Wikipedia talk:Ignore STRONGNAT for date formats

Hello
I created this essay because I'm sick of editors who don't contribute anything to an article bitching about date formats and forcing the application of WP:STRONGNAT (which seems more often than not to be their only contribution anywhere). I found issues with the guideline, and still find it severely flawed. Rather than reargue the issue every time, every place, I thought it necessary to put together an essay to which I and other editors who feel the same way could direct WP:STRONGNAT enforcers to read. Hopefully get them to stop with their petty bullshit. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Userbox for people who agree with this essay
If you agree with this essay and choose to ignore WP:STRONGNAT as a result, feel free to use a userbox I created to say it loud and proud: --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments about UK usage
It may be that majority UK usage has become "25 December 2013"; if so this is a relatively recent development. Many years ago I was unsure of the best way to write dates (I think I tended to use December 25th, 2013, handwritten or typed, moving the typewriter roller down a half-line-space), and came across a (very British) book by well-known but now forgotten English grammarian CE Eckersley in which he made the point that the form "25 December 2013" usefully separated the numbers with a word, making for clarity and avoiding interruption of the flow with commas. I don't remember if he recommended 25 or 25th. I have used this, then non-standard in Britain, form ever since with no problems.

For the entirely numeric form, there is an actual ambiguity which can be confusing, as when a major terrorist attack on the US apparently took place on 9 November 2001 (9/11/2001). Use of the form 2001-09-11 is unambiguous. I have favoured 11/ix/2001, brief, unambiguous, in logical order, and language-neutral, but this is unlikely to be adopted. A form like 9 Sep 2011 is hardly longer, and can be compressed to 9Se01 (Ja Fe Mr Ap My Jn Jl Au Se Oc No De), but is English-language-only. Se9,01 or Se0901 doesn't seem as clear. (Day of the week can also be expressed in 2 characters: Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa.)

Pol098 (talk) 22:14, We27No13 (UTC)

A further comment on UK date format: I've looked at a few newspapers and magazines, and their Web sites. Usage is by no means consistent or standardised. Now most use 29 November 2013, but there are plenty of exceptions: from Web sites Daily Mail (national daily) Thursday, Nov 28 2013; Ham & High (local weekly) November 28 2013 (masthead), Thursday, November 28, 2013 (article heading); Financial Times (national daily) November 28, 2013. From images, The Spectator magazine's cover evolved from Saturday, February 14, 1829 and Friday, May 23, 1941 to 18 November 1989. The Listener magazine used both formats on covers and page headings in its earlier days (1932-1960s), then 21 June 1937 only from about 1970. So I would say that 21 June 1937 is not a standard UK usage, just the one that happens to be used most. From both the Ignore STRONGNAT text and my comments, it's a generalisation too far to say that dd mmmm yyyy is the UK notation, and mmmm dd, yyyy the US. Pol098 (talk) 15:09, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Choice of shortcut
Since WP:TIES is the most common shortcut for the STRONGNAT section of MOS, this would perhaps better be titled Ignore TIES for date formats. Should the page be moved, or is creation of a redirect sufficient?

Before we deal with that though: As the creator of this essay is currently banned, is there consensus to retain the essay in project namespace at all? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Both sides are wrong, anyway
There are, of course, also those of us who take the "You're both wrong" view. Thanks to ISO-8601, we finally have a universal date format that is free of any national ties whatsoever; can be interpreted unambiguously for all dates and in all contexts; and expresses a natural progression of components from most-significant to least-significant, such that a list of dates will be ordered correctly when passed through a simple numeric sort. YYYY-MM-DD #4LYFE. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 12:57, 15 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Readability is somewhat of an issue. "This event happened from to " takes longer to read.  Nixinova  T  C  07:00, 16 August 2019 (UTC)


 * So store the data in that format, and render it in whatever style the user prefers; whatever they are accustomed to will probably be faster, as with fonts. yyyy-mm-dd has the major advantage that an alphabetical sort is also chronological. Personally, I favour switching to a duodecimal system, and numbering the months 0-11, so the format is yyyy-m-dd. All ambiguities vanish. HLHJ (talk) 04:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * When the shortest unambiguous form is needed, omitting separators as in 20210811 is handy. Possibly very slightly ambiguous: is 20111230 20 November 1230AD? Useful for filenames that sort correctly. I wonder if Wikipedia silently accepts this form?


 * Nope, not at present.

Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2021 (UTC)