choice of Era in an article needs to be changed, & acknowledge that the choice of Era may be changed & how. However, there may be Wikipedians out there who do not agree, & will only accept changing from one to the other only to make an article consistent; has anyone determined if they exist, & how fierce their opinion on this matter is?
  • This is a controversial issue, like it or not. Slrubenstein's proposal brought out something like 160-170 votes, the most I have seen on Wikipedia on any one topic. Unless this gets a wide amount of imput, there will be a number of Wikipedians who will refuse to accept the results of this vote -- no matter what the results are. This vote needs to be advertised to as many people as possible.
  • A vote should move us towards a consensus -- not away from one, which is what it appears this form of approval voting will do. We have 7 different choices, which will only split opinion, & unless one gains a 50%+1 majority of the vote, we'll end up right where we started, with a number of differing opinions.
  • Couldn't the vote be set up to determine each point? For example, up or down on (1) respecting the original author's choice, (2) whether a consensus is needed to change the original author's choice, (3) one proposal to define this consensus, (4) another proposal to define this consensus. That way, if different points pass or fail, we at least know what people agree on, rather than which factions are the smallest & can be most easily ignored. -- llywrch 21:08, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
My concern is that, although consensus on an option would be nice, I doubt it will come. That's why I favour discussion so that we can come to a modus operandi, jguk 22:41, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A simpler proposal

Why don't we just codify what everyone can agree on and move on. It's just a style guide for Pete's sake. Here's what I propose we add to the guideline:
The use of one era style over another can often be controversial. In articles concerning non-Christian religious topics (for example, Gautama Buddha) BCE/CE should generally be favored over BC/AD. In other contexts, consensus should be built before making any changes to the existing style.
 Simple, (mostly) uncontroversial, and to the point. Kaldari 05:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Simple - there is nothing that everyone can agree on. Some of us believe that BC/AD violates the NPOV policy. Other people believe that not using BC/AD would violate NPOV. So something resembling the status quo is not uncontrovertial (or there wouldn't be very much debate here and at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate). Guettarda 05:40, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Because where does the BCE/CE favouring stop? There would be so many gray areas that the arguments wouldn't stop. violet/riga (t) 08:23, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The BCE/CE favouring stops where consensus breaks down. Judging by the recent Request for Arbitration against Jguk and by the fairly consistent use of BCE/CE in articles about non-Christian religious topics, I believe that there is a rough consensus on using it in that context specifically. But maybe we should put it to a vote. Kaldari 15:41, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Getting consensus is no easy matter, and what constitutes as a consensus is debatable. What, for example, would List of kings of Persia come under? violet/riga (t) 15:50, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
My interpretation of at least most of the arbitration case against Jguk (I'm looking at this broadly) is that it is not based on which style is appropriate where, but his aggressive campaign against BCE/CE in general.
Also, I think it's still early for a vote. I don't feel strongly about either style, but I think the best way to proceed is for a wide discussion of:
  1. Is any change needed concerning overall policy/guidelines/whatever about the style?
  2. And then, what change would be most acceptable to the most people? Maurreen 16:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Maurreen has given a pretty good summary of the situation. I concur with her that we must first determine whether any change is needed to current policy/guidelines about eras. Sunray 16:32, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)
I think that the edit wars and RFAr have shown that there's a need for a better wording, if only to state that it may be controversial and may need discussion (favour discussion variation 2). Yes, jguk was the main person revert-warring, but such a change would highlight that it has been problematic in the past and may be again. violet/riga (t) 16:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. I also like (favour discussion variation 2). This option goes at behaviour vs. preferring either style, which I think would the more agreeable way to go, at least for now.
In skimming over the page above, it seems like there is actually minimal discussion of what is on the project page. I have some concern that a vote with multiple options could end with an inconclusive result. Do you think that either the choices should be narrowed down first, or a procedure should be determined on how to deal with an inconclusive result?
Also, I'm going to put a pointer here from the style guide talk page. Maurreen 17:04, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wow. Some people seem to have very strong feelings for "Anno Domini" which is now an anachronism. Any good, modern, history book uses BCE/CE. Another alternative is "BP" (before the present) as advocated by Joseph Campbell. This, however, is unfamiliar to a lot of people, hence a bit awkward. I don't understand the debate at all -- BC/BCE is a no-brainer.

CE has no advantages. It has many disadvantages. Only used by a small minority, some of whom use it to promote their own bias. It is prone to error. It is unfamiliar. The familiar, and appropriate, use of CE, which is stamped on just about everything, it to indicate that it conforms to European regulations. Perhaps some here would like to emulate the French Revolution and stop using AD to eradicate superstition. However this is an encyclopaedia, the objective is to reflect the best current scholarship. It is not to embark on such campaigns. However, in spite of the lack of advantages, any editors here are currently changing the familiar AD to the novel CE, irrespective of any decision taken here. Their activities will gradually diminish Wikipedia. But they will derive some satisfaction from their eradication of AD. As for BP, if CE is bad, how can you even suggest it?--ClemMcGann 21:51, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think a lot of this boils down to cultural differences (like so much of Wikipedia debate). In the States, BCE/CE is quite familiar as it is used in most school textbooks, so perhaps we assume that it is equally familiar in the rest of the world. BCE/CE isn't actually that "novel" as it has been in common use (at least in academic circles) for several decades here. Encyclopedia Britannica (which is now produced in the US) also uses BCE/CE. Kaldari 22:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The use of CE to signify dates may be increasing, but it remains a minority. You mention the Encyclopedia Britannica. The on-line edition www.britannica.com uses the familiar BC/AD notation. Choose any subject that you will and search google or any other search engine for your subject plus BC and then BCE. Less than a tenth of the articles will use the novel BCE. No doubt, you will find a exception to this rule. However, although there are is no merit in using CE and there are many disadvantages to it, we will see it increasingly used here on Wikipedia. It matters not that the proposal to change to it was lost. Those proposing it will change irrespective of the opinion of others. Those who seek to defend WP, will like User_talk:Jguk#Left.3F be driven away. In a rather perverse way this use of the unfamiliar CE has an advantage. It will warn a reader, in a more significant way than any “neutrality disputed” template, that an article is written from a biased point of view. You say that this “boils down to cultural differences“. I suggest that it boils down to the purpose of WP. Is it an encyclopaedia to inform the reader, or is it a platform for its editors to promote their own image of the world? --ClemMcGann 09:45, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Ah, this is interesting. It seems that Encyclopedia Britannica actually uses both BC/AD and BCE/CE depending on the topic of the article. I just happened to have looked up articles that use BCE/CE. Check out, for example, their article on Buddha: "flourished c. 6th–4th century BCE... lived in northern India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries before the Common Era."
It seems you have quite a dogmatic stance on this issue. I hope that you will put aside your personal feelings to work towards consensus, as that is the modus operandi of Wikipedia. Personally, I believe that both "Common Era" and "Before Christ" are acceptable descriptive terms. In some cases, however, it makes more sense to use one over the other. Kaldari 14:49, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So, you did find an ‘exception to the rule’. At least they spell out “before the Common Era”. I would disagree with your “"Before Christ" are acceptable descriptive terms”. Why should “Christ” be mentioned? “BC” now has a meaning independent of “Christ”, Just as I would baulk at saying “Wotton’s day” rather than “Wednesday”. A problem with the BCE/CE debate was that some choose to see a reference to the Christian deity which was a mere anachronism; a shadow; a curiosity. Saying "Before Christ", as you suggest would bring that deity to the fore and therefore promote a point of view. Just as introducing the novel BCE or BP (as you suggested earlier) would highlight a denial of that deity. AD/BC has been in use for so long that it is as neutral as the days of the week and the months of the year are independent of other deities. The decision Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk/Proposed decision demonstrates the futility of trying to “work towards consensus”. It is not this issue per se, but what the decision evidences. There is no need to reply. I will be absent. (at least for some time). The die has been cast. I wish you well. Neutrality, was perhaps, over ambitious. Regards, Clement --ClemMcGann 16:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A compromise proposal

I have created a compromise proposal which actually addresses the style problem rather than just behavior (as is more appropriate for a style guide). Please discuss the proposal on its talk page (not here). Kaldari 19:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please also look at my counter-proposal on that proposal's talk page. Alanyst 20:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Style sheets already!

[moved from the voting talkpage for better visibility. I am convinced this is the way we'll have to go sooner or later dab (ᛏ)]

I am so tired of this. It will be well worth a developer's time to hack up stylesheet support for this. we can then have {{year|-5}}, and people will be able to choose if they want to see -5 CE, 6 BCE or 6 BC. Hell, they'll even be able to customize Hijra or Middle-earth calendars. This is only a question of representation for crying out loud, and like font, background colour and what not, it should be rendered client-side. The only exception will of course be discussion of calendars and Common Era itself, where the template will not be usable, because the notation will be part of the statement. dab (ᛏ) 18:17, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

They should also implement style support for 12 vs. 24 hour clock and metric vs. imperial measurements while they're at it, although I haven't heard about any work on these areas yet, unfortunately. Kaldari 19:43, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
the nice thing will be that Wikipedia will become more machine-readable. {{year|-5}} and {{time|14:28}}

will be so much more parseable than numbers scattered over the text. dab (ᛏ) 08:29, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's the real problem here

I think that User:Slrubenstein's essay Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate/Discussion is quite insightful and anyway this debate is a good one. But I think it's important to try to figure out what the real problem is..

  • 1. Many calendars exist, but the Christian one (Gregorian calendar) is overwhelmingly used.

Is this a problem? I think a lot of people figure that while year 1 is a christian-oriented setting, that fundamentally, any calendar has to have some year 1... it's "just a number" and it's not in your face

  • 2. BC = Before Christ and AD = Anno Domini

Is this a problem? Well, yes it is for many people. BC and AD are religious symbols. Even if you're not aware of it, you can be sure that many people are, even non-Christians. So what happens is that every time they see "BC" they see the injection of religious material into a non-religious text.

  • 3. BCE and CE are not so common

Certainly CE and BCE are not in everyday use among the general public. That's a problem because if you say to someone "hey it happened in 792 CE" they might go "what?". Understanding is important!

Well, I think that's a NPOV summary of the really important issues in this NPOV. Now my opinion :-)

  • a) we can't get away from the gregorian calendar, it's pervasive
  • b) it's not "nice" to force religious symbols on other cultures (= to be POV)
  • c) CE and BCE are common enough... and we can do more to make them more common

Is the doctrine of NPOV sufficient to say that Wikipedia should adopt the less-used language CE/BCE? Should wikipedia take an active role in adopting new standards and thus propogating them?

