User:Tony1/Information on the removal of DA

MOSNUM now deprecates the use of date-autoformatting (DA); the Manual of Style (main) and MOSLINK are consistent with this.

The community has evolved to this position over the past two years, from insistence on its use (2003–07), to a period in which DA was optional (mid-2007 – August 2008) to deprecation (since August 2008). The debate came to a head here.

This has occurred after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Some of this discussion can be found here.

Feedback on this page is welcome on the discussion page, but we do expect civility and good faith at all times.

The disadvantages of DA
There are at least six disadvantages of using date-autoformatting, which are capped here:

Sorry state of date management
In particular, the shambolic state of WP's date formatting can only be improved when our editors see what their readers see. A recent survey of 71 much-read articles from Henryk's list of the thousand most-visited articles on WP (starting at number 395 upwards, and mostly non-FA, non-GA) suggests that well over half of our articles do have problems. The breakdown is as follows:
 * 1) a small proportion of dates in the "other" format (lightest red—36.6% of the 71 audited articles);
 * 2) a messy mixing of the formats, where the correct format can be determined via MOSNUM's rules (8.5%);
 * 3) a messy mixing of the formats, where the correct format needs further input by local editors (8.5%);
 * 4) the completely wrong date format (e.g., US dates for an Irish rock group) (darkest red—5.6%)
 * 5) all correct (blue—40.8%).

Community attitudes
Removal has been widely popular. The consensus for dispensing with DA has been impressive, both (1) during the final stages of the debate at MOSNUM talk during August, and (2) during July and August on other pages. A selection of comments up until mid-August has been gathered here. The most telling evidence is that of the large number of articles from which DA has been removed (more than a thousand, we believe), only a handful have been reverted. Edit-warring over the issue by anyone who has removed DA is regarded as totally unacceptable.

There have been patches of opposition to the move; this appears to have come from the following categories of users.
 * Users with IT/programming expertise who value templates in general on WP as valuable tools for improving the project for both editors and readers.
 * Users who question why we'd want to dispense entirely with the DA function when we could lobby for its improvement.
 * Users who are deeply uncomfortable with technical or stylistic change on WP.
 * Users who are simply so used to seeing dates in blue that they feel the text is "missing something" without it: the "comfortable old shoe" syndrome, I call it.
 * Users for whom distaste for the "other" format is uppermost.

Of these people, who are small in number compared with supporters, some have been won over to the cause, some have retired from the issue, and a few are still expressing discomfort about the change.

Comparisons of DA and DA-free text
In these examples, the DA is set at international style—the one pertaining in this particular article—to show all WPians how the blue dates are displayed to our readers. MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted; these are analogous to our highly successful guidelines for the use of varieties of English. The choice of style is audited during the running of the script to ensure that it is appropriate to the article (i.e., consistent, and country-related where appropriate).