User:Locke Cole/Date Linking RFC Analysis

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Original RFC located at WP:MOSNUM/RFC, please see that page for the original results. This page represents an intepretation of the results based on the opinion expressed.

Deprecating the current date autoformatting

Below I've categorized !votes based on the comment left with the vote. Where someone did not leave a comment, I sorted them into Editor supported but only via a vote.

Editor supported deprecation but wrote nonsense

  1. Deletion of active work is not the answer but addition of correct thinking and evocation of the namme of a knoe Saint of God a Jesus Freak a poet that eye love his namme is Darkstone. Smithdarkj (talk) 01:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Editor supported deprecation but seemed to support fixing autoformatting

  1. Support. Per my comments in the RFC above. I would note that if there was a way to autoformat dates without them resulting in links to useless date articles, I would strongly support that option.--User:2008Olympianchitchatseemywork 09:09, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support - "purely for the purposes of date autoformatting". Obviously some dates will want linking and will thus get autoformatted. I strongly want autoformating of dates that works but this should be independent of links. I also believe UK centric articles should in the raw be "dd mmm yyyy" whilst US centric ones should probably be "mmm dd, yyyy" -- SGBailey (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support - but only if there is an alternative method of date autoformatting available. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 00:42, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support Date links are almost universally a waste of time and lead to a "sea of blue" in many articles. An alternative method of date auto-formatting - preferably one which incorporates a 'date format' code once in the article, and then uses that throughout (but could be over-ridden by a user's own preferences if that was their choice) - would be far more elegant than the present approach. MarkyMarkD (talk) 19:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support - Auto format is good, but there is no good reason to link every single date. It is a bit like linking every single word. Martin451 (talk) 01:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support - Overlinking is a problem that outweighs any autoformatting in my opinion. --Sultec (talk) 19:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  7. Support - While I do find the autoformatting to be very useful, the overlinking more than counteracts that benefit (unfortunately). Anaxial (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  8. Support - Overloading the link function with this sort of formatting functionality links two problems that really have nothing to do with eachother. If date formatting is to be applied, it should be applied everywhere, but not every date should be linked- produces too many redundant or useless links within the article. --Clay Collier (talk) 06:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  9. Support. Although I would like some sort of formatting to be applied in some way, making a pointless hyperlink out of a date to achieve this is overkill.--A bit iffy (talk) 16:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  10. Support - a new way needs to be found, as date wikilinks solely for autoformat is not a universal and ongoing solution. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  11. Support but with strong preference for some form of non-linked, no-login required autoformatting. dramatic (talk) 09:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  12. Support Autoformatting is a nice to have, but the majority of people who read the encyclopedia do not have it. Links that do not add benefit should not be included, and for most people these do not add benefit. -- WORMMЯOW  10:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  13. Support how do most people use Wikipedia? Do they look for a particular subject or a date and see what happened in that month, day or year? I suggest they look mostly at a subject. If there are dates in that article, they point out significant moment for the subject of the article. If I'm reading by subject, dates don't mean anything except in the context of the article. If an external event is mentioned that affected the subject, I expect the article about the event (if linked) to be my main source of correlated information, not simply the date. What happened on September 11, 1662 is not relevant to what happened on September 11, 2001. My suggestion is to have a date tag of some kind that does not create a link (like an HTML span), and let the date formatting be an option in a registered user's profile. Then it will appear formatted via their choice. If it's linked in the article, it's linked. Otherwise, just format the date to the user preference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ??? (talk • contribs)
  14. Support. Overlinking is actually quite a problem with differing views on what is a high-value link to whom. However date links are usually less helpful if not completely useless. So many articles read "On 14 May 2007 blah de blah joined company X", etc but really that date isn't even terribly important to that subject. We can find other solutions to sorting out date-formatting needs but the blanket use iencourages driven unbecoming an encyclopedia. -- Banjeboi 21:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  15. Support - I'm not opposed to autoformatting in principle, but these links are a terrible way to do it. Polemarchus (talk) 03:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  16. Support. As with some others above, it is the useless linking of dates that bothers me more than the format issue. If I want to know about everything else that went on on 11 June apart from whatever I happen to be writing an entry about, well, I know where to go... hamiltonstone (talk) 11:14, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Editor supported deprecation but seemed unaware autoformatting could be fixed