Sbwoodside 04:29, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia should not take an active role in any such endeavor. To do so would commit WP to advocacy of a non-consensus position. Neither should WP take a position opposing alternatives to a traditional usage. Septentrionalis 14:09, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
For a start CE meaning Christian Era is twice as common as Common Era - just do a google
CE - Common Era - is for that who wish to emphaise their denial of the Christian deity
CE - Christian Era - is for those who whish to emphaise that same deity
AD - is the current existing standard used by the vast majority, as such it carries no overstones, no more than August honors a roman emperor made God nor monday reverences a Norse God.
Isn't is curious that the Common Era article here uses references to h2g2 to support it, yet h2g2 only uses the conventional BC/AD? --ClemMcGann 05:06, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I think that's a fallacy. You're saying that a widely accepted standard cannot be biased (by definition) Sbwoodside 05:46, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
Small note to the side: monday wasn't named after a Norse god. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were. Sunday was named after the sun, Monday after the moon, and Saturday after Saturn. Aecis praatpaal 12:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I think using something that is the only generally accepted worldwide standard does not imply bias on our part - particularly if the reason we're using it is because it is the only generally accepted worldwide standard. This applies to everything, I don't see it as being special to these abbreviations, and also implies that if, at any time in the future, another standard becomes generally accepted worldwide, WP will change accordingly, jguk 06:07, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I actively use AD and BC not because that way people know what I'm talking about (oh no!), but because I'm secretly trying to push a subliminal Christian message to all those with whom I come into contact. Furthermore, when I say that something happened on Thursday 29th July, I'm furthering my campaign to promote base 10 numbering systems (just imagine all the dozenists I'm offending!), Norse religion (don't tell anyone, but I regularly pray to the almighty Thor) and the Roman pantheon (in fact, only this week I sacrificed a yearling calf to the Divine Julius). I only wish there were more ways I could push my secret agenda whilst pretending to be simply saying things that other people understand. Proteus (Talk) 11:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! Someone else out there understands how stupid this argument is. Use what you want. If someone else doesn't understand it, they can look it up in the Wikipedia! --Optimus 16:12, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Whatever happened to this proposal?

Is anyone still working on this? Did it ever lead anywhere? Can it be brought back to life? The issue certainly hasn't gone away -GTBacchus(talk) 08:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody could agree how to proceed, unfortunately. violet/riga (t) 11:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aecis' comment from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

From the related discussion at the Village Pump: I agree that the BC and AD system are much more common than BCE/CE, and I wholeheartedly admit that I never use BCE/CE in everyday life. However, I believe that wikipedia shouldn't always simply go by this. After all, this is not the simple wikipedia. As regards to the issue at hand: the terms "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini" have a christian connotation. As such, I believe they are strongly linked to christianity and to the christian parts of the world (or parts with a distinctly christian identity or history, since many parts of northern and western Europe are rapidly secularizing). There are many areas that are not covered by this. One would be ancient Greece, which was an explicitly pagan society. I believe it is inappropriate to use the BC/AD system in an encyclopedia article about e.g. Xenophon, Sophocles or Euripides. I believe an encyclopedia should, in such cases, use BCE/CE. Aecis PS. If it is technically possible to use the preference setting that Docu has suggested, I would wholeheartedly support that. from [2]

What you suggest is fairly close to Wikipedia:Eras/Compromise proposal, which is now a rejected proposal. You're welcome to try to jump-start it, but I like some of the versions at this page better, and am in favor of attempting to breathe some life back into this proposal. I think we can't prescribe either system, for any category of article. There are enough reasonable people on each side, and we can't prefer one within a consensus model. Just as inappropriate as you find the BC/AD system, lots of people find the BCE/CE system, and I don't think either side gets to "win" this dispute at Wikipedia. That seems to me to be the message of the compromise proposal's rejection. Someone who was involved at the time can probably might be able to say whether what I'm saying really makes any sense. I admit, I haven't read all the backlog at this point... -GTBacchus(talk) 11:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem with this proposal is that it, essentially, will automatically result in "BCE" always being used. There were no Christian societies before Christ, you know. By comparison, the Britannica system seems to be to use BCE/CE for articles relating to currently existing non-Christian religions, and to use BC/AD for classical subjects and the like. john k 18:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. I believe that BC and AD would be inappropriate in an article about for instance Siddharta Gautama, who lived in a non-christian part of the world long before christianity arose. In an article about for instance the history of Sweden, I believe BCE and CE would be inappropriate. I must add, however, that the option of preference setting would be my favourite, although that leaves the question of what readers who are not logged in and therefore have set no preferences, will see. Aecis praatpaal 20:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Pre-Christian Sweden was also an explicitly pagan society. Every society which existed before the birth of Christ is non-Christian, so by this standard it is never appropriate to use BC. Since we don't use AD in most articles, anyway, because it's unnecessary, your "compromise" is not instrumentally different from just moving to a BCE/CE standard. Personally, I would prefer the latter, since at least it's honest and clear. john k 22:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, Sweden technically didn't exist prior to the arrival of christianity, and indeed for a long time after it. Sweden was formed roughly in the late Middle Ages or early modern period, while the area that we now know as Sweden was gradually christianized between the 9th and 11th centuries. Many of the articles that relate to "pre-christian Sweden" are not about Sweden as such, but about an area that is now part of Sweden. This applies to just about any country in Europe for that matter, since afaik all of the European countries were formed after the arrival of christianity. But I see your point, and I believe that in such articles (e.g. Pre-history of Sweden) BCE/CE should be used. But this would be my second choice, like I said before. I think it's best to put this part of the discussion on hold for now, and focus on the technical feasibility of the preference settings. Aecis praatpaal 00:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Aecis, you're right, of course. BCE and CE are clearly more appropriate for lots of articles, if not all. Unfortunately, you can't get consensus behind it, and a bunch of articles are going to stay in the Wrong Version, and we're all going to have to live with that. In order for this proposal to move forward, both sides are going to have to accept that they can't win within a consensus framework, and we need to look for a different solution. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:32, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Aecis, Sweden most certainly existed before the arrival of christianity in Sweden. At any rate, your position makes sense, but my point is that it is not a compromise position. It is a position that we should always use BCE. And that we should almost always use CE, when we have to specify era for dates after 1 BC/BCE (which is not terribly often, to begin with). Because the only times when it's a clearly "Christian" topic, like, say, the history of modern Sweden, you never need to use the era. At any rate, your argument that only "Christian" topics should use BC/AD was soundly rejected (or, at least, did not receive anything close to consensus support) when this issue was voted on. Personally, I would prefer just agreeing to use BCE/CE exclusively to a bogus "compromise" like this. john k 01:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The views I described above are indeed not a compromise position. They are my personal views (as copied from another discussion by GTBacchus), with some elaboration. They are where my personal "road towards a compromise" starts. I agree with you that we need to find a compromise between the BCE/CE pov and the BC/AD pov. An option would be to just use whatever it was started with, but I agree with GTBacchus that that would lead to a land rush. I'm not sure that "either/or" (have wikipedia choose between BC/AD and BCE/CE, and use the "winner" in every single article where it's needed) is a good alternative, but if that is the outcome, I will abide by it. I'm still mulling on the possibility for compromise and consensus, so I can't really say much about that. I only know that my favourite is the preference setting, but I've already said that. Aecis praatpaal 12:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't really see the "land rush" as much of a problem. I doubt there are too many articles which started out inconsistent and remain such. If there are such articles, they ought to be fixed, anyway, and it's better that they get fixed the "wrong" way than that they stay inconsistent. john k 19:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] FCYTravis' comment from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

My concern with this is that it's going to lead to a complete edit war over every article that is currently split between AD and CE. The POV warriors on both sides are going to rush to find articles to make "consistent" and spark 15,000 brushfires around the Wiki. My thoughts are that NO date system should be changed and that it should be up to each contributor to choose which system he or she wishes to use when making an addition. Under NO circumstances should anyone's personal choice of system be disputed or reverted, and this should be a blockable offense from both sides. If I want to add a section with BC in it, that should be fine. If I want to add a section using CE, that should be fine too. It is hardly confusing to use both, and it would stop the edit warring in its tracks. FCYTravis 10:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I wonder how many articles really are inconsistent right now? Maybe setting a two-toned swarm of zealots on them would be the quickest way to make every article consistent. It'll be more like a land rush than a brush fire; maybe kinda fun even. And then suppose we adopt a guideline saying that the style should be that of the article's first consistent edit, (unless there's a consensus for change on that article's talk page). There would be that initial flurry of activity, while a bunch of articles get reverted back to the style of their first consistent version, but then the people who care about the issue could devote their energy to policing the articles that have the style they like, and writing new articles in the style they like, both of which are better than the current edit warring that's going on.

I don't really like the idea of allowing inconsistency within an article, but it's in the spirit of a Zero-revert rule philosophy, which I like a lot. Maybe that should be one of the options here. -GTBacchus(talk) 12:08, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Observations, and two suggestions.

Ok, so it seems necessary to jump-start this proposal. The current situation is not sustainable, and the compromise proposal didn't fly. Its vote page shows about a 50%/50% split, but closer reading indicates that voters fall into the following 3 camps, each of which is non-trivial in number:

  1. "BC/AD is a universal standard and BCE/CE is ridiculous"
  2. "BC/AD is POV and BCE/CE is the only acceptable solution"
  3. "This is all m:instruction creep and there isn't really a problem"

Groups 1 and 2 are utterly irreconcilable, and they're just going to have to accept that neither of them gets to win, IMO. Group 1 would like to argue that group 2 is a fringe minority group, but they are present in large enough numbers at Wikipedia that we can't squash them and still claim to follow a consensus model.

Group 3 need to be convinced that there really is a problem (if there really is one - I'm currently assuming there is), and we need to come up with wording in the MoS that doesn't seem too instruction creepy.

I'm in group 3. Some pages are so old that it would take an undue amount of effort to figure out:
  1. What was the originial format
  2. Has there been any discussion in the talk page archives concerning a derivation from the original format.

--Elliskev 19:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Name one. I don't think history pages are all that hard to navigate, and if there's been a consensus in the past, someone from the past will certainly emerge from the woodwork, link in hand, to let you know that. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
OK. I'll grant that I can't name one. And I grant that someone would probably come along and point out relevant talk history. And, I'll grant that talk history is pretty simple to navigate. However, there are edit wars going on and people are being blocked for 3RR and those that are being blocked are complaining that the original format was that to which they were changing. It's pretty plain to me that there needs to be something done. Maybe it's as simple as posting the format to be used at the top of the talk page. Maybe it's something else. I don't know. I just think there is a need for discussion. --Elliskev 23:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Now, I suggest, and if nobody talks me out of it, intend to pursue, two lines of attack for this issue. First, there's been some talk about implementing a technical solution, in which users can choose what date format they prefer to view, somewhere in "preferences". That needs following up, independently of whatever happens with this proposal. I might sleep for 8 hours first, but when I wake up, if nobody's done any follow-up at Village pump (technical), I'll get after it.

Secondly, there's this proposal. Since the compromise proposal didn't work, here we are again. We've got, in addition to the status quo version, six alternatives, detailed here at Wikipedia:Eras, all set up for voting of some kind.

I suggest we start working this hydra down to a managable number of heads. First I'll leave this message up for a while and see what other approaches people suggest (that whole sleep thing again...). Then, pending something better coming along, I think we should consider a round of polling on the six alternatives, and possibly some others that nobody's thought of yet. I would suggest a soft poll, consisting of "weak yes" and "weak no" votes, all very non-binding and exploratory just to feel out whether we can narrow the field by eliminating the worst and clunkiest versions. When we've determined which alternatives have some support, we can discuss their particulars in more detail.

