Wikipedia talk:As of

"As of" in discussion

It seems painfully obvious to me that "as of" statements are appropriate for discussions, especially for content that one intends to change. The statement remains valid after a consensus is reached either way. — Nahum Reduta [talk|contribs] 19:04, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Rise of the bots

This project seems like a great idea, but there seems to be one significant issue with the method currently used. Your problem is this: there are bots which fix double redirects, and they will certainly consider these to be in need of "fixing." Here is my suggestion: Use templates such as the one I created at {{As of 2007}}. This template transcludes another template, {{As of}}. This way, you can still see what pages use "as of"-type links at Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:As of, and bots will not "fix" the redirects. Also, I bet regular people are "fixing" your redirects, which they would probably not do so much if this method were to be used instead. Good day- Eliyak T·C 01:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Bots fix double redirects but not single redirects which is what should be used in the as of technique. Have you seen double redirects for as of? PrimeHunter (talk) 01:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: Deprecate links to [As of xxxx] and delete Wikipedia:As of

See discusion at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
Lightmouse (talk) 11:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Following deletion proposal...migration?

Closed as no consensus - but what about a way forward? Should we be looking to migrate to something better? If so, here's a suggested way forward:

1. amend the As Of page,and MoS to state 'As of' links are now discouraged, and to use {{update after}} instead.
2. write a bot/make a request at WP:Bot requests? I'd be interested in helping with this but have no bot experience as yet.
3. alternately in the absence of a suitable bot manually/semi-automatically move over using AWB or the like.
4. once migration is complete, redlink the [[As of xxxx]] pages to discourage future linking.

Am I jumping the gun here? From what I read on the deletion discussion, there is broad consensus to move away from this,somehow? Paulbrock (talk) 23:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the proposal. BTW, jumping the gun is encouraged (WP:BB). As my comments in the MFD indicated, I'm in favor of eliminating [[as of XXXX]] links. However, I think retaining the text "as of XXXX" is important (see WP:DATED). I would hate to see terms like "currently" be considered acceptable in article text just because they're paired with a {{update after}} template. Futher, my opinion is that the {{update after}} technique is insufficient for dealing with statements that date. I say this because {{update after}} relies on editors predicting when statements will need to be updated. And predicting the future is notoriously difficult. For example, Barack Obama begins with

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. (born August 4, 1961) is ... a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

If one were to set an {{update after}} template, what date should one use? The date of the Democratic Convention? Perhaps. But that assumes no other deal is struck. For example, Obama might fold his nomination bid in exchange for the VP position on Clinton's ticket. In that case, an update may be required long before the convention. Being such a widely watched race, this is perhaps a weak example, but I think I've made my point: No editor can reliably predict when an article will need to be updated. That is why editors are encouraged to use specific language in the text (again, see WP:DATED.

One suggestion from Dank55 (talk · contribs) in the mfd was to create a template that would function like [[as of XXXX]] links, yet not be a link. The difference between this suggestion and {{update after}} is that the new template would simply flag "as of XXXX" text (presumably a bot would do this). That is, it wouldn't involve an editor's prediction of the future. I like this idea. Further, I don't see the new template and the {{update after}} template as being mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, I lack the template and/or bot knowledge to do this. Noca2plus (talk) 02:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree there is a *slight* difference between "This info is valid as of x" and "This info will need to be checked after x". The later is much more useful though -one of the criticisms of 'As of' has been that there's no way to tell *if* the info is out of date e.g. census data is updated every 10 years in some countries whereas a sports team's record may need updating every year. I think it's much better to encourage editors to effectively note "check this after x",and it should cover most occasions shouldn't it? In the case of Obama, I'd probably put the Convention date(not really up on the intracies of the US political system),but even so,a tag such as this should really imply "part of this article may/will be out of date after x. Please check and update then,but if you find out something before then,feel free to update anyway!" Paulbrock (talk) 00:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems we both agree that [[as of XXXX]] links should be deprecated/discouraged/etc., so I'll stop talking about that. As I noted above, I'm not arguing for one solution ("as of XXXX" text or {{update after}}) over the other. I see them as complementary, in part, because I see {{update after}} as insufficient (as I mentioned). This is not to disparage {{update after}}, any more than it is to disparage the "as of XXXX" text technique (which I also see as insufficient for the reasons you noted).Noca2plus (talk) 01:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me also point out that we need to recognize what cues the reader will get about statements that date. If I understand it correctly, {{update after}} only shows [update needed] after the trigger date. Prior to the trigger date, nothing is shown in the article. This means that without information in the text, a reader cannot, for themselves, evaluate the the timeliness of a statement. In part, that is why I'm wary of changing the guidelines to advocate {{update after}} unless we simultaneously re-emphasize the importance of precise language such as "as of XXXX" in the text, consistent with WP:DATED. Noca2plus (talk) 01:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You are correct - update after displays nothing until the indicated date. Note that precise language is already recommended, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Precise language. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Nice. Thanks for pointing that out. Noca2plus (talk) 02:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "as of" is precise language. Anything that is subject to change could be tagged "as of ...":

Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958 in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania) is an American billionaire entrepreneur. As of 2008, he is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA team, and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network.

It's a 100% certainty that Mark Cuban will not be the owner of the Mavericks at some point in the future, so this usage of "as of" follows the guidelines laid out on this page. (Ironically, "quickly" is imprecise... what does it mean? 10 days? 6 months? a year? a lifetime?) Since "as of" can be used to indicate either beginning or end, its meaning is also unclear in many cases:

Burj Dubai (Arabic: برج دبي‎ "Dubai Tower") is a skyscraper under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure on Earth as of 2008.

Does that mean it became the world's tallest structure, or remained the world's tallest structure in 2008? The usage laid out by this page implies the latter, but the common meaning is the former. This is something that should be dealt with precise language, of course, but right now editors just tack on "as of" phrases lazily.

Finally, this use of "as of" basically amounts to a content disclaimer since it implies: "Disclaimer: if you are reading this after 2008, this statement may not be valid". It violates Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles. The prescribed usage of an "as of" phrase is to indicate a statement that is expected to be invalid in the "near" future. I think the "update after" mechanism is a much better way to do this, and is much closer to that meaning. If an editor expects a statement to become invalid "soon", that editor can mostly likely come up with a date to check on the validity of the statement. If not, there's no need to tag it ({{update after|Mark Cuban dies?}}). – flamurai (t) 09:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

"As of" template under development

Following from the previous discussion and the MfD debate it is fairly obvious that some progress needs to be made with the [[As of xxxx]] wikilink issue. I also agree with various users that the {{Update after}} template is inadequate for dealing with all "As of..." situations. So, in an effort to be bold, I have began work in updating the old {{As of}} template, which was left in a somewhat unhelpful state (all it did was pipe the text "as of xxxx" to the article "xxxx", thus bypassing the 'what links here' list for the "as of xxxx" article). The main purpose of the modified template is to provide an invisible link to the appropriate "as of..." article without the Click To Be Disappointed blue text, however my hope is to migrate the listings over to hidden categories, which are easier to access and browse, and ultimately remove the [[As of xxxx]] redirects altogether. Currently the template has a few extra features to allow for some flexibility:

• Variation from full date to just a year for the main parameter(s)
• Use of the {{Start date}} template for added microdate formats
• An optional 'alt' parameter to allow the user to specify alternate text (currently defaults to "As of [date]")
• An optional 'df' parameter to allow use of the American date format (with any value except 'yes')

I have yet to write up any documentation for the template (next task) so you will need to look at the source code to see how it works. This is designed to be used when an {{Update after}} template is not appropriate. Any comments, suggestions or feature requests would be helpful, post them here or on the template's talk page – Ikara ^{talk →} 18:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking up this task, Ikara. I appreciate your work! Noca2plus (talk) 04:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I've added some documentation to the {{As of}} template to help explain how it works, and I've also started work on the categories that the template will use to track the template instances. Currently only CAT:ASOF is online, I'm working on a group template for all the month/year subcategories, and it should be running by tomorrow. Once that is finished I will update the template to use categories wherever possible, using the old style "As of..." links only when a category is not available (which will occur with deprecated instances of the template, thus allowing us to quickly track them down and update them). Currently I plan to use month-and-year cats from 2005 onwards, year-only cats for 1990 onwards, and two special cats: an "all articles..." cat. and a pre-1990 cat. This should keep things nicely organised, although we may need to update it as the template evolves. Does anyone have any reason to object to me not using old-style links once the categorisation is running? (The category pages will link to the appropriate "As of..." pages wherever possible, at least until we can red-link them). – Ikara ^{talk →} 01:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

