Talk:Hebrew calendar/BCE vs BC

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[edit] BCE vs BC

Because this is a featured article on 11th Oct 2004 several changes and reversions have been made to the date format. Arguably BC is not preferred in an article about the Hebrew calendar. However, since some reference to the western calendar has to be made in this article we should look to Wikipedia guidelines for some advice. As far as I can ascertain we should use the version chosen by the original author. Again, as far as I can ascertain, this would appear to be BC/AD. So let's stick with it. At least everyone knows what it means, which is not the case for BCE/CE. Arcturus 21:57, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I object. BC is not only not preferred in an article about the Hebrew calendar, but the use of BC is unacceptable by some Jews (Jewish historians use CE/BCE). Furthermore, Wikipedia guidelines state that CE/BCE is just as acceptable as AD/BC. The Manual of Style does not defer to the version chosen by the original author, instead it states that the original author can choose any version they like and it will eventually be made to conform with the Manual of Style by future copyeditors.
— Joe Kress 05:37, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Do Jews object to the term "Gregorian calendar"?141.6.204.14

No, but BCE and CE would be appropriate. JFW | T@lk 08:52, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If there is no objection to 'Gregorian' why is there to BC - or maybe there isn't? After all, its use in this article is merely to refer to another (christian based) calendar. I'm sure an article on the western calendar which referred a date to its equivalent in the Hebrew calendar would use the Hebrew notation in such a reference and no one would be bothered, so why bother about BC/AD in this article?

Using Jesus' year of birth as a reference means lending implicit approval. "Gregorian" is simply after the guy who devised the calendar. JFW | T@lk 16:43, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There have been some edits recently. I have changed some of the remaining CE dates to AD, since it is important that the article be consistent. I don't think styling a date 'AD' is an implicit approval of christianity, just as I don't think styling a date 'AM' is an implicit agreement about when the world was created. Note that coptic christians count years from the reign of Diocletian, and I doubt they approve of him.

However, I am in favour of BCE/CE dating, because this is an article about the Hebrew calendar. It removes confusion, and as a practical argument, 'AD' can easily be misread as 'AM', but 'CE' won't. squell 01:39, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, a Jewish article should not use BC/AD, because both are Christian abbreviations. For early years, use BCE because that is standard in Jewish scholarship. But for the Common Era itself, do not specify CE—instead use a bare year number, which is the preferred Wikipedia style. — Joe Kress 02:21, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I strongly endorse the above comments.
RachelBrown 08:27, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Not specifying a suffix for AD/CE years might be confusing - does any given number refer to the Gregorian or Hebrew year? Second, two counterarguments to CE: jewish scholars don't define the Gregorian calendar; second, the epoch of our calendar is still christian, naming it CE smacks of political correctness. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to look at other Wikipedia articles about calendars, and follow their style?

In any case, I think the section heading '912 AD' is inappropriate because it describes a dispute in the Hebrew calendar using Gregorian years. I will try to correct this. squell 18:24, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk:

3.1.2 Style guide

1) Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the "purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format," see [130]. The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent within an article." [131]. Passed 6 to 0 at 30 June 2005 15:33 (UTC)

3.1.3 Optional styles

2) When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to English spelling as opposed to American spelling it would be acceptable to change from American spelling to English spelling if the article concerned an English subject. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article is colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles as both are acceptable. Passed 6 to 0 at 30 June 2005 15:33 (UTC)