  1. Support - dates should not be linked for the purposes of autoformatting.—MDCollins 11:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support. Links should only be used where they help a reader understand an article. Date links hardly ever do so. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support per WP:CONTEXT. --John (talk) 14:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support Autoformatting was a hasty and ill-conceived solution to a perceived problem, and the 'cure' has turned out to be far worse than the disease. It offers no benefit to >99% of our readers, it creates millions of valueless links, its counterintuitive syntax has misled editors into linking bare years and all sorts of other time periods, it hides data inconsistencies from editors whilst displaying them to everyone else. Let's rid WP of this pestilence. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support per wp:context. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support per the comments above. Excessive overlinking does make an article less readable, and it is only useful for that little group of users who have changed the default date formatting in their user preferences. I don't see how the patch will provide anything better than this currently system does... ~~ [ジャム][talk] 19:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  7. Support - From the perspective of a reader who has read articles with and without date links, I don't miss the links when they aren't included. They don't really add anything, and the text does look cleaner with less blue. I agree with JGXenite that a patch won't be an improvement. Giants2008 (17-14) 19:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  8. Support - I see no useful purpose in autoformatting dates when the vast majority of our readers do not see the autoformatting, nor do I see the merit in linking to a random list of things that happened on a date. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  9. Support - using links for autoformatting is a bad format for autoformatting, it leads to needless links to random collections of dates. Autoformatting that only works for registered users isn't useful either. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  10. Support - This leads to massive confusion for all editors who either can't be bothered with autoformatting well or IP editors who see 2006-07-03 and go "wut!?" - NuclearWarfare contact meMy work 01:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  11. Support - linking to dates per se serves no relevant purpose for an article (automatic or not).--HJensen, talk 21:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  12. Support - Because I can live without receiving Greg L's sewer cover barnstar award.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  13. Support ... sigh, for the umpteenth time. I don't see the point in continuing to poll on this issue in the hope that one may go differently from all the previous ones. Besides, if it did, folks would just argue that some earlier polls with larger numbers of participants "prove" theirs had the "greater consensus". Askari Mark (Talk) 03:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  14. support and get rid of all existing links of this type. They serve no useful purpose to the reader and just make the article look ugly. Hmains (talk) 04:35, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  15. Support; the linking provides little of value beyond a further excess of blue, taking focus away from the "high value" links. In addition, the autoformatting can obscure problems that editors do not see, but the vast majority of our readers do see. Steve T • C 10:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  16. Support. As above, linking all dates is distracting and useless, and autoformatting of dates is something we can really live without. What's with all the drama?  Sandstein  14:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  17. Support. It is high time we remove useless links that clutter up articles (thus devalueing links that make sense in the article), especially since 99% of our users will see no benefit from the formatting capability. Karanacs (talk) 16:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  18. Support as date links do not link to pages that are generally relevant to the context of the article they are in. It Is Me Here t / c 17:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  19. Support generally, gratuitous date links (like other gratuitous links) obscure the useful links in an article. Links should only be made on meaningful relationships. Studerby (talk) 19:58, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  20. Support. Date links are distracting and lead to pages that no-one reads. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:41, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  21. Support, date links do more harm than good. Everyking (talk) 06:29, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  22. Support, as date links have little value and autoformatting is potentially useful only to logged-in users. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  23. Support for all the reasons already given; linking all dates is a large idiosyncracy with very small benefit. --NE2 06:59, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  24. Support. Date autoformatting/linking provides very little benefit, is unsightly and distracting, and generally is unnecessary & irrelevant to the article (also where a WikiProject has mandated a date style for its articles). Whitehorse1 23:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  25. Support linking should only be done for reasons of relevance. Linking all dates is essentially the same as linking all words. Blue-Haired Lawyer 13:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  26. Support Meh, what more can I say that hasn't already been said? Linked dates are more often out-of-context and irrelevant to the matter at hand, than serving a contextual purpose. Yngvarr (t) (c) 14:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  27. Support Per all above, it's useless overlinking.--HereToHelp (talk to me) 15:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  28. Support I have always thought it was unnecessary, I completely agree with HereToHelp; Useless Overlinking Highfields (talk, contribs, review) 15:36, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  29. Support Is unnecessary, produces a "blue sea" effect and allows editors to be lazy with consistent formatting at the expense of our readers (it's sadly a far less hypothetical or theoretical problem than one might imagine). The date links themselves are useless, and the autoformatting works for only a tiny fraction of total readers, that being the fraction of users who have consciously set their preferences. Orderinchaos 15:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  30. Support They don't add anything and the text is cleaner without the extra bluelinks --RedKiteUK (talk) 16:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  31. SupportI agree, auto-linking dates just causes a mass flood of useless events that happened on that day/month/year and offers no additional benefit to the article structure or Wikipedia in general. -- ErnestVoice (User) (Talk) 16:20, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  32. Strong Support Unnecessary overlinking to articles that are not relevant/related (months, years, days), and a waste of resources. ~ priyanath talk 17:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  33. Support Date links have little value. The current method of implementation for registered users is cumbersome - I've probably spent hours linking dates. Most Wikipedia readers are not registered users, leading to inconsistent date usage within articles. dissolvetalk 17:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  34. Support I don't use autoformatting, most people I have talked to about it don't, and people can figure out obscure dates—or, better yet, article creators can just not make the dates obscure to begin with. And, as most people above me have said, linking dates is messy. —Politizer talk/contribs 17:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  35. Support. Datelinking is a waste of time, looks ugly, and is really unnecessary. AGK 18:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  36. Support. Date links are one of the few things in Wikipedia which creates an unprofessional impression. Can you imagine a "real" encyclopedia typesetting dates in the font used for words you might want to look up? --Zvika (talk) 18:17, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  37. Support Does not add value to articles. Gerardw (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  38. Support - Creates a vast quantity of unnecessary and irrelevant links. Pfainuk talk 18:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  39. Support - Clearly linking dates is very problematic and these outweigh the benefits. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  40. Support - Locke provides a compelling reason to keep, but I think user preference is trumped by general usability. Too much blue removes the impact of relevant links and I believe is a net negative; dates may be linked when important, and with regular formatting deprecated readers will actually understand it is useful. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 19:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  41. Support. Linking every date makes linking less useful. Overlinking is similar to using too many italics, CAPS, or exclamation points. At some point, the punctuation becomes meaningless. Finetooth (talk) 20:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  42. Support. Messy, often makes the first article sentence a sea of blue. Rarely, if ever helpful. Unusual? Quite TalkQu 20:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  43. Support for all of the cogent, thoughtful reasons already stated. Overlinking, sea of blue, non-notability of random days, dates, and years per se, etc. —Scheinwerfermann T·C21:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  44. Support Dates lead to random trivia lists that do not help improve the article, especially in articles on a less notable topic where the article linked to doesn't even mention it (I.E. A random person's birthday). Joe Nutter 21:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  45. Strong support - Often makes for sloppy looking articles when dealing with date spans (i.e. 14 - 18 September 2008) and causes the "sea of blue". Date formatting should be determined the same as variations of English in articles. لennavecia 21:19, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  46. Strong Support which is consistant with my feelings the first time this came up. 21stCenturyGreenstuff (talk) 21:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  47. Support. Links to date articles rarely add important context to articles. Yilloslime (t) 21:51, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  48. Support. I don't see why dates should be clickable at all. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 22:31, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  49. Support. Linking dates adds no discernible value to articles. LTSally (talk) 23:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  50. Support. i don't see why dates should be linked at all. Janviermichelle (talk) 23:47, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  51. Support. Overlinking is bad, and the existing system has allowed readers to find dates like 2005-1-27 in articles.--Srleffler (talk) 23:51, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  52. Support. Linking dates fails to add any helpful context to readers, and only leads to a list of events that offer no new information, and not to mention the overlinking problems that comes along with linking dates. DiverseMentality 23:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  53. Support. Dates should not be linked. Too much linking...Smarkflea (talk) 01:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  54. Support per my comments above, overlinking an article is of no use to the editor or the reader. I find this similar to linking the word "the" in every article atleast once. It doesn't make sense to do. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 01:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  55. Absolutely! This has bugged me for a long time. We already have an editing guideline that advises against unnecessary wikilinks, and for good reason — each useless link decreases the visibility of the links that are actually useful. For example, I've had to go through some articles and remove dozens to hundreds of wikilinks because just about every noun was wikilinked. Can we all agree that a wikilink to person is rarely useful? In the rare event that you do want to read that article, you can use the search box. The date links are exactly the same. The percentage of the time that people actually click on them is so rare (and most clicks are by accident anyway) that it makes more sense to take them out, and if people really want to get to the date articles, they can type it in. --Cyde Weys 01:42, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  56. Support per above comments and wp:context--FeanorStar7 (talk) 02:06, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  57. Support The linking doesn't really help the average reader, and it has marginal costs for editors. GRBerry 05:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  58. Support as per Wikipedia:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#Dates. RainbowOfLight Talk 05:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  59. Support Date linking provides little benefit to readers, clutters the articles, and makes extra work for editors. If a reader wants to know what happened in a given year, he or she can go look at the year page directly. - Auntof6 (talk) 06:06, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  60. Support generally leads to cluttering. Manxruler (talk) 09:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  61. Support, it's silly clutter and often leads to almost unreadable initial sentences. 2005 (talk) 10:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  62. Support I have long been a believer that these links caused more confusion for the average reader since they are more or less dead links. I do not see where these links are even a benefit to the article or readers at hand. Canyouhearmenow 12:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  63. Support The links are generally useless and distracting. -- Mwanner | Talk 14:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  64. Support The links are usually not useful, and only a select few important dates should be linked if it helps context. --Banime (talk) 14:55, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  65. Support, per above discussions. This practice has led to nothing but excess links that seem to litter the pages of Wikipedia. NSR77 T 16:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  66. Support - links should mean something to the reader, and May 1 doesn't. --PresN (talk) 16:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  67. Support bunch of meaningless links detract from readability of articles —G716 <T·C> 17:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  68. Support - If a link doesn't provide pertinent content, it shouldn't be in the article. arimareiji (talk) 18:07, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  69. Support' Such links add nothing to the article, and are frequently distracting. RJC TalkContribs 19:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  70. Support let's not forget that Wiki isn't a closed club of editors; many (most?) of its readers aren't registered and should not have to register in order to see dates shown in a consistent and unambiguous manner. WP:MOS encourages consistent use of one national variant of english per article; why not extend this approach to date format, and deprecate the use of numeric representation of months in favour of spelling the month - this is the only source of confusion for readers. -- Timberframe (talk) 21:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  71. Support. Reduce low-value links & sea-of-blue phenomena. Any beginning reader of English has encountered both date formats, and has quickly intuited that 12 July and July 12 mean the same thing. Ewulp (talk) 22:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  72. Support Wikipedia is and first and foremost a professional encyclopedia. User perks can come later, but not at the expense of readability. --Patar knight - chat/contributions 22:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  73. Support - I find articles to be over linked with common terms as it is. With the linking of dates as well this becomes quite a distraction and articles become difficult to read. The extent of linking is such that it is off putting. I'm not convinced that linking dates improves the knowledge of the reader anyway. Then we have the problem where dates aren't even linked correctly, this has to be corrected by another user. The pro's of linking dates do not out way the con's. — Realist2 23:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  74. Support - Lets us avoid overlinking. -- Avenue (talk) 04:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  75. Support - Linking dates is a time-wasting exercise and clutters the article with too many links. Most of the links just lead to a date which is not relevent to the article itself.--jeanne (talk) 06:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  76. Support - Whatlinkshere can be very useful for dates, but when every single date is linked, even ones that have nothing at all to do with the topic (like access dates for references), its usefulness is greatly diminished. The cons of overlinking greatly outweigh the autoformat benefits (which can hopefully be dealt with another way anyhow).--ragesoss (talk) 06:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  77. Support because I like hopping on bandwagons. No, seriously, other than setting the date preference I never really saw any rationale for this, and in most cases it was never relevant to the context (Links to "YEAR in FOO", on the other hand, are relevant and should be encouraged. Of course, that does beg the question of what happens if, say, we get articles like "July 16 in baseball", which, I find, depends on the outcome here. Daniel Case (talk) 06:35, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  78. Support - datelinking confused me quite a bit when I first came to Wikipedia, as I assumed the dates linked to a topic that was relevant to the article. Better if they are removed IMO. Gatoclass (talk) 07:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  79. Support - I don't see a good reason to link to some date or its fragment in general. --Tomaxer (talk) 10:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  80. Support - as I have said before, confuses new users and directs them to unrelated pages. It is ugly and encourages overlinking. Graham Colm Talk 11:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  81. Support - Overlinking is not useful to readers. If date links are useful than they can always be added but the current situation results in conflicts when common sense should provail. Lympathy Talk 13:05, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  82. Support. Dates are only usefully linked when the statement is about the date: "1492 marks a watershed." "The 18th century was the heyday of rococo." Just as one doesn't link every noun. --Wetman (talk) 14:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)--Wetman (talk) 14:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  83. Support as I dislike overlinking and OT trivia. Fletcher (talk) 20:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  84. Support. Links should only point to articles relevant to the context WP:OVERLINK - Anon126  (talk - contribs - commons - commons talk - commons contribs) 22:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  85. Support Date links to pages that don't mention anything about the subject of the article linked from are just confusing to readers. They confused me when I first started reading Wikipedia. - Ahunt (talk) 23:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  86. Support - can't say anything that hasn't already been stated. Intothewoods29 (talk) 00:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  87. Support Auto-formatting occurs for small minority of readership, and date articles seem relatively useless to me. --Natural RX 00:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  88. Support Remove the over-proliferation of blue which benefits only a tiny minority of readers. Peanut4 (talk) 00:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  89. Support Overlinking is one of the things that attracts derision to Wikipedia. It makes it harder to find the relevant links, and is often mistaken for emphasis. I18n of dates is not so vital that we need to solve it technologically. Pseudomonas(talk) 10:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  90. Support for many reasons. I am not sure I would support automatic date formating in any form - what matters is that articles are well written. I do favour consistency across all of wikipedia, so dates should generally conform to a small set of possible formats and should be consistent within an article - but that is another matter. Gaius Cornelius (talk) 14:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  91. Support as irrelevant overlinking is plain wrong for whatever reason, thus the current autoformatting system is brain-damaged. I hope this godawful abomination will finally disappear in the pit of hell. — Emil J. 15:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  92. Support Links should always go somewhere relevant, those entirely there for date format preference do not. They are pointless, spammy, overlinking, and only provide any preferential benefit to registered users, who are not the core audience anyway. Hohum (talk) 16:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  93. Support Automatically linking dates oveshadows real linking and distracts for the content of the article. Libcub (talk) 16:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  94. Support Many articles overlink; linking all dates makes this a lot worse, making it hard to see the wood for the trees. --Merlinme (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  95. Support. Linking all the dates is distracting and cumbersome. --Elonka 18:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  96. Support. Agree with the statement, supra, that linking all the dates is distracting and cumbersome. Drhoehl (talk) 00:45, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  97. Support - Linked dates distract from genuinely useful links; nearly all readers do not use autoformatting. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  98. Support - Linking dates doesn't enhance readability Tobyc75 (talk) 01:55, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  99. Support - It doesn't enhance readability and looks cluttered. Dismas|(talk) 07:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  100. Support - The first time I read a Wikipedia page I wondered why ever some dates were links. They are generally distracting, and should not be used by default, but only when there is a significant meaning behind them, that is, when one wants to explicitely refer to history. --Fpoto (talk) 07:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  101. Support date links distract and add virtually no value (has anyone tried to read one of the garbage year or date articles?) Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:28, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  102. Support for the reasons I have given at previous discussions and at the current other discussion. However many places this issue is raised there is still no sense is having an automated system which requires more manual inputting than using normal dating, and which for the majority of readers does not provide a consistent date order within an article. The best approach is copywriting. SilkTork *YES! 18:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  103. The date links are almost never relevant to the article. Many long articles have both linked and unlinked dates which could confuse the casual reader into thinking that the linked dates are somehow more important than the unlinked dates. JimCubb (talk) 19:38, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  104. Support ugly, useless overlinking BanRay 21:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  105. Support need to avoid overlinking. bluelinking to a year is genreally useless ofr information unless it is a 1940 in literature/politics or some subset to be of interest. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:45, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  106. Support I just never understood the benefit (in 95% of the cases) of linking a date. The cost of overlinking is clear - good links don't stand out. Smallbones (talk) 00:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  107. Support. It is misleading, as it appears to denote significance of the linked date. Ty 00:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  108. Support this change for the better. Tony1's commentary has it just about spot-on. I've always thought date-linking was overlinking and wondered why we couldn't change the software to employ autoformatting on unlinked dates unless somehow tagged otherwise to preserve quotations, etc. I've come to realise that there are reasons other than blue clutter why autoformatting is a bad idea, though, and since we get along fine with spelling variation, this shouldn't be any different. Rovaniemi-5 (talk) 01:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  109. Support. I don't believe that date links are important if only used for the purpose of formatting.« Hiram111ΔTalK Δ 02:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  110. Support. Those links typically get in the way of the reader's understanding the article. Eubulides (talk) 03:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  111. Support. Clearly over linking in many articles. Its time to close this discussion and move on. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  112. Support As per above (and above some more) linking the dates provides no real value and overlinking dates is a problem. Pinkadelica Say it... 12:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  113. Support wiki-linking dates is absolutely useless. Miguel.mateo (talk) 13:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  114. Support. It doesn't help the vast majority of our readers, who see dates in their raw form. Truthanado (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  115. Support. Date linking was absurd from day one. David Brooks (talk) 03:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  116. Support. Date linking has a bad effect on readability of an article. Hohenloh + 10:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  117. Support A disservice to many to satisfy a few. Cenarium (Talk) 11:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  118. Support Most dates are not notable in their own right. --Philcha (talk) 15:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  119. Support Like that saying goes: "No matter how far down the wrong road you've gone, turn back". Spellcast (talk) 16:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  120. Support A major step away from the plague of overlinking and toward a more effectively informative encyclopedia.DocKino (talk) 18:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  121. Support I agree with much of the reasoning above. Eusebeus (talk) 20:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  122. Support. It's like a useless or trite footnote-- it invites someone to leave the text to find nothing helpful at the destination. Kablammo (talk) 20:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  123. Support Overlinking is highly undesirable and is detrimental to readability. Pwhitwor (talk) 21:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  124. Support - it makes article editing more complicated and doesn't improve content + technical reasons given above. Telaviv1 (talk) 06:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  125. Support I find it irritating and pointless. And the years it links to just has a collection of unrelated information. If each year's page had a separate sections for politics, per country or world, and linked to that when relevant, or pop culture which was somehow relevant to the article, it'd might be useful to have an option to link to it when relevent. Even then you shouldn't do it automatically. An anime comes out in 2001, and the link on the page says that the American President gave a medal to a previous president for the Spanish American War over a hundred years ago. Not relevant in any way. I don't understand why any bothered to look up any year as it is now and see what is listed there, would find any year's page even remotely useful to any article. Dream Focus (talk) 01:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  126. Support -- as per many of the already-made points. Axlrosen (talk) 23:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  127. Support, as I fail to see this is not covered by WP:CONTEXT. –thedemonhog talk • edits 23:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  128. Support it's already been well stated. It violates the principal about irrelavant links and of redundant links, and creates a sea of blue. Saros136 (talk) 06:27, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  129. Support. Excessive/redundant linking is not appreciated but birth, death, important events needs to be linked and is very important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bharathprime (talk • contribs) 2008-12-07T22:44:14
  130. Support I view it as clutter in some cases. It is helpful to link when it may provide more information for the specific article, but simply linking to a date seldom provides useful information. It sends you off task, unless all you are doing is surfing around click by click. It's more like "Oh, look. A chicken!"Kearsarge03216 (talk) 01:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  131. Support. When dates were first de-linked on articles I had written, it looked strange, but now I see how much cleaner these articles look and read. I agree that links should be reserved for linking to other articles only. Yoninah (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  132. Support - I used to support linking dates, just to see some blue on a page. But now I know it is not only not necessary, but overlinking and not needed in articles (though some dates, for example, linking December 25 in Christmas, etc., is acceptable). -- American Eagle (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  133. Support–Linking for the sake of formatting creates low-value links that take focus away from more useful links. In addition, it hides date inconsistencies from users with date preferences set, but readers who are not logged in are presented with a mish-mash of date styles. When I read the initial proposal to delink dates I was against it, but having seen it in practice I like it. Pagrashtak 13:44, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  134. Support I never look at the dates. The only time linking to dates is useful is in sport years., i.e. 2008 Formula One Season, but apart from that I don't see any reason to link to dates at all. Darth Newdar (talk) 16:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  135. Support — Autoformatting is one function, and linking is another. I don't think it makes sense that they are combined. There are cases in which dates should be linked, and cases in which they should not; but autoformatting could be beneficial in either case. —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 17:13, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  136. Support - As far as I am concerned the date autoformatting/linking is a blight upon the Wikipedia. Nick Thorne talk 20:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  137. Support never did like the idea of date linking. GtstrickyTalk or C 20:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  138. Support The benefits of linking every date are small (in my opinion) and of no benefit to most readers. It clearly goes against the policy for wikilinks generally that wikilinks should be used sparingly and only where it would provide additional helpful information for the average reader. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  139. Support: I hate seeing a sea of blue almost as much as I hate a sea of red. – Jerryteps 01:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  140. Strong support: Linking of dates that really have no historical value (like the date of CD release) is a waste of time and clutters the article about that date with useless trivia. And overlinking is an issue in many articles already. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  141. Support. I've never seen any value in linking dates in articles, and I file doing so under "useless" along with linking of mundane terms (seriously, I once saw an article where virtually every single word was wikilinked, which looked ridiculous and made the article impossible to read, to boot). Sometimes "consensus can change" gets up my nose with regards to certain policies, but in this case I'd be happy to see date linking disappear, except in very rare cases. 23skidoo (talk) 16:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  142. Support. Unnecessary clutter. PluniAlmoni (talk) 20:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  143. Support - Links are supposed to lead you to more useful information about that article, not to a totally different article. --Krakatov (talk) 00:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  144. Support Linking dates is almost always completely pointless. If an article discusses Guy Fawkes, November 5 should probably be linked, if it discusses Osama bin Laden then September 11 should be linked; however, we don't need to link dates in cases such as Gaylord Perry pitching a no-no on September 17, 1968, or the contract to build the Hoover Dam being awarded on March 11, 1931 (and yes, both of those examples are actually linked in the respective articles). With some topics (Fawkes and September 11), the dates are relevant; in most (including Perry and the Hoover Dam), they are not. faithless (speak) 08:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  145. Strong support. Just look at the argument above, linking a date provides no context in most cases. If dates are wikilinked, then why shouldn't every word be? Corn.u.co.pia / Disc.us.sion 13:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  146. Support: While it was nice to see dates in a consistent format, it really did defeat the whole purpose of linking, in two ways: It created links to information about dates that had no real relationship to the article, and it led to serious overlinking, I agree with the decision to deprecate this feature. Sunray (talk) 16:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  147. Support Date links are by and large unnecessary in most articles, and detract from the value of all other links in that article. The exceptions are those articles that have a strong temporal connection, such as World War II and September 11 attacks. The Fiddly Leprechaun · Catch Me! 16:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  148. Strong support. Articles on my watchlist that have been de-linked are improved in my opinion. It gets rid of a clutter of links and allows you to see the real links. There are several categories of X by year, for use where we really want to collect date related material. Viv Hamilton (talk) 15:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  149. Support, especially if the autoformatting function comes into play since 99.99% of the times the link to the date provides no additional information. Tabercil (talk) 17:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  150. Support. There is generally no utility gained by linking to dates, since clicking the link simply takes the reader to an irrelevant page. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  151. Support. Always found it kind of pointless. Semitransgenic (talk) 02:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  152. Support - Wikipedia will look a lot more professional once all dates are unlinked. JS (chat) 13:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  153. Strong support - Overlinkage just draws attention away to irrelevant topics. —La Pianista (T•C•S) 21:11, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  154. Support I agreed to do this with the Alpha Kappa Alpha article. miranda 21:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  155. Support as linking dates also may confuse new users about the purpose of wikilinking, and may distract or confuse readers who click a date link out of curiosity. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 22:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  156. Support. Can't see any benefit from these links, and they make the articles difficult to read. --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  157. Support, it leads to pointless overlinking.  Esradekan Gibb  "Talk" 03:10, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  158. Support - Links generally serve no useful purpose. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Editor supported deprecation but only via a vote