We now have {{Cat ASOF}} for creating new "As of..." categories quickly, please see the template page for usage instructions. I will update the {{As of}} template to start categorising articles wherever possible next. Feedback at this stage (before changes become too widespread) would be helpful. However, as I have received no objections so far, I will assume everyone is happy for me to go ahead. – Ikara ^{talk →} 00:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"As of" template ready for testing

{{As of}} is now ready for full testing. The template is fully working now and has already begun categorising "potentially dated statements" at CAT:ASOF. You can view the complete list of live instances in Category:All articles containing potentially dated statements. Some of these need adapting to the new template format, however excluding these all instances no longer link to the "As of..." pages (although this is only noticeable after a null-edit, unlike categories). We can now work through the old "As of..." pages converting them to the new template (if someone has a bot that could do that it would help a lot!). At this stage it may be worth changing this page to give the new location for "As of" listings and encourage editors to use the new system. When creating new subcategories of CAT:ASOF use the {{Cat ASOF}} template, a category will appear red-linked in a page's category list after you edit it if it requires creating. – Ikara ^{talk →} 02:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for new project page

Since there appears to be no objection to the new template being implemented in place of the old system, I have begun work on a new project page to reflect this. I invite anyone who's interested to help construct it, please leave comments, suggestions or complaints here. Assuming there are no objections before then, I will move the page over once it is finished. All the best – Ikara ^{talk →} 20:06, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe that my proposal for the new project page is complete. If anyone wants to check over it and change anything they should do so now. Also please raise any objections to the change soon. Assuming I don't receive any I should be able to move the page over tomorrow. Just so I'm clear, my intention is to empty all the "As of" pages, redirecting them to the appropriate section of the new project page as they are emptied, so that if they get used again we'll know. Once that is complete I will nominate all of them for deletion to discourage further use of the old links. If we ever get that far, we should have resolved all aforementioned issues with the "as of" method! If anyone could help me with any of these task I would be very grateful. Thanks – Ikara ^{talk →} 01:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

The new page is now up and running, including the new policy and quick access to all the old pages. Anyone who has any problems with it can make changes there now, or if they feel a revert is in order I would suggest discussing it here first to prevent too much confusion. Hopefully everyone will be happy with the new page. I'm still looking for help with the conversion of links to tags. – Ikara ^{talk →} 18:03, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you bring this up anywhere other than the project page? This will affect content throughout the site, so it probably deserves at least a mention at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) before going forward. Superm401 - Talk 05:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Currently it has only been mentioned here and (indirectly) on the various templates and categories to be used with the proposed system. Apologies for going ahead without support, I am still unfamiliar with the Wikipedia system and assumed anyone who was interested would be watching the talk page. I will place a proposal at the Village Pump and put all further work here on hold until I have some consensus. In the meantime feel free to revert the project page if you feel that it was out of process. – Ikara ^{talk →} 15:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal now at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to change WP:As of policy. Please discuss there. – Ikara ^{talk →} 16:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Mention of "as of" in FAC discussion

cross-post from Template talk:As of

Please see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Congregation Beth Elohim where the "as of" feature has been discussed and (I think) misunderstood. See also my comments here, here, and here. If those maintaining this feature could comment, that might help clarify things. Carcharoth (talk) 09:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Precise language section

It has been proposed and agreed that WP:DATED be merged, although the target is still undecided. Currently, this project and WP:MOSNUM are the proposed targets. I have added a new section containing the information previously contained in WP:DATED to WP:As of#Precise language to help replace the project. I have also removed links to the soon-to-be-merged project. I deem this fairly uncontroversial, but if anyone has any objections please voice them. Feedback on the target would also be appreciated. Thanks – Ikara ^talk → 23:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

What to do about updating talk page As Of links?