Earlier, there were inconsistencies within this article (using BC/AD notation in some cases while BCE/CE in others), now it has been converted into BC/AD. I welcome consistency but agree with several editors that denominationally neutral BCE/CE notation and therefore is more appropriate here than Christian-centric BC/AD. In my view, the subject constitutes a "substantial reason" for BCE/CE which is commonly acceptable and is used in practically all articles related to Jewish history & religion. Objections? ←Humus sapiens←ну? 22:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I have briefly checked the other calendar articles. Most either describe a christian(ized) calendar, or show a preference for BCE/CE as well. Do you also support suffixing all years, or just the BCE ones? squell 23:10, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Squell, what would be your preference? I wouldn't want to overwhelm the reader but OTOH an encyclopedia should be unambiguous. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 23:42, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Reading the WP:MoS, I have changed my mind and now agree with User:Joe Kress. I think we should actually remove as many suffixes where possible. Except for date ranges spanning the era, and certain conspicuous years such as 1, or where there is possible confusion. This has the added advantage that it's not likely subject to this again in the future. squell 03:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The ArbCom ruling essentially means "no changes to date styles" (and I have confirmed this with an Arbitrator), so this page should stay using BC/AD notation. This, to me, appears the most appropriate anyway, as it is, by a long, long way, the most common notation in the Western world, and the only one generally understood by the worldwide general public. Preventing confusion is particularly important as people could, otherwise, mistake what to them is alien notation as referring to dates in the Hebrew calendar. I do agree, however, that it may be useful to some readers to have the dates also given in the Hebrew calendar - which can easily be done by adding these dates in brackets after the dates in the Julian/Gregorian calendar, with an explanation on first instance that that is what we're doing, jguk 23:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Jguk, thank you for your POV. Please reread my post. Per WP:MoS, either style is accepted. Given that there is a viable neutral alernative, some consider it inappropriate to impose Christian-centric notation in articles deeply related to Jewish history & religion. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 23:42, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I do think we should respect the ArbCom's decisions, regardless of whether we agree with them - is that POV? They've said "no change", ergo we should make no change. This is particularly true where we have an article where using anything other than the worldwide standard could confuse. I remember another WPian (who, incidentally has a Jewish background) say that a survey showed a 50 to 1 preference for BC amongst people generally. Results like that show that the issue isn't even close, especially as many, like me, have never been taught and never in normal life (and I do visit museums and watch history programmes on TV) see anything other than BC. In this case, being practical and following the ArbCom ruling that humus himself quotes means that we continue with BC. And what's the big deal anyway? Yes, some prefer a different notation themselves, but, based on the statistics given by that WPian, only 2% - what about the 98%? jguk 23:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Until very recently, this article used inconsistent style. Both styles are acceptable. Why insist on the one that some consider inappropriate? Especially if it is not a big deal anyway.

Jguk, this is not about you personally and it does not matter who has what background (but rather how they behave). Please quit stalking me around WP. See WP:ANI#Jguk I & WP:ANI#Jguk II. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 00:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I think I should point out that, this article did not have any BC dates, before an anon user changed a few BCE dates to BC, then complained that the article was inconsistent and changed the rest of the BCE dates as well. I was planning on reverting this, but because a lot of the other dates prominently featured 'AD', I figured the anon was right. So changing all the BC dates to BCE dates would in effect be a revert.

I am not interested in engaging in a petty discussion about what combination of letters to place behind a date or editors who try to make a point of this. I think most active contributors to this article would prefer what User:Joe Kress has proposed, unless they're keeping awfully silent. squell 03:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I strongly suppoer BCE/CE. Use of BC/AD is likely to be regarded as insulting by most Jews. The 98%/2% debate is irrelevant; firstly, it is not a survey of people likely to see this argument; secondly, if it is insulting to a few people and most don't care, where is the balance of advantage? And no doubt most active contributors to this article would have been otherwise engaged today (and still are in North America) as it is the Day of Atonement.
RachelBrown 20:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't see what's insulting about using a date convention that anyone studying history even casually must have seen thousands of times. Besides, this article isn't written specifically for Jews, it's written for everyone - where the 98-2 would be relevant (or at least it would be relevant had ArbCom not already ruled "no changes to date notation" anyway), jguk 20:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