What do people think of all this? -GTBacchus(talk) 14:00, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

If a technical solution such as you describe here is actually feasible, in that people will write the code and then implement it here at Wikipedia... then that sounds like the best solution. I seriously doubt any sort of non-technical compromise can be found that will leave a majority of people with good feelings afterward. What can we do to help, aside from talking about it?
→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 14:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
A technical solution would be best, but has to be fairly comprehensive. It should be as easy to use as putting all years, prefixes, and suffixes into links (as is commonly done for years alone now). It will be quite a job to find them all.... William Allen Simpson 16:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I did start a page doing that on Wikipedia:User preferences for BCE/CE notation, but stopped as there was no appetite for it. If there is now an appetite, please feel free to finish that off. You'll still need a developer willing to add it all to the software - but if all the "thinking" has been done beforehand, it shouldn't take a developer a long time, jguk 16:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I've left a wake-up call at the project discussion page there. Anyone who's interested in helping with that aspect... -GTBacchus(talk) 23:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems to me that the problem is that the implicit "don't change it if it's already consistent," rule is not stated explicitly, and that there's a lot of people (usually, but not exclusively, advocates of BCE/CE) who like to change articles, and then there are other people who yell at anyone who reverts back. I would suggest that we simply state the "if it's consistent, don't change date format" rule explicitly, and that it be elaborated to indicate that, essentially, from the first time that the article is consistent in terms of what date format it uses, we should use that date format. john k 18:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


Yes. Wonderful idea. We should perpetuate a system that, in theory, allows anyone at all to use whichever dating system they feel is appropriate as long as they started the article.
Right. This brings a few things to mind.
1. No one owns articles at Wikipedia.
2. The rules governing BCE / BC dating conventions are nearly as badly worded as Fair Use statutes in the USA. Ergo, the current status quo leads to conflicts, full-blown edit wars, nose warts, and other nasty things.
3. Here is a revolutionary thought- *one* system of dating articles. Whether it be one of the available types that is widely known, or a technical solution so that people can flick a radio button in their settings, *one* system is far better than what we currently have in place.
Speaking for myself, I would rather be listening to what GTBacchus has in mind. He seems to be up to something good.
→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 19:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Look, if people actually abided by the "don't change it" rule, there wouldn't be any problems. The problem is that there's a large group of people who feel they have the right to change any article to BCE (usually - I'm sure there's some instances in the other direction), and this leads to major disruptions. I agree that the current policy is terribly worded, and I'm not advocating no change. I'm saying that we simply institute a "whatever the first writer said, goes" policy as an explicit policy, with no exceptions. The problem is not that such a standard would be difficult to achieve. While there's often been confusion in articles as to this issue, I don't think I've ever seen an argument which was really about this, since it can be objectively determined. Such arguments that I have seen usually revolve around BCE advocates going on about how BCE is more appropriate for this particular article, even if it was originally written in BC. What we need to do is just explicitly say "don't change it." There's too much leeway right now. As to having "one" system, I would be perfectly fine with that. The problem is, there was a vote on this, and it was completely inconclusive. The best option might be to have a two part vote. One vote would be "I agree that we should have a vote in which simple majority rule determines which date format we should use." If there is a consensus to go ahead along these lines, we could then have a second vote, in which people basically just get to choose either to use all BC/AD, all BCE/CE, or to continue with the current policy. The option with the most votes wins, since we already agreed by consensus to abide by the majority position.
Obviously, the ideal would be for each user to just be able to set it on their own, if that's technically feasible. john k 20:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chooserr's BC/BCE Ideas

I full heartedly support Dwains version. I'm not going to go out there and change articles that started BCE/CE to BC/AD, but I believe it's wrong that one person can change the entire dating format. PHG starts his articles off with the BCE/CE format, and I won't revert them. If it becomes policy that the creator decides the dating format it will eliminate all the problems IMO. Chooserr 17:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

In the mean time I'm going to revert the Sophocles article...which was changed only days ago to the less common BCE/CE system.

I know why no one wants to adopt the Dwain's version...it's because half of the BCE/CE articles would be changed back to BC/AD. I bet there isn't one article on wikipedia using the BC/AD formating that was started as BCE/CE. I dare anyone to find me an article with BC/AD dates that started as BCE/CE...Chooserr

Wikipedia:Civility. Please.
→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 18:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Chooserr, if I understand what you mean when you say "Dwain's version", I think that's probably the most popular version around, in fact, it's what lots of people assume the rule is now. Therefore, I can't agree with you about why no one wants to adopt Dwain's version, when I think there are actually lots of people who do, like myself for example. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Please stop edit warring over completly random articles--Aolanonawanabe 18:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm not edit warring over completely random articles...Prove that I am. Chooserr 18:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
    • You just started the BC/BCE edit warring on wicca an article that hasn't been edit warred over since the WfD thing back in August, that's either random, or something much more headache worthy than I'm willing to be bothered with--Aolanonawanabe 18:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I encountered the article, and I am not changing it to a AD dating system I am just getting rid of un needed controversy. No one speaks of the current date using CE or AD. Why say 1960 CE? Why say AD 1960? Chooserr 18:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Encountered? Where, how? Wicca hadn't been editing in over an hour, there's no way it was visible in recent changes...? it almost looks like you're htting the Random article button, and reverting the first article that pops up with BCE in it--Aolanonawanabe 18:22, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
        • As I said to you, Chooserr, at the Wicca article- what say we cool it with changing the date markers until we come up with a solution here? Changing them right now is pointless since it looks like a technical solution may be able to be coded. That slices the Gordian Knot into cat food. Cheers.
        • → P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 18:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
          • This seems to be a discussion of a specific edit war spilling over onto a discussion page for the more general issue. Though no official policy was introduced, there are a few points which are self-evident. Firstly, era names should only be used when necessary (i.e., if all dates are since AD 1 it's not necessary). Secondly, for various reasons, there are situations where one form is preferable to the other. Finally, changes to the era style being used in the article should only be made after consensus is reached through discussion on the article's talk page. There has been a great deal of discussion, name-calling, and out-and-out fighting conducted on this issue-- the long and short of it is that it isn't worth edit-warring and you can generally find a solution by consulting the regular editors of the article in question. siafu 19:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Secondly, for various reasons, there are situations where one form is preferable to the other. I think this is where we run into problems. If we are going to have a compromise, and try to avoid arguments, we simply can't accept this, because accepting this will lead to huge numbers of arguments. In the era before Christ, when Christianity did not exist, one can pretty much claim that it would be preferable in every single article to use BCE, rather than BC. This means that we don't have a compromise at all, just a bunch of arguments. I think the arbcom basically recognized this, and said that changes shouldn't be made to articles that are settled. That should be the last word. If we wanted to come up with some explicit criteria for when BCE should be used and when BC should be used, that would be one thing. But just having some vague idea "sometimes one is more appropriate - argue it out on the talk page" is just asking for trouble, especially when other statements have been made along the lines of "don't change an article that is already settled." john k 20:06, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I have no idea where the idea that there should be absolutely no changes made to article in terms of date notations came from, but the arbcom itself recently made it clear that this wasn't the case. Consensus is always the decider, and that's the way it works on Wikipedia; sometimes it's one way, sometimes it's the other. If there's an article whose source material is primarily, or even exclusively, written using BCE/CE, it may well be preferable to use that notation, and vice versa; that's just an example, but it is clear that there are situations where one form is preferable to the other. siafu 21:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
What situations would those be? So long as the central guidelines can provide no guidance whatsoever in what situations would make one version preferable to another, this is just asking for needless dispute. If it's all about consensus at individual articles we will never work anything out, because this is not an issue where anyone's position has anything to do with the character of individual articles. As to your potential example, it's worthless. No primary sources are written which use either method of dating for BC/BCE. And AD/CE is only used when necessary to disambiguate, which is usually for the earlier part of the period, when, again, no primary sources will use either system. As to secondary sources, there will always be many secondary sources written using both formats, so that's a worthless guideline.
If an actual specific guideline could be developed which had the support of consensus as to when one version is appropriate, and when another one is, that would be fair enough. But nobody is proposing this, and it is highly unlikely to imagine that any such guideline would gain the support of consensus. Otherwise, all this "it should be determined on individual pages based on vague, unwritten criteria" business is just trying to make things more problematic. john k 21:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Actual, specific guidelines have been proposed multiple times, with no consensus reached. We have to make do with the situation as is. As for secondary sources being "worthless", surely you jest. Primary sources are not the main source of information for wikipedia, as using only primary sources would entail original research. It's not insignificant what style or terminology is used in the scholarly literature on a particular topic, either. The reason I'm being vague on the point of "certain situations" is because I don't imagine it would be possible to foresee all of them. Almost every content decision here on wikipedia is made on "vague, unwritten criteria", it's not going to break anything significantly to have it be this way for this issue either. The only thing that needs to be "enforced" is actual discussion and consensus-building; that's the only way to avoid edit-warring. If you think you can come up with a universal guideline that will obtain consensus, best of luck to you. The fact is, however, that there are too many people who are too invested in the issue for reasons having nothing to do with any of the articles in question on both sides that developing a universal consensus that can be applied to all articles is impossible. siafu 22:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Secondary sources are worthless because there is absolutely no subject where you will actually be able to find that secondary sources have some sort of huge dominance for one usage over another. As to the basic issue, the problem is that almost nobody involved with this debate actually, in practice, thinks that different versions are more appropriate in different situations. The claim that there are is actually a claim that we should basically always use BCE/CE, as I think Aecis has demonstrated. And most people who support BC/AD think it should be used in all situations, since it is the more common usage. So individual discussions are never really discussions about what people think about individual topics, but debates about the policy in general. This is not an issue which is amenable to discussion on individual articles. It's an issue which ought to be settled as a general rule. I suggested a potential procedure for, in the absence of consensus about which date format to use, we might be able to settle on using a single one by a majority vote. In the absence of such a rule, the almost possible thing that will not result in constantly having this stupid argument over and over again is just agreeing not to change articles from the format they started in. This is the only genuine compromise possible, since any other attempt to come up with a "compromise" based on using judgment in individual articles is just an invitation to change everything to BCE/CE. john k 01:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The "vote" you're referring to has been held at least three times to my memory, with no consensus or clear majority ever established in either direction. If you think that there's a way to break that deadlock, you will be more creative and successful than some of the best editors and negotiators here on wikipedia. On what grounds are you stating that this is not a topic that can be amenable to specific discussion? I'd note that when it actually has been tried, it's been successful, and that the horrible edit-warring that has occurred before was primarily a result of certain editors changing the dating style without bothering to discuss it first, or even abjectly refusing to engage in discussion. siafu 03:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Siafu, you said, "I'd note that when it actually has been tried, it's been successful;" can you provide any examples of articles where a consensus has managed to agree on either BC/AD or BCE/CE? That sounds very interesting. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The examples that come immediately to mind are Parthia, and I believe that there was a satisfactory compromise worked out over on Jesus. In general, articles relating to the History of Iran and Judaism were those most worked over in this dispute. siafu 04:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
That's encouraging. I think we have to allow for consensus to trump any "rule" on a case-by-case basis, if we're going to keep being Wikipedia. I think that a more solid requirement of having to obtain talk-page consensus to alter an article from its original style would channel people's energy from revert warring and onto the talk pages.
john k's argument then seems to be that you just end up with the same ideological dispute on dozens of talk pages, when it doesn't even relate to the content of those articles. I can't deny that's likely to happen, but what happens with it? It's an stalemate dispute, every time, except in the relatively rare cases where a large group of authors have a united approach to the article. Otherwise it just gets argued to a standstill on each talk page, and that's that. It's not a huge change from what's happening now, but I think forcing it from the edit summaries and onto the talk pages will be good for Wikipedia, just by reducing revert warring. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Chooserr did not change wicca to add BC/AD. He removed a completely unnecessary "CE". This is what the Manual of Style says one should do, and I can see nothing wrong with that. john k 18:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I have the perfect solution

