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Initial proposal

Some articles have information that is valid only for a specific moment in history. I propose to include a link [[as of nnnn]], with year of validity. In that way, it will be easy to find those articles with possibly outdated information (For example, see what links the subject page as of 2002 page). More detailed tags could be possible, but I think year is good enough.

If you think this is a good idea, use it, if not, completely ignore it, and, after a few days, delete the page and its links. --AstroNomer

This might be halfway useful, but to avoid being annoying, the "as of" pages should perhaps redirect to the year pages. Just my suggestion. --Brion 18:39 Sep 4, 2002 (PDT)

I hadn't thought of that. Sounds like a good idea.--AstroNomer

Sounds like an entirely admirable idea to me. --AW

So, what you're saying is that in December, we do a "What links here" on As of 2002, run round all the pages, and either update the link to "As of 2003", or rewrite the information? It's so simple, it might just work! ;-) -- Tarquin 01:30 Sep 5, 2002 (PDT)

Yup, that sounds like the idea to me. Simple but effective - I like it. AW

I've just found myself, for the second time in a fortnight, explaining why "[[as of 2003]]" is not the same as "as of [[2003]]", even though they end up on the same page.

Perhaps we should reconsider Brion's redirect idea.

-- Paul A 09:27 21 May 2003 (UTC)

An alternative proposal

All "as of" pages redirect to a single page ([[Wikipedia:As of]]?) containing an explanation of what this "as of" business is all about. (As a bonus, this single page's Whatlinkshere page would then provide a convenient list of the "as of" links for all years.)

-- Paul A 10:14 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Paul A's last suggestion sounds excellent to me... unless someone has an objection, I'll implement it right away. Please visit Wikipedia:As of and lend a hand. --Nelson 20:08 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think I preferred it when they redirected to the year articles... Martin
I think they should definitely redirect to the year pages. I have been using them in the same way that year pages are used, and have even been disguising them as links to year pages, in order not to confuse the casual reader. For example, I have been writing "As of 2003", which contains a hidden link to As of 2003, but looks the same as "As of 2003". This is so that people who aren't familiar with the scheme will not be confused by it - unless they happen to try to edit the page and notice it there, or happen to follow the link and see that they have been redirected. This may look a bit hypocritical of me, given my arguments against hidden links like "2003", but my justification in this case was that the person clicking on the "2003" link ended up at 2003 anyway, so they weren't really being deceived. This change rather scuppers that argument. I certainly don't think that people should be unexpectedly taken to a page in the "Wikipedia:" namespace if they are expecting to end up at a proper article. So can we change things back to how they were? (Comments on whether or not I should do my "link hiding" thing are welcome, by the way...) -- Oliver P. 08:03 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Okay, unless someone has any more objections, I'll redirect the "As of" pages to the year articles again. I'll give you a while to reply before I do anything, of course... -- Uncle Oliver 03:05 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I find using Google to search Wikipedia for "as of" is just as effective as going to all the work to embed "as of" links to find targets for change to date sensitive articles. Here's the Google search string I use: 

            site:www.wikipedia.org "as of"

Google and Wikipedia are very synergistic. LarryW 10:12, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

But would people use "as of" if nowhere they are told that it is a useful convention? -- Error 04:51, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)
That can be conveyed in the more general help files available within Wikipedia. LarryW 20:44, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Where the individual as-of pages redirect to

I see that currently the as-of pages for 1999, 2000, and 2001 redirect here, but the as-of pages for 2002, 2003, and 2004 redirect to their respective year pages.

Is there a reason for the split, or is it just the way things have worked out?

—Paul A 01:33, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I suspect an oversight. I've just redirected the remaining "as of" pages to their respective year pages, so it should all be consistent now. -- Oliver P. 23:10, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Okay, if being redirected from "as of" pages to year pages is confusing to people, how about the following suggestion: we could add a line to the top of all the affected year pages (i.e. from 1999 to 2004), saying:

If you have been redirected here from [[As of <some year>]] and want to know why, please see the explanation at Wikipedia:As of.

