Template:Birth date is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.
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According to Category:Use dmy dates and Category:Use mdy dates, the dmy template is used in 1,823,883 articles, while the mdy template is appears in 716,907. The dmy format is thus more than double as common as mdy. For this reason, I don't think it makes sense to have mdy as the standard, whereas dmy has to be specified. I should be opposite, and I would like to propose such a change to this template as well as template:death date and age and others.--Marginataen (talk) 19:48, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not a valid comparison. Date templates on articles are not mandatory and many articles do not have them, especially when the date format to be used has never been under debate. Graham87 (talk) 04:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FYI there has been a lot of disruption concerning date formats in previous years. WP:ENGVAR is the result and it must be followed. Many date templates default to mdy so there is no reason for anyone to do something that puts an mdy category in those articles. There is no chance that the default will be changed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:03, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Date templates on articles are not mandatory and many articles do not have them, especially when the date format to be used has never been under debate". It is an example to show that dmy is much more common than mdy on Wikipedia. You are correct that many articles do not have it, with many of those without also using dmy.
"Many date templates default to mdy". Correct, but that is something that's very quick and easy to change across various templates. Changing the default to what is already the most used date format wouldn't go against ENGVAR. Out of the 10 most vital articles, 9 use dmy and 1 uses mdy (mathematics). It is the same pattern when continuing down to level 2, 3, 4, and 5. It is clear that dmy is the in practice most used. Try to google "100 most important people in history", "100 most important events" or something like that and see how many non-U.S. specific articles use mdy. Marginataen (talk) 10:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A competent editor who used a date template would either read the template documentation, or preview the change, to see if the format was appropriate for the article. Just changing the default would make the work of competent editors appear incorrect and careless. The change would be a massive violation of ENGVAR. The only way to make such a change would create templates with different names so they could gradually be put into articles in conjunction with an inspection of each article that is to be changed. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not all editors are "competent".
Wouldn't it be possible to make it so that {{Birth date|1993|5|4}} EITHER turns into "4 May 1993" or "May 4, 1993" depending on whether the article has a DMY or MDY template? This would of course not apply for articles with neither, but would signifently reduce temporary damage/breach of ENGAR. Marginataen (talk) 16:46, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As Redrose64 explains, the citation module reads the whole page and does a complex search for a clue about the preferred date style. IMHO that should be done a different way which doesn't require every template wanting that information to do the same thing, and there should be a simple way for the page's style to be identified. BTW the OP might not be able to respond here (WP:AN section). Johnuniq (talk) 02:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
