Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll/Autoformatting responses

Autoformatting responses

Please indicate your support vote under ONE option, accompanied by a concise explanation for your choice. Your explanation is important in determining the community consensus.

I support the general concept of autoformatting

1. While I don't care much about having a user preference to make all dates into one format, something like {{#formatdate}} combined with a {{DEFAULTDATEFORMAT}} magic word to set the default for the whole page is necessary to avoid either forcing all date-handling templates to have a "dateformat" parameter on every use or forcing all date-handling templates to allow any arbitrary garbage in their "date" parameters and forgo any possibility of date manipulation. I also see no point in not allowing those who want the feature to have it, and frankly the "arguments against" above reek of FUD and logical fallacy with no real substance. Anomie⚔ 23:14, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
2. Concur with Anomie, autoformatting is preferential in most cases where possible, even in a few areas outside of dates. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 23:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose the general concept of autoformatting

1. If Brion thinks that Autoformatting should be removed, that's good enough for me. I think the benefits of autoformatting do not outweigh the trouble implementing it will cause, such as tagging millions of dates with a marker to allow autoformatting. Steve Crossin ^Talk/₂₄ 23:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
   • The quotation from Brion is incomplete, and misrepresents his opinion. It would be regrettable if this were to be decided on the basis of this error. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
     • I read the entire quote. My opinion still hasn't changed though. So much effort for such a little benefit. Steve Crossin ^Talk/₂₄ 23:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
2. Per all of the arguments against. We don't need more options. Neither of the accepted date styles are difficult to understand. I think we should continue to move away from the ISO style and we shouldn't be relying on autoformatting for consistency. Rambo's Revenge (How am I doing?) 23:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
3. If they haven't been able to get it right in SIX YEARS, nothing makes me think they will get it right any time soon. While people say 'no pain, no gain', this is just sooo much pain for little gain. Ohconfucius (talk) 23:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
4. Weakly oppose. If this issue were to arise now, we would solve it by permitting both formats, along the lines of WP:ENGVAR. Autoformatting was a failed effort at a technical fix to a behavioral problem, and it faces irresoluble grammatical difficulties about whether a comma comes after the date. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
5. Oppose per PMAnderson. --John (talk) 23:34, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
6. Oppose. The bugzilla analysis is generally against it. Most users can understand both major formats (DMY and MDY). I see no point if it's not going to be retro-fitted, but that's likely to be a nightmare - and automating it would be very risky, as the bugzilla analysis identifies types of cases where automated retro-fitting would be wrong. Finally if making it work requires a template or any other extra mark-up typing, I'm totally against it - WP is so prone to WP:CREEP that it would probably become a MOS requirement in a few years, and I know no mechanism by which we could legislate now that MOS should never require it. -Philcha (talk) 23:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
7. Oppose There is no "problem" to solve. As it has been noted, WP:ENGVAR works well for English variants, so why not dates? Dabomb87 (talk) 23:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
8. Oppose. -- Donald Albury 23:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am neutral on the general concept of autoformatting

Comments regarding autoformatting