How does that sound? -- Oliver P. 23:17, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Awkward. -- Error
Awkward indeed. Put it in the talk of the as-of-pages. — Sverdrup 15:51, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Avoid statements that will date quickly"

Please see details about my "This page is scheduled for review in xxxx" suggestion at the bottom of Wikipedia:Avoid_statements_that_will_date_quickly

I suggest discussing it in Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_statements_that_will_date_quickly. I'm adding comments there now. --Scott. 03:14, 2004 Feb 10 (UTC)

Still used?

Do we still use this markup, now as of 2004? It's a good idea, although not very well known. I also wonder why all the talking is going on on the meta page, not the talkpage. Anyways, we need a list of all the as of-pages on the meta page. I'm going to add it. — Sverdrup 15:51, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dated entries removed

This relates to a removal of a paragraph from the Manual of Style and was moved here from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

I've removed this, as it seems completely back-to-front to me:

==Dated entries==
When writing an entry, there is a temptation to qualify it by saying "of as 2004". This means as soon as the year changes, the entry is automatically out of date. These should be avoided at all cost. "As of this writing" should also be avoided. Alternate, non-specific wording such as "Currently" or "Recently" (and similiar phrasing) is acceptable.

If information is liable to change over time, then there is always a risk of it becoming out of date. Saying "as of 2004" doesn't protect against this, but what it does do is give a clear and unambiguous indication of when the information was correct. For instance, if in 2006 you read "as of March 2004, Tony Blair is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom", then even if he isn't PM of the UK when you're reading it, you know he was in March 2004. On the other hand, if the article says "Tony Blair is currently PM of the UK", that's going to be completely wrong if, in fact, he isn't any more.

In other words, articles which use formations such as "as of 2004" date much less badly than articles which say "currently" or "recently" or "as of this writing". --Camembert

I agree. I feel [[As of 2004]] should if anything be encouraged for dated entries, as it provides an easy way to check what entries are dated (through What links here). It also allows people to use for example [[As of 2010]] for material which is known to expire at that later date. — Jor (Darkelf) 01:14, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I agree completely as well. Dating the information is a much better alternative than the non-specific "currently" or "recently". At least with the date, a reader can know whether the information is current when it is read. Imagine the loss of credibility if someone cites an incorrect figure as "current", because it did not specify the date. Bkonrad | Talk 01:31, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I agree as well. It should give the date for things that might change, such as population numbers for people. Haven't you ever read an old article where they talk about flying cars coming within the next 10 years, and it has been 30 years since then? - Omegatron
I agree that timely statistics should be dated - they change fairly quickly and there is really no way you can prevent it by conservative wording. OTOH, it is assumed that the textual information in an encyclopedia is up to date. Just look at EB - you will never, ever see "As of this writing" or "As of 2004" there, rightfully so. Wikipedia should strive for no less. →Raul654 02:22, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I don't have premium access to EB online, so I can't check. If you can provide some specific examples, that would help. Sorry to be skeptical, but I'm curious just how they do handle changeable data. Bkonrad | Talk 02:38, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I don't have EB online either - I actually have an old (shudder) paper copy (circa mid-80's). But I don't understand what you want me to show you - I said you would never find them using the terms "as of this writing" so I don't really know what you expect me to show you. →Raul654 02:41, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
The paper copy you have doesn't need to say "as of the time of writing", that's assumed. That said, there's a whole page at the front of the book (sometimes several) telling you what is the effective date for the information contained therein, and usually---in a reputable work---a disclaimer saying that any information is only accurate at the time of writing, which might even be months before the work is published. Wikipedia is unusual in that it is capable of near-real-time update; however there's got to be some way of telling how old the information is so as to be able to properly update it. --Phil | Talk 08:02, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has suggested using "as of this writing" which is (IMO) just as vague as "currently" or "recently" if you can't easily tell when it was written. I thought you were saying that EB did not date information such as census statistics, or if perhaps if talking about a living person to whom something happened "recently" did not specify when. Bkonrad | Talk 02:56, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I just noticed this topic is also discussed in Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly. That seems to have the same postion we all seem to agree about. Although I do not understand all the [[As of 2004]] business. Bkonrad | Talk 02:42, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
To put it simply - "As of" is newspaper speak. Newspaper are designed for obselesence - they go out of date in 24 hours. Encyclopedias are supposed to be timeless (or as close to it as possible), and should be written as such. →Raul654 02:46, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
But this is both an online encyclopedia and a wiki. Some information changes. I can see that there may be a problem with writing about a living author who is due to have a book published in several months. Nice to have the information in Wikipedia, but the future tense will be old when that date passes. Bkonrad | Talk 02:56, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Then you update the article when you have further information. --Phil | Talk 08:02, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
Some articles will just not get updated. It is not the original author's responsibility to make sure that the articles are always accurate with changing information. When information is subject to change, it should say when it was applicable. "In 2004, the world population was..." If someone wants to update that article in 2006, they can change it to "In 2006, the world population was..." (and change the number, too, of course). If no one ever updates it, it will still be accurate at any future date, even if it is not as useful anymore. Giving someone the impression that something is currently true that was only true a few years ago is bad. Writing articles that will become false in the future is bad. - Omegatron | Talk Right now, Today, This year (UTC)
An encyclopedia like EB gets everything updated before it is published. WP gets updated sporadically. - Omegatron 13:26, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
EB does minor updates, but completely rewrites itself only after a very, very long time. 1911 to 1976 -> 65 years. Wikipedia can beat that hands down. If they don't feel the need to qualify statements, I don't think we should either. →Raul654 19:57, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)
I am sure they go through each article and check it for date sensitive material, which is updated before printing ("minor updates"). Even then, every volume has a year stamped on the outside binder. It is obvious when the information was applicable. Since WP articles are not obviously dated and not (necessarily) constantly being updated, the date that information was applicable must be specified in the article itself. I don't understand why anyone would not agree with this. It's a web-based encyclopedia, not a printed one. Very different animals. Whether they do something or not has nothing to do with whether we should. - Omegatron 20:43, Mar 18, 2004 (UTC)