Since the one thing everyone can agree on is that modern era dates don't need either, I suggest we strip both systems, that way there is no conflict, simply replace BCE/BC with a (-) sign, and add a 0 in front of two and three digit numbers,
like this:
1997 stays 1997
560 AD becomes 0560
730 CE becomes 0730
27 BC becomes -0027
348 BCE becomes -0348
...and so on, it's no more arbitrary than any other changes made to the calender system in the last 2000 years, I mean heck, if we still used the origional unrevised christian calendar system, it would probably be July right about now,
maybe we can set a new standard, first encyclopedia to ever denote years using negative non-zero-integers--Aolanonawanabe 19:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
It strongly appeals to me (simplicity, mostly NPOV in style, et cetera), except for one small element- each date would need to be wikilinking since that system is intuitive to some, but I would consider that 'some' a minority. We have to consider that people under the age of 18 will use Wikipedia, and the further we go from conventional norms in formatting things like this, further we also go from having articles easily understood by a wide range of levels of education.
Still, though... it appeals to me... :)
→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 19:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • An even better idea just struck me, why limit ourselves to integers, let's divide everything by 1000, that way 1997 can be changed to 1.99700, of course then we might wind up edit warring over how many significant figures a year should be reported to--Aolanonawanabe 19:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • See above comments. ;)
  • → P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 19:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I mean obviously 1.99 is easier on the eyes than 1.99700000, but then people born in between 1990 and 1999 might object to having their birthdays erased--Aolanonawanabe 19:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Dunno. After a certain age is reached, people might be thankful. ::grin::
  • → P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 19:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

That proposal is nothing more than the astronomical year numbering (and since you are using negative numbers, you need to have a zero, which means 27BC would become -26). --cesarb 19:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

An even better match: your use of zero-prefixing shows your proposal is in fact ISO 8601 year numbering (you just need to add the zero). --cesarb 19:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
In fact we could even do it the other way around, and make this into 2004--Aolanonawanabe 19:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

This is unacceptable. Either a policy of just using BCE/CE or just using BC/AD would be far superior to this proposal. The first rule of things like this should be "don't make up formats that are only used in Wikipdia." john k 20:01, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, I think if you give it a little time, years*10-3 could become quite catchy, would remove a lot of uneeded formatting, for instance..
decadeds could now be denoted by reporting the years to only three sig figs, I mean instead of the time consuming process of typing out 'the nineteen sixties' you could just use .196x101,
instead of months we could just use more sig figs, for instance instead of 'January the first month of the year' you could just write 2006.1x10-4,
it could potentially cut down on many minutes worth of typing per article,
of course we'd have to switch to a system of months compatible with a base ten numbering system, but it would all work out in the end--Aolanonawanabe 20:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
ISO 8601 is an international standard. --cesarb 20:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
But is used in only very limited contexts. The fact that it is one off from the actual BC dates doesn't help. Saying that the Battle of Salamis happened in -0479 is very confusing. john k 21:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Aolanonawanabe, you're right, of course. ISO 8601 is clearly the most appropriate for lots of articles, if not all. Unfortunately, you can't get consensus behind it, and a bunch of articles are going to stay in the Wrong Version, and we're all going to have to live with that. In order for this proposal to move forward, all sides are going to have to accept that they can't win within a consensus framework, and we need to look for a different solution. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite of project page, and where to go from here

Please see the project page. I've made some major changes. If you strongly disagree with the way I've changed it, feel free to revert it back, but let's at least please talk about how to proceed. I feel like this might be a good way to get the ball rolling. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

My suggestion for the next step is to collect a few more variations, as part of an information gathering phase. We're just collecting variations that people think of. It would be helpful to refrain from criticizing any particular variation at this point; there will be time for that in the narrowing down phase. There's no wording that it can actually hurt us to talk about, so we can be very open at this phase.
[We pretty much leapt clean over that step, actually] -GTBacchus(talk) 21:00, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
When we have a healthy list of suggestions, we collect signatures under the "Weak or strong support" and "Weak or strong oppose" headings. The list of variations, the signatures collected by each, and the accompanying discussion here, compose the information that we're gathering.
Once we've gathered it, we decide what to do with it.
Opinions? If no one objects, we can open the variation list for additions anytime... -GTBacchus(talk) 01:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm opening the floor for more suggestions, and I've added a couple of obvious ones that seem to be recurring themes in the discussion. In the spirit of information gathering, I'm putting suggestions up whether or not I happen to like them, whether or not they've been tried and failed, etc. Let's just collect ideas at this point, and we'll pare the list down to the good ones next. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
We have relative peace regarding eras now that people are following the guideline and an arbitration decision has ended the edit wars. How about we just leave it alone? Sunray 05:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Because it's false that an arbitration decision has ended the edit wars, and arbitration decisions do not constitute policy. The fact that it keeps coming up seems to imply that what the AbrCom keep saying should maybe be written into policy. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
In fact, in that very decision, the ArbCom said:
3) A guideline such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras can be changed by the Wikipedia community, see how policies are decided. This policy provides for consensus decision-making by those users who are familiar with the matter.
Passed 7-0
That wasn't followed up on, and here we are again. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

That was "can" be changed, not "should" be changed. What evidence do you have that there is a continuing problem since that last ArbCom decision? Sunray 06:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I realize they didn't say the guidelines "should" be changed. It didn't have to be followed up on. The fact remains: it wasn't.
Evidence of continued controversy? Check out the edit histories of Sophocles, Euripides, Xenophon, and Wicca for recent edit wars. At least one 3RR violation has been incurred, and plenty of people have gamed it right up to three reverts without going over. This seems to come up perennially, and will continue to do so until the MoS gets fixed, IMO. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, you have a point about the continuing edit wars on this subject. However, there are also cases where editors have followed the MoS and other Wikipedia guidelines, such as Wikipedia:Consensus and managed to sort it out. An example is Fu Hsi. Sunray 09:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
That's a good point. I really think that WP:5P implies enough to avoid edit wars (Wikipedia:Consensus falls under pillar 4, for example), but we also have other guidelines that are essentially redundant, unpacking particular aspects of how WP:5P are applied. I don't generally favor multiplication of redundant rules, but in this case, an ounce of prevention might be worth a pound of remedy. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ok, what the heck

Since Chooserr went ahead and broke the ice, let's start signing under support and oppose as well. Feel free to sign as many as you like. You can even sign support and oppose for the same option, if you like. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The A options

Someone asked me if I meant to sign up as both supporting and opposing A3. I did. As I continue to think about it, though, I dislike all the A's less. I like WP:BOLD, and the A's are in that spirit. A3 seems the least likely to just return us to the current situation - it kind of says that if you step on someone's foot, you take your foot off of theirs, and then discuss, which seems very polite to me. I'd like to see an argument for how A1 or A2 would really make any difference. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, WP:BOLD as I interpret, is about making changes for the sake of the article (by not letting a healthy conservative attitude get in the way of progress), while pure era changes are changes just for the sake of change, which is not good (since not every change means progress). For example; [3], [4]. I don't see a problem with someone (more or less accidentally) changing the dating style if he makes a significant contribution, but 'hit and run' style attacks seem more common. squell 01:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. Also, by observation, the A options don't seem much more popular so far than the status quo, and I might venture that it's because they're so close to it (in meaning, not just proximity). The status quo and its neighbors are pretty likely to be unpopular here though, considering this is a project born out of frustration with the current state. A more general population of Wikipedians might be more resistant to change - we need to be very clear up front on the need for any proposal... -GTBacchus(talk) 22:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

What is "the change" that should be favored? Is this a change to the manual of style, or to something else? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 08:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not perhaps the best wording. "The change" is when someone comes along and changes the date format in an article. "Favor the change" refers to a policy of not reverting that change unless the talk page generates consensus to restore the date format from before "the change". -GTBacchus(talk) 04:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] C1, C2 and WP:OWN

This is in response to statements by user:jguk on the project page. Under C1, which says we should always default to the original author, he said:

In direct contravention to Wikipedia:Ownership. Also, we should be writing for our audience, rather than being any one editor's private project

I completely agree. C1 is a terrible solution, fully against the spirit and practice of Wikipedia. Now C2 is similar, but allows for consensus to trump authorship. Jguk said:

Again, this is in direct contravention of Wikipedia:Ownership. Also, what if the original author's preference has been changed a year ago - should we really his choice still as a default?

In this case, I think we don't violate WP:OWN, although we are somewhat against the spirit of WP:BOLD, which I don't much like. Since C2 acknowledges that consensus always over-rules everything though, It doesn't grant ownership to anyone. It just says that this shouldn't be an impulse edit, because that leads to impulse revert wars, as experience has shown again, and again, and again.

It gives us a way to quell an edit war and force a discussion, which is what needs to happen. Reverting the edit, and vaugely alluding to "Wikipedia rules" in the edit summary is terribly unproductive. Every time an article gets edited one way, and then another, an actual conversation needs to happen on the talk page. If that conversation is a stalemate, which this one is, we need to have something to default to while both sides pout. Defaulting to the original author is a rule that doesn't show systematic favoritism one way or the other, except in a way that reflects usage, which is as fair as can be expected, I guess. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I do feel the need to weigh in belatedly that the "C" options are absolutely unacceptable. Nobody owns wikipedia articles, least of all the original author, who oftentimes provides no more than a couple sentences as a starting stub. We don't want to foster the idea that whoever "gets there first" determines the fate of the article -- if something is wrong at the beginning, we can fix it later. That's how wikipedia works. siafu 14:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
You don't think option C2 gets around that? By explicitly noting that consensus still overrules the original author, I feel like you can't make any claim of ownership - it's just a default until a consensus opinion arises. Otherwise, in the absence of consensus, how do you settle disputes over which version it should be left in? -GTBacchus(talk) 04:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please stop edit warring the project page

Reverting one another is hardly in the spirit of consensus. Please direct discussion here.

After a some back and forth reversions among various parties, I've changed the wording of the project page as follows:

Variations D - Favour BC/AD
The policy should favour BC/AD notation, as the most common standard, in all cases.

now reads

Variations D - Favour BC/AD
The policy should favour BC/AD notation in all cases.


Variations D - Favour BCE/CE
The policy should favour BCE/CE notation, as an NPOV standard, in all cases.

now reads

Variations D - Favour BCE/CE
The policy should favour BCE/CE notation in all cases.


Variations H - Favour BVE/VE
The policy should favour BVE/VE notation, as an NPOV standard, in all cases.

now reads

Variations D - Favour BVE/VE
The policy should favour BVE/VE notation in all cases.


