Proposed Enhancement to Help:Date_Fields

Question

In response to the thread earlier this year on the formatting of month policies by Jean Skar, would it be helpful to include some notation on the consensus from that thread in the Help:Date_Fields page? I was looking all over trying to find any information on date formatting and that help page seemed to be the closest match to what I was looking for.

Answer 1

I don't believe any changes are warranted here. Help:Date Fields is for literal date fields (birth date, death date, marriage date, etc.).

As for dates (or any other content in a Biography), see Help:Biographies:

At its most basic, the purpose of the text is to tell the story of your ancestor by providing more detail about the vital statistics, including explanations and information about where you got the information (Sources).

It can also be used to describe anything else you think would help a reader understand the person or that would help someone else who may be researching the same family or a family with similar characteristics (Research Notes).

If you start to put limits on what is able to be included in a Biography (and what style it must be in), you defeat the purpose of having a collaborative platform where we can tell the stories (backed by sources).

And as Jim hinted at, Projects are able to set standards for their managed profiles; but they cannot be unilaterally applied to all profiles that may fall under their topic/location.

Comments

Thanks, Steven. To be clear, I am not proposing that we limit the style. I am only proposing that we be clear that we are allowing the profiles (that are not managed by a project) to use a style desired by the manager. No restrictions is what I am gathering from the many responses. But as I noted, when I first joined, I was not aware of that open format.

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I am only proposing that we be clear that we are allowing the profiles (that are not managed by a project) to use a style desired by the manager.

This is already documented 

The confusion may be that you can land on a narrow Help page (e.g., Help:Biographies) that explains a specific point, but does encompass the broader picture or other relevant topics (e.g., Help:Profile Aesthetics).

The best advice I can give is always start at Category:Styles and Standards.

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Steven, are you saying it is documented that it is the prerogative of WikiTree members to determine the style used on profiles they manage, within the specific rules? Could you please give a precise link? (That category covers a lot of ground.)

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@Jim, the stance is that profile managers can do whatever they want on profiles, as long as they adhere to site-wide style rules (see Category:Styles and Standards and Help:Style FAQ).

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If you decide to use a table to document a person's timeline instead of a written biography, that is your choice.

If you decide to write dates in a biography in DD/MM/YY, MMM/DD/YY, or dddd, MMMM YYYY format, that is your choice.

While the ideal may be to use a widely understood format like 12 December 2012, there is flexibility to use your choice of date formatting in the biography.

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Thank you, Steven, that's clear. I still can't see it explicitly on a Help page, but what you've written here will be a useful reference.

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@Jim, you will not find that exact wording anywhere. Because it's not as cut and dry as that. You have to read between the lines in some cases.

Since we all collaborate on shared profiles we need to agree on how profiles should look. Otherwise personal preferences might conflict and lead to bitter disagreements.

So using another set of examples to help explain this: 

What if you chose to indent every paragraph...? You are certainly allowed to apply indentation; however, there is a specific style rule that says "Indentation should not be used to start paragraphs or for extended quotations. It should only be used for spacing other special elements that need to be set apart from the text."

Or what if choose to use a list instead of a written biography, is that still considered acceptable? The short answer is Yes. It may not be preferred (like others have said, let's "put the meat on the bones"), but it is still acceptable.

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But sticking to dates, am I correct in interpreting that what you are saying entails that if I choose to write "1 January 1870" on a profile I manage, or someone else chooses to write "Jan 1, 1870" on a profile they manage, then since there is no rule forbidding either of those formats, nobody except the profile manager should change the format?

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...since there is no rule forbidding either of those formats, nobody except the profile manager should change the format?

That's a loaded question, because it can go a few of ways...

1. If I wrote a bio using "Jan 1, 1870", orphaned the the profile, and then you adopted it and changed the date format to "1 January 1870" - you are generally fine. Is it needed? Not really, but to each his own.
2. If I create a profile and use "Jan 1, 1870" and someone randomly comes by and changes the format to "1 January 1870" because they prefer that format and not mine; we need to consider Help:Communication Before Editing.
3. If I create a profile and use "05/06/12" and someone comes by and changes that to "5 June 1912" (after carefully reviewing the sources to verify the correct date)? Technically they have done a positive service to the community to remove ambiguity from a profile. Can a profile manager complain? Certainly, and we may still need to consider Help:Communication Before Editing, but they have not done any wrong.

Like I mentioned earlier, it is not always cut and dry...

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Indeed my question was loaded. What I would like to establish is that (active) profile managers' purely stylistic preferences, provided they observe all WikiTree rules, should not be gratuitously changed to a different style preferred by someone who is not the manager of the profile.

Preferences are tastes. There is room for multiple styles—"creative freedoms" as you so usefully put it. The best way to accommodate this is if each profile manager can determine the style (again and always, within the rules) on the profiles they manage, and have those choices respected by others.

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What I would like to establish is that (active) profile managers' purely stylistic preferences, provided they observe all WikiTree rules, should not be gratuitously changed to a different style preferred by someone who is not the manager of the profile.

Isn't that what we have been talking about? 

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Thanks, Steven. I'll take that as endorsement.

Answer 2

Maybe something like:

"The current WikiTree policy on date formatting in the biography or any other written section of a profile is not restricted to any specific style unless it is directed by a project managing the profile."

Comments

Profiles are not "included" in projects. If this step were taken, a better wording would be "unless it is directed by a project which manages the profile".

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Great feedback, Jim. I have updated the possible text to reflect that correction.

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Thanks Kent! My own view is that it is unnecessary to document the absence of a rule :-) But if a change is made, I think what you suggest here would be along the right lines.

Answer 3

Yes it should be documented, but with a different message.

Answer 4

No change is needed to document the current style.

Comments

Just to be clear, as a new member, I searched around for how we are supposed to date entries much longer than most new members are likely to search before posting the question to the forum. It took a lot of searching to find the G2G thread that I noted above. So by voting for this option, you are saying that the lack of any documentation around date formatting is the best path, resulting in new members either asking the question or doing whatever they please.

But I guess if the current style supports everyone doing whatever they please, then I would vote for this option too. 

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That Help page gives you NINE different formats which are accepted by the system. It's already telling you how to do it.

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It's worth noting that the previous discussion principally hinged on how dates are expressed in the biography text, not in the data fields for dates. Within the biography, members' creative freedom to use the style they prefer did indeed receive support.

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Ros, that page is talking about how the data fields accept the different date formats, but not how to enter the information in the text/BIO fields. That is what I am addressing.