Template talk:Birth date and age/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Suggestion: "born YYYY, age XX" variant for dab pages

Suggesting an optional parameter such as {{bda|1958|08|29|dab}} that would make its output: born 1958, age 48 (i.e. prefix "born", unlinked year only, age without parentheses). This could be used for living people entries in dab pages. So, instead of currently:

• Michael Jackson (born 1958), U.S. singer-songwriter

The inserted template would give us:

• Michael Jackson (born 1958, age 48), U.S. singer-songwriter

(It have left the parentheses out of the template, because some dab cases may need additional info inside the parentheses.)

Pros

• Same as in infoboxes
• This would probably provides ways to automatically detect outdated dab pages, via bot or SQL queries. (Scanning dab pages, if the entry for article John Doe uses {{bda}} but article John Doe has a death-year category, we have detected a problem, Houston.)

Cons

• Until a dab page is updated, we could get some "Granny (born 1880, age 127)" displayed.
• Lots of transcluded templates for non-article pages, if performances are still to be considered.

Just a thought... — Komusou ^talk @ 01:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• Problem: Say that John Doe was born in late 1920 (month perhaps unknown), and it is early 2010. Is his age reported as 89 or as 90?
  
  The granularity of the data corresponds to the length of time for which the report can be wrong. If the day of birth must be given, but nothing finer, then the result may be wrong for as much as one day every year; if the month must be given, but nothing finer, then the result may be wrong for as much as thirty one days every year; if the year must be given, but nothing finer, then the result may be wrong almost constantly. —SlamDiego_←T 15:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

What about "(born 1920, age 89–90)"? This is what we've done over at {{Birth year and age}}. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 22:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

That, or just infixing “approx ” are probably satisfactory resolutions of the problem. (Your resolution of course has the distinct advantage of bounding the approximation.) —SlamDiego_←T 11:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yup. We thought about putting "about" or "~" before the age, but decided that the simplest and clearest way was just to provide the range of ages. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I'm in favor of this, it seems like unneedful complication of the dab pages. Remember, dab pages are simply there to navigate people to the correct page as quickly and efficiently as possible, more information than is needed to do that simply clutters things up. The year of birth is useful to tell people apart, like the American Football players Mike Smith born in 1959 Vs the Mike Smith born in 1981, but I don't think an updated age would significantly add to the utility. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 16:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Infant parameterization

This template needs to be parameterized for infants. A look at the children field in the Tiger Woods infobox is a primary example. The template should either have a parameter that calulates age in months and days or if the age is less than 1 year it should automatically do so.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

For clarity, at Tiger Woods it would make sense if the age said age 3 Mos. or age 3 Mos. 13 Days.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure, but there may also be instances where instead of age in months and days age in weeks and days may be desirable.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

How about a variation with a different name, such as {{infant birth date and age}} based on {{infant age}}? --Uncle Ed 22:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Ed (other than that the template he'd like to base the variant on is a redlink ;-). This template need not get any more complicated than it already is. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I intended that {infant age} be based on {{age}}, of course. ;-) --Uncle Ed 23:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess I will consider {{age in years and days}} or {{User current age}}.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 03:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Oops. I can't use the latter of the above as it produces a whole userbox. Is it possible to create a {{age in year and months and days}} like it though?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 03:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course it is. I don't see why you'd want a template name no one could remember though. The "infant" prefix mentioned above ought to work just fine. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick question... Is this age scheme used on both sides of the pond? I know Americans use the months figure when speaking of a child under two years of age but is this common in Brit English as well? I'm just wondering if the group that has responded to this so far are all Americans or if we have a diverse representation here. Dismas|^(talk) 05:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Both sides of the pond ... what about the other pond? I'll have to disagree with SMcCandlish. Now, I'm one who'd generally rather have fewer templates with greater functionality but this case is rather special. The thing about babies is that they age. Have fun running around after the transclusions of {{age in year and months and days}} as the children grow up. I know what I'd do. JIMp _talk·cont 02:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:Date mathematics templates

Shouldn't this template be included at Category:Date mathematics templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 12:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Linking

{{editprotected}} The template should not automatically put links on the month-and-day and on the year as they are largely irrelevant to the article.--SilasW 14:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The dates are linked because when linked the WikiMedia software detects them and displays them using what ever the user's preference for date display is. See Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and Help:Preferences. -- PatLeahy (talk) 15:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I've disabled the editprotected request while discussion continues. Cheers. --MZMcBride 19:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere Wikipedia advises against links that do not benefit an article. I had just removed dozens of pointless month-and-day and year links from a sports article but one pair remained which trial suggested was coming from the date and age template. If it is an unsurmountable software "feature" let it stay... though simplicity...--SilasW 21:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You're correct; this is not ideal. However, you can see the links you removed did have some purpose. There has been some work to create a syntax which separates the concepts of linking and date preferences. I followed up here to find out what is happening with that effort. -- PatLeahy (talk) 22:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I've reenabled the edit protected request in order to bring this topic up again. SilasW is right: the template should allow for the date linking to be turned off. There'd be a number of nooks & crannies on WP advising against overlinking but main one is WP:OVERLINK. This "feature" is not insurmountable, it is flawed. There has been alot of petitioning to have it fixed, there has been no work. There is a feeling amongst many that autoformatting is not worth the pointless month-and-day and year links ... this is a fair argument. However, this is not the only argument. Consider a date range of the form "day–day month year". Do we rewrite it "day month–day same-month year", just so we can add this failure of a feature? Surely not, but if we've got such a range in an article, would it not be best to leave all dates unlinked so as to maintain a consistant formatting style? The inability to turn the linking off on templates like this impedes this. JIMp _talk·cont 01:26, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

"The ability to turn off linking"? (A) Got code? (B) Got consensus? I can't imagine any 'solution' to remove links by adding another parameter would be widely supported, frankly. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

A) Coding that would be very simple.