Let's try to discuss the ideas for now, without worrying about the wording. If your support of an idea is dependent on its wording, then please add your comments to this talk page, and say as much. This is not a vote, nothing is being decided, and you're only signing up as weakly maybe feeling kindof ok about, or maybe feeling kindof less than ok about. That's all; please don't sweat the wording, or if you do, please do it here, on the talk page. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request a software upgrade

(on Bugzilla). That's the only viable way of solving this. You won't stop the edit warring unless there's a consensus that a standard is preferable, and you won't get that without a consensus what the standard should be, and you won't get that without resolving the edit wars. Circular reasoning is sometimes inherent in the Wiki. Radiant_>|< 01:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

So we'll be seeing you at Wikipedia talk:User_preferences_for_BCE/CE_notation? Great.
Meanwhile, I respectfully disagree with the circle you've drawn. I think there's a chance that we can get a consensus that edit wars are bad, and that a truce that isn't partial to one side is preferable to the situation we have now. The technical solution, meanwhile, will not address how dates appear to unregistered users, or by default to newly registered users, so this proposal is still necessary. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Feedback/suggestion

Per an invitation by GTBacchus I'll offer my two cents. Wikipedia already has a policy about national spelling variants that we can adapt for a model. It favors the original author by default. It also respects the subject matter. That is, an article about one type of art in the United States could be called "Theater" while the corresponding British article may be spelled "Theatre." So an article about the Vatican would use the BC/AD system while an article about Israel would use BCE/CE. It's impractical to formalize this distinction into strict categories. Durova 02:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  • While you are entirely correct, what you describe is the status quo and it's also what people edit war over. Check out WP:RFAr and look up the case on Jguk, for instance. Radiant_>|< 03:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
    How does the status quo on date formats favor the orginal author by default, or respect the subject matter? The status quo policy is just silent, whereas what Durova describes above is practically option C2. And I fail to see how Jguk's RFAr is relevant, except as background, since I'm pretty sure that ArbCom decisions don't constitute policy. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I meant the arbcom case as an example of how people edit war over this. It is my understanding that this issue is similar to American-vs-British English with respect to guidelines. It would have been more practical if a set standard had been adopted when the Wiki was young, but it's probably too late for that now. Radiant_>|< 14:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
        I'm sorry, I thought you were illustrating the first half of the sentence, not the second. Mea culpa.
        With respect to the guidelines, this issue is unfortunately not similar to American-vs-British English; although many assume that it is. The guidelines on BCE/CE versus BC/AD are almost completely non-existent. The guidelines regarding spelling differences, on the other hand, comprise this section of MoS, and this extra reference page, also part of MoS. They even have a cool (self-referential!) opening sentence acknowleding the controversy. "Cultural clashes over grammar, spelling, and capitalisation/capitalization are a common experience on Wikipedia." In other words, those guidelines address the problem. The Era guidelines pretend there is no problem, and occasionally the problem blows up. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

As another minor practical issue which is missed on this page, I think the manual of style should indicate that if AD is used, whether it should be as a suffix or as a prefix. The current guidelines carefully sidestep it. squell 11:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I would think prefixing AD is standard, and that ought to be spelled out. The year "127 AD" is just wrong. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It should also be clear that AD/CE should only be used on a transition from BC(E), usually as a range of dates:
    • 1 BC - AD 1.
  • No other AD/CE should ever appear in an article. That should clear up rather a lot of argument!
--William Allen Simpson 20:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree, if the year numbers fall close to the start of an epoch you will not instantly recognise them as years unless explicitly marked. Many people are not familiar with Wikipedia's habit of linking years:
This happened in 2.
compare
This happened in 2 AD. —— (or AD 2 / 2 CE, that's besides the point here)
— squell 00:49, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It just occured to me that the MoS /could/ recommend the following in these cases:
This happened in the year 2.
— squell 00:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Something should recommend it, because I had NO IDEA that was possible. I like it!
-- William Allen Simpson 01:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Observations on the evil poll so far

Ok, here's what I see, when I look at the information we've accrued on the project page. Perhaps it'll be different from, or similar to, what someone else has observed...

  • The status quo and the A variations don't seem too popular. Then again, here we are, working on a proposal to change the status quo, so that's perhaps no big surprise.
  • The B variations seem a little more well-liked than the A's, and less strongly disliked as well. They have appeal; they have flaws. Of the two, maybe B2 is closer to ideal.
  • C1 is largely passed up in favor of C2, which seems kind of popular, though it has its critics as well.
  • The D's and E's are interesting. They both attract fairly strong opposition, and somewhat less strong support. Of the supporters of D1 and E1, only one in each case is willing to compromise at D2 or E2. Those are the same two editors who are also willing to compromise as far as C2. The other supporters of D1 and E1 don't support anything else.
  • Variation F (the compromise proposal in disguise!) seems to generate some support from editors who also don't mind C2, and some opposition from various camps.
  • Variation G, a somewhat different approach, thrown in for variety, and based on something I read somewhere late at night, seems to have produced an offspring with three heads and at least two tails. This is either: A style issue, an NPOV issue, or a behaviour issue, and should therefore be addressed at MoS or somewhere else. Interesting.

Comments? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

My comment- I added a 'Variant' modifer (Variant Z!) to the list in order to speed up this process. If we can reach a consensus on what *type* of rule we want, then a discussion of the various *methods* of dating becomes more pertinent.
→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 10:13, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

My own feeling is that:

  • the issue will not be helped if what WP:MoS dictates is not significantly strengthened (especially "you should use plain numbers for years")
  • the majority of Wikipedia readers will simply want a uniform style - if they're reading about the Roman empire and 9 articles use AD/BC, then encountering the oddball article using CE/BCE dating is distracting. If most articles about China use CE/BCE, all other articles about China should too (this is close to variant F)
  • it is newspeak to re-label events originally (or historically) labelled AD. The gregorian reform simply occurred in AD 1582, there is nothing Wikipedia can do about that. No such problem exists for events dealing with, say chinese history or judaism
  • arguments about what is "offensive" should be politely ignored in favour of what is "appropriate"
  • adjusting all existing articles to a single chosen dating style is impractical
  • WP:MoS, unlike WP:NPOV is not official policy so it can't overrule consensus of editors, meaning that C1/D1/E1 are meaningless.

I think I've voted accordingly. — squell 22:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Perfect Era Solution

Hello, everyone. I am in support of the anno Domini terminology personally, but I have a different proposal that may just satisfy everyone who reads wikipedia. Also, it's easier and removes all problems of "confusion" and the extreme likeness of BCE to CE, also it would stop confusing pages like the Jesus page from referring to years like 164 BC/BCE. I got this idea from the customs of the History Channel. Here is the proposal:


Years from 1 forward will be abbreviated with CE (which can be interpreted as Common Era or Christian Era).

This ensures that nobody is acknowledging that Jesus Christ is God, and it also leaves Christians with the Christian era option.

Years 1 BC and previous will be abbreviated with BC (Before Christ).

Although this method would acknowledge Jesus (Christ) directly, noting this era as Before the Common Era simply masks the reasoning behind the Gregorian/Julian calendars. Unlike using AD, using BC does not acknowledge Christ as a god, simply as a historical figure, which most scientists agree that he is. It is basically the same as saying the days of the week, such as Wednesday, because it only acknowledges the historical meaning behind the word, not that the historical meaning is a god. It can also be difficult to speak BCE in dialog, and also, it has three letters. When we drop the "E" and use just BC, it has no grammatical similarities to CE, meaning the terms cannot be confused with one another easily. (One of the reasons of support given for the use of AD and BC on the common era page). Finally, using both BC and CE in a sentence also roll off the tongue easily (e.g - It was ongoing from 2 BC to 5 CE).


The best part about this proposal is that it will not be required that we change the current Wikipedia policy. The current Wikipedia years pages use BC, but they use neither CE nor AD for years after 1. Also, like the History Channel does, we can use AD in replacement of CE for exclusively Christian pages, and we can use BCE rather than BC for exclusively non-Christian religious pages. However for religion-neutral pages, meaning all pages other than those associated with religion, will use the proposal above. How does this sound? PatrickA 15:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC).


It's a nice idea, but it doesn't change the fact that asserting that Jesus is the Messiah/God violates Wikipedia policy. Guettarda 16:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand? Using BC does not assert that Jesus is Messiah, it acknowledges A) that he existed (which he did) and B) that the Gregorian calendar system is based on him (which it is). If you're talking about AD, I'm proposing that it be discarded, except for use in explicit Christian context (if preferrable). PatrickA 16:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
BC and AD assert nothing. They are just a date convention. End of story. Nothing to get worked up about, jguk 16:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, as I stated about I support the original terms. However due to the fact that most other people don't, I propose a division between both conventions, rather than use one and get some people teed off, or use the other and get some other people mad. PatrickA 16:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
BC = Before Christ. I don't think anyone is suggesting that BC refers to anyone other than Jesus. So to use BC is to assert that Jesus is the Christ (i.e., the Messiah). [Also - it isn't nice to modify your comments after they have been replied to] - Guettarda 16:17, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me, but I was editing my original comments as you were writing yours. When I went to save my edits, it said "Edit confliction", due to your response. Don't assume things. Also, saying Jesus Christ may technically mean that you are calling Jesus the title Christ, but this is usually viewed as a surname, and is often used to refer to Jesus neutrally. PatrickA 16:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
No, Christ means Messiah. The fact that some people don't know what the word means when they say it has little bearing on how the word should be used in an encyclopaedia. As to the second part, all I meant was that once someone has responded to your comments you should make it clear that an addition is just that - it isn't that hard, but it maintains the dialogue, makes it more understandable to people reading it. Guettarda 16:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
And referring to the Eras with BCE and CE is no better than using anno Domini. According to most encyclopedias, the common era doesn't even exist, and if so is simply a euphemism. Therefore it is in no way acceptable to replace a centuries-old tradition with something made up to cover up it's meaning. With my proposal we divide the usage. Unless you have a better idea, what makes you think my proposal isn't acceptable? PatrickA 16:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
As has been said time and again in this debate, BCE/CE meets the requirement of NPOV in that it describes a position rather than asserts it. Maybe you should read the previous material before you try to argue old ideas again as if they were new. Guettarda 18:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Guettarda, words mean what people use them to mean - they do not mean what their etymology literally means! For example, if I say Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC, people will say I am making a statement about Caesar, not a statement about Jesus. If I talk about a woman having a Caesarian section, then I'm making no comment about Caesar, jguk 16:27, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I respect your position Jon, but I disagree with it. Guettarda 16:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I do agree with him. Think about it. Saying 20 AD does showcase that you're suggesting "In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 20", however saying 20 BC is simply referring to a year that is 20 years prior to a Christian figure, Jesus. Do you oppose Wednesday because it refers to Woden? AD, I agree, is POV. Saying that BC is POV because it refers to a historical (aka previously existing) figure that over 1,000,000,000 people worsip, therefore the term Christ has become generically associated, is ridiculous. PatrickA 17:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
The fact that a bilion people consider Jesus to be the Messiah does not make the position NPOV. Guettarda 18:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
If you kept reading you'd have seen that I simply used the billion people reference to explain why the term Christ has become genericized, and is often noted as referring to a "last name" of the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth, without acknowledging him being god. For example, the Kleenex brand is popular, this is why many refer to all facial tissue as "kleenex". This doesn't mean they're referencing the actual brand. PatrickA 18:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
Hard to edit here with all the back and forth. Seems to me both sides have been stated ad nauseum. A bit late to add to the poll, but I will anyway....
--19:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