One week ago this article did not have a clear preference for either style, so going to either style is perfectly sound. You have stated your preference, please stop lecturing about the rules and give others an oppertunity to respond. squell 21:47, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I reverted Jguk's revert of Humus Sapiens' revert (...), in the belief that I am acting in line with the general consensus of the editors here. After Humus' edits (which also added other bits to the article), this article he had effectively returned to the dating style that it had before, minus the inconsistency. Also, Jguk's seems only interested in which era dates should use, and not in any other part of the article. squell 18:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

One more thing. I also noticed all these past weeks edits did in fact introduce errors that were not present before, e.g. changing 3761 to '38th century' and so on. I think I got all these; check the current diff. squell 18:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

The article started using BC notation, and was originally made consistent on it, and WP policy is clear that therefore that is where it should be remained. The importance of it is underlined in a statistic one user noted - that amongst the general public, BC is used/understood/preferred to BCE by a ratio of 50 to 1. We should be writing articles for the worldwide general public, so adopting styles they will be familiar with is important. As a WPian I tend to read a lot of history articles generally (because I like history, but am not an expert on it), whereas I write a lot on cricket (because there I know what I'm writing about). But in both discliplines writing for our audience is key, jguk 19:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

You don't sound very neutral if you are both arguing sticking to Wikipedia Policy, and at the same time arguing in favour of your preferred dating style. squell 19:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

And if you dig in the history of this article, you'll see that in February 2005, User:Joe Kress kindly expanded this article a great deal: [1]. It clearly had BCE dates after that edit. squell 19:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Julius Caesar started out using BCE/CE consistently, yet uses BC/AD now. Do you want to change it to back to BCE/CE to conform with "policy" or should I? Sortan 19:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

The arbitrator's ruling says " it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change." The Anno Domini] begins: 'Anno Domini (Latin: "In the Year of the Lord"), or more completely Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("In the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ")...' Thus the abbreviation AD is more than a epochal convention; it can be taken as a profession of Christian faith. I think that is a substantial enough reason for avoiding the abbreviation in articles about Jewish topics. This article might be an appropriate place for a short section on Jewish use of the Gregorian calendar and the preference of many Jews for CE/BCE vs. AD/BC. --agr 20:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Jguk's points are (1) the WP policy suggests staying with the original dating convention, and (2) the general audience may not be familiar with the BCE/CE format. In my view, these points are counterbalanced by (1) the policy actually supports no change "unless there is some substantial reason for the change," and for the reasons cited by User:ArnoldReinhold and User:RachelBrown there may well be a substantial reason to prefer the BCE/CE convention in this article; and (2) if general readers are unaware of the BCE/CE format, then this wiki-encyclopedia can easily solve that problem by linking the first uses of those terms to the definitional pages, or as ArnoldReinhold suggested, a section could be added (I prefer the former solution). Finally, I think all dates in this article should carry BCE/CE modifiers because the scope of the article ranges from Biblical to medieval times, and it may otherwise be confusing. Sincerely, Kaisershatner 13:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Also please note, in view of NPOV, from the Common Era article, with my emphasis: "The Common Era (CE), also known as the Current Era and sometimes the Christian Era, is the period beginning with the year 1 onwards. The term is used for a system of reckoning years that is chronologically equivalent to the anno Domini (AD) (Latin for "in the year of [our] Lord") system, but with less overt religious implications. Although common era was a term first used by some Christians in an age when Christianity was the common religion of the West, it is now a term preferred by some as a religiously neutral alternative. It has its equivalents in other languages. For example, Chinese uses its literal translation, gōngyuán (公元), for date notation." Kaisershatner 13:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The same is in Russian language. FYI, in regards to this entire matter, I've opened Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2 and WP:ArbReq#Changes in date notation and took the liberty to quote ArnoldReinhold there. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 20:01, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

This talk page is pretty large and this section isn't helping. I propose archiving this section and replacing it with a short notice stating that BCE/CE is preferred, providing a link. OK? squell 19:44, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Good idea!
RachelBrown 10:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)