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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gerry Ashton (talk | contribs) at 20:11, 3 December 2008 (→Exclusion proposal). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

(moved from WT:MOSNUM)

ANI result on date-delinking complaint

This may be of interest to editors at MOSNUM talk: it's the result of the latest attempt to frame the hard work of people who are auditing and fixing date formatting as a breach of WP's policy. Here's the thrust of it, taken from the bottom of the relevant section of Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring:

Declined The moratorium existed because of the absence of consensus on the issue. Looking at both relevant RFCs on the issue, consensus is now much clearer so I have no mind to block on the basis of edit warring. However, I do have doubts about whether this is an appropriate task for automated or semi-automated tools since often the date-link may need to be replaced with a "See also" link to a relevant article (1932 in cheese making or whatnot). If an editor seeks an extension of the moratorium then they should do so at ANI. CIreland (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at the RFC, I agree. LC should not make any further reports on this issue William M. Connolley (talk) 19:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Does this case set a precedent? In other words, is it valid to bring those trying to bring editors who are editing articles to comply with the MOS and consensus (i.e. date delinkers) to ANI any more (barring 3RR violations of course)? Dabomb87 (talk) 22:07, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This does set a precedent. Date-delinkers should no longer be reported here, or to ANI, purely for date-delinking William M. Connolley (talk) 23:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Noted and will comply. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:45, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tony (talk) 08:10, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that deprecation does not mean go on an all out de delinking spree. The community may be endorsing the deprecation but they're not endorsing the mass removal of date links (which will flood watchlists and annoy our most valuable asset: article editors). —Locke Cole • t • c 12:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Locke Cole, your edit summary "Don't break out the champagne yet" appears to imply that those who have been working for this long-overdue reform might be smug or relaxed about the community's support. May I assure you that this is far from the truth. We are instead focused on the hard work involved in fixing the shambolic state of date formatting that arose during the DA period, and in strengthening our brilliant wikilinking system through reducing its dilution by low-value links. At the same time, as I've written more than once already, I (and others, I'm sure) extend the hand of friendship to you and trust that you will join us in improving the project. Tony (talk) 14:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Locke Cole: Your allegation that “…[the community is] not endorsing the mass removal of date links [via a bot]” is not supported by any unbiased reading of the vote comments. As of this writing, the last vote on the third point of Tony’s RfC was by Calliopejen1. He summed the general consensus of the user community quite nicely: “It's a waste of human energy to enforce this guideline, and the bot makes fewer mistakes anyways.” I have nothing more to add to that sentiment. Greg L (talk) 22:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • See below for my "reading" of the RFC (so far, with a very stern note that we're still two weeks or more from finalizing it). Suffice it to say there's nothing in the RFCs that supports mass delinkings at this time, only a deprecation in so far as dates linked for autoformatting only. The community does seem to think there's at least some occasions where date links make sense. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nor does anything in the green box bless the resumption of date delinking edit warring, which some users clearly have done with their edits (automated and otherwise) since the posts by CIreland and William M. Connolley. The edit warring clock was not reset by those posts. Tennis expert (talk) 22:45, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's heartening that you're admitting to a resumption of edit warring on this issue. Tennis expert (talk) 08:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I have resumed date-delinking. However, as per the decision, it's not considered edit-warring any more, so eat your heart out. Also from my reading of the decision, if you came and reverted the delinking repeatedly, that would be considered edit-warring. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are edit warring if your date delinking is part of an ongoing back-and-forth struggle between delinking and linking edits. The edit warring clock was not reset. Therefore, you should be very cautious about your current date delinking activities lest they constitute edit warring. See WP:BRD, among others. Tennis expert (talk) 15:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking ahead

