Template talk:Birth date/Archive 2

Calendar error
Birth dates for persons born before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar will often be entered in the Julian calendar. This template will then link the displayed date, which will be rendered according to the preferences set by the reader (if any). Some readers will have selected the ISO-8601 format. Thus some readers will see a date, like January 7, 1502, with no statement or implication about the calendar, so the reader will have to read the article to determine the calendar. Other readers will see 1502-01-07, and "know" (perhaps mistakenly) that the date is in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.

The formatting of dates also imposes date formatting in the rest of the article upon any editor who wishes to use this template for the sake of consistency, so this template can't be used in any article where the editors have a consensus against autoformatting. A specific article where this was a problem is Gregory XIII. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You raise some interesting points. How do you suggest they be addressed? Do you think we need a ? Andy Mabbett (aka Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy Mabbett; Andy Mabbett's contributions 20:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The provision of the mf and df options together with the removal of date links seems to have solved the problem described above, but there is a problem not noticed before:


 * Note that the Birth date provides a date in the format required by HCard. That relies on vCard, RFC 2426, which is intended for directory, "white-pages" information, as would be found on a business card. Thus it is only intended for living people, or people who have died recently. Using it to describe people who have been dead for millenia can be expected to cause trouble, and sure enough, it does. The vCard spec relies on RFC 2426 to define some of the terms it uses, and in RFC 2426 we find " 'date', 'time', and 'date-time': Each of these value types is based on a subset of the definitions in ISO 8601 standard." This means that it is wrong to use Birth date (and most likely, any of its cousins} for any person who's birth date is written in any calendar other than the Gregorian calendar.


 * Because we are claiming to obey the hCard format, so whenver we put a Julian date into the hCard format, we become liars. We should stop telling lies. I suggest we do this by detecting any date before 14 September 1752 (the date Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar) and no microcard format be created for any such early date. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * As I have just replied in another place where you raised this issue, hCard is based on vCard, but is used for more than just "white pages" info, and hCards are legitimately used for more than living (or still-warm) people. The issue of pre-Gregorian hCard dates (which I raised on 19 April 2007) remains to be resolved (the microformat community is notoriously and lamentably slow in such matters). That said, until the issue is resolved, I would have no problem with the change you suggest. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:35, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If a close reading would show that hCard is merely inspired by, or loosely based on, the stated sources, rather than requiring mandatory adherence to them, then we are saved from being liars and are merely recklessly producing ambiguous dates. By making the provision I suggested, we could stop being reckless. Maybe someday the hCard community will resolve the issue. If their solution isn't too complicated, we might be able to write a conversion program (although the ability to program templates is quite limited). I would suggest that we not attempt conversions until we add a parameter to the template that allows an editor to mark a date as Julian or Gregorian, and that we only convert dates before 14 September 1752 if they have an explicit calendar marking. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I would suggest discouraging use of this template for any dates prior to 1753. In fact, I would recommend that this template actually produce an error message for those dates informing the user to not use the template. Kaldari (talk) 21:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC)


 * This seems to be an unnecessarily narrow view, probably expressed from an anglo-centric point of view. Why should using this template for Calderón's birthday (17 January 1600) be discouraged? The crucial point about this whole discussion is the first sentence in this thread: "before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar". Clearly, the adoption of the Gregorian calendar is a subject not suitable to algorithmic analysis, and so the question of this template's (Birth date) appropriateness must be left to knowledgable editors. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The documentation does not make it clear that dates must be Gregorian dates. A large number of uses have been put in place without any warning in the documentation. Also, many people start using templates by imitating existing articles, and don't always read documentation. An arithmetic solution could eleminate a large number of errors. The template could be enhanced to produce the microformat if and only if the editor included a positive statement in the template call that the calendar was Gregorian. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:25, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I would object to that; it would require too much of the mass of editors who probably aren't even aware that we use a Gregorian calendar, and break too many existing implementations. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 07:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing, I'm not sure just what it is you are objecting to. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:25, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * To your suggestion that:


 * "The template could be enhanced to produce the microformat if and only if the editor included a positive statement in the template call that the calendar was Gregorian."


 * Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Read in context, that suggestion was only meant to apply to dates before 14 September 1752. If you agree most editors are not even aware that most editors don't even know we use a Gregorian calendar, why do you want them to create false microformat birth dates? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If most editors don't even know we use a Gregorian calendar, the only way to keep editors from creating false information is to make this template give some kind of warning message for dates prior to 1753 unless an explicit Julian/Gregorian parameter is set. Otherwise the existence of this template is causing more harm than good to the project. Kaldari (talk) 17:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not how it reads in context to me, nor to the colleagues I've just shown it to. Where did I say that I "want them to create false microformat birth dates"? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of using Birth date template over at MOSNUM
[] dm (talk) 08:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge from
I have nominated Template:Birth-date to be merged into this template. Please discuss my proposal on that talk page. 70.20.84.9 (talk) 18:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Birth date confusion
The main entry give a birth date in 1917 but he is listed (according to the link a the bottom of the page) amongst people born in 1922. I'm not sure which is correct. 124.170.183.153 (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Applicable specificaton
The documentation claims that this template produces output according to the hCard spec, but I see no mention of dates in that spec. Can someone please trace the path that leads to where the date element is documented in the hCard and related specs? --Jc3s5h (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to answer my own question about the applicable specs for the Birth date and related templates. The documentation says they use the hCard spec. That spec in turn states: The vCard standard (RFC 2426) forms the basis of hCard. The basic format of hCard is to use vCard object/property names in lower-case for class names, and to map the nesting of vCard objects directly into nested HTML elements.

The RFC 2426 in turn only mentions a BDAY type, nothing about death dates. The value of a BDAY type must be either a single date value, or a single date-time value.

The date and date-time value specifications are adopted from the MIME Directory spec, RFC 2425 (1998). RFC 2425 states "date", "time", and "date-time": Each of these value types is based on a subset of the definitions in ISO 8601 standard.

The current (2004) version of ISO 8601 requires the use of the Gregorian calendar, and according to Gary Houston, so did the 1988 version. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Make the Dates Linked
Is there any way to make day and the year linked? TuxFighter (talk) 15:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request on 6 March 2012
Birth date of Blind Willie McTell As per pages 94-95 of the book "hand me my travelling shoes -in search of blind willie Mctell" by Michael Gray 2008 and https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/ML2W-QQW US census 1910 which shows Willie, his mother and his paternal aunt Mady/Mary McTier. Assuming his known birthday of 5th of May is correct, then he was born in 1903 (Census date is 15th April 1910) JoeFernwright1947 (talk) 20:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

JoeFernwright1947 (talk) 20:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You'll need to raise this issue at Talk:Blind Willie McTell. It can't be changed here. Tra (Talk) 23:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 28 April 2012
This entire article on James Monroe Goggin needs a thorough re-check and edit. Someone has inserted Andorra as a place of birth and this gentleman was born in Bedford County, Virginia. His wife was Elizabeth Nelson Page. He was a lawyer by education. He was sent to California as a special agent of th post office department in the early 1850s, establishing post offices and post roads in Northern California and Southern Oregon.

After returning he engaged in wholesale grocer and cotton commission busines. Company name was Goggin, Traytor & Holt at Memphis, TN.

He a held commission as a Major. organized a battalion of infantry that was merged into the 32nd Virginia (CSA) Appointed brigadier general Dec. 4, 1864.

After the Civil War he went to Texas and farmed in Waller county.

Died in Austin, TX 1889. 70.250.38.110 (talk) 01:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: This is the page for discussing Template:Birth date. Problems with specific articles should be raised at the talk page for the relevant article. Assuming that the article in question is James M. Goggin, the talk page is Talk:James M. Goggin. -- Red rose64 (talk) 10:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 May 2012
The hCard microformat HTML output is NOT consistent between "Birth date" and "Birth date and age" templates. Birth date: 26 April 1889 ( 1889-04-26 )

Birth date and age: ( 1968-09-16 ) September 16, 1968 The difference is where the microformat is stored, before (Bda) or after (dob) the plain text date. (ignore the date formats in the examples above)

There are some parsers that might expect only one flavour, in my case it's a Greasemonkey script that adds content this point in the infobox. Please make the templates consistent. Thanks in advance, Martin 9ofzeven (talk) 15:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