B) Consensus i.e. MOSNUM is that autoformatting is no longer encouraged.

Careful consideration of the disadvantages and advantages of the autoformatting mechanism should be made before applying it: the mechanism does not work for the vast majority of readers, such as unregistered users and registered users who have not made a setting, and can affect readability and appearance if there are already numerous high-value links in the text.

This template in its current form gets in the way of that careful consideration, running the risk of inconsistant formatting (not to mention the inherent overlinking). JIMp _talk·cont 08:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Per MOS:SYL, date autoformatting is now deprecated, so the linking should definitely not be done here. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

But - unless it's hidden in an archive somewhere - that MOS doesn't appear to have any real consensus behind it at all. Check the talk page: the only consensus vote was regarding date format (no consensus); other than that, there's only one guy cherry-picking examples to his talk page, but getting flack on the MOS pages. -LlywelynII (talk) 22:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Add IW

Add no:Mal:Fødselsdato og alder and da:Skabelon:Dato_og_alder. Nsaa 08:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Year without month and day?

Can someone look into tweaking this template so that it accepts only the year of a person's birth? For many people, particularly those who lived centuries ago, only the year of birth is known. ({{Death date and age}} should be amended in the same way.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

How would the age be calculated without a date? Dismas|^(talk) 05:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

{{CURRENTYEAR}}-[year of birth]. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so let's say I was born in 1980. Am I 26 or 27? Without a month and date, you don't know. Dismas|^(talk) 08:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

You could subtract the birth year from the current year and add a tilde before the age. So, if only a birth year is passed to the function, for someone born in 1987, you would get 1987 (age ~20) for the rest of this year, and 1987 (age ~21) during 2008. —MJBurrage • TALK • 12:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Or have the template return "1987 (age about 21)". An example where such a modified template would be useful is the article "John Parkinson (botanist)" who lived from 1567 to 1650; neither the full date of birth nor death is known. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:47, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

See {{Birth year and age}} and {{Death year and age}}. -- PatLeahy (talk) 16:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the existence of these templates to our knowledge. Wouldn't it be better to combine the two templates into one? The use of superscript in {{Birth year and age}} and {{Death year and age}} looks a bit odd to me. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: current age

{{editprotected}}I think the template should be edited to add the word "current" before "age". I can't imagine I'm the first to come up with the idea, but I didn't find a mention of it in the discussion. -Eric ^(talk) 16:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. This template is used in many infoboxes, where space is at a premium. --rogerd (talk) 18:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess it is cleaner at one line. -Eric ^(talk) 02:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Not done. Gimmetrow 05:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Format output

There's a major problem with the template, and it's to do with the output. Typically dates in Wikipedia are formatted according to:

• American Dating: January 28, 2008 or
• International Dating: 28 January, 2008

International Dating is actually far more common on a global basis than American Dating, but looking at Wikipedia you wouldn't know it, and it is a trivial matter to find (say) an article on an English person with their significant dates displayed in American Dating format.

• Cilla Black
• A. S. Byatt
• Jack Higgins
• Harold Pinter

You might say, so what? Just set your date preferences in your user profile and everything appears fine. 28 January 2008 looks exactly the same as January 28 2008. Well, fine, but most of our users are casual readers who don't have accounts or user names or date preferences. They see dates in the "raw" format, regardless of personal or national preferences. The Manual of Style notes: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should generally use the more common date format for that nation; articles related to Canada may use either format consistently. Articles related to other countries that commonly use one of the two acceptable guidelines above should use that format.

However, it then goes on to say: In biographical infobox templates, provide age calculation with {{birth date and age}} for living people and {{death date and age}} for the deceased when the full birth or death date, respectively, is known.

Looking at such a template, I see: This field is only relevant for individuals. The artist's date of birth; it is preferable to use {{birth date and age}} (for example {{birth date and age|1949|12|31}}) to display current age. For dead people, use {{birth date}} (for example {{birth date|1949|12|31}}.

Editors are not told how to format output so that International Dating is used for those articles where it is appropriate. My guess is that most editors would follow the instructions, use the template, look at the output, and see the date formatted as per their preferences. They wouldn't see any problem. They wouldn't be seeing the article as a reader without an account would.

In fact, to find out how to format output, an editor has to come to the template page, where he or she finds out that an optional parameter of "df=yes" must be used. This is both obscure and non-intuitive. Not surprisingly very few editors use this parameter.

Now, I realise that very few editors would even see the problem, let alone care. Most editors, I suggest, are also American, and if they think about it at all, they would say "Meh. The world can kiss my date."

But Wikipedia is a global project, and we should be doing more about internationalisation than paying lip service.

My solution, if anybody is still reading and still cares about the quality and image of Wikipedia, is to change the input format from the neutral "year|month|day" to wikidate format. Using wikidates is easy and common, and the output format can then be the same as the input format, we don't need to have a default output and the problem disappears. However, this requires some programmer action to implement, and stirring programmers into action, especially if they can't see a problem in the first place, is one of the labours of Hercules. --Pete (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused ... ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) has been around since 1988, and we should all be using it ... what's the hold-up, people?? —72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) 17:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused too. Pete, what is "Wikidate format" – is it the form "2008-01-05"? If so, are you suggesting that all dates throughout Wikipedia should be displayed in that form? Honestly, I don't see how that's more intuitive than "5 January 2008" or "January 5, 2008" (plus it looks really ugly in the middle of prose). In fact, if a reader is unfamiliar with that format, he or she might think it means "1 May 2008". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really, because YYYY-DD-MM is nonexistent as a standard. But YYYY-MM-DD is a bit odd for non-technical use, in most locales.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 00:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

"... kiss my date." nice ... only Aussies are going to get it though. Not quite sure what you're getting at but a solution to the problem you mention would be to make to following changes to input