As Guettarda, Jguk, and others who have been around a while know, I do not like our current style guideline. And I have expressed my reasons at length already. Nevertheless, there was lengthy discussion among members of the community and in the end we stayed with our current style guideline. It has guided us for a long time and appears to be the only workable compromise. I think Patrick is well-intentioned but being new to the community is just unaware of how much this issue has been discussed, how many views haave been expressed, and what it took to maintain the compromise that we have stuck to. It isn't ideal as far as I am concerned, but it works and I think we should just let this issue drop. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The only point where I would disagree with you is "it works". BC/BCE edit wars remain a recurring problem. People are still engaging in date format crusades. What do you mean, "it works"? -GTBacchus(talk) 22:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I mean that (1) it provides editors working on different articles with latitude to reach their own compromises, and (2) editors working on different articles have reached compromises acceptbl to active editors. In my experience, conflict continues only when editors who have not made substantive contributions to the contents of an article focus on this specific issue and make changes. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I agree with a lot of what you say, Slrubenstein. Most editors don't have any problem with the current policy. There are still disruptive edit wars breaking out though, and it has seemed to several Wikipedians putting out the last batch of grassfires that a small tweak in policy could make a huge difference.
In my opinion, all arguments about which system is "better" are utterly irrelevant, because you cannot get consensus behind any of them. It just can't be done, not at this Wiki at this point in history. Maybe someday. What I'd like to see written into policy is some kind of quick and unambiguous way to nip those edit wars in the bud when friction inevitably arises around some new article. A few months ago, it was Kings of Persia. Last month, it was a few Athenian playwrights. What's next?
If we just had a rule that said "IF an edit war comes up, default to XXXXX pending consensus. I don't really care what goes into the XXXXX blank - neither BC/AD nor BCE/CE will fly - but whatever it is, it only comes up in the absence of consensus, so stable pages don't have to be disturbed.
Would that not be an improvement over the status quo, considering the only thing on which we reach agreement is that nobody likes where we are now? -GTBacchus(talk) 01:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Seems to me, something like "IF an edit war comes up, default to XXXXX pending consensus" would nearly guarantee that the rabid favorers of XXXX would immediately go start an edit war on every single page that had non-XXXXX. Which might be a problem. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, that's why I don't think XXXX should be any particular system, but rather a default like "the original system used in the article" or "the most recent stable version", or something like that. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Ah. Indeed I had misunderstood. Thanks. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
As it stands, we have a de facto statement that is something like that. However, given that BC/AD violated NPOV, any policy that recognises it would violate one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia. Guettarda 05:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
As it stands, we have a policy that falls short of that in a significant way, hence the reawakening of this page. All I'm pushing for is to make the policy actually say what everyone claims it already "de facto" says. As for BC/AD being POV, I happen to agree, but since we can't get consensus behind that, it just doesn't matter how right we are. The Wikipedia community does not accept the notion that BC/AD violates NPOV. Since we're doomed then to having a POV policy, why not opt for one that prevents more edit wars over one that fosters them? We don't have to like the new policy in order to agree that it's better than the status quo. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Policy is official, and imo, we cannot have policy that violates NPOV. On the other hand, guidelines are not official. IIRC, the arbcomm did "rule" somewhat on that issue - so the starting point for any guidelines would be that ruling. As for the opinion of the community, many of the people did not vote up or down on how they thought BC/AD related to NPOV; many people said something along the lines of "it's common usage, it should stay". If we are dealing with NPOV, which Jimbo has called "non-negotiable", we cannot restructure policy to match usage. Creating policy which violates NPOV would create "illegal" policy. The current status quo works for the time being (how's that for equivocation?) There aren't too many edit wars, and the arbcomm has created a precident. People will work out compromises they can live with on a page by page basis - or they won't, in which case they will end up before the arbcomm eventually. There is no "project-wide" middle ground. Guettarda 06:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I guess all I'm hoping to modify is MoS, which is a guideline, not a policy; I didn't mean to distract the discussion by using the "P" word. There's kind of a precedent from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2, but ArbCom decisions are also explicitly not binding as precedent, which would be the point of following their lead and modifying the guidelines to say what they said (as you said: "the starting point for any guidelines would be that ruling"). Is it really a bad idea to get the ArbCom's common-sense decision written into MoS, where a lot of people already think it is? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Let us be careful about how we use terms. There is no BC/AD policy. There is a style guide, which is not the same thing as a policy. NPOV is a policy, but as we all know how it is to be applied depends on the circumstances. Please, just refer to the dating system as a guideline, not a policy. Otherwise, we confuse the issue. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

You and Guettarda are both right, of course. We're not talking about revising or creating policy, just MoS, which is a guideline. I apologize for muddying the water with the wrong word. Our current guideline is POV and tends to create edit wars. Some Wikipedians would like to see a guideline, which, although still not NPOV, because that doesn't seem to fly, at least less likely to lead to edit wars. It wouldn't be ideal, but it would be an improvement. I still haven't seen an argument against doing so, just a sort of resignation that the status quo is as good as we're likely to get. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this debate still raging?

Well is it? I expect so. I can't be bothered wading through it all, so maybe the following suggestion has already been talked to death and abandoned, but just in case it hasn't, how about this.

We should abandon the use of CE in Wikipedia, and yes, the use of AD as well. Positive years in the Gregorian calendar speak for themselves in this project (e.g. 198 directs to the year not the number) so there is no real need for a CE or AD adornment. This would be a big compromise on the part of the AD supporters (like me); less of a compromise for CE proponents. For years prior to 1 we should use BC. This term must be less controversial than AD, since it is merely relating a year to the birth of a person whom most historians and archaeologists, of whatever religious persuasion (or none), seem to agree did exist. It says nothing about Christ, the man, other than he did exist. This is unlike AD which arguably does make a statement of sorts. BC is widely used, is easier to say and write than BCE and makes no christian statement of belief. Apart from acknowledging that a man called Christ did exist, it acknowledges that the Gregorian calendar is based on his existence (albiet incorrectly), and that is a fact, so why should anyone have a problem with it? For years spanning the BC and Common Eras the fomat 123 BC–10 should be used. Is all this a reasonable compromise - both sides are expectd to give up something, or am I still banging my head against a brick wall? Arcturus 12:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems you would prolong the conflict. From my viewpoint (as an arbitrator) no campaign of changing notation or edit warring over it is acceptable. Please realize that all alternatives are acceptable, If you are editing an article and have a reason to change notation that is one thing. Going on a campaign of changing notation or edit warring over it is quite another. Fred Bauder 13:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)


Who said anything about changing notation or "edit warring"? I am merely suggesting a standard, because what we have at the moment is hardly a "standard". The suggestion is a compromise that would result in a gradual change to adopt the standard. "...all alternatives are acceptable..." - but they aren't, and that's the issue. Editors simply do not accept it. Arcturus 13:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

(moved here from project page --William Allen Simpson 13:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC))

As I understand it, either the BC-AD system or the BCE-CE system is acceptable. So if I insert dates requiring those notations, I'll use CE. Because either is okay. Freddie deBoer 23:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Rather than disrupting wikipedia to prove the point that having both being okay is dangerous, you could gather consensus on the talk page before inserting either. But that's just if you're interested in improving articles without starting fights, of course. siafu 01:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Fred, As a fellow supporter of the original BC/AD system, I agree that BC should be used for the years prior to the year 1, but am unsure about years succeeding that year. I completely agree that BC is NPOV (it merely asserts the existence of a historical figure that scientists agree existed), and that AD is POV (asserts the religious divinity of such a figure), however I find that it would be confusing to exclude CE or AD after a date, especially one in the 1st to 9th centuries. The format you suggest (i.e. 123 BC–10) is somewhat misleading and confusing to the average and advanced reader, who may be unsure whether you're referring to AD 10 or 10 BC in this context. As a BC/AD supporter it would enlighten me to use the format of (123 BC–AD 10) or (123 BC–10 AD), which is already used widely across Wikipedia, but if it were necessary to make a concensus that everyone would agree with I would suggest the format (123 BC–10 CE) or even (123 BC/BCE–10 AD/CE) as necessary. This would be better because it would eliminate confusion as to what era the year "10" was meant to be in (BC or AD), plus it would saisfy both sides of the battle, having the BCE/CE and BC/AD systems both in use, therfore pracitally eliminate edit-warring. Again, if we can just keep BC/AD its fine with me. Darwiner111 06:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC).
Okay I really wasn't trying to suggest that I was going to try and kick up controversy... I actually came over here to find out what the protocol was, and was confronted by this huge debate. And by reading through it, I came to the conclusion that either method is acceptable, and because I prefer CE system, if I entered dates requiring that notation, I would use CE. I was just putting my thoughts down to make sure that I had it right. I'm not going to change previously written ADs or anything. I was just sounding out my grasp of the consensus. Freddie deBoer 16:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Freddie, hi. I think that's fair - if you're adding dates with eras to an article when they weren't there previously, you're at liberty to use CE notation if you wish. On articles that already have a history involving both, I suggest putting on asbestos gloves before touching them. There is no rule, in a bad way. It ends up coming down to the editor with the most clout (or seniority, or bluster) that they're willing to stake on an indefensible edit getting their way. Often, someone gets blocked in the process, or an article gets protected. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The state of the project

I've just moved the whole poll to Wikipedia:Eras/Straw poll. It's still "open", I guess, if anyone still wants to throw in another opinion. I think it mostly stabliized over a month ago.

IMO, this problem hasn't gone away, and we shouldn't just give up, and it's happening again (List of monarchs of Kush this time), so I'm suggesting that we have another roll around this old project. The following seem clear to me:

  • We're dealing with a clear-cut impasse, of the particularly impassible variety.
  • Most articles here are currently in BC/AD notation, if they indicate eras at all.
  • Some nontrivial portion of the community sees this as inherently POV, and will not be content unless we switch to BCE/CE notation.
  • When a wholesale change to BCE/CE notation was presented to the community, it was rejected.
  • There's no policy that's going to make everyone happy, because there are Wikipedians who will only settle for BC all the way, and others who will only settle for BCE all the way - two positions which are utterly at odds with each other.

If we agree on the above, then we agree that there's no agreement on the POV question. At that point, we're back to the MoS, and to how we can edit harmoniously in the presence of a big nasty stalemate. We have a style guideline saying that both notations are acceptable, i.e., neither is forbidden. That style guideline however, as it is now, says nothing about how to resolve edit wars over BC/BCE. In this way, it is different from the British versus American spelling guideline, which suggests deferring to the first major contributor, if all else fails.

With eras, we have a general presumption among the community that the MoS probably says to defer to the first major cobtributor, but the MoS says no such thing, so we're left with no way to resolve edit wars, other than misrepresenting MoS, or ganging up, or abusing admin buttons, or just edit warring more slowly in an attempt to fly under the radar. None of those is actually a "resolution".

That's about where we're at, I think. There's no suggestion on which everyone agrees. I'm going to attempt a summary of straw poll results in the next section. Meanwhile, how does the above sound? I tried not to say anything controversial. That's tricky around here, it turns out. Opinions? -GTBacchus(talk)

Consensus is not going to get anywhere here. If anything is going to solve this, it is going to have to happen on a higher level. Like by passing WP:Secular, and then using that to enforce change. A higher policy would have more wide-ranging interest. This specific debate is considered a minor issue; attracts only the opinionated.--Colle|Image:locatecolle.gif|Talk-- 06:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Is there a discussion page for WP:Secular? *Heads to the MoS talk page* Xaxafrad 22:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] technical solution

The poll clearly documents a consensus that the current state is unacceptable. I look forward to interpretation of the other items by somebody more statisitically inclined. But I've posted a detailed bug/enhancement report.