Should talk pages/user pages/archived talk pages be updated to the new As Of template like any article? Because if so, that may mess a few things up, but if not, that'll leave pages in the automatic lists (Special:WhatLinksHere/whatever).

I'm looking in particular at Talk:Canada/Archive 2. -- Web-Crawling Stickler (talk) 04:10, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest leaving them be, just worry about changing mainspace pages. User pages should be updated by the user in question, and archives should retain the page as it was without subsequent changes. In cases where the list contains only these items, mark it as empty anyway and it will be removed – Ikara ^talk → 00:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

As of template usage without year displayed option

Would it be possible to add an option to allow no year display? The year would be redundant in articles such as 2009 California wildfires which have the year in the title. thanks Petersam (talk) 19:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

It is possible, but not necessarily wise. The above article might include "As of December 2010 regrowth was minimal" for example. Rich Farmbrough, 22:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC).

I agree with Rich's objection. Debresser (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

When vague timeframes are given

Is there any reason why {{As of?}} and {{When}} should not be merged? From their documentation pages, their intended purpose seems to be the same (although they categorise differently). Tagging something with {{As of?}} leaves a cleanup template – indicating that it's something to be fixed – yet it doesn't sort the page to a maintenance category. What's the reasoning behind this?

Putting this discussion here instead of the template pages, since it doesn't look like I'm likely to get a response there. Osiris (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Usually template namespace talkpages are visited better than Wikipedia namespace talkpages, and merge proposals are usually discussed on the talkpage of one of the templates involved. Just for your future knowledge.

The template have similar functions. "When" asks for the precise date of an event, while "As of?" implies the start of something. If other at least a few other editors would agree with a merge, I wouldn't object, and we could do this easily. Debresser (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, merge requests for templates would actually be done at TFD... This isn't an actual merge request yet, I'm first trying to work out whether merging the two into one would affect the scheme this guideline generates. If not, I'll file a merge request at TFD since I'd like to be sure. Osiris (talk) 12:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I mildly support a merge here. The functions are pretty similar, although there may be a slight difference in meaning. I don't like having "As of?" and "As of". And while "As of" does categorise into the Category:Articles containing potentially dated statements structure (in a non-standard way), it makes sense for the same category structure to be used. If there is consensus you can just leave an {{Edit protected}} request, there is no need to go to TfD and form another consensus. (But you can if you want to.) Rich Farmbrough, 12:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

I agree with the additional argument of Rich (to avoid confusion with {{As of}}. And I likewise implied that there is no need to go to Tfd if there would consensus here. Debresser (talk) 12:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, well, no I guess if someone ends up objecting it can just be reverted and upped to TFD. Can you do the merge (Rich), since you've got the sysop permission here? (In a few days, if there are no objections, I'll let you know...?) Osiris (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks like you did it. Not everything is protected, thank goodness. Rich Farmbrough, 00:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Lower-case option?

I tried to use the as-of template in the middle of a sentence, but it defaults to capital A. Is there any way to get a lower-case option? Thanks, Aristophanes68 (talk) 19:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

lc=y is documented at {{As of}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:23, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Aristophanes68 (talk) 02:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Small help with the As of method needed in the FLC nomination

Hello. I have nominated NK Maribor players for FL and I have a small problem. One of the reviewers expressed his concernes about the capitalization of "As" in the middle of a sentence. The problem is that the capitalization seems to occur automatically when using the Wikipedia:As of method. Below is the sentence I used in the article, with the use of the As of method. Is there a way for the use of the method without the "As" being capitalized?

• The table that follows is accurate As of 11 May 2013.

Thank you, Ratipok (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem was solved using lc=y. Lep pozdrav, Ratipok (talk) 14:34, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Use of "as of"

Readers of this page may have interest in the discussion about the use of the phrase "as of" taking place here. --Epeefleche (talk) 05:03, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Usage guidelines: current state