• For US style dates: {{birth date and age|December|31|1949}} to replace {{birth date and age|1949|12|31}}
• For international ones: {{birth date and age|31|December|1949}} to replace {{birth date and age|1949|12|31|df=yes}}

Much more ... what's that jargonny term ... wissy-wig ... wossy-wog ... you know, intuitive, simple, get-what-you-ask-for. Implimentation would be simple and could be done without any backwards compatibility problems at all. JIMp _talk·cont 01:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Does not honour user setting

The template DOES NOT render in the user's chosen format. I'm set for D MMMM YYYY, and am getting MMMM d, YYYY when df=/mf= is not specified. I'm not sure if this is a template definition issue or a Mediawiki issue. In any case, i'd like to see it fixed.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 00:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

df/mf = prefer/force

In most existing cases i'd like my user setting to override df=/mf=. Maybe this is how it's supposed to work. If not, i think, for the date templates, an =prefer/=force system would be good, allowing a preferred format for non-logged-in users, whilst allowing logged-in users to force their own preference when the format is not critical to the context. In this model, it makes the most sense to me for =yes to be synonymous with =preferred. In the case of {{date of birth [and age]}}, =force never makes much (if any) sense. I don't know if there are any date templates where it would. Again, maybe the user setting bug just needs to be fixed, and leave it at that.
—überRegenbogen (talk) 00:33, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Description Typo

Typo in "See Also" of template description. Says "Except that "(age ##)" appears after the death date" twice. First one should say "birth" instead of "death.24.82.158.115 (talk) 04:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

fixed by an admin 24.82.158.115 (talk) 05:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Template and MOSNUM

{{editprotected}} The linking of dates purely for the purpose of autoformatting is now deprecated per MOS:SYL. This will of course effect this template. The template should be edited so the dates don't get linked, should it not? DiverseMentality^{(Discuss it)} 15:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe it's time to ask an admin to edit the template with {{editprotected}}? Dismas|^(talk) 16:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

No responses, so I'm asking for it to be changed. Dismas|^(talk) 00:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll do it. Lets see the response. Oops too slow. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 02:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. Now to get the rest of them... --- RockMFR 02:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the comma issue, use that sandbox ;) - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 02:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Default setting

Now that dates are not linked and do not automatically format, wouldn't it make more sense for the default setting to be Day Month Year rather than Month Day Year? As far as I am aware only a couple of countries use the MDY format, so I can't see why it should be the default. пﮟოьεԻ 57 18:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hear hear. Where was all this date formatting stuff discussed, anyways? I can't find any discussion that provides reasons as to why it was done and seeing the lack of links in this template is the first I've heard about it… — OwenBlacker (Talk) 23:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The date linking/autoformatting issues in general were - and still are being - discussed on WT:MOSDATE. Since this template (and its related templates) default to American date format (m d, y), the delinking has actually introduced inconsistent date formats into otherwise International date formatted articles e.g. Wally Nesbitt, James Roy Tucker as of 00:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC).

International date format (d m y) is used in most nations, which would therefore be reflected in the article space. It is also a more logical progression of date presentation. The following changes to the birth/death date template dates would seem the best way forward:

1. default date format for the template will be changed to International (e.g. 31 August 2008, when no df parameter is specified)
2. introduce the df=us parameter to display dates in American format (e.g. August 31, 2008)
3. for backward compatibility, there would be no change to function of df=yes, which already sets International format

Does that plan make sense? Dl2000 (talk) 00:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at WP:DATE, there is a discussion aimed at making US dates the norm through looking at what variety of English the first contributors used. I'm not entirely happy with a default in this and related templates, because whichever way it swings some people are going to be unhappy, some of them really so, but if we have to have one, then it should be day-month-year, for reasons stated above. --Pete (talk) 00:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems that there is a clear consensus for the change - can someone provide the code for doing it (I can edit it as an admin, but I'm not too good with this sort of thing)? I assume the df command should be left in for all the templates currently using it, but a new mf command needs to be added for American dating. пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

As an American, I have no objection. This whole thing (not just here, but WP-wide) has been a really pointless tempest-in-a-teapot, since Americans understand "2 February 2009" just as well as the other format. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This measure would appear to be pointlessly disruptive to a large number of currently correct implementations of the template. What is your basis for believing that this change would resolve more problems than it produces? Christopher Parham (talk) 12:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

In my experience (as a Wikipedian and an American with Canadian and British family) the level to which US formatting feels exclusionary to others exceeds the amount to which international formatting bothers Americans. Based on that the suggested change seems good to me.

Given that a bot could be used to add |df=us to the uses that do not have |df=yes, before the template is changed there does not have to be any large scale "disruption". Than after the template is changed, a bot could remove the no longer needed |df=yes from those uses. The average user would never notice a thing, but the template would be more inclusive going forward.

—MJBurrage^(T•C) 14:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

df originally stood for day first. I suggest you keep the original meaning and add "|mf=yes" (for month first) to existing uses of this template rather than "df=us". This should be slightly less cryptic for editors. Better still, will would be to rename the options dayfirst and monthfirst while the bot is running. -- PatLeahy (talk) 22:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

df could also stand for "date format", that was why df=us was suggested earlier; however, if the original intent was "day first", then mf would seem appropriate. As for Christopher Parham, the removal of date linking is already disruptive to many articles, and now we need to clean up the issue of default date format on the template implementation. However, concur that a bot could add in the mf/us parameters, helping to reduce the disruption. To reduce false positives, the bot could limit itself to dropping mf into articles where U.S.-related categories are detected. Dl2000 (talk) 03:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

There is already a default format that is working fine; there is no date format that is preferred in Wikipedia over the current default format, so why would we change it. Nothing about this template needs to be cleaned up because it uses a recommended format; the problem is that many articles fail to call the template appropriately and thus render incorrectly. The proposal fails to provide any evidence that this measure will reduce the number of articles that are broken; indeed it's quite likely that this measure will result in more broken articles than in the current state. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