It is fairly obvious at this point that (1) datelinking isn't coming back, (2) auto-formatting of dates isn't coming back, and (3) bot removal of date links will resume soon. While (1) and (2) are unproblematical, (3) still has some potential for difficulties. We need to make sure that all the people who recommended (in the second RfC) that dates be linked only rarely are not counted incorrectly as having voted for a fairly unspecific sometimes. Also, the past practice of bot delinking was unsatisfactory in that it put undue stress on the two people who had programmed bots to perform the task: Lightmouse and Colonies Chris. Especially Lightmouse has been the target of much abuse hurled at him, unconscionably in my opinion because he was very responsive throughout, thanking people for their criticism and quickly reacting to complaints by programming exceptions into his Lightbot.
I believe we need to think about a way to ensure that the hard-working, talented people programming the bots and responding to feedback are not left out in the cold having to face complaints and personal abuse all by themselves.
Also, while I thought that the bot owners' pragmatic responses were fine throughout, there is a weakness in the process here. Determining what exceptions are made became a responsibility weighing on the shoulders of these two people alone. We need to take some of this load off their shoulders. Perhaps a separate page can be set up in some neutral location where exception requests are displayed together with an option for community input and the eventual outcomes. That way, the bot owners are not put in the unenviable position of effectively setting policy on their own. Any subsequent criticism then should not be on their heads alone. Also, such a separate page should give statistics showing the number of delinks made — in total, on average per page, and on how many articles. A comparison of these figures with the number of complaints should give the community a quick handle on the general acceptance of the bots' work.
Both these suggestions aim at greater transparency and on making life easier on the bot operators, who have had to deal with some very unfair criticism.
Finally, I too extend the hand of wikifriendship to Locke Cole, Arthur Rubin, and Septentrionalis, and hope that future collaboration will become less contentious.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 15:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the middle position should have been phrased rarely. But Lightbot cannot enforce only rarely - the only options it is capable of enforcing are always and never, neither of which has consensus.
I would deplore, and will if necessary appeal, reactivation of Lightbot. I do not see why an editor who chooses to link selected dates should have to jump through hoops at some obscure page to avoid edit-warring with a bot - bots should not edit-war.
For the twentieth time: Dates are linked for autoformatting because this page spent five years convincing editors that that was the WP way. The way to change that is to convince editors that the way has changed, with an explanation; it will take time, but we have it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is up to the operator of bots to ensure that the results of his or her bot activity is fully compliant with MOSNUM. Lightmouse doesn’t need *PMAnderson’s benediction* before he can, in good faith, get to work with his bot. We should all thank Lightmouse for donating his efforts with his Lightbot; if he didn’t, who would?

    If, as you say, it is true that his bot can not properly facilitate bringing Wikipedia into compliance with the community consensus, I’m sure we’ll quickly hear from well-informed editors that his bot’s activity is fouling up things. I’ve always seen Lightmouse respond quickly to legitimate concerns. I see no reason to preemptively throw in the towel on his bot because “PMAnderson declares that it can’t be done” before we see what he has in mind. How say we A) see what wording actually gets posted to MOSNUM, and B) see what Lightmouse thinks he can do with it? I don’t know… this seems like the “Well, DUH” approach to me. Greg L (talk) 21:55, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Until there is consensus as to the exact conditions under which dates should be linked, Lightbot can't enforce that consensus, and might be operating in opposition to consensus. If the consensus were that dates should be linked only in articles about other dates, (such as 1990, January 1, etc.), then that could be enforced by a bot. I suggest, in the interim, that he not reset his bot stop flag unless there is a clear consensus that the particular edits in question are in keeping with consensus. (I don't think that that's adequate, as some of you think there's a clear consensus that no raw year should be linked, which I find clearly incorrect, but it would be a start.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lightmouse/Lightbot doesn’t have to deal with close judgement calls; he can always take care of all the flagrant violations of MOSNUM; there are currently too many of those to shake a stick at. Greg L (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are worries for Lightmouse to deal with. I see no need for preemptive musings about what Lightmouse might or might not be permitted to do by me or anyone else here. The burden is on him to ensure his activities are in compliance with MOS and MOSNUM guidelines. The RfCs make it clear that there is an overwhelming consensus for certain things about dates, such as not linking Angela Lansbury’s birth date. Lightmouse can figure all this out for himself as MOSNUM guidelines get ever more specific. Greg L (talk) 23:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • This proposes that we have Lightmouse conatruct a bot which can decide when the subjective and undefined lines discussed in the RfC have been crossed. If he can do that, he can build an AI, and is wasting his time at Wikipedia. Strongly oppose. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And I am suggesting that this burden has been placed unfairly on the shoulders of the bot operators, and that they should not be tasked with figuring it all out by themselves and then defending their choices. Hence my above proposal in the opening post to this sub-section.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 23:57, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If this is an issue of relieving Lightmouse from a burden he doesn’t want (“burden has been placed unfairly on the shoulders”), then that is no problem whatsoever: his participation—like those of all others here—is voluntary. Perhaps, you might post your proposal on Lightmouse’s talk page and see whether he welcomes the help you propose.