I think the "Usage guidelines" section should be updated to discourage the use of "As of" when describing a current state. Here's an example, from the current version of the Megyn Kelly article: "As of 2014, Kelly hosts The Kelly File on weekdays from the network's New York City headquarters." In a case like this, it would be better to leave off the "As of". The article should just say that she hosts the TV show, and when at some future point that's no longer the case, the article can be updated. This is in contrast to the proper usage in conjunction with facts expected to change soon, as in the example given, "the population of Toledo as of the 2010 Census was 287,208". I'll be happy to update the page myself but I'm posting here first to solicit the opinions of other editors. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 22:30, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm having trouble thinking of a television schedule detail as a current state somehow guaranteed not to change soon. That seems like an arguably appropriate use of "as of". You seem to agree that we shouldn't consider her permanently installed in that timeslot and studio. Right now the guidance is that "As of" is a tool for when editors judge that something will change. I could see how As of November 2014, the Grand Canyon is in Arizona would be unhelpful, but there are still scores of other "current state" situations where editors find "as of" helpful. The current guidance puts it to editor discretion, and it's better to use "as of" in many of those cases than have stale and obviously outdated articles a couple of years from now. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:58, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

• I see no problem with the current guidelines. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:03, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Allow me to clarify my point. I think it's preferable stylistically to leave off "As of" for a current state, even if it's quite possible that things will change soon. The phrase is not needed to improve understanding, and it's all the more unnecessary in a Wikipedia article because the article can be updated at a moment's notice. This is in contrast to things like the population of Toledo as of the 2010 census. The next census won't be till 2020, which is not at all soon, but we'd want to make it clear as of when the population had a certain value. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:33, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, a wikipedia page can be updated, but we don't live in a perfect world. Calling it "unnecessary" ignores its usefulness in all the articles that aren't updated minute-by-minute. It seems to assume that editors update more conscientiously and frequently than they currently do.__ E L A Q U E A T E 23:45, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

As of 2014, I still think the phrase can be a distraction that detracts from the prose.  ;-) And many facts in many articles may become out of date, some sooner than others. That's a given. Another example, this one hypothetical: We shouldn't say, "As of 2014, Dan Reynolds is the lead vocalist for the band Imagine Dragons," we should leave off "As of", even though bands change personnel or break up somewhat frequently. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

We already have a huge number of articles with obsolete undated claims. Let's not add to that by telling editors to not date claims likely to change. Let editors use discretion. Notable people tend to be in a lot more tv shows than bands in their career. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:56, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Obsolete undated claims discredit Wikipedia in whatever topic area they occur. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Peter coxhead completely. Debresser (talk) 20:49, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

lower case?

In my articles, using precise language generally means that the asof template ends up in the middle of a sentence. How do I get it to render as "as of" instead of "As of"? Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:33, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

You do it like this: {{as of|2015|March|lc=yes}} → as of March 2015. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:46, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Youch. Ok I'll start using that. But maybe we can make this easier? Is there any reason {{Asof and {{asof couldn't be two different templates? Maury Markowitz (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Because the Wikimedia software capitalizes the first letter of wikilinks automatically, this wouldn't be a good idea. I suppose there could be a template called something like "Asoflc" if it's really thought that typing "|lc=yes" is too troublesome. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah it does that for links, but not template code surely? Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

{{as of|2014|March}} → As of March 2014. {{as of|...}} means find Template:as of (hover over this link and you'll see it automatically capitalized) and then substitute its contents. So the automatic capitalization is applied. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:53, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm. Testing... as of 2014 vs. as of 2014 vs. As of  2014. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC) Ok, according to those tests, a simplification would be to simply assume that the strings |lc=yes and |lc are synonymous, which leads the greatly simplified syntax. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

{{as of|2014|March|lc}} would have "lc" as the value of the third unnamed parameter which is supposed to be a day. It would be technically possible to check whether any of the date parameters are "lc" and then interpret it as a lowercase request instead of part of the date, but parameters with two possible functions would be messy and confusing. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, my thought is to use {{as of|lc|2014|March}}, which I consider greatly superior. It allows, for instance, the next parameter to be a day, as well as "in place edits" of the date potions. Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

It would still have the confusion about what each unnamed parameter means. {{{1}}} could be year or "lc", {{{2}}} could be year or month, {{{3}}} could be month or day, {{{4}}} could be day. I don't know whether a version of Template:As of#TemplateData could be made to work with VisualEditor, and other tools may also have problems. Let's stick to each parameter having one meaning. The recommended value is lc=y but any value works, including blank as in {{as of|2014|March|lc=}} if you want to save a character, and a named parameter can be placed anywhere so you can also write {{as of|lc=|2014|March}}. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Commas before "as of" notes?