There is an international standard, and there are regional standards. In such cases the default should be the international standard. That does not necessarily mean that Wikipedia should adopt the international standard for all articles, but it should be the default for templates, with settings for regional standards. —MJBurrage^(T•C) 00:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

There is an international standard, ISO 8601, but neither of these formats reflects it, so it's not clear why it would be relevant to this discussion. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

That is a number only format, and while logical, it is especially confusing to the uninitiated for any date where the day number is less than 13. See date and time notation by country; around the would written dates are either D-M-Y (or Y-M-D), with essentially America the exception in being middle-endian. Even in America, D-M-Y is starting to replace M-D-Y. Why should the default be the format used by essentially one country, rather than the more common world usage? (especially if that one country uses both) —MJBurrage^(T•C) 20:21, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Because in Wikipedia neither usage is especially more common, and switching default behavior creates pointless churn that is confusing to users of templates. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:16, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm struggling to see why this is an issue. There are over 200 countries in the world. Almost 200 of them use one format, whilst a handful of others use the other. Why are we even considering giving them equal weight here? Isn't it blindlingly obvious that D-M-Y should be the default format? пﮟოьεԻ 57 22:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Because they are, by longstanding convention, equally preferred here, precisely to avoid churn edits like that you are proposing. You do not propose a change that would affect the appearance of any page in Wikipedia; you provide no argument that fewer pages would be broken under your proposal. The only reason you seek this change is advance the supremacy of your preferred format. The relevant rules establish the two formats as equally preferred to prevent this sort of format conflict from disrupting the stable development of articles, but this proposal is based entirely on advancing your preferred date format and not at all on improving any articles or making the editing experience simpler. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It is not my preferred format. It is the internationally preferred format. And yes, it will improve all the non-American articles currently stuck with the American date format because the subjects' DOB will be in a format more recognisable to them. пﮟოьεԻ 57 22:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

And it will break the equally large number of articles currently using the American format... Christopher Parham (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I assume you missed the comments about the bot above? We could simply ask a bot to as mf=yes to any biographical article with a "United States" or "American" category. пﮟოьεԻ 57 22:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that the large number of American editors who care will happily correct any errors. Personally I don't think that there should be any default - just enter a date in International or American format and let the software puzzle out the age and spit out the date unchanged - but if there should be a default it should be International. Wikipedia is an international project. --Pete (talk) 22:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

That would of course, leave incorrect the many articles which use U.S. date format but do not have such a category. And one could equally well use the same bot to fix the articles you are currently worried about, without making any disruptive changes to the default behavior of this template. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Are American biography articles more important than those of people from the other 200 countries in the world? I would certainly prefer that we had a problem with a few articles from one country than many, many more on people from other countries. пﮟოьεԻ 57 22:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(1) Where a person is from doesn't necessarily determine the date format used in their article; (2) again, your rationale is not based on minimizing the amount of work needed to clean up the problem but on explaining why your format is superior or accepted in more countries, a conflict which Wikipedia intentionally eschews because it leads only to disruption. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, so that's one voice against, and everybody else for. --Pete (talk) 02:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Another compelling reason to switch the default here to dmy/df (International) format from mdy/mf/US format is that the current default gives undue weight and systemic bias to a format used in only a small fraction of the world. The US is a small fraction of world population - 305,135,601 ÷ 6,723,156,131 = 4.5% [1]. America also has a small fraction of world land surface area: United States ÷ Earth = 9,826,630 km² ÷ 148,940,000 km² = 6.6%. Even adding other small pockets of population where US/mdy/mf is standard would still add up to only a small fraction. Overwhelmingly, the default should reflect global trends, and it should be considerably less effort to fix up USA-based articles than try to fix dates internationally. Dl2000 (talk) 23:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

No, do not do this. --- RockMFR 15:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Any actual reason why not? Dl2000 (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If any change/rule is to be enforced,... why not do it correctly... and indiscriminating, and start by using/enforcing the ISO 8601 format yyyy-mm-dd. Liselorev (talk) 09:20, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

[reformatted indented comments – while preserving "reply threads".] — DennisDallas (talk) 12:26, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

add category living people to the template

since this template is primarily used to report age of a living person, it will be useful to put category, living people on this template. Chirag (talk) 21:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not! It's also used, for example, to list the dates of birth and ages of football players on articles about the team. The category shouldn't be added to templates also used on other pages. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 20:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Quick help

Randy Savage is a selected article for the 0.7 release and it's broken. There's something wrong in the infobox concerning this template. Could someone here take a look at it? Sorry for the short request I'm trying to process over 100 articles. hehe that's what I get for procrastinating. Thanks! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 22:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

After messing with it I got it. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 16:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Default format

Why is the default format the US one? Shouldn't it be the British/international one? I.e. default to d mmmm yyyy, not mmmm d, yyyy. Nsaa (talk) 10:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the default should be international date format as you suggest. You can also see earlier discussions at #Format output and #Default setting, and a few minor comments at Template talk:Birth date/Archive 1#df parameter. Apparently, there used to be separate templates for each date format - this one for the American format and {{Euro birth date and age}} for international format. Autoformatting of dates mitigated format problems as the date used to be seen according to user preferences, until that was voted off the WP-island. One solutions would be to establish new templates with the correct default format - ideally consolidating to just two templates, birth andf death, with age display option, and non-default option for USA date format. Another effective solution is to declare that all dates on WP should be in international format as suggested at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Proposal on international date format#Alternative proposal 2. Dl2000 (talk) 01:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I see that there has been at least two discussions on this issue on this page alone, and the consensus seems to be to change the default setting to dmy. So why has it not happened yet? Where there splinter discussions going on in some obscure place?--Huaiwei (talk) 21:12, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by User:Waddlejinx

