User talk:North.east

Changing date formats

Hi, please don't change dates from CE to AD or vice versa, it's been a contentious issue in the past and the consensus is that the date formats should be left the way the original creator intended them to be. - Bobet 10:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, there's no consensus on BC/BCE; policy states that both are acceptable. The contention was started by using BCE/CE; why are you trying to rewrite history? BC/AD has been used for 1,000 years. The "original creator" of a page is not a deity and does not own the page.

Yes, both are acceptable, and therefore going out of your way to change them is just looking for trouble. Some people WILL disagree with you, so leaving them the way they were (and have always been in the context of one article) is always the best course of action. I personally prefer AD and BC, but there are much better things to spend your time on than actively seeking the date formats out and changing them. And please sign your posts in talk pages (by typing ~~~~ after your messages). Thanks. - Bobet 12:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the two parts relevant to this from the guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) that concerns the issue:

"Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but should be consistent within an article."

"When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change [...] See also Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk." - Bobet 12:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]