Template talk:Birth based on age as of date

Two dates

It would be nice if this template supported adding two data points. Sometimes a person's age is mentioned in two news stories and a template like this could help better triangulate the date (basic math) instead of leaving the second data point unused. czar 18:14, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

User:czar: I agree. Although, wouldn't it be possible for editors to do the triangulation and cite two sources and give the evident birth year without needing this template at all? Maybe a talk page comment how it was derived. -- GreenC 18:46, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Since the date would need two references, it would be more straightforward if the template handled both, as otherwise it would require the extra step of going to the talk page or a hidden wikitext comment to let other editors know. In my experience, this happens most often with low-visibility biographies that tend to attract drive-by editors who add vital dates without reading comments or talk pages, so I'd rather let the template do the work, and leave an open parameter for another editor to add if there is a second data point. czar 05:15, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I have edited the documentation to clarify that this template is best used where only one data point is available.

If you have reason to believe, say, the subject has been interviewed several times during their career, chances are you have two (or more) relevant data points, in which case applying a whole year's worth of inaccuracy is actively misleading and thus this template should be avoided. CapnZapp (talk) 07:46, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Percentage chance

I found a source dated January 4 which provided the person's age. This means there is a 99.2% chance one year, and 0.8% chance the other year. It would great if we could display it that way, so readers understand there is a extremely high probability in which year they were born.

For example:

1967 (0.8%) or 1968 (99.2%) (age 55–56)

It could be default, or optional. It could be documented as only useful when the odds are less than 10% in one year, for example. It could display by default, but only when the odds are less than 10%, for example. There are many ways to do this.

-- GreenC 18:43, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

If all we know is a person was 50 years old on Jan 4 2024, then it is appropriate to say this person was born 1973 or 1974 (age 50–51). Readers aren't dumb, we can leave to the reader to figure out the only 1974 dates that could apply was Jan 1, 2, 3 or 4. CapnZapp (talk) 07:54, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Recent changes causing errors

@Deor regarding those parser function errors, do you have any other examples? It’s just that those two pages use input dates of September 81, 1988 and September 52, 2022 respectively, and I think it might actually be better to use the parser errors to check and correct typos than to prefer the more permissive version of this template. — HTGS (talk) 20:45, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

@HTGS: Sorry, since I reverted your edit, they've all disappeared from Category:ParserFunction errors, and I don't remember what the articles were—I just picked the first two to use as examples in my edit summary. (That category is where I noticed the problem, and I think there were about 15 articles affected.) I suppose you could try reinstating your edit, then check the category to see what pops up; they should be the only mainspace articles about people there. Deor (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

All fixed now, I believe. If any more come up, please see if you can fix them, or refer to me. Thank you! — HTGS (talk) 23:46, 9 January 2024 (UTC)