{{editprotected}} The date of birth may be wrong. She is recorded (in a 1997 interview by the Washington Post) as being best friends with Heather Paige Kent (born January 5, 1969) "since they were both eight" years old. It seems to me that Wikipedia should not allow itself to be exploited by the entertainment industry to peddle vain untruths.(∼∼∼∼)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Waddlejinx (talk • contribs)

This is the talk page of the age template, not the actual article. Garion96 (talk) 15:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Decimal places

I noticed that this template is giving lots of decimal places for people's ages. For example, Kyle Howard is reportedly "age 30.0000000000000000". So I did a search for other uses of the template, and I found Delirious?#Band_Members, which also has the ridiculous number of decimal places. I can't find the part of the template that's causing the problem. Can someone fix it, please? The decimal point isn't helpful in such cases. -Phoenixrod (talk) 05:33, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Very annoying. Please fix. Royote (talk) 05:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

What browsers and OSes are you seeing this on? --Dynaflow babble 05:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox 3.0.6 in Windows XP. -Phoenixrod (talk) 05:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not browser specific. It has to do with a software update that was done a bit ago. It should be fixed soon. Dismas|^(talk) 05:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply! -Phoenixrod (talk) 05:45, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Something is broken

For some reason, I'm noticing {{Birth date and age}} returning correct whole number values for however many years old a subject should be, but that value is including sixteen decimal places-worth of zeros. I'm seeing this occur in Firefox 3.0.6, but not in Opera 9.63 (both under Ubuntu 8.10). Is there a known bug that might be causing this? --Dynaflow babble 05:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, see the question above this one. It's a known bug due to a software update that was done just minutes ago. It should be fixed soon. Dismas|^(talk) 05:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

this stuff is not true because people erase things and put different stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.196.13.67 (talk) 01:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

appropriate for use for articles not about individual people?

I've found that there are some articles not about individual people that use this template e.g. Alpha Chi Omega (inserted at this diff). Is this appropriate? Thanks Rjwilmsi 21:53, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

It should be allowed, or at least there should be an equivalent template for non-people. The issue would be does such usage cause any meta-data problems? —MJBurrage^(T•C) 02:46, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we should go with another template, as an institution doesn't have a 'birth'. Perhaps 'establishment date' with markup of date (xxx years ago). Rjwilmsi 06:30, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Using this template for everything sets a dangerous precedent. Dismas|^(talk) 08:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

How do we go about getting a new template done? Rjwilmsi 14:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

birth date incorrect for James Lesure

Hello!

James Lesure's birth year is 1971, not 1970. I have provided this information to IMDB also, as that seem to be where you are getting your information.

Rightinfoforachange (talk) 17:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It would be better to bring this up at the talk page for the article, Talk:James Lesure. This template is used on thousands of pages, not just Lesure's. Second, IMDb should NOT be where we are getting biographical information. It's only reliable for filmography info. Dismas|^(talk) 19:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Could we have flashing lights when the age is unreasonable

Hi,

At Archduke Stephen, Palatine of Hungary I just added an infobox (Template:Infobox military person) and rather stupidly I used {{Birth date and age}} instead of {{birth date}}. Which made him 192 years old, as I guess it takes the current date.

Easily fixed of course, but I was wondering if it would be easy/useful to kinda FLAG THIS REALLY REALLY BOLDLY OR SOMETHING when it is ridiculous. For example, if the result of computing the age is

• not a natural number, i.e. is a decimal (probably impossible) or is negative (possible if you get the dates the wrong way round)
• an incorrigibly large number, e.g. over let us say 130? Although in Genesis Adam was 930 and Methuselah was 969 so I am not sure what would be a reasonable cut off, but I would guess 130 to 150.

I know this might be fiddly, but if it was relatively easy it would be great. I have done some templates and know that simple things are bloody hard and hard things are surprisingly simple, and I imagine this transcludes other templates to do the actual computation (or if not, why not, since it is shared with {{death date and age}}).

Best wishes, I am busy article editing but will probably look at the source and suggest a more concrete version of this waffle later. I just wanted first to get opinion on whether that would be a forward or backward step. In my mind, if it shouted from the rooftops THIS IS WRONG that would be better than spewing a date that is correct by its own terms but obviously wrong.

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 11:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

In-line usage

Shouldn't in-line usage at the start of articles be discouraged in the documentation for the template? This edit on Alevtina Biktimirova marked the second time in as many days that I'd seen this hideous multiple-bracketed age listing. Surely this template is intended for infoboxes only? Besides, I think it's a really bad idea to introduce complex templates right at the start of articles. God knows that new editors have enough code to deal with without adding this to the first line. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 14:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 117.240.237.1, 27 July 2010

{{editprotected}} date of birth of poonam dhillon is wrong..she is 1962 born

117.240.237.1 (talk) 00:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Not done: This is the template, not the page. --ANowlin: talk 02:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

dmy vs mdy

The current default setting for this template is the American only format of mdy. This should be changed to the internationally used standard of dmy. There has apparently been much discussion on this in the past and apparently the consensus was to change it to dmy. Can somebody please do this? McLerristarr | Mclay1 11:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The template shouldn't have a default. Either way it produces dates that are often out of format with the rest of an article. Dates should be entered in y-m-d format with an indicator as to preferred output. --Pete (talk) 22:15, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 24.148.65.171, 25 August 2010

{{editprotected}}

There is a discrepancy with her birth date and age. Was she born in 1971? 24.148.65.171 (talk) 02:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Who? I think you intended this for the talk page of a specific article. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:53, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 122.160.161.2, 11 September 2010

{{editprotected}} Jacqueline's date of birth is 11th august 1985. She graduated sacred heart school in 2002 and was 17. She was 21 when she won miss sri Lanka. Pls verify the true date of birth with Kim Fernandez, her mother on kim.fernz@gmail.com and is also found on Facebook. 122.160.161.2 (talk) 03:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be referring to the Jacqueline Fernandez article. Note that this is the discussion page for a template used within that article (as well as literally thousands of other articles). If you have an issue with that article specifically, you should take it up at Talk:Jacqueline Fernandez where people who are watching the article will see your comments. Dismas|^(talk) 03:48, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Vtropic, 17 October 2010