9ofzeven (talk) 15:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Either format is valid; but the latter is better, as it is sortable when used in table columns. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Understood. How about making it consistent then? I guess this would only require someone experienced to clean up the markup. It would definitely be the right thing to do. 9ofzeven (talk) 21:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds sensible, but given the high transclusion count I want to make sure I know exactly what we're doing here. Can someone update the sandbox with exactly the code that should be pushed, and then re-enable the request? Thanks. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:59, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Done -- Birth date/sandbox has been updated. Test cases look identical, but the microformat is now leading the plain text date. Btw, this is quite interesting! 9ofzeven (talk) 19:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: Seems to be an error in the code? Date first (df) and month first (mf) seem to be the wrong way round now ... &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:27, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. I had assumed the sandbox template was identical to the actual template. I have fixed that now. Done? 9ofzeven (talk) 17:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Ha ha, yes always check the sandbox is syncronised before starting work :) ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you all, you have made my day! 9ofzeven (talk) 17:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

mf and df options
The documentation mentions the parameters mf and df. However the code does not use a mf parameter currently. Perhaps this needs to be updated? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:55, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Birth year category
Why not adding a script ''' Category: ???? births ''', using the year data? RolaPL (talk) 01:40, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Because generating categories from templates is "Not a Good Thing™". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:08, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Before 1 AD
What if the year is in BC? For example, 1 BC, 2 BC. How do I to key in?

If you reply to this, please remember to notify me at my talk page because I may not watch this page. --HYH.124 (talk) 08:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This template, and probably every other date template, is meant only for dates of the Gregorian calendar; for other dates, just type the date without using this template. E.g. Julius Caesar (July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) – simple. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Template:Birth year?
What if only the birth year is known? There doesn't seem to be a separate template for that. Is it necessary? Obviously I can just type the year normally, but do the templates help with metadata or anything? —Msmarmalade (talk) 08:05, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I just discovered Birth-date which accepts year only. Periglio (talk) 18:42, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Categorise
Would it be possible to add a parameter  to this and related templates, that would categorise the transcluding article into Category:1910 births (if the year was 1910), and so on? I can see why this is not the default, as this and similar templates are not used simply for the birth date (death date, etc.) of the subject of the artice; however it would save a bit of time and also ensure consistency. Si Trew (talk) 01:46, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Because generating categories from templates is "Not a Good Thing™". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:08, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Template fails if only the year is known
1956 fails with "1956".

If this is by design then I suspect the documentation should be updated to have "If only the year is known then use the Birth-date template. For example, 1956 ." --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 00:31, 8 December 2015 (UTC)


 * This situation may be covered in the documentation:
 * When only the year of a person's birth and/or death are known, or if it is desired not to state a person's full dates of birth and death for privacy reasons, use the templates Birth year and age and Death year and age instead.
 * Does that help? These age templates are a giant mess. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:13, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I had missed that. I also missed the large red hat-notice "Do not use this template when the person's exact date of birth is disputed or unknown."


 * How about replacing the line
 * Do not use with non-Gregorian dates because the resulting hCard hidden date will be false.
 * with
 * The year of birth, month of birth, and day of birth parameters are required. When only the year, or the year and month, of a person's birth and/or death are known, or if it is desired not to state a person's full date of birth for privacy reasons, use the templates Birth year and age and Death year and age instead.


 * This template can only be used with Gregorian calendar dates. If used with a non-Gregorian date the resulting hCard date will be invalid.


 * We could then remove the buried note about non-Gregorian dates. FWIW, http://microformats.org/wiki/date-pattern#Specificity says that you can use yyyy and yyyy-mm only format for the bdate meaning the template could get fixed up to handle those variations. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 06:23, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * That looks good to me. Be bold and make the change. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:27, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 June 2016
I've a suggestion that will allow the specific code  to be used to display nothing. This is useful to be able to silently include it in infobox examples. I've put the code at Template:Birth date/sandbox.

