Talk:Microsoft Office 2013/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

MOS:DATEFORMAT

Hi.

So, I saw edit #643829207 by Comp.arch and it seem it has converted 90% of the article dates from DMY to MDY. I am pretty sure this is a violation of WP:DATESRET.

I performed a conversion of all formats to DMY and I see relatively few dates get converted. So I think DMY is the dominant format.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 04:21, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

MDY is correct for this article, per MOS:DATETIES as Microsoft is an American company. -- Calidum 05:03, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Calidum: Hi.

I am afraid this fallacy is discussed ad nauseam in length and rejected several times. The general consensus is that Microsoft, a multinational corporation with a diverse spectrum of employees worldwide, has invested heavily on both vast international marketing and localization, so much so that there is nothing strongly American about it. There is nothing about Microsoft that ties it to U.S. more than anywhere else except when the issue strictly concerns patent or competition laws. In fact, if Microsoft quietly move its headquarters to another country, no one would feel anything. Now, the same thing is not true for, say U.S. Marine Corps.

For your information, Microsoft Security Essentials, a featured article, uses DMY dates consistently.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 12:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

What a bunch of crap. The company was founded in America, headquartered in America, and traded on an American stock exchange. If you don't feel that qualifies as strong ties, you should get your head checked. -- Calidum 15:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, our article United States Marine Corps uses DMY even though no plans to permanently relocate to another country have been announced. NebY (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

That particular section of the MOS I referred to says the US military uses DMY. -- Calidum 16:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Calidum: I have replied to this in Lukeno94's thread below. That said, you are too quick to assume victory and revert. Please be advised that your reverts are borderlining on edit warring. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 23:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Using this logic on other articles got me reverted, so something is telling me that you are wrong. ViperSnake151  Talk  16:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

This notion re "multinational companies" was proposed at the MOSNUM talk page and specifically rejected. Re MS specifically, although yes, MS is a multinational company, its organizations outside of the U.S. are referred to as "subsidiaries" and take direction from the offices in Redmond WA. Is Office a "multinational product"? Well, the main development group is in Redmond... This can be settled one of two ways: Either leave it as the first major contributor to the article had it (i.e. do not change the style upon personal whim; there is support at MOS for this. Or else follow the usage in the majority of the article's sources. Jeh (talk) 20:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: Hi. The rejection is relevant to this discussion but not fully. As mentioned: "User:ViperSnake151 seems to be operating under the mistaken belief that articles on topics of international interest must use the DMY format." Indeed, it was I who reinstated MDY dates in Windows 8 article in September. In addition, I myself never claimed Microsoft having strong international ties. I only claimed it does not have national ties. Please see the reply to Lukeno94 below. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 23:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• This proposal fails on two fronts. Firstly, Microsoft are an American company, and this is an American product. It doesn't matter if they have employees around the globe; so do General Motors, and yet their American motor vehicles use the MDY method. But let's assume that this factoid is invalid. We then have the fallback of "If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page." Now, an international product clearly does not have "strong national ties", and thus we default to the stable version; equally, no consensus is present, so we still stick with the stable version. Long story short; however you try and fiddle with it, the MOS is clearly against your change. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 21:21, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Lukeno94: Hi. Since you replied to my thread, I assume you are talking to me.

First, I didn't make a proposal. I reverted a controversial edit. That's all. The proposal is Comp.arch's.

Second, American alone is not sufficient. MOS requires strong national ties. A strong national tie is one that citizens of a nation make it their own personal business. Claiming that it has strong national ties is like claiming Americans feel things about Microsoft that the rest of the world do not feel. I don't see Americans buying Windows Vista, Windows 8 or OneCare just because they are domestic. In fact, they flock to buying BitDefender or Kaspersky Internet Security (European) sooner than Microsoft can turn its head. I have also never seen love from Americans just because I work in conjunction to their national pride, Microsoft! Quite to the contrary, the WikiProject Microsoft tag on my user page has once or twice evoked personal attacks on me. I can compare Microsoft with United Nations which is headquartered in New York City.

Things that have strong national ties to U.S. are forth of July, NASA and United States Marine Corps (despite the fact the Corps uses non-American date style).