--William Allen Simpson 21:34, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
The other conclusion is that enforcing a single style is not going to happen (without divine intervention). People should get over it, and accept that they're going to be stuck with BC and BCE. Perhaps the WP:MoS should suggest that if people disagree with its assertion that AD and CE are equally acceptable, they shouldn't really be editing over it, but it would be naive to think that would help. Oh well. squell 22:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

There were several possibilities discussed at Wikipedia talk:User preferences for BCE/CE notation. I've written up a couple of them as proposed software enhancements, based in part on the poll comments. I'll duplicate them here.

--William Allen Simpson 16:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug 5089: Era preference for BC(E) and AD/CE

bug 5089

A user preference would needed. It should default to "no translation", with the options of "BCE/CE" and "BC/AD".

Problem needs to simultaneously address yyyy-mm-dd preferences. All dates of the form yyyy-mm-dd ([[dd mmm]] [[yyyy]], etc.) have to be wikified anyway. For BCE, all the dates have the BC/BCE in them, so using the display parser will be the natural place to handle preferences for both types.

Don't forget that "nth century BCE" has to be handled as well.

For current era dates, almost all can be left alone. The only time that AD/CE dates are displayed is a change in era. This is a rather rare occurrence. Therefore, why not a single template:

  • {Era|year|month|day}

{{Era}} is already defined (it always displays "Default"), but not used, so it could be reused. It would be used immediately following the BCE date. The parser would handle the preference display, just as it does now.

Summary:

  • All BCE dates wikified.
  • All era ranges wikified.
  • No change to common era, other than to remove extraneous "A.D." or "CE" according to MoS.

This should probably allow conversion with the least amount of manual work.

--William Allen Simpson 16:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug 5090: template {era} reserved

bug 5090

In concert with [bug 5089], the Template:Era (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) would be reserved. It would be used exclusively for a change in era (that is, from BC(E) to AD/CE), usually in a date range or near the beginning of a new paragraph.

The template should have 3 optional parameters.

{era} will display the preference as "default", "AD", or "CE".

{era|year} will expand to:
 + positive numeric year,
   "AD [[year]]" or
   "[[year]] CE"
 - negative numeric year,
   "[[year BC]]" or
   "[[year BC|year BCE]]"
 = text string,
   "AD [[1st century]]" or
   "[[1st century]] CE"

Note that {era} is required for AD/CE text, as such an era change is expected to be notable.

{era|year|month} will expand to:
 + positive numeric year,
   "[[month]], AD [[year]]" or
   "[[month]], [[year]] CE"
 - negative numeric year,
   "[[month]], [[year BC]]" or
   "[[month]], [[year BC|year BCE]]"

The "month, year" display will follow the date preferences. All parameters will be numeric.

{era|year|month|day} will expand to:
 + positive numeric year,
   "[[day month]], AD [[year]]" or
   "[[day month]], [[year]] CE"
 - negative numeric year,
   "[[day month]], [[year BC]]" or
   "[[day month]], [[year BC|year BCE]]"

The "day month, year" display will follow the date preferences. All parameters will be numeric.

Indeed, it might be particularly handy to have the date preferences handled during expansion to avoid a second pass by the parser?

--William Allen Simpson 16:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug 5091: template {date} reserved

bug 5091

In concert with [bug 5089], the Template:Date (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) would be reserved. It would be used exclusively for any date with BC(E) (or AD/CE) that is not notable enough to wikilink, but needs an era preference expansion.

The template should have 3 optional parameters.

{date} will display the current date as a string (as now).

{date|year} will expand to:
 + positive numeric year,
   "AD year" or
   "year CE"
 - negative numeric year,
   "year BC" or
   "year BCE"
 = text string,
   "1st century BC" or
   "1st century BCE"

Note that {era} is required for AD/CE text, as such an era change is expected to be notable.

{date|year|month} will expand to:
 + positive numeric year,
   "month, AD year" or
   "month, year CE"
 - negative numeric year,
   "month, year BC" or
   "month, year BCE"

The "month, year" display will follow the date preferences. All parameters will be numeric.

{date|year|month|day} will expand to:
 + positive numeric year,
   "day month, AD year" or
   "day month, year CE"
 - negative numeric year,
   "day month, year BC" or
   "day month, year BCE"

The "day month, year" display will follow the date preferences. All parameters will be numeric.

Indeed, it might be particularly handy to have the date preferences handled during expansion to avoid a second pass by the parser?

--William Allen Simpson 16:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A culturally aware alternative

Obviously I don't know if this has been proposed already as I haven't read all the archives, but it seems to me that:

1. AD/BC is not appropriate as a universal dating system, since it is explicitly tied to one cultural point of view. It is wrong to date events in non-Western countries or non-Christian religions solely using AD/BC.

2. But CE/BCE doesn't solve the problem. In fact it makes it worse by assuming ahistorical universality for the European perspective, when in fact the Gregorian calendar has been entirely unknown to the world for most of its existence. (See DHBogg's convincing words on this topic.) It's tantamount to renaming English "Common Language," simply because it happens to be the international standard at the moment.

3. Simply leaving "AD" off the year does not solve the POV problem either. The dating system still represents a cultural perspective whether it's called 2006, AD 2006, 2006 CE, or Happy Fun Secular Year 2006. But this isn't an insurmountable problem. We just need to take cues from the dating people really use in many non-Western countries with alternate dating systems. They name the year in the modern version of the native system AND in the Gregorian system. For example, in Japan it is both Heisei 18 and AD 2006. Therefore I propose that articles use the following style: XX BC (Native System XX). For instance, instead of giving as the date of the start of the Iranian Jiroft Kingdom the culturally pompous 5000 BCE or the equally culturally charged 5000 BC, the Iran History section could read c. 5000 BC (c. Farvardin -950). Similarly, an article about the 9th century (AD) Japanese poet Sugawara no Michizane need not simply list his life as the Western 845 - March 26, 903. It could read 845 - March 26, 903 (承和 Jōwa 12 - 3 Month 26 Day 延喜 Engi 3) (Japan has translated the Gregorian solar calendar for months and days).

This maintains the cultural integrity of the Western tradition without orientalist arrogance and while encouraging people to find out more about other calendar systems they may not be familiar with. It requires more thorough background knowledge and better research, but as I see it it's the most culturally sensitive choice that doesn't try to revise history from a Western POV. The best part is that, if there's already an article about the given subject in a Wikipedia in the native language, all the user has to do is cut and paste. --Ben Applegate 13:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] WikiProject Common Era

(Moved here from Talk:Common Era)

I am in the process of setting up WikiProject Common Era, for those of you interested in joining. The goal of the project is to create a more systematized process through which Common Era terminology replaces BC/AD in wikipedia articles. The project is currently residing at a temporary location, but once a few more people have signed up, I'll be moving it to a permanent page. Please come check it out, and any input would be helpful. --Romarin 00:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Read the very many debates in Wikipedia on this subject. You will not got a consensus on this proposal, in the same way that I wouldn't get a consensus for a project to eliminate BCE/CE in favour of BC/AD. You might as well forget it now and stop wasting time. Arcturus 17:09, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The MFD on it was closed (no consensus). The deletion debate was relevant to this talk page, so I'm putting up a link: Miscellany for deletion/User:Romarin/WikiProject Common Era — squell 21:27, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where have things gotten to now?

As a user wanting to do an edit, what do I assume is the correct Wikipedia format now, BC or BCE? Can't wade easily enough through all this bureacratic wrangling to see what the view is. However, what I do observe is what a great big finger this points at WP itself, after all, BCE format is now totally accepted in academic publications and other encyclopedias have consistency at least. Leaving things like this to democracy doesn't work. MarkThomas 15:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:MOSNUM#Eras is quite clear without you having to wade through anything. squell 21:58, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Alas not. When I asked "what is the correct format" - my point was that evidently there is no decision as to which is preferred WP-wide, BC or BCE. Leaving it that way with no decision is strange and suggests that WP is incapable of something that any normal encyclopedia board would immediately decide on and implement throughout. The obsessive nature of the discussion and false democratic paradigm applied to it point to inherant and dramatic weaknesses in the way in which WP is organised. This one is as daft as not using SI units or declaring a vote on the symbol for pi. The whole academic world now uses BCE / CE yet we here are adrift in a past age where pseudo-gentlemanly disagreement and duels at dawn resolved such matters. Psuedopedia. MarkThomas 22:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
The whole academic world now uses BCE / CE, huh? Sorry, but that's simply not true, as explained throughout these pages. Just like Wikipedia doesn't force a dialect or a date format it does not force a wikipedia-wide era system either. violet/riga (t) 22:56, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Can you direct us for example to a leading archaeological journal that does not? MarkThomas 22:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
It would be quite easy to direct you to numerous recently published books or papers on historical subjects that use B.C. and AD. Archaeological journals, much less limiting it to the leading journals does not even come close to encompassing the "academic world". siafu 23:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
So go ahead, which are those journals? And I don't mean midwest Christian Right junk of course. :-) By the way, there is an excellent survey of these arguments outside the closed world of WP infighting at 1 which puts the whole thing much better than could I. MarkThomas 23:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I haven't much on hand, but first off the shelf is Ralph Sawyer's 1996 translation of The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China (incl. 孫子兵法, Sūnzĭ bīngfǎ), which uses BC in the introduction. There's one, and I suppose we only need one to disprove the claim of "all". siafu 23:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course, there are millions of books which pre-date the argument; I think BCE first entered widespread academic usage around the late 90s. However my query was about current major scientific journals which could perhaps be regarded as some sort of guide as to how these things might be used in an encyclopedia. Publishing prehistory, however interesting, doesn't help in my line of argument, although I'm sure Sawyer is fascinating. :-) In the 19th century there was consensus that the universe was founded by God in 4004BC. Not very likely many now outside the more ludicrous end of the fundamentalist mouth-frothers would now claim modern sources should use Bishop Wilberforce's absurdist prognostications from the Huxley debates as dating bedrock. Ditto the Accepted New Testament datings as the benchmark for modern historical calendars. MarkThomas 23:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, in addition to clarifying that you mean no true Scotsman, you seem to be veering away from your argument. You stated that the "whole academic world uses BCE/CE", and this is demonstrably false (if you don't like the first suggestion, how about the 6th edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia, pub. 2000?). siafu 23:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
We still don't seem to be quite discussing the same thing Siafu, although I welcome your points and cut and thrust, especially on logicality. :-) However, I think I save myself by not valuing Columbia as a leading scientific journal; actually I tend to regard it as rather inferior, much less significant than say Britannica and on some points about as useful as the Catholic Encyclopedia. Perhaps we can now come up with a current leading scientific _journal_? MarkThomas 23:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps we could come up with such a journal, but as mentioned above, there's absolutely no need to. siafu 23:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, now we have it - no current leading scientific journal you can think of would not use BCE format; but no matter, WP has decided it's still fine! And that's my point - why is this debate closed? I was asking for someone to succintly and convincingly explain why we have this backwards position of using BC and AD being variably fine depending on who first contributed an article, totally lacking MOS consistency and rendering WP backwards compared to other leading contemporary publications. So far, no answer. That's all - not saying anyone should break the rules as they stand, just a genuine simpleton enquiry to the emperor as to why he has no clothes. MarkThomas 23:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Whether or not I can think of such a journal (sitting at home, far from a library...) is rather irrelevant, but then again so too is the fact that the academic world prefers one style or the other. The reason this debate is closed is because it went nowhere; regardless of how much your or I may prefer CE over AD, there is no consensus. And, btw, a commonsense reading of the discussion above and general wikipedia policy will show that "precedent" (i.e., the style chosen by the first author) is not the only determinant-- wikipedia operates on consensus, so changes to the era style are more than possible but reccomended if warranted and supported on an individual article basis. siafu 23:58, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