    I know you have the best of intentions here. But I don’t quite know how better to summarize your proposal: “a separate page can be set up in some neutral location where exception requests are displayed together with an option for community input and the eventual outcomes.” It sounds like a bunch of wikilawyering and unnecessary bureaucracy and it would provide yet another step where editors long opposed to the new consensus *might* try to prevent Lightmouse from implementing the consensus wishes. I really do think we just don’t need to be heading down a path where we set up committees with oversight over the activities of other volunteers unless they welcome the idea. Oops, I did it again: plain-speak. Bad Greg L. BAD. Greg L (talk) 00:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Thank you for your suggestion, I have posted invitations to contribute to the talk pages of both bot operators.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 00:53, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is still no consensus that all year links should be delinked. (Actually, there seems to be a clear consensus to the contrary in RfC2/Q4.) Hence Lightbot, and any delinking bot, needs to be informed as to what the consensus is. I don't know what it is, yet. Analysis of RfC2/Q3 and Q4 might lead to a consensus....or not. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your RfC votes and comments (decidedly out of step with the consensus view), Arthur, makes it exceedingly clear what you think. Maaaaybe you might be willing to wait for the final tally before you presume to tell us what you think it all means? Greg L (talk) 01:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikipedia:Voting is evil! In any case, the tally cannot tell it "what it all means". One thing it does not mean, unless RfC2/Q4 had a consensus for never, is that all year links are bad. If RfC2/Q2 has a consensus against any autolinking, I have no objection to a carefully written bot reflecting the consensus of RfC2/Q3 and RfC2/Q4. RfC1 doesn't help decide on what a bot should do, only that RfC1/Q3 more-or-less establishes that if a bot can enforce MOSNUM, there's no specific prohibition against it doing so. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This doesn not necessarily represent agreement or disagreement with Goodmorningworld's idea; I suspect a fair description of consensus would leave us with it not mangable by a non-intelligent bot. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent)

  • If voting is evil, then you must really hate all those *inconvenient* vote comments where people shared their thoughts with others. The sum of those vote comments makes it quite clear as to what the community consensus is on various issues. Like me, you too Arthur, will have to abide by that consensus. It seems, at times that you are quite anxious to embrace views of just two editors who agree with you and wade in with edits that implement that *consensus*, and yet, you seem quite anxious to dismiss the results of way-lopsided RfCs whenever their outcome is at odds with your wishes. I wish the world worked that way for me… Greg L (talk) 01:33, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I saw inklings of camaraderie, and didn't want to stir things up, but recent actions by certain editors here (and comments here) make me want to say "I told you so". Now that the consensus couldn't be more clear, those who favour linking are sticking to their guns and digging up trenches behind the original lines. They have lost the vote and are now advancing the preposterous view that WP:MOSNUM is "only a guideline", implying it can be ignored if habitual editors of any given article will have an override; another editor has expressed disdain by referring to delinking dates etc as "MOSCRUFT". Then I also hear comments above how there is no consensus on how to deal with 'certain exceptions'. That assertion is not true either: Editors who favour no date links whatsoever outnumber all those who suggest some limited linking; those who do have only put forward some sort of "wish-list". The default consensus position in favour of delinking dates is now clear; but there is no current consensus on what dates, if any, should be linked. It seems to me this secondary issue is a question for further discussion. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, I would have been right behind you, Ohconfucius, in predicting this sort of behavior. Those engaging in tendentious editing (an unsurprising gang) on a clear issue like linking years of birth will eventually have to be dealt with accordingly. Please keep notes; we will need it if they don’t stop acting like this. Greg L (talk) 04:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's because you've taken the results of this RFC and tried to run with it, but you're reading it all wrong (and it's not even over yet; we've still got nearly three weeks of discussion to go). The Date linking RFC is clear on one thing only: the community doesn't seem to want date links made purely for autoformatting. However, the lower questions (question three and beyond) where the community was asked when month/day and year links should be made is far far from being a consensus. So far there is, at best, a consensus that month/day and year links should sometimes be made. With that caveat in mind it's impossible to remove such links in an automated fashion (because a script cannot determine if a link is appropriate or not, only an editor can). Now, I've explained the rationale behind that particular article, I'm hoping those using automated tools will take note of the communities position so far and not engage in further disruptive date delinking. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is very important to point out that Q2 of the second RFC (does the community want autoformatting) is giving a non-conclusive answer that I would weight slightly in support of a new non-linking method for DA (going by various opposes that including the cavaet about links being involved). This will require a review by a neutral third-party, but if there is anything in support of some type of DA, we should either not have a bot strip dates, have the bot replace current DA with something neutral, or make sure a second bot can go through and restore some type of DA for dates should the initial bot strip all dates out. --MASEM 14:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exclusion proposal