Moving back to left margin. First, I agree with Omegatron that strictly speaking, it doesn't really matter what EB does -- Wikipedia is in a different category altogether. Even so, I still find it hard to believe that EB does not qualify dates in its entries. I wish I had one handy to check. But let's say I wanted to look up the population of Toledo, Ohio. Would it not say what year the figure is from? I find that hard to believe.

Second point, just as a hypothetical, if (and that is a big if) we all agree that WP doesn't need to qualify date-sensitive information -- can someone give a concrete example of what such a style of writing might look like? Bkonrad | Talk 21:20, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The only way to completely avoid dated statements I can see is to postdate everything: thus not "John Doe is president of the Lurker Association", but "In 2004 John Doe became president of the Lurker Association". — Jor (Darkelf) 17:02, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Yes, exactly the point. I don't see any way ensure the 'timeless' accuracy of the information without specifying the "as of" date. Obviously, it is not necessary to use the term "as of", but I think specifying the date in date-sensitive information is critical. Bkonrad | Talk 17:36, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Discussion

I was thinking we could add a second "as of" section for version numbers of software. New features are currently being added, and release dates are rarely annual events. What prompted me to suggest this is the GNU Compiler Collection has a section that begins with "GCC target processors (as of version 3.2) include:". Version 4.0 was released recently, and is similar in enormosity to the jump from windows 95 to windows XP SP2.

Keeping a software version "as of" list would help rein in the vastly out of date software entries and keep this rapidly changing information relatively up to date. I went ahead and created a prototype page at As of version.Hadlock


Moved from the project page.