Last but not least, our subject of discussion here is Office 2013, not Microsoft. This computer program has no strong ties to any specific nation.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 23:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa:: "I didn't make a proposal [..] The proposal is Comp.arch's." I'm fine with DMY/revert, wasn't really "proposing" anything, AND if you think I'm wrong (in general) just revert me and say that I might be/am wrong. comp.arch (talk) 10:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• For those who are curious, the article initially used MDY [1] and the article's text has always used that format since. This whole kurfuffle is about matching dates within references to the text. So even if DATETIES doesn't apply, common sense says references should follow the same format as the text. -- Calidum 23:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• So what? WP:DATESRET says "If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page." Evolution has precedence over what was first.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 23:43, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. The article has always used MDY formatting in the text; because of that it should use MDY in the references as well. Are you suggesting we use one style of dates for the text and a separate style for references? -- Calidum 23:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

That's actually a good idea that is endorsed by MOS:DATEUNIFY!

And, honestly, no, I wasn't suggesting it; I give you full credit for this compromise.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I observe that after the first flurry of edits by the article creator, User:NazmusLabs, the article used MDY format in the body of the article and the YYYY-MM-DD format in the citations. Nothing on the talk page shows any consensus to change from that format. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Ancient history at best. Per MOS, first contributor's choice takes third precedence. Evolution matters. In addition, silence gives consensus. If all the editors watching this page saw it and did nothing, then they are taken to consent. In this case, a WP:EDITCONSENSUS is formed.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 01:00, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Before commenting, I looked at a version before the recent flurry of date format edits. It had inconsistent usage. I would expect an editor repairing inconsistent usage to restore the first consistent usage, or state why some other choice was made on the talk page. Otherwise the rule becomes "if you don't like the date format, wait for some editors who don't care about style to make mistakes, then change it to whatever you want." Jc3s5h (talk) 01:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree. I think it should be returned to (or stay with) the first consistent usage, which seems to be mdy. References can be either that, or ymd. Jeh (talk) 02:41, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I would affirm that Microsoft Office does not have strong national ties. Regardless of the nationality of its manufacturer, and regardless of whether it is the dominant office-based software in any particular country, the software itself is clearly international in nature. One simply needs to look at the software's widespread use around the world and its international settings that accommodate international spelling, grammar and date formats to see that. It does not have strong national ties to the USA by virtue of Microsoft's head office location than it has strong national ties to France because of the "Enforce accented uppercase in French" option in the "proofing" settings.

DATERET requires that the most stable date format be retained; date formats do not default to DMY simply because no strong national ties exist. —sroc 💬 03:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Since I started this.. I do not really care which format is used. I just dislike then the formats are inconsistent. In this case there was no "use dmy dates" template and MDY was used in the article (e.g. Infobox). I didn't check further (but often check first use) as I assumed US company/product.. comp.arch (talk) 10:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• I don't take anyone's side here, but I just summarize WP:DATESRET: First, de facto style, then major contributor's style, then first style. Somebody above said something about a certain recent diff having 90% of some style. (Sorry, long wall of text; can't keep all in memory at once.) That's de facto in my book, if that person was telling the truth. Again, I am not saying who is right here, but Jeh is definitely wrong: As I mentioned, first date style is only enforced when no de facto style, no major contributor's style, or no major contributor exists. Fleet Command (talk) 10:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, didn't know order: "de facto style, then major contributor's style, then first style", well usually I go with "de facto style" and change the few exceptions but I thought first use decides.. That at least is a deterministic algorithm (while often slow even when I use binary search), "major contributor's style", seems seems even more problematic.. comp.arch (talk) 10:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

(Why do some people use asterisks and some use colons?)

I also did not realize there was a strict order. Although it is a deterministic algorithm, the criteria the algorithm looks at seem to me to be vague: "de facto style" seems to me to be as vague as "major contributor".