I suggest that a comment, <!--NoDateBots-->, be placed before the first date in an article where suitable adjustments have already been made by an editor, and might be disturbed by any date bot. I also suggest that no date bot be approved unless it recognizes that comment and does not process an article containing it.

The comment should only be placed by manual editing, not bots. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Having a bot leave such a tag would also help. If we could assure being delinked once, after which linking would be a matter for discussion, most of the bottish problem would be addressed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This, Gerry and PM, sounds like an excellent idea. As I've said before, nobody will probably have any major issues with a bot delinking all dates in an article although a handful of them should have been kept – after all, the manual workload is massively decreased by this bot action – but another bot coming back and delinking the newly relinked dates is an entirely different matter. -- Jao (talk) 22:10, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a very good idea. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don’t see any harm with such a tool. If all editors use it in good faith and do a proper job of making an article compliant with MOSNUM, then such a hidden editor’s statement might well help ease the task for Lightmouse and his Lightbot. If Lightmouse/Lightbot can see that the article is clearly not in compliance with MOSNUM, then it can go ahead and correct the obvious errors. Greg L (talk) 22:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Might be better as a template. That way inclusions could be checked to see if the article is still in compliance. My concern is that after the article is cleaned up, editors will simply add inappropriate links. This is still happening today to many articles. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand Septen's suggestion above, the date delinking bot can work on an article only once and must leave behind a "NoDateBots" flag, preventing it or any other date bot (including a re-linking bot!) from going back and edit warring. This looks to me like an excellent, creative suggestion that I hadn't thought of.
By contrast, Gerry's proposal that authors/editors be allowed to rule their date links off limits to date bots needs some refinement. Gerry qualifies this by saying, "suitable adjustments have already been made by an editor," but this should be more specific.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 22:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • But why would you want to exclude an article from routine date audits? Such audits are an essential service to editors and readers, and entirely necessary if we're to bring under control the messy additions that newbies and visitors (and sometimes even experienced editors) can make to an article. It's basic housecleaning for a site that wants to retain its openness to all contributors at any time. Increasingly sophisticated automated and semi-automated assistance is the way of the future, my friends, and we should not attempt to knobble it at this point in the pursuit of local prejudices. Tony (talk) 09:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand Vegaswikian's suggestion to use a template. If there is one template per article, I don't see how a bot could distingish between wise intentional date links and links for date autoformatting that were added by someone who didn't read MOSNUM (assuming the RFCs turn out as we think they will). Vegaswikian, are you suggesting that each linked date be placed within some kind of template to indicate it was not an accident? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestion was to not code the comment directly. Rather to use a template so that articles with dates that claim to be in compliance with the new guideline could be verified by anyone. If you use a template for this, then it is a simple matter of seeing where the template is used. If you rely on a specific comment, then someone would need to search all of the text in every article to find the ones that claim to be in compliance. This would make checking difficult. I'm not suggesting that dates be linked by a template, but they could. Based on your comment, I would say that there is no way to say that because a template was used to format a date that it is in compliance with the MOS. Anyone can use a template like that inappropriately. What is needed is a way to allow users or bots to see which articles are exceptions and see if they are in fact following the MOS. If not, then someone needs to correct the problems. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see that the preference for a template over a comment is that it is easier to find the articles where the template has been used. I still don't think a bot can tell if the dates within the article comply with MOSNUM, but a bot might be able to create a list of "suspects" for human review. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If what the bot actually did was to move every instance of $anything to the format {{date|yyyy|mm|dd|format=mdy}} then future verification would be easy and if we can figure out what to do with the metadata in the future (eg. en.wikitimeline.org?) then the data is already there. For a verbatim quote it could be {{date|yyyy|mm|dd|format=custom|raw=Ye olde 14th day X in the year of Goodwin}}. If US-centric articles are marked once using a second {{dateformat-mdy}} then 99.9% of the time format= would be unnecessary and could simply use {{date|yyyy|mm|dd}}. Editors don't have to worry about writing this "complicated" date format, because they can write what they like and the bot can pick it up. And we can define it as being non-ISO 8601 compliant and therefore usable for dates before 1582 and beyond 9999. The template could be used as {{date|annual|04|01|format=dm|link=yes}} to make it very clear that the event is annual, and the rest of the time, the year should be filled in even if the year is not displayed in the article. The presentation (and current whim) of WP:MOSNUM is thus abstracted from the data itself and the data is held in an unambiguous, validateable [pardon the pun] format. —Sladen (talk) 00:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are technical problems with Sladen's idea. I am not a template programmer, but I surmise that
  1. There is no way to make two templates cooperate, that is, the Date template can't see one {{dateformat-mdy}} per article and format accordingly