Birthday incorrectly displayed as 4/20/1926. Should be 4/23/1926

Vtropic (talk) 14:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Responding on their talk page... Dismas|^(talk) 14:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Time zone parameter

What does everyone think of adding a time zone parameter to account for the age? I know it sounds silly, but I pulled up the Miley Cyrus page tonight only to see that it's going to list her as 18 years old about 8 hours before she actually reaches that age. Of course, this nearly ruined the poor taste joke about jailbait I had thrown at me... regardless, I hope you all see my point. Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

New parameter request

This template can be also useful in the non-biological substance such as the operation duration of service provider or company. But the only problem is that the output text "age" doesn't seem to be fit in such case, so I want a new parameter to alter the display from (age ####) to (#### years). -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 23:41, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Tested in {{Birth date and age/sandbox}} and added {{{4}}}. (age ####) by default; Entries 1/year/years will produce (#### years) instead, it can distinguish between singular (year) and plural (years) automatically as well; 0/none produce neither "age" nor "year". Will request {{editprotected}} 1 week later if no one responds. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Why not make a new template for that purpose? Dismas|^(talk) 04:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Because the function is too similar and we should reduce the number of templates when they're doing very much the same thing. The change will not affect the current transclusions. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:36, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at {{Start date and years ago}}. This birth date-related template should not be expanded for non-biography purposes. Rjwilmsi 11:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Option to display month abbreviations

{{edit protected}} I have implemented a change at Template:Birth date and age/sandbox that would allow this template to optionally display the three-letter month abbreviation instead the full month name. My reason for doing this is that the longer month names often cause the birth date and age to take up two lines in an infobox, but the abbreviated form usually fits on a single line. Here are some examples showing how it works:

• September 13, 1950 (age 60) {{Birth date and age|1950|9|13}}
• Sep. 13, 1950 (age 60) {{Birth date and age|1950|9|13|ma=y}}

International format (day first):

• 13 September 1950 (age 60) {{Birth date and age|1950|9|13|df=y}}
• 13 Sep 1950 (age 60) {{Birth date and age|1950|9|13|df=y|ma=y}}

Test cases with actual output from the sandbox template can seen at Template:Birth date and age/testcases.
Islander99 (talk) 17:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Has there been a discussion at MOS:DATE about this? Rjwilmsi 22:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The code looks fine. But I agree it may be worth consulting other editors about this before deploying. Please start a discussion over there and reactivate the request if there is agreement. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

MOS:DATE already states that abbreviated months may be used in an infobox, as per the following (from section WP:MONTH) "Abbreviations such as Feb. in the United States or Feb in most other countries are used only where space is extremely limited, such as in tables and infoboxes." Is a new discussion at MOS:DATE required for something that it already deems acceptable? Islander99 (talk) 00:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Current format

Could we possibly change it back to the U.S. formatting? It breaks consistency in pages where the date format in the lead varies from the template. Tinton5 (talk) 19:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The reason I changed it is that there are many non-US articles where it is out of kilter with the text. Whichever way around it is, there will be problems, but I think its better to be problematic for articles related to one or two countries rather than for 200-odd others. Number 57 20:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's not right to have the international formatting considering this template is used in so many biographies of Americans, where U.S. date formatting is used in the article. Would an additional parameter that allowed for formatting of choice be possible? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:54, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

There is - you only need to insert the parameter |mf=y Number 57 21:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that mf is not being used in 10000s of articles that are US based as this has been the default since the template was created. While all UK/Euro articles may not have df=y most do and people who have edited here for any length of time know to add it with their edits. I suggest that you change it back until a consensus has been achieved and that if the consensus is for df then a message is passed on to all editors via a message at the top of the page informiing them of the change. MarnetteD | Talk 21:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

If you look above, this has been discussed many times before (see here (a long discussion where almost all contributors were in favour), here etc), but for some reason the change was never made. Number 57 21:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Really a nearly three year old discussion is what we are using. Lets get the reaction of editors who are currently active on Wikipedia. There has also been no attempt to note the state of things with the use of this template up to this time and how many articles have been messed up by this change. Notifications to the various projects that are affected by this change should also have occurred if the interests of the community were taken into consideration. MarnetteD | Talk 22:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay a check of previous conversations shows that since the Sept '09 thread there were also mentions in Nov of '09 and August of '10. In each case there is an okay for the change. My eyeball count (which could be off by the usual 4%) is seven four for, two against and one who feels that there should be no default at all (which is not a bad option as it would require all edits to have a command and would make all editors learn what and why the are) and one (Pat Leahy) who did not indicate a preference. As noted before the original thread is 33 months old - the second one short one is 31 months old and the last one is still 10 months old. As of today there are currently three editors requesting that it be changed back and one (who is the editor that made the change) for leaving it in the new format. That would seem to indicate that the current consensus is for returning to the "mf" until things can be finalized on what the community decision actually is and how the community can be informed of a change one way or the other. So per WP:CCC I once again request that the template be change back - for the moment anyway. MarnetteD | Talk 23:04, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

With the message added below by Canuckian89 and the talk page request by an IP here User talk:69.234.138.179 we are now up to five editors requesting that the article be changed back. If we, generously, combine the old threads with the new we are at a "no consensus for change" situation and the template that should be returned to its previous settings. MarnetteD | Talk 00:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

I request that this be changed back to "mf" being the default until a discussion and consensus is reached. As noted in one of the editing messages this template is used on over 224,000 articles so it is hard to estimate how many have been thrown into confusion due to this edit. Let me add that I have no problem with the WP:BOLD change but I do think that is should be changed back until consensus is reached. MarnetteD | Talk 21:49, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

As noted above, this has been discussed previously, with almost all editors in favour of the change. Number 57 21:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