T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 08:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 08:33, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Can you give a specific example of where this might be useful? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi. For new users inserting infoboxes, I've found it common that they don't understand the significance of the birthdate being commented out. When they insert the dates into the template within the infobox, it is still commented out and doesn't display e.g.:

If the "unfilled" template could be included uncommented out, such that it works normally as soon as dates are filled in without having to remove the commenting: What do you reckon? T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 00:02, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. Are you talking specifically about Infobox person? I see a copy/paste example there that gives two possible templates to use for the birth date. Again, a specific link to a specific example of where this will be helpful in a specific template or article is always helpful. Or provide a sandbox page in your user space with examples of the existing template and the new template in use. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:50, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah yea, I see how I was unclear. You're correct that I meant Infobox person (and profession-specific variants of it such as Infobox scientist). Testing my sandbox version also shows that it doesn't have the behaviour that I expect. I had intended that, whereas  gives an error,   should simply return blank.


 * → Example 1a (used in blank Infobox person template)
 * → Example 1b (incorrectly filled in Infobox person template if not removed). Example 1bshould show "February 11, 1987", but doesn't because user didn't remove
 * → Example 2a (for use in blank Infobox person template and doesn't need )
 * → Example 2b (filled in Infobox person template without need to remove )


 * Hopefully that make a bit more sense with the examples. T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 01:56, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. I'm going to answer this TE protected request in the negative. You may wish to request feedback using an RFC or other community publication mechanism (VPT/VPP and etc.) to advertise your suggested change. Izno (talk) 13:04, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 June 2016
Hello, (ping,, )

I raised the idea at WP:VPT and there seemed to be general consensus support for the Template:Birth date/sandbox edits. If people are happy with this, I may also suggest analogous edits to etc. There also seemed to be some additional suggestions of a complete date overhaul which is a little beyond the scope of this edit request.

T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 01:47, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Not sure if I can read the consensus from the section, but I wouldn't object to the request (including Death date, not including Birth date and age, etc). Overhaul is out of scope. — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 02:44, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you think Start date and End date are in scope for this? (A good navbox for context is Template:Birth, death and age templates.) Now, I personally think that the change proposed should roll out to Birth date and age, Birth based on age as of date, Death date and age, and a whole class of templates in that navbox, which needs far greater visibility and consensus (perhaps with an RfC). If not, it would puzzle some editors that the functionality suggested works here and not some similar template. Since some of these templates are fully-cascade-protected (like Birth date and age), this rollout isn't something a TE will be able to do. Sorry, not done for now. — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 04:51, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation. Do you have a suggestion what would be a sensible next step? T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 05:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The fastest way may be to ask a familiar admin in this area... maybe a regular at VPT, or folks who commented there when you mentioned this. I would mention the individual templates to be updated. My own suggestion is, at least (possibly at most? (not sure)) "Birth date", "Birth date and age", "Death date", and "Death date and age" because of your Infobox person use case. Another way for broad visibility would be a new RfC post (with ) at the WP:VPR page, which would take a month I think. Again, the template update scope should be pretty clear by the time that happens.
 * But something to keep in mind is whether this YYYYMMDD convenience (with respect to the Infobox person use case) is honestly worth the change. Hope this helps, and feel free to keep me in the loop. — Andy W. ( talk  · ctb) 05:32, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 January 2018
Dates according to this template should be formatted with non-breaking spaces (&amp;nbsp;) between the day, the month and the year, in accordance with MOS:NBSP. This has also been done at Start date and at other places (see here, etc.). Therefore, please change the space characters in this template's code to "&amp;nbsp;"s to ensure that dates are kept on the same line and are not broken up. Thanks.  RAVEN PVFF  &#124; talk ~ 13:58, 22 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The advice at MOS:NBSP only indicates it may be desirable, not that it should always be done. Also, the examples only include a month and a year, not a month, day, and year. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:28, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, this should ideally be an option (especially if it's "desirable"), when using this template in articles. (Furthermore, it arguably looks worse (assuming dmy format) with the line break happening between the day and the month.) Implementing the &amp;nbsp; brings it in line with other templates and fixes any line break issues involving the template.  RAVEN PVFF  &#124; talk ~ 15:11, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 16 May 2018
savitri was born on dec 6 1933 not 4th jan 1936 Gemsivly (talk) 06:40, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . If possible, please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. If you cannot edit the article's talk page, you can instead make your request at Requests for page protection. Cabayi (talk) 06:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)