  2. Date processing is arithmetic-oriented, not character-oriented. Therefore, any date to be reformatted by the Date template must be a Gregorian date, lest February 29, 1500 be reformatted to 1 March 1500 (since February 29, 1500 existed in the Julian calendar but not in the proleptic Gregorian Calendar). --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is the concept of abstracting dates behind a template something you'd be happy with? ((1) might be solvable with Help:Magic words, like {{DEFAULTSORT}}; (2) "we can define it as being non-ISO 8601 compliant", and perhaps with additional calendar=) —Sladen (talk) 01:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like the concept of abstracting dates within infoboxes in a way that the date format can be made page dependent. This would allow an infobox to display dates differently depending on whether it is used in a US-centric article or a UK-article --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The use of such a template would be a slippery slope for those who feel aggrieved by the community's support for moving the project on from the date-linking and autorformatting debacles to plaster every article in sight with a no-bot poster. This is clearly an attempt at subterfuge. As for "exempting" particular chronological items in an article, the onus is on an editor who is keen to do this to present a convincing case—for each one. I've yet to see a convincing case, frankly. A simpler and quite uncontroversial way of providing a gateway into chronological articles is to enter one or several date/time links in the "See also" section, which has great advantages for our readers. Tony (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i understand designating "calendar item" pages as exempt from date-delinking, but i don't understand why other entire articles would want to be designated as "no date-delinking" territory. it's now clear that it's only rarely that date-linking is wanted/needed, so it seems like it should be feasible to establish an "exemption marker" that editors can add manually to designate each date they're deliberately linking - earmarking specific links as exceptions, i mean, not whole articles. if i recall right from previous discussions it's sufficient to include a nondate word in the link, eg [[18 December|notable events of 18 December]], but perhaps that could be finetuned. i hope Lightmouse and Colonies Chris will chime in about what's realistic. Sssoul (talk) 09:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I'd like to clarify that I don't run a bot. I just use AWB in manual mode with a long list of regexes. On the matter in hand: it's clear from the RFC that linking for autoformatting is history and only a few diehards (we know who they are) will try to retain it, so that's good territory for a bot. As for other types of date links, the RFC accepts that linking of dates or date fragments for specific purposes is sometimes acceptable; this is where we get into difficult territory. If a date has been consciously and deliberately linked for a specific reason, we don't want anyone, or any bot, to casually unlink it. I pointed out in an earlier discussion that this isn't an argument against using bots, because a human editor who's not intimately familiar with the article cannot easily make this determination that either, only by searching back through the article's edit summaries and talk page archives. To document such decisions, I suggest a 'no unlinking' template, as discussed above, but one which would have to be applied to each date link individually and, crucially, must specify a reason: so the markup would look something like
{{KeepDateLink | [[1998 in platespinning|1998]] | because=buildup to platespinning becoming Olympic sport}}
Then bots would know to leave it alone, and human editors would know why it had been linked and would be able to engage in an informed discussion on whether to retain the link. The facility would no doubt be abused by a few determined editors (tennis, anyone?), but that would be for the local editors to sort out between themselves. Colonies Chris (talk) 10:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The ability to insert a simplistic claim such as this will be a license to carpet WP with these links, without properly justifying them; thus, it will be a vehicle for abuse by those who disagree with the overwhelming consensus that, for example, solitary dates should generally not be linked. The whole idea is a layer of complexity that most editors will not know how to handle. Will there be a mechanism to challenge the proffered reason? Tony (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just as any editor can add a template to an article, any other editor can remove it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 13:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said above, editors who favour no date links whatsoever outnumber all those who suggest some limited linking; what we see only put forward some sort of "wish-list". The default consensus position in favour of delinking dates is now clear; but there is no current consensus on what dates, if any, should be linked. It seems to me this secondary issue is a question for further discussion. There should be no such exemptions unless there is a consensus for same, and therefore no 'exemption templates' to clog up articles or used as a means for diehards to deliberately prevent articles from being delinked. Ohconfucius (talk) 13:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC) PS maybe we need to create a bot to check if the templates are placed on reasonable grounds, and if there are any more than 2 dates being linked, the bot should remove the template. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 14:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If bots make a pass through all the articles, and remove date autoformatting and indiscriminate solitary year formatting, new editors will no longer see most dates linked, and will not blindly imitate this practice. Once a single pass through the articles is completed, the need to delink dates should be greatly reduced. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 13:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very valid point—the amount of (human) effort required to relink 'a few of those dates from a clean base is much less than a review+delink from "swamp" of (unwanted) links. —Sladen (talk) 14:12, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the fact that to make a date link without the present DA requires a bit of hacking (by some type of template), I don't think the bot will have an issue of "overriding" these desired date links since they won't be in brackets. The best plan here is that once it is decided to have the bot run again, is to give editors a couple weeks to replaced desired date links with the template version, as well as making sure the bot's edit comment points to how to restore links via this template. --MASEM 14:20, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to nip this idea in the bud right now.