A nearly three year old discussion is not reliable as to what the community consensus is now. The template should be change back until the decision of editors that are currently active on wikipedia have a say.MarnetteD | Talk 22:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, this needs to be changed back. The hundreds of thousands of articles that this template was used on to display the mdy format will now display the incorrect date format. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 23:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

_{Changed template to {{edit protected}} since page is fully protected. Jnorton7558 (talk) 00:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)}

Thank you Jnorton7558 for changing this to the correct template. MarnetteD | Talk 00:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I am adding this template in an effort to get a response from an uninvolved admin in regard to this situation. Please read the above requests to have this template returned to it previous version. The change is affecting articles all over wikipedia. We need outside eyes due to the fact that a) the admin who made the change is obviously involved per his posts on the various threads on this page and b) is most likely asleep and will not be back on wikipedia for several hours at the least. Even if you feel that the change is okay and should remain we still need your input. I want to avoid going to AN/I if possible so thanks ahead of time for your input. MarnetteD | Talk 01:20, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose – Firstly, using the American date format as default is wrong. Secondly, why does it matter if American articles have the date and month temporarily in the wrong order. It's not like Americans won't understand it. It's not like one person is going to have to go through each page and change it. Only one editor who maintains each page needs to change it. It's a minor job that will be done eventually. As it was before, there were probably more non-American pages using the wrong format than there are American pages using the wrong format now. McLerristarr | Mclay1 02:07, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Well lets see

1. It wont be temporary some articles will never get changed.
2. Wikipedia has already set the standard that the US/International articles are to have the correct language and formatting for said region.
3. Editors have been working with the former format since its inception. I have been editing for over 6 years and I have always added df=y to international article templates. I have never added mf=y to US ones and indeed I have removed it from other article templates since it has always been the default. I will not be the only editor to have done this. Your assertion that more non American aricles will be incorrect has would need empirical evidence before I can believe it.
4. As stated before per WP:CCC it would look like the current consensus is for a return to the former default settings

We still need an uninvolved admin to look at this. MarnetteD | Talk 02:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I've restored the prior version. Given the high number of pages this is used on consensus should have been obtained first, and given that the last one was in 2009 a current discussion would be better. If the consensus is that the template should be changed the services of a bot should be obtained to fix all the pages affected. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 02:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC

Should the default for this template be the international date format or the American date format?

Now that things are back where we started lets start from here. The previous consensus stretching back over almost three years was for the international format to be the default. The consensus for today is for the US format. So as I see it we need to have a period of several days perhaps the same as and AFD - or longer if preferred - for current editors to make there thoughts known. Then, if the decision is to go with the international format we need to determine how it is to be done and how we can inform the community at large of the change. Please note that I have not moved anyone's post from earlier today into either section if it is okay to do so that please feel free to do same. MarnetteD | Talk 03:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Keep the format at the US month first (mf) setting as the default

1. Support All of the editing to this point in time has been under this format. I have posted my thoughts regarding this in detail above but I would also as that, before we get further into the "there are more corrections to be made in the US or International articles" debate, is there anyway to find out empirically how many articles have "df=y" that don't need it and how many articles will need "mf=y" if we make the change. If we can't do that then IMO we should try to find other points to make regarding our stance.MarnetteD | Talk 03:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
2. Support I see this option as being much easier. If we change the birth date template, the death date template will have to change too, and then bots will have to go and append "mf=y" to every template on the pages that use the mdy format. Also, if anyone needs to add the template to dmy pages, all they have to do is put "df=y" in the template. It really seems like changing the template would just be nothing but a large amount of unwanted hassle. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 07:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
3. Support per reasons above. --69.234.98.18 (talk) 12:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
4. Very weak support - for legacy reasons alone, it is easiest to maintain this (cf. {{unsigned}} not including the (UTC) parameter in dates, whereas {{unsigned}} does). Canuck is correct, it would be a pain; unless we can get a volunteer team to go over all 200 thousand + transclusions and fix them. I also wanted to add my !vote to this discussion, which currently sits at all four North Americans for mdy, and both international users for dmy; how lovely and coincidental of us to show this bias. Magog the Ogre (talk) 15:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
5. Support. Not only American articles adopt mdy, but also several other pages (such as several Latin American articles and other countries where American English as a second language is far more common than other variations of English, and thus adopt mdy instead of dmy). Besides that, probably changing this template will create more mistakes than the currently existing ones. --Carioca (talk) 19:36, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
6. Support Why fix it if it ain't broke? – Muboshgu (talk) 01:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
   • Exactly. Who wants to go around and check all the 200,000+ articles that this template is used on to make sure that the correct date format would be used if the template is switched? Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 06:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
     • Like I wrote before, every page has at least one editor who maintains it. Each page will be fixed by someone. McLerristarr | Mclay1 16:03, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
       • This is an incorrect assumption. Due to editor retirements and other factors there are numerous articles that are no longer on any watchlists. I have come across test/vandal edits that have been in an article for months. MarnetteD | Talk 16:27, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
7. Support If it aint broke, don't fix it. More policy based, we leave date formats alone unless there is a good reason to change them, shouldn't the same apply to the template? Monty₈₄₅ 06:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Change the format to the International (df) setting as the default

