[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Date Formatter Written

Thu Feb 27 22:32:00 UTC 2003

> A suggestion was made to allow date strings to be wrapped in <date> -
> </date> tags which the Wikipediware will parse and render properly.  I
> have written a Perl routine to not only do this, but also return either
> the American or the European format, based on a flag set in each user's
> preferences.

> Questions:
> How would I go about adding this routine to the Wikipediware?
> Should I even bother adding this routine to the Wikipediware?

I don't want it. With some units (metres vs. feet etc.) I can understand
the desire to provide automatic conversion, because many Europeans don't
know the American system and vice versa. With dates, the common notations
are reaonably unambiguous -- any reader, once familiar with our notation,
can get used to it. As a German, I am already used to reading different
date styles in English texts (mostly "February 27, 2003", "2/27/2003" and
"27th of February, 2003" -- I haven't seen "27 February 2003" much, but
maybe I wasn't paying attention). Having a German-style date in an English
text (27. February 2003), on the other hand,  would look alien to me.

Adding <date> tags also further complicates our syntax at little benefit.
And I don't even want to think about converting all the existing dates.

What I do want is a consistent policy on the date style for each language.  
We should hold a vote on each Wikipedia to determine the preferred style.

Regards,

Erik