  1. Support --Apoc2400 (talk) 10:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support - for the 500th time already. How many times do we have to decide this? Kaldari (talk) 19:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support.  HWV 258  21:36, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support. This was long overdue. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:42, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support --Flash176 (talk) 16:15, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support --Scray (talk) 17:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Editor supported deprecation but provided a confusing reason

  1. Support - this is such a pain to try and monitor. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Editor supported deprecation but did not sign

  1. Support Anything that makes reading the articles easier is a worthy and just cause.
  2. Support Linking dates is a waste of energy and time.

Anonymous editor supported

  1. Support per Sandy. Goodness! 86.44.21.140 (talk) 23:07, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Editor supported deprecation

  1. Support, although for me the worst problem with the current system is not that it leads to overlinking. It is rather that editors is presented with a view that differs from the view presented to readers. Taemyr (talk) 08:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
    • You understand that the bugzilla patch would remove the links and provide formatting to all users (logged in or not), yes? Also you need not say "support" as your comment is in a section of the same title. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 09:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
      • The proposal explicitly includes the links, so the fact that the bugzilla patch could remove the need does not affect my view. Provided the formatting is consistent between registred and logged in users, ie. it does not depend on user preference, I have no problem with it. Taemyr (talk) 14:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support. Per my comments in the RFC above. Ruslik (talk) 08:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Support as in 'the RFC above, which has decisively said "no" to a return to DA. Pointless to ask yet again.Tony (talk) 10:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support - as in the other RfC: the current DA system is a confusing misuse of wikilinks; and the patch is problematic in a number of ways. Sssoul (talk) 11:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support for reasons explained elsewhere--Toddy1 (talk) 18:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support - way overused and undermines the purpose of linking in Wikipedia. The Rambling Man on tour (talk) 12:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  7. Support - deprecate the deprecated. --Dweller (talk) 12:28, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  8. Support Date autoformatting is a trivial function that is not worth linking dates. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  9. Support. Use links for linking only. -- Jao (talk) 14:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  10. Support, useless and ugly, as I said in the other RfC. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  11. Support a non-trivial solution to a non-existent problem. Knepflerle (talk) 16:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  12. Support per my reasons stated in previous RFC. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 16:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  13. Support per my reasons stated in the RfC above. Tempshill (talk) 16:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  14. Support The current system displays falshoods to logged-in users who are reading non-Gregorian dates and who have chosen "2001-01-15T16:12:34" as their date preference. Furthermore, the current system is not worth fixing. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  15. Support - I have serious concerns about the viability of the patch, especially with regard to anon users. However, I should point out that deprecated does not mean "removed as fast as possible" as some people seem to think it does. Mr.Z-man 19:21, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  16. Support as in previous RFC. Date autoformatting is not a useful feature and adds a non-trivial editing job formatting dates to use it. DoubleBlue (talk) 21:12, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  17. Support - because linking does not provide proper markup for datesLeadSongDog (talk) 21:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  18. Support, DA is of dubious benefits for readers, contrary to claims - everyone capable of reading English knows that [[12 November]] [[2009]] is the same as [[November 12]] [[2009]], The real reason it exists as an apology for the formatting inconsistencies of editors, who have no automated means of ensuring that articles dates are correctly formatted in the first place. DA is about as desirable as a wart on one's foot, and I can really see no point in putting in this extra work for an unquantifiable and intangible benefit. It's not as if we are expressing ourselves in the highly ambiguous 11/12/09 - and even if we did, no machine or algorithm is going to sort that out. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  19. Support for all of the reasons laid out here over the past half-year or so. JIMp talk·cont 10:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  20. Support Autoformatting is mass-medication at its worst. Lightmouse (talk) 10:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  21. Support For the reasons below. -- Taku (talk) 13:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  22. Support. Neither linking nor autoformatting are particularly useful features. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  23. Support. I agree that neither linking nor autoformatting are needed nor desired. It looks ugly and overlinked. Get rid of them on sight. -- Alexf(talk) 14:11, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  24. Support. See my comments at the other RfC. Pcap ping 17:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  25. Support, and I've typed my reasoning in so many polls and RfCs for the last two years that I'm not typing them again. D'oh. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  26. Support, the links that result from autoformatting/linking are unnecessary and irrelevant to the article, and even though autoformatting is depecrated, editors will implement internal consistency in articles. Punkmorten (talk) 08:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  27. Support. Linking is for the purpose of directing the reader to other relevant content. Using it for DA was a mistake and should be corrected asap. --RexxS (talk) 03:44, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
    Just to be clear, since the title of this section has changed since I originally !voted: My comment was in support of the principle, "Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting". My understanding of "should not" is that such links should be removed, not merely deprecated. I hope whoever tallies this RfC will appreciate that was what all supporters up to 30 November were commenting on. --RexxS (talk) 01:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  28. Support. Auto-formatting is kind of meh. SnowFire (talk) 16:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  29. Support. Links in articles should always be able to take you to somewhere useful when you click on them. If I click on a day and month link I will rarely find information that sheds light on the article I was reading. If I click on a year link I will just about never get information that sheds light on the article. Only if full dates (day, month, year) used one link, only if every date so linked had its own article, would this linking be able to bring useful information to the reader by giving them a sense of what else might have been happening on that day in history. The problem of showing dates in a way that fits a user's expectations is trivial in comparison, and should be handled by a different mechanism than links. Binksternet (talk) 17:06, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  30. Support. It is not helpful. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  31. Support - I've never used autoformatting and I find it useless. --TheLeftorium 19:47, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  32. Support Please, please end this rather ridiculous debate. No need to autoformat date links. Protonk (talk) 20:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  33. Support. Autoformatting has no value to the average reader that I can perceive. If it were up to me, all dates in all articles would be of the form 'day month year,' as in 15 September 2007, and I'd let our readers figure it out. I don't think it would present an insuperable problem to them. This is the current date format employed in the signature created by ~~~~ and I don't hear any complaints about that. EdJohnston (talk) 21:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  34. Support. Auto formatting can spoil the author's intended flow of prose. Poltair (talk) 22:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  35. Support. Date autoformatting was a half-baked workaround to address a non-existent problem. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  36. Support Date autoformatting is not needed. - SWTPC6800 (talk) 02:43, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  37. Support I do not think it is a benefit to readers, and creates countless links that few actually use. kilbad (talk) 03:47, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  38. Support There should be some alternative for formatting, such as a template for dates -BarkerJr (talk) 04:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  39. Support - it's like "feature creep" and is disappointing to click on a date only to find it's not about the article. A non-paper encyclopedia links things but the feature needs to have a function in relation to the article as do indexes in paper publications. Julia Rossi (talk) 21:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  40. Support. The use of the autoformat in user preferences is very rare. There are far worse things than seeing a date in an unfamiliar format, and one of the most off-putting things is to see the very confusing "2008-11-29" format which is sometimes used to force an autoformat. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:45, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  41. Support — Datelinking was always the bane of my existence when FAC time came around for an article I wrote. When I think about all the time needed to correctly formate the dates of all my citations, articles, and infoboxes, I shiver. It's far more efficient to depreciate the links. Any gain from linking the dates is more than outweighed by the time needed to insert them. Leave them out, please. JKBrooks85 (talk) 10:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  42. Support. Adds nothing useful. --Thermoproteus (talk) 18:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  43. Support Antiquated and useless. Auto-formatting affects a very small minority of our readers (the ones with accounts who have actually taken the time to set up their date preferences). BuddingJournalist 23:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  44. Support. Linking dates is excessive. Auto-formatting is excessively pandering to idiosynchronicities. Wikipedia should adopt a preferred date format. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  45. Strong Support The links are not at all useful and have nothing to do with the date being presented. Linking every date by autoformating is just plain stupid in my opinion and is/was bad policy. Rtr10 (talk) 07:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  46. Support Not using date autoformatting at all is preferable to using the current link-based system of autoformatting. —Remember the dot (talk) 08:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  47. Support The difference between "1 December" and "December 1" is no different than the difference between "colour" and "color." Simple regional difference, no reason why dates have to be altered. --Sable232 (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  48. Support Autoformatting is not needed in Wikipedia any more than it is in a book. Overlinking brings down the quality of web pages. And how can we encourage good writing by our editors, even in the details, if we use a machine to alter it? —Michael Z. 2008-12-02 01:35 z
  49. Support. Combining linking and formatting has never made any sense to me. Kingdon (talk) 02:19, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  50. Support The date links add nothing to a readers understanding of the article and hide the more important links. AlexJ (talk) 16:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  51. Support Pointless. Is that brief enough?--Charles (talk) 17:08, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  52. Support. There seems little reason to link OR autoformat dates; we already expressly forbid changing between American English and British English arbitrarily, the same basic idea should apply to date formats. September 1, 2008 and 1 September 2008 are both unambiguous, and there's no need to massively overlink an article just to allow a user to set a preference to autoformat between the two. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  53. Support per Tony1 and reasons already stated by countless others. Kafziel Complaint Department 21:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  54. Support, per Tony1. --Rosiestep (talk) 01:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  55. Support. I've always found this irritating, and most readers don't have preferences set anyway. SlimVirgin talk|edits 14:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  56. Support. Doesn't look like much of a debate really. Ched Davis (talk) 07:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  57. Support. As per Colonies Chris. Chrisieboy (talk) 14:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  58. Support Overlinking is a significant problem. Differently formatted dates are typically not a source of confusion - auto-formatting seems to be a solution in search of a problem. In addition, there are thousands of differences between different varieties of English - date formatting is just one, and generally we have a pretty good set of guidelines of which variety of English should be used in which article. Dave w74 (talk) 21:30, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  59. Support Ditto Gr8white (talk) 02:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  60. Support. Not useful. --Kbdank71 20:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  61. Support because Wikipedia in its present state is not ready for technical features of this kind. They complicate the lives of editors and users, and the slim benefits are nowhere near sufficient compensation.–⊥¡ɐɔıʇǝoNoetica!T– 05:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  62. Support the actual statement that dates should not be linked purely for auto-formatting. Auto-formatting by itself doesn't justify the distraction, nor the frustration of ordinary users unwise to Wikipedia ways who might expect significant relevant information to come from every date link, as opposed to the few possible exceptions I support below.
    ¶ I should also take my share of responsibility for making "Support/oppose deprecation" into subheads. The repeated "support", "oppose" and "neutral" subheads confused the wikilinks (e.g, "[[Talk...#support]]" might lead to the wrong subsection) and gave no indications as to what was being supported or opposed in an edit summary, watchlist or history. So I added distinguishing words to each "support", "oppose", "neutral" and "comments" subheading. However I wasn't the one who changed the main title's section.
    And I'm a victim of my own imprecision, since I oppose linking just to autoformat, but I don't like robotic deletion (often misnamed "deprecation") of every date link, because it can also delete a date link that might have other value.—— Shakescene (talk) 20:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose deprecation