  • There has been overwhelmingly endorsement that the current wording should remain.
  • The requirement that there be a "reason" to go against the guideline by retaining a link does not mean any old clause can be chucked in. Otherwise, pure nonsense would do the trick and MOSNUM text would be proved meaningless.
  • The requirement is for a justifiable reason, and before any kind of template is even though about, each proposed link needs to be justified (presumably on an article talk page or at MOSNUM talk.
  • This justification can be no mere claim to reasonableness: it must provide evidence that readers' understanding of the topic will be improved. Evidences means a weighing up of all of the facts on the linked paged that are claimed to increase that understanding, in their context.

So let's not get excited about the notion of suddenly contriving a way to subvert community consensus that the current wording should stay. On Q2 in the second RfC, my interpretation is quite different to yours, Masem; whatever our differences, it is obvious that there is no consensus to change the status quo (i.e., no DA). Tony (talk) 15:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So Tony, what is your proposal for a few pages with unusual text that causes one or more date delinking bots to have unintended effects? How shall we prevent the bot(s) from repeatedly damaging the pages in question? Shall we permanently ban a bot because it successfully fixes one million pages, but repeatedly damages four pages? Also, apologize immediately for claiming the exclusion suggestion is a ruse. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Er, I'm not trying to stop any removal of DA (I was always for it, but now fully satisfied that there's concensus to ditch the current double bracket method), I'm trying to offer a solution for a way to have date links (not created by DA but by some template), where they are determined to be important per the other questions on the second RFC and other places by editors of a given page, to be retained when a de-DAing bot runs through and strips those out. Again, if this is not clear, here are the steps that should be done before Lightbot and mass delinking should be done:
  1. Create a template that produces a date link but not via the DA approach. (This is a pseudo hack but can be done strictly via templates)
  2. Announce that in two weeks from Dec 5th (when at least Tony's RFC can be speedily closed) , DA bots will be active per the results of the RFC and will strip dates: any dates that should be kept should be converted to this other template.
  3. After that two weeks, let Lightbot et al. run.
  4. Because the template now creates the link instead of the DA double brackets, Lightbot et al. will not see these dates as ones needing stripping and will not touch them.
  5. Lightbot et al. should have a message that points to the above template so that for pages that are done where dates were to be kept but the editors didn't catch the message in those two weeks or the like, they can restore them appropriately with the template.
Now, arguably you could go the route of de-DAing all date links and then forcing editors to rebuild, but giving editors the heads-up will be less disruptive. Also, in this way, Lightbot doesn't have to be modified at all to include any exclusion policy since the way dates remained linked (without invoking DA) is ignored by the bot. --MASEM 18:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • We’re not going to have “bots can go to hell” templates. If such a tool were available, the first thing Thunderbird2 would have done for his precious IEC prefixes (kibibyte instead of kilobyte) is declare that “all poling is evil,” “MOSNUM is just *guidelines*”, “there is no consensus”, “all I’m doing is ‘disambiguating’ ”, etc. Then he would have slapped a “no-bots” tag on pages and made it so you have to go in and undo all his crap by hand. Hell no. We won’t have intransigent editors who clearly disagree with a landslide RfC consensus able to override a bot that is intended to bring Wikipedia’s pages into compliance with MOSNUM guidelines.