By analogy to MOS:PUNCTFOOT and in accordance with stylistic good sense, I believe the commas following "as of" should occur before "[update]," not afterwards; this:

As of January 2017, the the head of the congregation has been Rev. Ann O. Nymous.

Not this:

As of January 2017, the the head of the congregation has been Rev. Ann O. Nymous.

In this edit, I attempted to effect this change but was reverted by Debresser because he didn't like my edit summary and appears to think using the template in accordance with its documentation is inappropriate for a help page. Rebbing 17:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Now I see what you mean. Agree. Will self-revert. Debresser (talk) 17:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Continued use (and misuse) of "currently".

I started a discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey#"Currently" does not belong on Wikipedia regarding the continual use of "currently". Interested editors are invited to contribute there. Kablammo (talk) 17:33, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

"As at"

Per discussion on Talk:Murder of Yvonne Fletcher#"As at", it has been proposed that the proper British English form must be "as at". As a lifelong American Anglophile, I am confused by the evidence that I have read in dictionaries and grammar guides versus what has been told to me be @SchroCat: who is British. It would appear that "as at" does not have an equivalent meaning to "as of" as we mean it when we use the {{as of}} template. Furthermore, WP:ENGVAR exhorts us to take advantage of commonalities. I have not found evidence that "as of" is excluded or unknown by British English speakers. While I have found decent evidence of some usage of "as at" around the project, I have also found no evidence of its discussion, its support, or the relative merits, vis-a-vis the template usage for dated facts. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 10:28, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself, I would observe that in my experience scrupulous writers of British English do not use "as of", which many writers whom I respect regard as an Americanism. To say that we should be forced to use it in BrE articles because we know what Americans mean by it is a little authoritarian, surely? We know what Americans mean by "sidewalk" but we are allowed to use the word "pavement" in BrE articles. Similarly we are permitted to use "moot" in its traditional sense of "to be debated" rather than "not worth debating", but have long conceded "billion" and I fear "in Oxford Street" is heading for extinction in the face of the AmE "on Oxford Street". Please allow us some of our words and phrases. I would just add that the article was peer reviewed and then reviewed for FAC by a number of editors, from both sides of the Atlantic, who have between them something like 300 FAs to their credit. One would expect one of them to have objected if the usage seemed strange. Tim riley talk 15:59, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure that we actually use "as of" as per {{As of}} in the US sense. The OED here claims that it means "the time or date from which something starts" whereas we use it to mean "the date on which something was the case". Peter coxhead (talk) 16:37, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

As a speaker of US English, "as of" for this template sounds completely natural to me, and I've never heard "as at" before now.

Some cursory research suggest that "as at" may indeed be a non-US (British and/or Canadian) usage, and/or a usage that's somewhat specific to financial reports where the distinction between "at" and "since" can be important and may not be clear from context. But contrary to the IP's claim, it does seem to have the meaning intended by this template in those regions. Anomie⚔ 22:32, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I have various Oxford, Collins, 'paper' dictionaries as resources and also a very good publication from Readers Digest, "The Right Word at the Right Time". It refers to "as from" and "as of" as 'fashionable prepositional phrases'. The Collins refers to "as from" being of British derivation and "as of" as being American/Canadian. The term "as at" doesn't get a mention in the 90's. The usage I have seen, mostly in financial documents, is that "as of" is a reference to a point in time and subsequent to that, and "as at" is only a specific point in time reference. The usage in the article is along the lines of, that to date, no one has been convicted of the murder. If usage is disputed or lacks consensus sometimes the best move is to rewrite the sentence and when you look at the sentence basically the first three words are redundant. The sentence just needs to read, "No one has been convicted of Fletcher's murder". If that situation ever changes then the sentence will disappear no matter how it is constructed. Neils51 (talk) 01:45, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

What's a circumstance in which a WP article needs to draw this distinction? Yes, "as at" means "at that time" and "as of" means "since that time", implying that it won't change within the hour. But why should we care? We don't work with highly volatile data; there'd be no point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:00, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Usage of "as of" versus "as at"

Regarding as at, this source:

• Garner, Bryan (2016). "as at". Garner's Modern English Usage. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-063237-3. OCLC 953456227.

indicates: as at (= as of) is characteristic chiefly of BrE financial jargon ... It's a construction best avoided.