Paul A's talk page also has a useful statement on the usefulness of this page:

Hi Paul. I noticed in Blade Runner that you reverted 2003 back to as of 2003. I just wondered what the logic was, since the latter is a redirect to the former anyway. I'm not going to get into an edit war on something so minor, just curious. (Although as a Brit, the American usage grates a bit anyway) jimfbleak 06:38 21 May 2003 (UTC)
The reasoning, as it was explained to me when I asked someone else the same question, is that there is a fundamental difference between "In 2003, something happened" and "As of 2003, something was the case" - namely, that when 2004 rolls around all the former will still be true, but the latter will need updating. Making "as of 2003" a link means that, in years to come, it will be relatively easy to find pages that need updating by seeing what links to [[as of 2003]]. (Just as, this year, one can find pages that need updating by seeing what links to as of 2002, as of 2001, etc.)
Each "as of x" page was made a redirect to the corresponding year page because the page needed to have some kind of content, and nobody could think of anything better at the time.
-- Paul A 09:16 21 May 2003 (UTC)


The Google search engine can be used in a synergistic way with the "as of nnnn" links. Use the following Google search term as either an alternative to the "as of nnnn" Wikipedia links, or to locate text within Wikipedia articles that may benefit from the use of "as of nnnn" links: 

       site:www.wikipedia.org "as of"


And the reason that the "as of" part needs to be in the link? If we write "as of 2003" it's still pretty easy to find. --Dante Alighieri 21:58, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No. You misunderstand if we have as of 2003 we can use Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Wikipedia:As_of 2003 and we instantly have all pages that might be out of date (in theory). Mintguy 22:06, 25 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Another example: Special:Whatlinkshere/As of 1911 -- User:Docu

Linking progress

I've just used google to wikilink some existing phrases so far. I'll try to keep updating this page to help avoid redundant efforts. --Zigger 14:59, 2004 May 22 (UTC)

  • ...

census numbers

I was wondering, should we, or how should we be linking the dates of the population numbers? For regular census numbers, it seems rather obvious that the data is transient and that it will need update when the next census happens (in Europe at least that's ten years later if nothing goes wrong). Maybe these should be explicitly exempt from the general guideline.

Perhaps an illustration would be useful: I think that this:

Quux is a city in Nowhereland, population 23,153 (2001). It's famous for its beer. [...]

(presuming Quux is linked from the List of cities in Nowhereland, of course) doesn't look or feel less useful than e.g.:

Quux is a city in Nowhereland, population 23,153 (as of 2001). It's famous for its beer. [...]

or:

Quux is a city in Nowhereland, population 23,153 (2001). It's famous for its beer. [...]

or:

Quux is a city in Nowhereland, population 23,153 (as of 2001). It's famous for its beer. [...]

or:

Quux is a city in Nowhereland, population 23,153 (as of 2001). It's famous for its beer. [...]

There. :) --Joy [shallot] 13:23, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How about a more specific link, e.g.:
As of the census of 2000, there are 157 people
(sample from Index, Washington)? But a solution that allows the population numbers be updated by bot/from a separate data table would be preferable. -- User:Docu

Deprecated "As of" pages

the links which have (empty) after them were linked to from here only, tooto 16:36, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No links left. Susvolans 14:57, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Should we delete all those pages, then? That would prevent anybody from creating a new link to them, seeing it as blue, and thinking it's OK - DavidWBrooks 12:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Proposed removal of this page

I propose removing this page and making it a redirect into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). The advice in the lead section would move with it, the rest of the article would disappear. Please let me know what you think. jguk 11:02, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No, this page isn't a style of writing, it is a specialized linking strategy to help identify information that dates quickly. -- Netoholic @ 11:34, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)

As a user encountering this approach for the first time, I saw something like:

As of 2005, there were 50 foos in the bar.

and thought the "as of 2005" link would go to the source for that information.

I propose the correct style for this to be a piped link:

As of 2005, there were 50 foos in the bar.

to reduce confusion.

21:15, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree, internal linking conventions are 'backstage events' like an article's talk page and the Wikipedia: namespace, should be concealed to the casual reader, and for the reason above, it can be confusing. In the case that the link actually does point to a citatation or reference I would suggest:

As of 2005,(see [http:example.com/reference]) there were 50 foos in the bar.

or similar treatment, to make it clear. Comments? Pedant 18:16, 2005 July 19 (UTC)


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