1. Support As it's the format used by the vast majority of countries in the world, and I'm tired of seeing non-American articles displaying an American date format. Lots of articles will be wrong one way or another, but (a) I don't see why this should be in a way that favours a very small number of counties and (b) I'm sure someone can run a bot to change all the templates in sub-cats of Category:American people to have the "mf=y" paramater inserted. Number 57 06:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
2. Support – American-centricism is not the way to go. Many articles incorrectly use American dates so the argument that changing it would result in mistakes is void; there'll be mistakes either way but it isn't that hard to fix them. McLerristarr | Mclay1 08:05, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
3. Support - The International format is, objectively, more sensible than the US-centric format. So there is no harm in adopting it as the default. Individual articles can always override the default. --Noleander (talk) 18:59, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
4. Support - if no option is specified, we should default to the option which is more likely to be relevant. Since there are far more possible subjects of biographical articles who are not American than there are subjects who are American, defaulting to international format is the more sensible option. Modest Genius ^talk 17:19, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
   • But with the default having been set to mdy for years now, editors have been adding the template to many thousands of articles that use the mdy format without the "mf=y" marker. The question is if the template changes to dmy, how to we put back the correct date format on those thousands of articles? Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 00:53, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
     • See my comment above re bots. Number 57 08:10, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
       • Just because various instances of the template have been left on their default does not mean that the default is correct for that article. In many cases they will have been left on the default because the user did not know or did not care that they could change between the two. Besides, that's an implementation problem, with no bearing on which should be the default option. Modest Genius ^talk 10:33, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
5. Support Americans only account to a fraction of the English speaking world. Agathoclea (talk) 22:04, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
6. Support on the basis that dmy is the standard date format in the majority of the world, and that the purpose of a default is to reduce the effort needed on the editor's part to ensure the date format is relevant to the article subject. I would contend that the majority of articles on the English Wikipedia are international (rather than American) and thus the international format should be the default. (As an aside, it appears the numbering here has been reset; I'm not familiar enough with wiki syntax to fix this, does anyone know how to?) TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 05:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
7. Date first. I'm glad to see that it spells out the month, though, so that no matter what we choose, the reader will be able to figure out what we mean. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
8. Support; dmy is used by most of the world - hence, familiar to most readers. However, spelling out the month should remove ambiguity for readers on either side of the divide. bobrayner (talk) 12:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

If we change to (df) as the default how do we implement it

If we do change then I can think of three things that we need to consider

1. The death date and age template will also need to be changed. Today's change will have left the infoboxes for US articles about people who have died with both date formats in it and that is not a good situation. Just realized that this sentence is not the case but I do need to add that any other birth and death templates will need to be changed so that editing will be uniform in all of them.MarnetteD | Talk 12:11, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
2. How do we inform the community of the change. At the very least we should inform the various wikiprojects involved in biographies. I don't edit in the sciences areas but if they use these templates then they should also be informed. I would further suggest that we investigate if we can add one of the message boxes that appear at the top of the page (like the Wikinic one that was there last week) to let the community know that they need to make a change in their editing habits.
3. If a bot program is needed then it should be thoroughly tested before being put into action.

These are the only three that I can think of at the moment so please add any that come to mind. MarnetteD | Talk 03:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

This is enough of problems to explain my very weak support above; it's just not worth the effort of changing as I can see it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 15:15, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Changing all the birth/death templates I think might be possible by some kind of bot, however, like Magog stated above, it seems to be too much effort to change everything around. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 22:56, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Replace with a new, improved birth date template (with df default)

1. Support Clearly, the existing template default is broken in that it encourages a systemic bias towards US formatting. Meanwhile, birth date functionality is spread over other templates such as {{Birth date}} and {{Birth year and age}}. Therefore it would be better to start over and create a new template which would 1) get the default right (df); 2) allow the other format as an option (mf flag); 3) be flexible enough to allow for missing months and days; 4) include option to display an age and easily switch it off upon death (sanity checking could be included to avoid excessive age values for apparent Highlanders). Existing templates would not be immediately affected - these could be migrated and deprecated over as much time as needed. The new template would address both the disruption and bias concerns. Dl2000 (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
   • Surely this would be harder than changing the current templates? We'd have to change every article, rather than just some articles. McLerristarr | Mclay1 16:06, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Comments on date format RfC

• The argument that the so-called international format is the most popular throughout the world is invalid; non-English dates are either all-numeric or written with non-English month names, and so are a different format from either of the options for this template. Also, in the case of biographies, the question is what date format are the readers of the article used to seeing while reading English articles. Since Americans constitute a large fraction of those who read articles about people from non-English speaking countries, and also because some of those who learned English as a second language learned the American variant, it is not at all obvious which date format the readers of biographies of people from non-English speaking countries will be most accustomed to. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Some commenters think that the dmy format should be the default because the majority of the articles are not about the United States. However, WP:STRONGNAT makes it clear that the the rule about using the format most common in a country if an article has strong ties to that country only applies to English-speaking countries. If an article is about France, the most popular date format in France is irrelevant. My guess would be that the number of articles tied to the US is greater than the number of articles tied to all other English-speaking countries combined (unless you want to count India as an English-speaking country). Jc3s5h (talk) 12:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Another idea

• It would be nice to change the template to the standard non-american dmy format but thousands of articles have been written without the mf=y in them. I would suggest leave it as is but get a bot to add mf=y to all instances that dont have either dm=y or already have mf=y this will make no change to the appearance of any article. Why do that they ask, well any watchers will notice that the template has been changed and say thats ok nothing changes or wait a minute this should be df=yes I must change it. So no template change a little bot action and the use of loads of watchers to check. MilborneOne (talk) 20:43, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

As has been pointed out by more than one editor mdy is not unique to America. There are other countries that use it. Having said that if the consensus is to change this and the other templates involved it is not enough to sit back and hope that other editors will notice that things have changed. That is why I started the "how do we implement it" section above. If the change occurs it would be wise to inform the community in as full a way as possible. MarnetteD | Talk 21:24, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

But at the moment, people are opposing any change because they don't think there is a good way of doing it. I think the above suggestion is good. The bot could also add a hidden note telling editors not to remove |mf=y. McLerristarr | Mclay1 13:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Question

Is it possible to simply have both formats, since they are interconvertible, and let people enter US dates one way, and others the other, without changing any existing one. (Just like we to with US vs IK spelling)? DGG ( talk ) 23:03, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it. If you input 03|04|1985, the template would be unable to recognise whether this referred to 3 April or 4 March without a signal like df=y or mf=y. Number 57 08:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)