    And stop trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes here by telling us in advance what Lightmouse intends to do with his Lightbot and what is and is not possible. No one knows what the final MOSNUM wording will be so it is entirely impossible to declare what is and is not impossible. What is clear is that Lightmouse can make his bot take care of flagrant goofs and fix them. Any reasonable interpretation of the RfC comments makes it clear that dates may be linked only very, very rarely. It doesn’t matter at all if a rare (damned rare) date gets caught up in a bot dragnet; it can be restored by hand. The bot will be saving us an impossible amount of effort to fix all those links by hand. If editors have a problem with the consensus view of the community, take it up with the community and change their minds. But stop trying to put on powdered wigs and make flowery oratory to promote a B.S. stunt about being able to put up “no bots allowed” templates on pages. Everyone here knows full well what will happen: a handful of editors who voted against the landslide consensus in the RfCs will go put them on every page they touch. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll laugh out loud; everyone here knows full well that this is true.

    And don’t come back with hiding behind the apron strings of “failing to assume good faith” and other such horseshit. Someone pointed out some recent edits of some of you editors (all, magically ones that voted contrary to the overwhelming consensus); good faith was assumed, but bad faith was recently demonstrated by some of you guys. I also can’t get over how some of you are acting like damned babies. The latest Newsweek cover has a picture of Obama getting onto a plane and has a caption of “How to Fix the World.” Now there  is a problem. All this vitriol and acting like children is over delinking dates on Wikipedia (which has wide community support). Get the hell over it; it’s not the end of the world. Greg L (talk) 19:22, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems possible the final consensus will be to allow date linking on rare occasions. Lightmouse is not the only one who writes bots. A method of writing a linked date that is ignored by Lightbot might be picked up by some other bot. Since the bots may be rerun many times like other maintainance bots, it may not be just a matter of fixing the link once; it may have to be fixed over and over. If date links are allowed at all, editors have a right to be informed of one linking syntax that will be left alone by all bots. Of course, automated conversion of large number of dates to a bot-proof syntax should not be allowed. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree totally that it should not be possible to tag a whole page as a 'Lightbot-free zone'. But it ought to be possible to tag individual dates or date fragments. I'm in broad agreement with Masem's proposal, except for one crucial point: the template itself should not do any linking. We need to make it completely clear that template should not be employed as a method of retaining autoformatting - that's going to become history, full stop. It would simply be a wrapper around a link, to tell humans and bots to be aware that someone thinks this link is important, and why. Colonies Chris (talk) 19:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The template is only needed (well, needed to work around the obfuscation needed to link to a date without invoking DA; eg, [[March%201]] is needed to reach "March 1" linked but not autoformatted), but this can also be done by hand) when a date needs to be linked. In the general unlinked date, striking the double brackets does the job. This handles dates on a date-by-date basis. If some editor decides that every date on a page should be linked against the consensus that only a few dates should, that's a different issue. --MASEM 19:44, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The better solution, IMO, is to let Lightmouse and his bot clean up Wikipedia and then have Lightmouse deactivate that aspect of it. Thereafter, humans can manually battle out the maintenance of dates. Too simple. When all is said and done, there might be a dozen—at most—articles linking to these trivia articles via linked dates (and I can’t imagine what they might be). Frankly, whenever linking to these trivia articles is done, it ought to be via a well-aliased bullet entry in articles’ See also sections. Indeed, let Lightbot loose to fix all this, and we’ll maintain manually thereafter. Greg L (talk) 19:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, I don't mind if date delinking bots make a few errors, as long as, as a group, they make only one pass through the set of articles. If Lightbot turns out to be the only delinking bot, fine. But if there are DDBot1, DDBot2,...DDBot89 and they don't coordinate to avoid processing the same articles over and over, that's no good. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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