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start of year adjustment

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In the section on start of year adjustment, there is the oddly specific statement "To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal in parish registers" to dual-date the year. Using dual-dates (e.g. 1660/61) appears to have been common and widespread, not just confined to parish registers - it appears in Samuel Peyps' diary, for example - and it seems this section should be re-worded accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:CA70:A1F1:1346:4489:FBC4 (talk) 17:50, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. That sentence was probably written by an editor with an interest in family history, unaware of their unconscious bias. I have changed to read "To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal even in semi-official documents such as parish registers" to dual-date the year". Other eyes welcome, no doubt it could be improved. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Missing abbreviation?

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In the section Other Notations the text "abbreviated st.v. and respectively" appears to be missing the second abbreviation. Since I am not sure what it should be I have not attempted to add it. Reddogbarking (talk) 11:51, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You've misunderstood: – the word "respectively" refers to the two translations that follow, "(of) old style" and "(in) old style". However, your confusion is understandable, as it's a somewhat convoluted and difficult-to-parse sentence. I'm going to attempt a reword, but somebody might want to do something more radical. GrindtXX (talk) 12:19, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Calendar v. Calender

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This article is indirectly about the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar. I misspelled calendar in a wikilink to the first-mentioned article, and was not immediately alerted to the misspelling, because there happens to be a redirect for "Julian calender". So the misspelling must occur rather frequently, or there would be no use for the redirect. But when I consulted wiktionary I found that there is a legitimate English word "calender". According to Wiktionary it refers to a certain type of machinery. So when I went back to Wikipedia I indeed found an article Calender. So "Julian calender" is not just a spelling error that one may helpfully correct with a redirect page, but it may very well be an existing object that is now unintentionally masked by the redirect page in the unlikely case that someone wants to write it up in Wikipedia. Is there a solution for this kind of quandary? Ereunetes (talk) 21:33, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For the cognoscenti: it is possible to print a calendar (Julian of otherwise) on calendered paper. But I think this would definitely be "Old style".Ereunetes (talk) 21:38, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone can edit a redirect page. If there is indeed such a thing as a Julian calender, and someone writes a Wikipedia article about it, the redirect page can be turned into an article. But if the thing doesn't exist, or nobody wants to write an article about it, we can leave things as they are. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:13, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But the main reason is that "calender" is an obvious typo for a visitor to make and we should respond to the intent. We should be forgiving about what we accept but unforgiving about we write. So, Ereuntes, your mission if you choose to accept it is to write a bot to go through Category:Redirects from misspellings once a week and correct any internal links to those pages, because they should not exist. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:38, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Write a bot? I can't evidently even spell correctly :-) Ereunetes (talk) 20:53, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 June 2024

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. – robertsky (talk) 02:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Old Style and New Style dates → Old and New Style dates – The title is much shorter. I don't think it provides ambiguity on what the article is supposed to be about. Interstellarity (talk) 00:17, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Russia

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Hi, JMF, hope you are well and that the sun is shining in MK, or wherever you happen to be. Our user pages are relatively similar: I'm also incidentally interested in monetary systems, exchange rates, conversions of all sorts and so on. Thus I'm starting from the premise that we fundamentally agree on all the points I made in this edit, if everything I wrote is correct and properly sourced.

Full confession: I arrived on this page because our article Alexander de Seversky gave an unqualified date for his DoB, (which I fixed with a WL to this page, although your recent revert makes my edit somewhat pointless), although he was born well before the Gregorian calendar came into effect in Soviet Russia (RSFSR) etc. The equivalent Russian-language article ru:Прокофьев-Северский, Александр Николаевич gives the O.S. date. Being interested in all things Russian (although not enamoured with the current regime) I wondered about the conversion to N.S dates, and found the 'Russia' section on this page which was relatively uninformative by my standards: thus my edit. Unfortunately my 40-year-old copy of Time Changes in the World by Doris Doane is in storage, although I might seek it out to see how it compares to to-day's knowledge.

Previous to my edit, the 'Russia' section in this article boldly parenthetically stated: (There had been a 13-day difference between Julian calendar and Gregorian calendar dates since 1 March 1900.) That didn't really qualify as a helpful explanation, so I googled "1 March 1900" Russia and heavens to Betsy, exactly zero hits for WP except this page, with no refs for this statment (tsk). I wondered why exactly 13 days, as opposed to Hogarth's 11 days (which I expect that both of us learned after leaving school): and why 1 March 1900?

Through a twist of fate I happen to speak Russian (do you?), and I found that this date was included in the ref to the previous sentence (namely about 3/4 of the way down, Долгожданная реформа с большим удовлетворением была встречена в стране. Только представители православной религии встретили ее враждебно. Они и до настоящего времени продолжают пользоваться юлианским календарем. Следует помнить, что разница в 13 дней должна учитываться только для событий, происшедших начиная с 1 марта 1900 г. (in Russian) [1] But it's just a bare statement of supposed fact with no further elucidation. It is utterly non-evident to the average reader, especially if they don't speak Russian: and even if they do the ref is not actually informative: they will have to instinctively or intellectually connect centurial leap years with 1 March 1900, a non-trivial exercise. Oh no, I thought, still no fundamental explanation as to why this exact date. So I hunted my way through a number of vaguely-related web pages in Russian and English (about 30 tabs and 2 hours' worth of reading and writing) and made (I feel) a succinct summary of what I found. I like to think that if I don't understand, a million other people don't either, so I make edits for the benefit of the rest of the world.