  1. As Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia we should strive to provide features unique to this medium. We already provide ways for editors to customize the appearance of the encyclopedia (via cascading style sheets and user javascript). Browsers also provide means to customize the appearance of the site thanks to this forward thinking. Likewise I think it would be appropriate to provide a means for people to see dates however they prefer. Note also that the current formatting system (using wikilinks around date fragments) is the method being addressed by the MediaWiki patch at Bugzilla noted in the background above. Removing these links would undermine and harm the work being done by developers to fix these issues. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
    • "we should strive to provide features unique to this medium" - agreed, but only where they provide a net benefit; "because we can" isn't sufficient justification.
    • "Removing these links would undermine and harm the work being done by developers to fix these issues" disagree, it would merely make it redundant; "because we're fixing it" isn't a good justification either
    • -- Timberframe (talk) 21:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Then we disagree that date formatting is a "net benefit". I think it is (especially where we have more than two options for date formats). I don't understand your second response, I don't see how it would be "redundant" if the fix for date formatting relied upon the existing syntax. Removing date links invalidates the work done so far and is strictly punitive in nature. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  2. Per Locke Cole's reasoning, especially concerning the MediaWiki patch. Tennis expert (talk) 08:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Try to allow users as much flexibility as possible about how they view the encyclopedia. Stifle (talk) 10:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. I don't see a problem with date autoformatting. I don't see "overlinking" of dates as a problem. I think what Lightmouse (and Lightbot) has been doing is a huge waste of time. I've read User:The Duke of Waltham/Auto-formatting is evil and User:Tony1/Information on the removal of DA and remain unconvinced. --Pixelface (talk) 12:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. I don't see a serious problem with date autoformatting, or with the "overlinking" problem. The user preference for non-logged-in users seems minor, and could be dealt with easily by a cookie-set default preference. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. As per my comment on the following question about autoformatting, a developer has already created a patch that can address the concerns raised against autoformatting. The developer has indicated that retaining the existing links simplifies the process, as it is more complicated to identify unlinked dates. Furthermore, the new patch - if enabled - would not require a modification to the existing markup for most dates; instead, the autoformatting would remain and be improved, while the links (the most contentious issue) would simply vanish. --Ckatzchatspy 18:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  7. Oppose removal of date links. I prefer seeing dates appear in ISO date format consistently across the encyclopedia. Having date links allows me to set my preferences to have dates appear this way. If overlinking is an issue, let's have the developers implement some other kind of markup so that we can keep date autoformatting without needing to link. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 23:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  8. Oppose Users should be able to view dates in their preferred format and that there should be a software change to enable dates to be formatted consistently for all non logged in user or registered user who do not set a date format preference. This will prevent edit warring on articles and having to format dates in a consistent manner throughout the text as all linked dates will be formatted for all users. The software change should also enable autoformatted dates not to show as links by some change to mark-up. Keith D (talk) 23:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  9. Oppose until such time as a non-linking auto-format option is deployed. Then, and only then, reduce the linking. I'm also concerned at how a bot determines what is a significant date link from just an autoformatting one. --J Clear (talk) 01:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  10. Yes, the overloading of wikilinks to autoformat dates is a kludge, but autoformatting dates is a useful function. Until a better autoformatting solution is in place, we should continue using the one we have. Ntsimp (talk) 06:06, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  11. While I appreciate the concerns on autoformating (that is mainly that logged in users might not see inconsistencies in articles), I believe this is a useful feature that (if improved a bit) enhances the user experience (especially since many articles are in a gray area regarding their fate formatting). I am not concerned over overlinking. -- lucasbfr talk 10:49, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
  12. Oppose - per above comments. - BillCJ (talk) 16:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  13. Oppose: I think autoformatting leads to a more consistent appearance for those users who have logged in, and adds or subtracts nothing from non-logged in users. The overlinking argument, to my mind, is overplayed -- do people really mind that much that the date is in blue? I recognise I'm in the minority, but I've always liked autoformatting. Coemgenus 17:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  14. Oppose per the reasoning given by Locke Cole, Stifle, and Ckatz. I have also read the two user essays, and also remain unconvinced that this is as big a problem as it is made out to be. As the patch has been developed, it seems it would be more useful to fix the issue rather than remove extremely useful links from articles (I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in other historical events which happened on a particular day or in a particular year). Outside of the autoformatting (which I like), I find these links to be very useful. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  15. Oppose - per Pixelface, I remain unconvinced. The benefits of auto-formatting, to me, far outweigh the reasons mentioned for *not* formatting. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 19:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  16. Oppose per above. Before removing date links, please provide any alternative (and, of course, better) system for dates autoformatting allowing for users to see dates in format they prefer.Beagel (talk) 20:15, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  17. Oppose While I do recognise that overlinking is a problem it seems to me that the way to go is to remove the links, not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If this can't be done for some reason right now then keep the status quo. That way it will be far easier to make the change (even automatic) when linkless dates are added. CrispMuncher (talk) 22:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  18. Oppose - Not only do I appreciate the auto-formatting feature, I also use date links all the time. When I am reading an article and it says that something happened in some year, I like to be able to click on the link to the year and see what else was going on at that time. Over linking might be a bit of a problem, but we shouldn't overreact and remove links that are actually helpful. If a linkless auto-formatting feature is introduced in the future, perhaps it could be set up in such a way that individual users could decide if they want dates linked or not by changing their preferences. --Andrew Kelly (talk) 23:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. Andrew Kelly's rationale says it all. Date links make it easier to find occurrences by year, and concerns about overlinking aren't valid; two or three links to a date will make very little difference in link quantity. —Mizu onna sango15Hello! 03:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
    • That's like saying a fire that is lit should be lit because its not doing any harm where it is now. With this rationale, linking just one date, we would give way to the entire article being linked whenever a measly date is mentioned. Thus, that small fire has now become an immense blaze that is out of control. NSR77 T 16:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
      • We don't have to let the fire burn out of control. There's nothing wrong with lighting a fire in a fireplace, the problems arise when you let it burn out of control and it burns the house down. The first instance of dates should be linked, but that doesn't mean we should go out of control and link recurring instances of the same date. --Andrew Kelly (talk) 17:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
        • Very true, and this is a nice thought, but I don't think it's possible for Wikipedians to keep track of every single article. A lot of them "fall through the cracks" and unregistered/new users would continue to link dates. Furthermore, it would be a disastrous onslaught to try and come to a Wikipedia-wide consensus regarding what should be linked, when (if not all the time or never at all). NSR77 T 16:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  20. Oppose: The comments by the supporters that date links don't help the reader, or confuses them have no basis in any asserted facts from what I've read. I'd like to see a copy of the survey of registered editors and frequent anons which came to that conclusion. I agree with some of the comments directly above that doing otherwise would mean a user's preferences are rendered useless, and unnecessary edits are made by editors changing date formats around. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 12:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
    I would argue that the comments made here are similar to a survey. This is the feedback and those who state that it doesn't help the reader, find that they haven't helped them throughout their editing history by default. Of course I understand your POV though. Lympathy Talk 14:35, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  21. Oppose -- Avi (talk) 18:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
    Per Locke. Allowing browsers to adjust based on the fact that the links are tagged is a good thing. As this is a wiki, extra blue links do not seem to be harmful. -- Avi (talk) 20:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  22. Oppose saying dates should not be linked. Forcing people to read e.g. middle endian or small endian dates despite their preferences being set for another way: bad, it is. -- Jeandré, 2008-11-30t19:53z