• Garner, Bryan (2016). "as of". Garner's Modern English Usage. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-063237-3. OCLC 953456227.

The same source has this for as of:

as of.

A. Generally.

As of should be used with caution. Originally an Americanism, the phrase frequently signifies the effective date of a document, as when the document is backdated, postdated, or signed by various people at different times <this contract is effective as of July 1>.

As an example, I submit that the phrase As of August 2021, the novel is currently in early development ... fits this usage as described by Garner, as the phrasing could be rewritten The novel is effectively in development as of August 2021 ... & still would mean the same thing. Peaceray (talk) 07:57, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

A US style guide being considered by a US editor to defend a US term is the wrong set up to determine whether a phrase is correctly used (or not) in a British English article. 2A00:23C7:2B86:9800:D933:8A2C:3F8A:39A4 (talk) 09:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

As of CURRENTMONTH

There are over 400 articles using "As of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}" with also the day-year or just year. This is used properly on the Wikipedia article where the associated information is generated daily through other magic words and/or templates, but the majority of articles using this are falsely claiming material to be perpetually updated. While in many cases the information may be true, it may not be verifiable on a daily basis and if at some point the information changes then the article would then be reporting a falsehood. Would it be worthwhile to have a couple sentences in this Wikipedia guideline to discourage this practice? – Reidgreg (talk) 16:20, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Just as an example, List of WWE Champions#Reigns currently shows it as of today, which is correct. In theory this is always accurate as there is a large volume of IP editors who love to update everything the exact second it happens, but this might not always be the case. Is it better to have the information potentially updated without the date updated? I fear my watchlist filling up because these same IP editors will feel the need to come in and update the date daily. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 17:05, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I@Galatz: in that case, the "as of" statement should at most be a parenthetical for the single entry that is being calculated by the {{age in days nts}} template, not for the entire table. Frankly, it's not needed at all, since the last entry already has a "+" at the end and is therefore always true, regardless of when the page was last regenerated. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:22, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

• I agree that the automatic date template is a Challenge for manually updated content, it could falsely give the impression it was updated today. Is there a criteria to show when a list was last updated? I am not aware of one.  MPJ-DK  17:12, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I didn't anticipate the potential problem of too much editing. In general, you don't really need an as-of unless the information is expected to change. For the list article Galatz mentioned as an example, the first list is chronological/historical and only the last entry on that list is expected to change; the second list in the article shows the data from the first in a different manner, so the as-of isn't needed for most of it. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:21, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Excellent, that has been my approach to similar articles with less editor activity, just want to be be sure my approach was okay. Thanks  MPJ-DK  20:23, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

The simple solution would be to implement code that detects the namespace, and if it's used in mainspace, it subst's the CURRENTMONTHNAME variable so we at least have a fixed month name moving forward.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:02, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Having a last updated template would be helpful here. Personally, I don't see how it matters "As of", as it suggests that the information is 100% correct (which may of course, not be correct). The only issues with PW articles, are when a championship changes hands, and is not updated on Wikipedia (Which is really rare, as editors change this suprisingly quickly.) Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:02, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

You could use {{As of|{{MONTHNAME|{{REVISIONMONTH}}}} {{REVISIONYEAR}}}} (e.g. As of October 2024), but you'd have to assure that every edit to the page actually checked that the information was still valid (including bot edits). I think the odds that every editor would actually verify the information when changing anything in the page, including a section edit to another section, are slim. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Using magic words to automatically update article prose without verifying the information is a pretty clear end-run around WP:PRECISELANG. We could change the third sentence to read Where possible, avoid items such as "now" and "soon" (unless their intended meaning is made apparent by the prose), "currently" and "recently" (except on rare occasions where they are not redundant), variables such as {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} or {{CURRENTYEAR}} (unless the information being referenced is also updated by a variable), or phrases such as "in modern times" and "the sixties" (unless their frame of reference was previously made clear)., but I'd worry about WP:BEANS.

