Wikipedia talk:Date formatting and linking poll/Archive 1: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:16, 19 March 2009

Revision as of 19:16, 19 March 2009

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:{{quotation|Year articles (e.g. [[1795]], [[1955]], and [[2007]]) should not be linked on Wikipedia unless the year is particularly relevant to the subject of the linking article; that is, an seminal event relevant to the subject of the article occured in that year. Examples may include the birth and death of a person and the establishment and disestablishment of an organization.}}

:…is disingenuous when it borrows terminology like “particularly relevant” and tries to pass off birth dates as being examples of that. You can put {{nowrap|“seminal event”-lipstick}} on a pig and try to pass it off as a prom date, but really, it’s still a pig. This prom date of yours might look like we are doing a better job of adhering to truth-in-advertising laws if it were revised to say ''“exceptions”'' include birth dates, rather than try to say—with a straight face no less—that our [[1925]] article is “particularly relevant” to [[Angela Lansbury]].<p>The pro-linking camp seems to have difficulty understanding the “theory of mind” of other Wikipedians on this issue. Examine the vote comments in [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/RFC:_Unresolved_date_delinking_and_autoformatting_issues#Date_linking|this, simple, to-the-point RfC]]. I particularly liked one of the vote comments there. One reads:

:{{quotation|Wow, never an easier one. After clicking through the links to find they are basically just trivia dumping grounds I've trained myself to ignore them. They almost NEVER have anything to do with the article. It's incredible to see a frustration that seem unresolvable being resolved. The system works!}}