  23. Oppose Letting the reader see dates according to their preference is helpful, not harmful. At the very least, stop clogging up watchlists with the massive delinking.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
    • No worse than clogging articles and detracting from their visual appeal with worthless blue links. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Seriously, if the color of the links is your biggest concern then change the color of the links. That would be insanely easy for a dev to do for all editors (registered or not). (Just have the software wrap the date fragments in a SPAN with a specific CSS class then have MediaWiki:Common.css updated with something that sets the color attribute to black: problem solved). That's certainly a better solution than making thousands of minor edits. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:34, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
        • I am, thanks to useful info on Tony1's user page. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
          • I assume you mean by delinking them? That's not useful if your goal is only to change their color and not their other attributes (formatting). —Locke Cole • t • c 23:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
            • No, I actually have changed the color of the links. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:45, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  24. Oppose. Overloading date autoformatting on date linking was a stupid, stupid decision in the first place, but it does not mean that there is no need to provide the autoformatting capability. As long as this capability is dependent on date links, I am going to oppose removing the date links. Once a better solution is available, then it would be a different matter entirely.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  25. Oppose. Autoformatting of dates is an important feature of wikipedia that greatly improves its usability. Unless and until some other mechanism for performing this is available, autoformatting via linking should be used. JulesH (talk) 20:42, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  26. Oppose. The removal of autoformatting is a bigger detriment to the encyclopedia than overlinking is. In the absence of a new autoformatting scheme, the old way should be restored. hateless 17:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
  27. Oppose. I was neutral about this, until today I encountered someone using AWB to remove linked dates from a mature article that is international in scope. (Aside: Why is AWB still doing this when its not agreed?) The article in question has dates using many different formats. That's no problem with linked dates. But if I was to impose consistency (on an article with a very long edit history) I would end up imposing my own preferred date style when there is no need to make a potentially disruptive edit. Far better to let it auto-format a solution Ephebi (talk) 23:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Ephebi's comment does not consider that most readers have no account, so autoformatting does nothing for them. By deciding not to make the dates consistent, Ephebi decided to continue to present "dates using many different formats" to most readers. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Or maybe Ephebi read the RFC entirely and realizes there's a patch that addresses this concern. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Actually Ephebi did consider that but sees it as worthwhile for them to get a registered account. The issue about which style to use appears to me to be most disruptive as its an easy topic to argue over. Ephebi (talk) 00:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  28. Oppose. Unregistered users will always see unformatted dates as entered. As a registered editor, I expect to see dates in my preferred local format, not one prescribed by an editor in another part of the world. WWGB (talk) 07:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Why do you as editor expect to see a different page than the readers you are writing for? Taemyr (talk) 07:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  29. Oppose. I'm sure someone could find something more useful for bots to do. Deb (talk) 23:22, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  30. Oppose Wikipedia should not be limited to the features of a paper encyclopedia. Wikipedia editors should be able to see dates formatted to their own ways. Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (t·c·r) 00:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  31. Comment I would prefer to have all the dates consistent that is provided by autoformatting. Instead of creating a hyperlinked text, I'm sure mediawiki can create a plain text without any link for dates. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  32. Oppose deprecation. While I agree that the current system (using wikilinking to format dates) is not ideal, I think the harm caused by it is greatly exaggerated. Even when I read the encyclopedia without logging in, I'm not at all disturbed by the date links. Even a casual reader can be expected to understand that clicking on a date link will go to an article about the date (day/month or year); readers who don't immediately understand that will learn it quickly after clicking on a couple of those links. After that, it's easy to simply ignore those links. I strongly support the development of a better system to do date autoformatting without wikilinking (because I don't like the mixing of those functions), or alternatively to prevent wikilinking of dates in the wikitext from resulting in active links in the displayed text, but I do not believe that linking dates impairs the functionality and usability of the encyclopedia in any way. --Tkynerd (talk) 19:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment I'm glad you aren't disturbed by the extra links; however this is too low a bar for inclusion. We only use links that add positive value to the encyclopedia; doing no harm is not sufficient. The principles embodied in WP:CONTEXT are worth considering here; each superfluous link, while not individually doing any actual harm, tends to dilute and distract from the carefully-chosen terms which should be linked. --John (talk) 19:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm not in agreement with the change that was made to WP:CONTEXT to deprecate date linking for the purpose of autoformatting, and I do not think the principles articulated in WP:CONTEXT (outside of that specific point) trump the usefulness of date formatting. So we'll just have to disagree on that point. Your description of what "we" do assumes a consensus that does not exist, and is in fact the subject of the discussion on this page. --Tkynerd (talk) 19:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
        • I am happy to agree to disagree; however your comment seems to imply that you are then in favor of adding links which do not add positive value to the encyclopedia. Why, then, would one make such links, I have to ask? --John (talk) 20:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
          • I already said it: I do not believe that linking dates impairs the functionality and usability of the encyclopedia in any way; I do not think the principles articulated in WP:CONTEXT (outside of that specific point) trump the usefulness of date formatting. Particularly that last point is the one we'll have to disagree on. Perhaps I can put it a little differently: While I agree that the date links created purely for autoformatting purposes are not useful, I think the minimal harm they do to articles pales in comparison to the usefulness of date formatting. --Tkynerd (talk) 20:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  33. Oppose. The autoformatting serves a useful purpose, and I've never heard a convincing argument against it. Rebecca (talk) 09:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  34. Strong Oppose with Mustard. There's just no good reason not to link to dates, really. And why is overlinking a problem? Nobody seems to want to come with a good explanation here. --Kaizer13 (talk) 18:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
  35. Oppose. Date links are very useful. --UC_Bill (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Could you elaborate on how these links are useful? Dabomb87 (talk) 19:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Date links are useful to readers because they allow quick access to date pages, which are themselves useful for historical research (particularly timelines, putting historical events in context, etc.) They're useful to editors because they provide metadata that can be used in various kinds of statistical analysis. They're useful to developers because they greatly simplify the process of automatically extracting dates from articles. --UC_Bill (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  36. Oppose futilely. I don't think anyone has made a convincing case against date links. Distracting? To whom? They occasionally serve a useful purpose, but clearly this is already decided. But I'm on the record.--CastAStone//₵₳$↑₳₴₮ʘ№€ 14:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
  37. Oppose strongly. I consider delinking as vandalism (deliberate spoiling of other people work, since question of overlinking can be solved by Prussian blue. —Guy Peters Talk • Contributions • Edit counter 22:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I hardly consider putting square brackets around dates "work". Also, see WP:OWN as well the note at the bottom of the edit screen, this is a wiki and "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly...by others, do not submit it." Thirdly, I do use Prussian blue and the dates still affect my reading of overlinked articles, although thank you for putting this link up for others to see; hopefully other editors will use their monobook.css pages to dampen the effect of the overlinking. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  38. It works, really. Sometimes, I wish to know about other events in that date. Why is it such a problem to allow me that by a link? WP:OWN is no usage here, since I am not the author of these articles. "I do use Prussian blue and the dates still affect my reading of overlinked articles" How? —Guy Peters Talk • Contributions • Edit counter 11:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
    Anything that involves editing your monobook is not a solution. Those "solutions" simply hides the problem from editors. Remember that most readers will not be logged in. Taemyr (talk) 12:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  39. I think that preserving other people work is a solution, not to destroy it. The problem is not "hiding", but respecting opinions and needs of others. If you dislike links, you can simply hide them by monobook.css. If my friends and me wish to click on dates, we simply cannot.