I've created a list of problematic pages at User:Ahecht/As of (I ignored any articles with "Wikipedia" in their title). I count almot 800 total. I agree with SMcCandlish that the best approach would be a bot to subst date variables when used like this in mainspace. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ahecht: I think the suggested sentence would be too long. I would like to add a new paragraph as follows: Do not use variables to automatically update the date, such as "as of {{CURRENTYEAR}}", unless the information being referenced is automatically updated each time the page is parsed, such as {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}. -- Tim Starling (talk) 06:26, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

@Tim Starling: That sounds much better. Any objections from Galatz, Lee Vilenski, MPJ-DK, Reidgreg, or SMcCandlish? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 07:23, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

No doubt we will have objections from JeyReydar97 who wrote an HTML comment on GHC Tag Team Championship "DO NOT REMOVE THE CURRENT TIME FEATURE. THIS IS BASED ON CONSENSUS." I have not yet managed to find where the consensus was established. -- Tim Starling (talk) 09:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I just wrote that HTML comment to prevent users deleting the current time feature so we don't have to visit those pages daily to make changes and keep the daily progress active. Since the CyberFight promotions have been tremendously active in the last years, various titles happened to changed hands frequently and the current time feature was an important factor for those certain pages. Unfortunately, the consensus wasn't established anywhere, and if you consider deleting the HTML comment, I don't have any objections. JeyReydar97 (talk) 09:46, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Tim Starling's proposed phrasing looks good to me. Thanks all! – Reidgreg (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:05, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. -- Tim Starling (talk) 01:54, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

As for remediation, strictly speaking, subst'ing the current date is only correct if you do a fact check at the time of the subst. A more conservative approach would be to find when the statement was added and use that for the date. But as Ahecht noted in this comment from last April, when "as of" is used as a header for a table of competition winners, it can just be removed. I removed a statement from The Bachelor (American TV series) which was problematic from a BLP sourcing perspective. -- Tim Starling (talk) 02:13, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I got a bit carried away and removed some headers which did actually refer to data generated with {{age in days}}, so I went back and replaced those with footnotes or temporarily reverted the removal. Check out e.g. the column footnote solution, and the cell footnote solution and let me know what you think. -- Tim Starling (talk) 13:23, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes

There is currently a discussion regarding the application of ASOF to Rotten Tomatoes scores in film and TV articles that can be found at Wikipedia talk:Review aggregators#ASOF. Comments from any editors watching this page would be greatly appreciated. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:18, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Probably already mentioned ... I don't like "as of-isms"

'As of' is not natural English. It sounds like someone in the military. The problem is that it sounds like it's hot information that's going to be updated every few minutes/days ... and it isn't. 2020 - and I'm seeing 'As of 2016 ...' as if that's hot off the press. If the author wrote: 'In 2016 ... x was true ... that would make more sense. The information was true in 2016 and hasn't been updated. It's also normal English ... I'd be suspicious of any friend who used it in everyday conversations. Francis Hannaway (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Francish7: I agree that it doesn't always read smoothly, but alternatives don't have exactly the same meaning. I write about plants, mostly. If I write In 1875, John Smith created the genus Arthrobotrya there's no implication that this could change. It was a one-off event. "In" is correct. If I write As of January 2020, the Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World accepted the genus Arthrobotrya while Plants of the World Online did not, it's clear that this was the situation at that point in time but that it could change. The alternative In January 2020, the Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World accepted the genus Arthrobotrya while Plants of the World Online did not carries a wrong implication, namely that the act of acceptance took place in January 2020 (which is true for the first online taxonomic database but not the second which was updated earlier). It can also imply that the accepting was final, which is not correct; taxonomic opinions change quite often, and fern taxonomy is in a state of flux.

"As of" seems to be the best option suggested to date for cases like this, where the meaning is that some statement was true at a particular point in time, although it may have become true earlier, and may not be true later. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:40, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

As you surely must know, prose in Wikipedia does not have to match what you would typically hear in everyday conversation. Our articles are "written in a formal tone". - dcljr (talk) 02:51, 22 January 2020 (UTC)