BCE/BC on Wikipedia is treated exactly like color/colour, period. We have more pressing concerns (such as actual article quality). (ᛎ) qɐp 17:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

This is what I was seeking to understand - the attitude on WP to the issue of BC/BCE. If as you say it is being treated as equivalent to the US/British English debate, then what a huge great difficulty WP has with being credible! In defence of Wikipedia, how can a well set up Encyclopedia possibly treat something as important as this in such a flip way? First of all they tried debate. Then lots of editors can't agree. So they try to. And they can't. Then it just floats away on a puffball of idiotic half-baked bad analogies and we all have to pretend we're happy with it! Cult cult cult warning! MarkThomas 18:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
MarkThomas, it's quite simple really. Wikipedia runs on consensus. If you can't build a consensus for your position, you're shit out of luck. If they can't build a consensus for the other position either, then we get a sort of uneasy ceasefire, like we have now with BC vs BCE. Have you got a better suggestion, that can actually be implemented under a consensus model? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea how to go about promoting it properly GTBacchus, and don't wish to start another pointless flame-chain, but I'm suggesting that things like this, that should be implemented site-wide and are controversial, should not be decided democratically or by consensus if that fails. MarkThomas 19:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
You and lots of people want BCE. Me and lots of people want BC. U.S. journals favour BCE but UK ones favour BC. You can't have it all your way, and I can't have it all mine. violet/riga (t) 19:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Ho hum. I think we've established that already violetriga - the problem is that clearly that ain't no good. MarkThomas 19:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Why not? It (usually) works well enough for dialect, and the policies seem to be working. violet/riga (t) 19:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately your comments just expose the limits of consensus as a model for publishing a trustworthy and consistent encylopedia, but I suppose so long as we all realise that's not what this is, we are OK. :-) MarkThomas 19:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry you think that. violet/riga (t) 19:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider an encyclopedia that reflected a consistency that does not actually exist to be trustworthy, personally. The fact is that our species hasn't settled the whole BC vs BCE issue, so why should we pretend we have? Maybe the idea that we need to pick one format and implement it for the whole Wiki is based on a mistaken idea of what an encyclopedia should be. -GTBacchus(talk) 00:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

the debate at this point seems to boil down to attempting to convince MarkThomas that the WP model has some merit. You know what, MarkThomas? You found one of the drawbacks, congratulations. Maybe you should go and buy an edition of Britannica after all. Wikipedia isn't paper, and is a process, not a product. That has advantages like incredibly detailed and quick coverage (Pluto is declared a "dwarf planet"? read all about it on Wikipedia 20 minutes later. Or else, some time in 2008 in Britannica). If you depend on consistent layout and constant and high quality prose, a printed encyclopedia is for you. Personally, I'll rather have a good article, at my fingertips, for free, that gives me the information (and references!) I need, even if it switches between BCE and BC every other paragraph, or has the occasional it's for its. If that isn't for you, well it isn't. Now as I said, Wikipedia has severe problems on the content side, and until these are solved, haggling about an extra 'E' has very low priority in my book. You have to realize that WP is something new. No, it isn't 'trustworthy' as such. It is indispensible: people may publicly scorn it as an upstart product of the hoi polloi, but they will note at the same time that it is quickly becoming their first (and often only) stop when looking for some factoid. (ᛎ) qɐp 14:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I find that "the haggling over an extra E" is a major issue, because I have yet to see an argument that it doesn't violate NPOV. Nonetheless, I think that what Mark is saying does lead somewhere important - if it is the norm in archaeology to use BCE rather than BC (something that can be established easily enough), then we should follow. In areas where there is no such consensus, then there is less need for us to adapt the articles. But credibility matters - and credibility is currently our biggest problem.
In addition NPOV is what really sets us apart. It isn't acceptable that NPOV can be voted out, like it was in this debate. Guettarda 15:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Which side are you on? I've seen both usages denounced as non-neutral. In such a situation, I see no real alternative to a vote on how NPOV applies. Septentrionalis 19:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
"violates NPOV"? Using the Gregorian date in the first place does! People should be free to use any calendar they choose. Of course using the English language and the Latin alphabet violate NPOV, what were we thinking! (just maybe that the message (statements made in WP voice) need be NPOV, not the medium (Calender, units, language, alphabet, encoding, network protocol,....?) dab (ᛏ) 16:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Following other examples?

Discussion seems to have died down without final consensus, so I'm going to add my two cents. Because I am a masochist. I think this whole long discussion fits into a wider discussion on the choice between two equally POV usages which has cropped up in other instances on LJ. Other discussions seemed to lean towards "Use as appropriate". For example, in March 2005 it was decided that Gdansk would be used for clearly Polish times and areas of discussion, while Danzig would be used for clearly German times and areas and "Gdansk (formerly Danzig)" or "Danzig (now Gdansk)" should be used where there is overlap or uncertainty. Should we not take a lead from this?

This is basically a vote for compromise. Define where a apparently European/Christian POV is appropriate and where a pointedly non-Christian POV is appropriate (e.g. in my opinion, in articles regarding non-Christian religions), and use both everywhere else. I know there has been plenty of contention over where those POVs are appropriate (including both variations on "Nowhere!"), but I think it should be agreed that consensus towards one particular system is unlikely. Decide to compromise, and then decide (reasonably) exactly where the lines of the consensus will be drawn.

(If it were not for the apparent consensus [or is it full policy?] against Wikipedia-specific systems, I would suggest that all dates be uniformly converted to BW and AW [Before Wikipedia and After Wikipedia], measuring 2000AD/CE as 1BW and 2001 as 1AW! Would a Wikipedia-centric POV be neutral, given that Wikipedia itself is neutral? Or attempts to be?) Xander 10:21, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] couple of points

I dont see why we have to compromise at all; why are we even discussing this, given the rarety of CE notation in general literature?

1/ i have never seen any evidence that a significant amount of people are actually offended by the 'religious' terms AD and BC.

untill we do, i suggest we assume that most people treat AD and BC the same as "thor'sday" (ie dont care).

2/ we are not an organisation for promoting stylistic change, so we should not play a part in trying to oust the standard ways of reffering to time by using the uncommon and controversial BCE and CE.. AD and BC are the standard. if and when that changes, then our articles should change -- untill then, we should keep AD and BC.

just make the policy be to use AD and BC. if the world changes and adopts CE and BCE, then we can make a bot to edit all our articles

honestly. it reminds me of the claim that 'history' is masogonistic --Dak 03:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your point number 1, the fact that you haven't seen something does not mean that thing doesn't exist. In this case, it does exist, and there are significant communities within academia that exclusively use BCE/CE and have for years. You point number 2 would have more applicability if BCE and CE really were so uncommon, but they're not. -GTBacchus(talk) 10:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
re your first point: that's true, but not seeing something certainly doesn't mean that it exists, either. im just suggesting that we actually look for these masses of offended non-christians, rather than just assuming they exist. do you have a citation? maybe a study/survey of peoples feelings re AD/BC?
re the second part: someone above mentioned that AD BC is more common than CE BCE by a ratio of 50:1, and also that it's a lot less common outside of america, and virtually unknown in some countries (its pretty unknown in the uk, for example) --Dak 16:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Also regarding point number 1, the dozens of pages of heated arguments preserved here on wikipedia on the matter should be more than enough evidence to the contrary. siafu 15:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
no, i want to actually see evidence that alot of people are offended, not evidence that a few wikipedians are offended. whilst i'd still think it's stupid, and my point 2 would still stand, i'd be more willing to consider voting either to change to, or allow, CE BCE if a lot of people genuinely object to the terms; as it stands, all i see is a vocal minority trying to push an oppinion via unsuported claims that AD BC offend a significant amount of people. --Dak 16:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


You want a citation for how common the BCE/CE usage is? (Note that this is a more relevant point to cite than how many people are "offended". There may be people using the newer notation for reasons other than offense taken.) Have you looked at the footnotes to the section Common Era#usage? There are 11, indicating that BCE/CE is preferred by the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Smithsonian, the Egyptian Study Society, the American Journal of Philology, the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, the Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, the Maryland Church News (that's Christian), an increasing number of U.S. textbooks, the College Board's history tests, some National Geographic Society publications, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, the United States Naval Observatory, and on some shows, the History Channel. Does that seem like a minor fringe to you? -GTBacchus(talk) 03:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
i didnt say they were fringe, i said they were uncommon -- which is true (I'll point out that i can't list all the organisations that use AD BC because there are just too many of them). all i meant is that, if we JUST want to be encyclopaedic, and not play a roll in changing the english language/notation, then we should remain neutral in this issue and use the (current) standadard; hence, use AD and BC, and if CE BCE become standard, then switch to them. yes, in a way that's more relevent than who it offends, but i'd still reccomend rejecting the arguments based around AD BC 'being offensive' without actual proof that a significant number of people are offended --Dak 15:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Did you actually read through that list of examples? It's really not very uncommon. It's not as if I listed anywhere close to all the organizations that use BCE/CE - I wouldn't have enough room either. In certain domains, it's BC/AD that's quite uncommon and would get you stared at and people asking a lot of questions about why you're the only one in the room using an antiquated and prejudicial notation.
When you talk about arguments based on "being offended", I think you're failing to mention the actual meat of the argument, which isn't the offense, but the reason for the offense, namely that BC/AD isn't NPOV. I'm not necessarily taking that position, just pointing out that characterizing the argument as being based on "offense" isn't really accurate, and makes it seem to be emotively based rather than rational, which strikes me as prejudicial. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
it could allways be both emotional and rational, ie if theres evidence of, rather than an assumption of, alot of people being offended/objecting to the BC notation, then it'd be a rational emotion-based argument, rather than an irrational emotion-based one. offence is a percieved thing; if only an insignificant number of people actually percieve an offence, then there is no offence and it's not prejudiced. i have seen no evidence that a significant amount of people percieve an offence.
not really very uncommon != common nor standard. it is uncommon, by definition. BC is common, BCE is rare. and as for the NPOV approach... well, like i said, it's not wp's job to effect notational changes in the english language, which we'd be playing a small role in doing if we change to BCE: the most common 'pov', if you want to call it that, is that AD/BC is how you reffer to dates after or before this arbritrary date. if and when that changes, then sure, let's change all the ADs and BCs to CE and BCE, but if we do so before that, wp would be adopting the MINORITY OPINION that ad/bc are somehow 'wrong', and that bce/ce is the 'correct' or 'standard' way of reffering to dates before/after this arbritrary point in time.
i know that adopting the majority oppinion isn't what NPOV calls for, but adopting the minority oppinion would definately be in breach of NPOV (not that im entirely convinced that bc/ce falls under NPOV, excepting the articles on those subjects) --Dak 19:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

having said that -- and, whilst im still for simply allways using ad/bc -- i've added another compromise option to the straw poll, if anyone's interested. --Dak 15:35, 25 November 2006 (UTC)