    Problems of not logged users is overstated. More important for them is that they are forced to the terrible style Monobook instead of Standard. That was the main reason why I have established the SUL. Solution for not logged users is to establish a cookie for them. —Guy Peters Talk • Contributions • Edit counter 19:17, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

  40. Oppose Date linking, particularly in ledes and infoboxes, is hardly a problem of overlinking. We're a wiki, the point of which is to encourage linking to other subjects. I personally find date links to be both useful and interesting. I'm also not seeing a huge problem with autoformatting. GlassCobra 10:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  41. Oppose Autoformatting of dates is an important feature of wikipedia. I prefer seeing blue linked dates over seeing them bare. Further, the linked dates can be very useful and even expand the depth of research when needed. Daytrivia (talk) 00:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  42. Oppose We should be looking for more semantic entities to tag, not fewer. For example, I'd be happier if every instance of a person's name was linked, not just the first mention per page or section. Then, you treat the wikitext as a sort of model and leave the presentation layer or view up to the reader. As editors we would markup various kinds of entities and then enforce style and presentation rules as a user preference (or with templates or css and javascript or however) with some default that everybody (or most everybody) can agree on. This would cover, for example: date format, spelling variations, unit conversions, dates linked or not, whether to link every mention of a person's name or just the first instance of each — or only if it's at "Good Article" status, if that's what the reader prefers. Enforcing these types of things at the article level is just plain stupid. Even if you hate date links and have very particular opinions on how dates should be formatted, those changes should be made at the software level, not circumvented by the manual editing of millions of cases. --Sapphic (talk) 01:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  43. Oppose As much I oppose overlinking, I hate to see bare links. Once someone comes up with a better solution, then we should keep the status quo. Cheers! Λuα (Operibus anteire) 14:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  44. Oppose There may yet be some important feature that would rely on dates that isn't yet devised. Whilst this change could be reverted it would surely take a lot of effort and might not then provide the universal requirement of the yet to be invented feature.--Rjstott (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  45. Oppose No need to deprecate: if an editor thinks an individual date is worth linking then that link should be considered on its merits. BTW, deprecation discourages future use; it does not prohibit past use. --Rumping (talk) 10:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  46. Oppose. Per comments above. Dates often provide usefull context/choice and a usefull browsing aid for readers. It would be nice if a way was devised to auto link to do it without repitition of the same links, which seemed to be a flaw of the older system. G-Man ? 22:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  47. Oppose Users should be able to read and understand the date comfortable and known to them. The "overlinked" bogeyman needs to be put to rest. EdwinHJ | Talk 07:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  48. Oppose A step backwards. We should encode as much semantic information as possible when it is not onerous. When we have some better markup to replace it, or some alternative way of displaying it, that will be great (I personally find the pages for days of the year to be useless coincidences). If there are performance issues that aren't imminently going to take down the site, we should address those by fixing them, not by crapifying the data or user experience. — brighterorange (talk) 23:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  49. Oppose. What's the point of creating days and years articles if we're not going to link to them. Elbutler (talk) 15:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  50. Oppose More links make it easier to get around a wiki. I often click on the links and I would rather not copy and paste every time I want to go the year's article. Captain panda 21:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  51. Strong oppose until some other method of autoformatting is developed. We should allow readers to choose the date format they prefer to read. Seeing different systems in different articles is inconsistent and confusing; the best way to resolve this is via autoformatting. If an alternative technical fix is developed, I will drop my objection. Modest Genius talk 16:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Neutral about deprecation

  • Neutral for now. I believe that when the recommendations from editors regarding the above RfC (the one made by Tony, which predates this RfC) are tallied, the final result will be so overwhelming in favor of deprecating all linking/autoformatting of dates and endorsing bot removal of linked dates, that this RfC here will be shown to be pointless.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 18:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC) See my Comment below.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 10:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
    Tony's RfC really doesn't speak to deprecating autolinking, merely whether it should be essentially mandatory. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  1. Neutral We need a better method of auto-formatting than what we currently have, but the linking doesn't bother me. Anomie⚔ 17:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  2. Neutral - It would be an improvement if the auto-formatting functionality was independent of the date-linking functionality; if this were the case, then this whole discussion would never have arisen. Currently you are required to have both or neither; that only addresses two of the possible four combinations. (Personally, I would want all dates auto-formatted, but only some dates linked.) Pdfpdf (talk) 07:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  3. Neutral This is a false choice, caused by the tying of linking and DA. I support the concept of DA even though the current implementation is broken. I do not think we need to require linking to implement DA, nor do we need to link each and every date. This does not mean that some dates are not worth linking. Mass removal of all linked dates is a mistake dm (talk) 16:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  4. Neutral My view is that the option for users to have dates formatted according to their wishes (and local customs) is more important than the overlinking issue. I don't see any real reason why date formatting should be dependent on wikilinks being present, but if that's the only way to ensure personalised formatting works then I'm happy to live with it. waggers (talk) 20:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
  5. Neutral - autoformatting of dates is pleasant, but if people really want it, we should find another solution. However, linking dates rarely does any harm. Warofdreams talk 21:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  6. Neutral I have long been okay with the removal of year dates when they were present by themselves; if people think that the same should apply to all dates in most contexts, I'm fine with that. My question is autoformatting: if I understand rightly, sr.wikipedia (Serbian) comes both in Latin and in Cyrillic script. If I'm correct about sr.wikipedia, why couldn't we tell the software to format dates automatically by their subjects? Surely so doing would be far less difficult. Even if I'm wrong, I expect that it would be easy to create a template to format all dates: {{DEFAULTSORT}} is a hidden template that formats all categories in a page, so couldn't we come up with a similar idea to change all DMY or MD,Y or YMD dates to a single format? Nyttend (talk) 04:59, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  7. Neutral because I am against auotformatting - they should be like choices of which English to use subject/country or editor specific. Neutral because I am for the removal of day, month, year dates which are only linked because they are dates. Edmund Patrick – confer 14:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
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