But anyway, it looks to me as though this flurry of edits was started here by Comp.arch, who merely changed the date formats in the references from dmy to mdy, to match the mdy formatting in the article body. Which is something that is supported by MOS - in fact it clearly says that they should not be different, unless the refs are ymd. (If you're thinking that there were a lot more dates in the refs than in the article, so the dates in the refs should win, I disagree. That would be the tail wagging the dog.) Is the mdy in the body very recent? I don't think so. I am not going to check all of the diffs for the past several years, but going back to 2014-01-10 shows almost all mdy's in the body, with a mix in the refs. Assuming there were no significant date format changes to the body between then and now, does this not establish mdy as "de facto style", and the refs using dmy as wrong? In short I think Comp.arch's edits were correct (to bring the formats in the dates into line with practice established in the article for at least a year). Jeh (talk) 11:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: Again, there is a solution to that. According to MOS:DATEUNIFY, an article can have three independent date styles: One in the prose, one in the citation's publication dates and one in citation access and archive dates. In my humble opinion, the person who invented {{Use dmy dates}}/{{Use mdy dates}} committed a gross MOS:DATEUNIFY violation. One that we can fix at any time. Maybe right now? Fleet Command (talk) 13:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Prior to Comp.arch's edit, the references used both mdy and dmy. Comp.arch unified the date formats within the references. The format he chose was the style that was already prevailing within the article. So the dates in the refs did not comply with DATEUNIFY before, and they do now. Conclusion: Just leave it. Jeh (talk) 22:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: On my count, Comp.arch changed 89 dates out of the 113 in the citations to MDY. That's 78% of them and counts as "predominantly". It is quite clear DMY was the de facto date format there. He must have changed the remaining 24 instead to DMY instead. As for the body, it needed no change. (Or maybe I missed one DMY in the body that needed conversion to MDY?)

Tell me Jeh; do you even know why we have such a complex policy towards dates? Because I think you haven't understood its purpose. Fleet Command (talk) 11:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

"article can have three independent date styles", I'll try to follow the rules, but this is kind of a stupid rule if it allows MDY and DMY! I can understand contractions for tables, but would think in all cases the order should be the same (at least in main article). [I would have thought best that refs use the same style.] Maybe only meant for allowing YYYY-MM-DD is refs (which is BTW is problematic, when DD is missing and you get errors..). Sometimes I only ask for "Body dates to".. but here and usually I use the script "ALL dates to".. I noticed here that there where lots of changes but didn't count as there might well have been more with MDY than DMY. Wasn't really trying to change the "defacto" and as I said can go either way, it's just a low-priority issue for me.. I was changing other formatting and noticed two date formats used and went the way that I thought obviously right (see now multi-national and other arguments..). comp.arch (talk) 12:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Comp.arch: "...but this is kind of a stupid rule..." Exactly what I said the first time. Until I understood why four years later. Turn out, lots of people think that way. I don't deny that you are acting in good faith. Let's look at it like committing a typo; nothing personal. I think you should take remedial action right now and reinstated the sentence that was misfiled by ninja action. I guess this whole case would have had a more peaceful conclusion under normal circumstances.

Look at me: I didn't intend to take side; just wanted to give direction neutrally. I became sort of Jeh's foil. I guess I am worthless. Fleet Command (talk) 12:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@FleetCommand: I'm not sure I understand, if I could get everybody happy by reverting, then I would (I just suspect I would be reverted just like Lisa). As I said, I do not mind that I was reverted. I'm not in the way of consensus so I'm not sure it's my place to do anything even if I made the change. I'm not per se against DMY consensus (or MDY consensus) in the main text. It wasn't consistent either way. For the refs, I would prefer every article not be inconsistent with the main text, but if the rules say refs can be e.g. MDY (not just YMD) while main text is DMY, then I'll follow the rules (at least that might be a battle elsewhere). comp.arch (talk) 16:07, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Comp.arch: It is impossible to make everyone happy. But one can make some people happy or leave most of them unhappy. Now, scanning the document, it seem Calidum proposed the mixed style the first. CL says she has no problem with it. You are saying you are okay too. That's a lot of happy people and the principal disputees.

Whatever you do, please investigate and, if appropriate, restore the missing-in-action paragraph first. That is bound to have purely plus effect. Fleet Command (talk) 16:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If you mean this then that wasn't me :) It seems ok, I'm not an expert on it. I think I've changed enough for now :) If I would revert myself who would object? comp.arch (talk) 17:52, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@FleetCommand: No, I don't understand why it is permitted to have three different date styles. Or even two. I also don't understand why the date styles used in the article's sources are not considered at all. Jeh (talk) 21:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: Are you implying to you are also willing to gain that understanding? If yes, come to my talk page. It is already started there. Fleet Command (talk) 15:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I do not believe that MOS:DATEUNIFY was meant to allow both DMY and MDY dates in the same article – indeed, this would be antithetical to the notion of consistency. I have raised this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § MOS:DATEUNIFY allows DMY and MDY in the same article? —sroc 💬 13:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Quite to the contrary. It is its exact purpose. Fleet Command (talk) 14:52, 28 January 2015 (UTC)