Template talk:When

Move documentation to its rightful subpage

{{editprotected}} The documentation should be moved to a doc subpage. --Yarnalgo _{talk to me} 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit

{{editprotected}} Can you point this to Wikipedia:As_of Gnevin (talk) 09:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

No reason was given for this change and it does not make sense.

Wikipedia:As_of#Usage_guidelines says:

Usually "as of" is used only in cases where an article is intended to provide the most current information available.

In contrast, the purpose of this template is currently described as follows (Template:When#Usage)

Add {{When}} after a time period to indicate that the time period is vague or ambiguous and would be clearer by being reworded more precisely.

This applies to much more cases than those where a statement needs to be updated to provide the most current information. Namely, {{When}} is very often used to request more specific time information about a historical event or development (the "In April 2007" example in the template documentation). In these cases, the necessary rewording will not involve "as of" or even Template:As of. Therefore it does not make sense to link it to a request to use that template (for that, we already have Template:As of?).

A few articles (randomly selected out of many more) where the change broke the meaning of the template (i.e. where it was rendered nonsensical by transforming it into a request to use the "As of" template): Harp, Intel Corporation, Apollo 1, Manhattan Project, Rhode Island.

Please revert the change.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted, since changes made to fully protected templates should be uncontroversial (as I thought this was) or done by consensus and obviously neither applies now that an objection has been raised. I have to say, though, that MOS:DATE is probably not the best link either, but that's just an opinion. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Editprotected request involving this template

This message is to inform people monitoring this talk page that there is an "editprotected" request involving this and several other templates at Template talk:! cymru.lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 20:09, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Presently

I would like to recommend adding recently to section 2.2. Nutster (talk) 13:23, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

'date' parameter

I know this sounds a little silly, but does {{When}} have a date parameter, like {{Citation needed}}, to record when the template was inserted?; I guess templates like {{Citation needed}} do this so people can prioritise articles which have had inline cleanup templates the longest. Are there any plans to implement this kind of feature to {{When}}? Kevin Steinhardt (talk) 20:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, see the documentation: You may append a date to the template in the following format: {{When|date=December 2024}}

Merge with As of?

Started up a thread about merging this with {{as of?}} over on Wikipedia talk:As of. Osiris (talk) 10:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit requested: Bypass redirect

Please change the line

| link  = Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Chronological_items

to read

| link  = Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Chronological items

in order to bypass the redirect. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 21:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done EVula // talk // ☯ // 00:15, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Ambiguous wording on date

When you hover over the word "when?", you see the message, "The time period mentioned near this date is ambiguous." Then it mentions a date. Could we have the words "tagged on" added (or something of that nature), so readers aren't confused, thinking that the date in the tag is the answer to the ambiguity in the article? Like, they're thinking that they can hover over the "When?" and find out when. -Freekee (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Breaks inside Infobox settlement

When this is used with the date= parameter inside {{Infobox settlement}}, it spits out a category with a date formatted with a comma, so eg 2015 ->2,015 in Category:Vague or ambiguous time from January 2,015. See eg Ninghua County and Krems an der Donau. I assume it's something to do with the infobox formatting parameters before this template gets hold of them?!?!? Le Deluge (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Le Deluge, population figures are fed through {{formatnum: ... }} which adds the comma. we could try to create a "formatnum:" function which doesn't format the category links, but the alternative solution is to just fix the articles to move anything non-numeric outside of the auto-formatted parameters as I have in the two examples you posted. Frietjes (talk) 21:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Whatever - I just thought that in general it's good to make these things as idiot-proof as possible, if it can be done easily and cheaply (in server terms, I know how much these templates get used). Rather than messing with formatnum:, could one not just strip out all commas and full-stops from (numbers in) the future category string using String|replace ?? I'm sure it can't be that easy! Le Deluge (talk) 21:20, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Le Deluge, I don't know how expensive it would be, but we would replace the {{formatnum: ... }} with some LUA version which only applies the formatting to the non-category part of the string. if I recall, module:convert does something similar to deal with references in the input. Frietjes (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@Frietjes: Sounds good - I'll leave you to it if you can spare the time, I know when I'm getting in over my head! Le Deluge (talk) 21:27, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Le Deluge, continuing the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Lua. will see what other editors think. Frietjes (talk) 22:15, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 30 March 2017

Create an "all" parameter (or similar) that places all tagged articles into a category (that you would create) which would be something like Category:All articles with vague or ambiguous time references. It would not be sorted by month. I suggest this because we have monthly maintenance categories for this template, and a parent category, but not a non-monthly category. Most templates have categories like this. Mr. Guye (talk) 00:07, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Done as Category:All articles with vague or ambiguous time. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:06, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Add blind parameter "reason"

I propose to add |reason= to the template. It allows an editor to note the reason of adding. It should not show (no code change!). All we need to do is add it to TemplateData. - DePiep (talk) 20:00, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Parentheses vs. Brackets

The documentation says:

Do not change ambiguous material in a direct quotation. Instead give an appropriate clarification in brackets: The statue is inscribed: “For the valiant heroes of 1/4/2009” (1 April 2009).

— Template:When#Exceptions

The article on Brackets leads with an infobox on the four common different types, but when recommending their use, decides on Parentheses instead of brackets, round brackets, or other terms :

Brackets
( ) { } [ ] ⟨ ⟩ Round brackets Curly brackets Square brackets Angle brackets

Parentheses may be used in formal writing to add supplementary information, such as "Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) spoke at length".

— Bracket#Usage_in_writing

On the other hand, there is regional variation on names of punctuation:

Some of the following names are regional or contextual.

( ) – parentheses, brackets (UK, Ireland, Canada, West Indies, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia), parens, round brackets, first brackets, or circle brackets

— Bracket#Names_for_various_bracket_symbols

I am open to other opinions, as this may be shaped by memories of pedantic English teachers and strident compilers. --Lent (talk) 12:29, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Aliases section: {{when?}} should be listed too ?

It seems to me that - so with a question mark - also works, and thus should also be listed under this header ? --GeeTeeBee (talk) 15:00, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

What if no time period was mentioned?

I found articles like Bayburt where (When) was used in a statement which had no time period mentioned at all. Is it right to use this template in such cases? Or should we use other templates like (Clarify timeframe)? I really appreciate your thoughts.PAper GOL (talk) 16:27, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 October 2023

Change:

Statements that use the word "still" in a context, such as: "The statue is still standing in its original location."

To:

Statements that use the word "still" in a context such as: "The statue is still standing in its original location."

That is: Remove the comma. Without the comma, the meaning is clear. With the comma, the meaning is not clear. Frans Fowler (talk) 15:37, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

This appears to be about the documentation (Template:When § Time phrases tied to the present). The documentation is not protected.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:49, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh, sorry to have troubled you. Done. -- Frans Fowler (talk) 16:23, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Slightly contradictory

In the first part, it says terms like "now" are okay: "typical reader will easily understand that the word now in the sentence, "In the Roman era, most people died before age 25, but now it is typical for a person living in the developed world to live well past age 70"

But it then it goes on to say "Wikipedia pages may exist for decades, and any time phrase tied to the present "now" will not only be incorrect or misleading in a year or two, but is also immediately unclear as to when exactly is meant, because Wikipedia readers cannot easily determine when a particular statement was written."

IMHO, the second one is correct, because… well, the example of the not-unusual ;-) lifespan could change drastically in the next decades (especially when you believe in transhumanism ;-)), but as it said (my emphasis), the article in question could still have that same statement (one of the infuriating problems of Wikipedia, people writing "in recent years" and never updating it, as you then find out when you bisect the history). jae (talk) 18:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)