Your reasons for reverting my edit without improving the page yourself appear slim. If you are going to throw WikiRules™ at me, at least link them properly. What does "not sm improvement" mean? I googled "sm improvement" wikipedia with no likely hits. Maybe a typo for 'an': but if that's what you meant without pressing 'Show Preview' I suggest it is certainly a WP:Improvement: "Another way you can improve an article is by finding a source for existing unsourced content." Why do you not think so? I imagine that by "WP:not manual" you meant WP:Nothowto. I have written a number of technical manuals in connection with my career as an international IT instructor on behalf of Compaq, IBM, Novell and Cisco, and if what I wrote in my edit resembles a manual, why haven't you deleted the table at Gregorian calendar#Difference between Gregorian and Julian calendar dates, which seems to be a perfect example of WP:Notguide according your reasoning?; and WP:Cfork refers to "an inter-wiki object, a page, or a page section", not a few explanatory lines within a section. There's nothing wrong in reproducing information on WP in more than one place. Would you prefer one single vast article, WP:Everything?

I feel that your reversion does a disservice to the average reader of this section who might hope to come away better-informed about the date changes in that part of the world, and why, especially since O.S. and N.S. have an especial relevance to Russian/RSFSR/CCCP history. WP:Comprehensive springs to mind. I have no desire to engage in WP:Wikilawyering, but merely to improve the page, which your reversion did not. Do you WP:Own the page? Shall we find WP:Consensus or do we want to end up at the dreaded WP:Arbcom? Perhaps you could instead add some meaningful copy and WLs; or re-instate my edit; or make some helpful suggestions as to how improve the section.

Off-topic: BTW, if HM Prison Woodhill is about the prison, not the unfortunate inmates, why not remove the entirety of Marshalsea#Notable prisoners and from all other similar articles, and be completely consistent? I have two (non-custodial) criminal convictions to my name and you probably wouldn't like to know what they are. Are you a WP:Deletionist? I'm the opposite. That may be our bone of contention, although we obviously think much alike. Space Station: Milton Keynes (Series One) calling JMF, if you ever watched it. Blue skies, and very best wishes, MinorProphet (talk) 21:08, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My best wishes to you too. Thank you for explaining the reasons behind your edit. I assume that this is a WP:BRD discussion, as other voices will be needed if we can't agree.
But I think we can resolve this amicably, because IMO your edit was entirely valid but just in the wrong article. Old Style and New Style dates is simply about the notation. Your edit belongs in Adoption of the Gregorian calendar#Russia, which certainly could do with being expanded. [I guess it would be reasonable to say here (in parentheses, wikilinked) that the deviation had grown to 13 days – when we have an adequate target for the link!] So, to take your example, 1 марта 1900, since it is in Russian and before 1918, then it is a Julian calendar date. It doesn't have an (OS) suffix, which would of course link to the OS/NS article.
You may have noticed that I added a {{main}} pointing to the relevant section of the Adoption article: our difference of opinion is over means, not ends. As I think you anticipated.
----
As for transient prisoners, see WP:other stuff exists. The key question is: what is it about the association of this prisoner with this prison that will still be notable in ten years time? Did they die here? Murder the Governor? Escape from it by gyrocopter? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:58, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for your swift and thoughtful reply. You raise some interesting points, all noted. I intend to attend to the links you mentioned. Re transient prisoners: in the end, nothing matters, we are transitory creatures of space and time, infinite atoms of nothing: why bother to remember anything, or even exist at all? Anyway, if you had watched Space Station: Milton Keynes on the single and unique occasion it was broadcast, you would have said so. Also, I have a number of fonts installed in my ancient OS/browser, but not one which decodes 𝕁𝕄𝔽. Why not be plain JMF, unless I am in for a revelation? MinorProphet (talk) 00:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This article has done a bit of a Topsy, it "just growed and growed". If left without the attention of the pruning shears, it will become even more of a WP:CFORK of the "Adoption" article than it already is. So in the next few days, I propose to remove much of the redundant material.
SS MK was just another TV programme, no evidence of lasting effect.
See Blackboard bold. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:10, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ S. I. Seleschnikow: Wieviel Monde hat ein Jahr? (Aulis-Verlag, Leipzig/Jena/Berlin 1981, p. 149), which is a German translation of С. И. Селешников: История календаря и хронология (Издательство "Наука", Moscow 1977). The relevant chapter is available online here: История календаря в России и в СССР (Calendar history in Russia and the USSR). (in Russian)

It is even worse than I first thought

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Almost all of the material about other jurisdictions is just a repeat of the adoption article. None of it describes the notation uses in those countries to disambiguate a date. Lots to do! --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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