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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Belated closure of a long-stale discussion. Whatever was the outcome of this move request, it happened back in 2008 or thereabouts. The discussion is now so stale that it seems time to declare it officially closed (especially since I plan to open a new WP:RM discussion that's somewhat related). —BarrelProof (talk) 16:10, 13 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Clearly, this will either be a multi-page move or no move at all. I added the "move" template here per instructions at WP:RM. Consensus seems to have been reached after discussion for several years at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Decades, and additional notifications have been made at WP:VPP#1800s and at WT:MOS with no adverse reactions; feel free to discuss on whatever page you like, I'll make sure discussion doesn't wander around too much. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Support, obviously, per my comments at most of the venues mentioned by Dan.--Kotniski (talk) 15:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Comment isn't the decade 1801-1810, and shouldn't it be 1800-1809 anyways? 181st decade would work. 70.55.203.112 (talk) 04:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There hasn't been any discussion, that I'm aware of, to make for instance 1810s mean 1811 to 1820; I doubt there would be support for that meaning in a Google search, but if you do the search and you find that a lot of people do think "1810s" means that, then let us know, please. I guess you're asking about the dash instead of the hyphen in 1800–1809? Most readers don't notice the difference, and there will be a redirect from 1800-1809 to 1800–1809 so that people can type the hyphen to get to the page; most people will, of course. There's been a lot of talk about hyphens and dashes over the years. Pretty boring stuff. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Okay I performed the move. This is the first page where we're performing the move that was discussed at WP:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Decades and WP:VPP#1800s and notice at WP:RM (which links to this page), WT:MOS, WP:YEARS and WT:MOSNUM. Feedback on how to make this move and moves for other decades go smoothly is welcome. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• For folks who don't want to wade through past discussions, the bottom line was that the previous name for this page, 1800s, doesn't mean "1800 to 1809" to anyone outside of Wikipedia, and two policy pages (WP:DATE, WP:NOT) say to use the names that readers understand for Wikipedia article titles, not the names that editors prefer. No one that I'm aware of is interested in changing "1800s" in ((decadebox)) and similar infoboxes.
• 1800s was a section name on the page 19th century; I changed that too. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 00:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I have now changed 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s. I'll leave it alone a while and see if we get any discussion. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• See WT:WikiProject Disambiguation#1800s for discussion of whether to make 1800s a DAB page, or a redirect to a DAB page named 1800s (disambiguation). - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 01:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• First response at that page:

Actually, if consensus is that the term is primarily a reference to the entire century, I'd suggest making 1800s redirect to 19th century and then place something like the following hatnote at the top of 19th century: ((redirect|1800s|the first decade of the century|1800-1809)), which produces "1800s" redirects here. For the first decade of the century, see 1800-1809..older ≠ wiser 01:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Disagree with change in section head in 19th century (etc.); since the other heads are 1810s, 1820s, etc., 1800s seems clear in context. Unless, of course, you want to change all the (decade) section heads. (Actually, agree with older ≠ wiser, above, the the exception of 1000s which could either be 11th century or 2nd millennium, and the fact that there is no other meaning for 0s.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I see you reverted the section heading 1700s at 18th century. I see 3 problems, Arthur. The first is that we don't have the same immediate context that appears in infoboxes; anyone who sees 1700s as that section heading is not seeing the other section headings, they're farther down on the page. Second, we seem to have gotten a consensus in a number of forums that 1700s means 1700 to 1799 and that's how it should be used in article space, unless there's a reason not to, and we conceded that infoboxes were a reason not to. I think we'd need another discussion to get support for the idea that headings are a sufficient reason to avoid the usual meaning. Third, the review processes (FAC, GAN, A-class, etc) all either do or can require that links always go to the page you mean, never to a disambiguation page, and 1700s is now a disambiguation page. If Bkonrad's suggestion above is accepted, then 1700s would send people to 18th century. Bottom line: if we're changing page titles, I don't see how we can avoid changing links. Thoughts, anyone? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • I didn't intend to revert the section heading; I intended to bring it up for discussion, as it now fails the "principle of least surprise" in the text, even if it meets it in the links. Perhaps I reverted it when trying to patch the interwiki bot error. (We need to punch an interwikibot to rename it in all the other wikis, under the circumstances.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I wonder who's now going to tidy up Category:1800s novels to match this sensible change? PamD (talk) 07:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • That's a separate issue, I'm afraid. We were going to fix the articles first, with the templates listed in the articles; then the categories (which requires redoing the templates AGAIN). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Looking further I find a whole hierarchy at Category:1800s works. Good luck in fixing them all! PamD (talk) 07:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Looking up again, we need to substitute or manually edit ((decadebox)). It's bad, now. Perhaps a separate template which converts: "1" to "10s", "2" to "20s", ..., "10" to "100–109"; etc. could be included in the template box. I'm sure it could be done. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:21, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• We don't have consensus yet to change any cats; I'm guessing we could get it, but that's another step. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 11:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Copying more from Wikiproject DAB to keep things on one page for everyone:

I'd be happier if somewhere on the page it made explicit that 19th century is 1 Jan 1801 - 31 Dec 1900, to show how it differs from "1800s". Either annotate the "see also" line, or put it in a lead to the page. It may not exactly fit the rules, but I see a case here for WP:IAR, to make sense of the page for newcomers. PamD (talk) 07:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

But in response to your actual question... as there isn't a "primary usage" for "1800s", the dab page should be at that title (with a redirect from 1800s (disambiguation) to be used if any links to the page are needed). PamD (talk) 07:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

[I take this to mean we don't need a page called 1800s (disambiguation). - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)]Reply[reply]

I don't think these pages are ever going to quite fit the standard dab page format. For a start, we don't even have an article on the 1800s; we have one on the 19th century, which isn't quite the same thing. I've put a ((disambiguation)) tag on 1800s, but perhaps they shouldn't be treated as dab pages (to protect them from attacks by dab fundamentalists). Perhaps 1800s should be considered to be a short article, explaining the meaning(s?) of the term, explaining how it differs from 19th century, and containing a navigation template similar to ((centurybox)) for people to get to the relevant decades.--Kotniski (talk) 09:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What do people think then - do we want a non-standard dab page (which doesn't really dismabiguate anything, and is liable to attract attention from the disambiguation police) or a short article like my current version (which possibly risks occasional AfD nominations from the anti-short-articles mob). Or something better? Compare 1800s (rump article) with 1700s (would-be dab page) and say which you prefer (or something else?)--Kotniski (talk) 09:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Kotniski, remember that, more as a matter of tradition than WP:V, articles require RSs, DAB pages don't. I see you've changed 1800s a couple of times now from a DAB page to an article page, which is fine, but where are your sources? And will you be able to find sources for every such page? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It was just a suggestion; I guess sources could be found if anyone really insisted. In principle everything requires sources - if you say something on a dab page, it ought to be reflected in a statement in an article you're disambiguating, which in turn requires sources... Maybe there's some other class of page that we could put these in where the rules police are less likely to make a fuss. But year/decade/century pages seem generally to be allowed to develop in a sensible and systematic way, without people trying to enforce rules that weren't written with this type of information in mind.--Kotniski (talk) 16:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In fact, we know what we want this page to say; the main question ought to be how to format it to be clearest and most useful to the reader. Personally I prefer 1800s over 1700s at the moment - it seems to be more informative and reader-friendly. But then I'm biased because I wrote it... What do others think? --Kotniski (talk) 17:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I didn't mean by "where are your sources" that I feel confrontational; I meant that you will inevitably have someone come along who says that, if you put it in article-space instead of DAB-space. This is one of the main reasons for DAB-space, to push WP:V issues off onto the pages where they are most appropriate. We got consensus for the DAB page (either via discussion or implied by invitation), in addition to the original naming conventions page, at WT:MOS, WT:MOSNUM, WT:YEARS, WP:VPP, and WP:RM. That's pretty strong consensus for a DAB page, although of course we can't know if people felt strongly about that particular point, unless we go back and ask. Should we? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay, reverted 1800s to the format at 1500s, 1600s etc. We didn't get consensus in a lot of forums to make it an article page, and I think if we had tried, people would have said that you'd need sources. I know it's frustrating not to give a fuller explanation, but articles with a little text have a way of attracting more text. For instance, there's a long debate over whether the 20th century runs through 1999 or through 2000; Wikipedian editors usually say it runs through 2000, but there are certainly a lot of reliable sources that say 1999. Most people celebrated the new century and millenium on 1999/12/31. When you define the 19th century in 1800s, you open up that argument again. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(unident) All right, but remember that there are a few well-meaning campaigners who have very strict ideas about dab pages as well, and will doubtless point out that this doesn't quite fit the rules for those. It will no doubt be claimed, reasonably enough, that the century is the primary meaning of 1800s, and therefore it should redirect to 19th century, with a hatnote saying "1800s redirects here; for the decade see...". In fact that might be the best long-term solution, once we get the templates and the links repaired.--Kotniski (talk) 09:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have no objection to that. Nice infobox at 1800s! - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 11:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OK, shall we go ahead with the rest of the moves then (assuming you haven't done them all yet)?--Kotniski (talk) 11:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sure, go for it. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've done a few (back to 1200s), can carry on later. I also left a note at Talk:2000s asking people what they thought about moving that page in line with the others. (Replied to your message on my talk page.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Draft/checklist for things that need to be done for this move to work.

Required work

1. Move nn00s to nn'00–nn09.
2. Create redirect at nn00-nn09
3. Create new disambig at nn00
4. Watch the new nn00s articles to make sure that the other language links don't get re-added. (Perhaps it would be better to leave the article as a redirect to the new name for a few days so the bots can catch up, and then make it a disambig page.
5. (check my recent modification to ((Decadebox)) to see if the category links are correct)
6. (if 0s is to be moved, make sure the default sort key is "0s". The same seems a good idea for decades BC, although I don't think we really have a consensus for those moves. There really is no standard use for 100s BC, is there? Furthermore, would it be 109–100 BC, or 109 BC – 100 BC, or ???)
7. change headers in the century articles to point to the new name

Suggested work

1. Create a document with this list of things to do, so that everything will work smoothly
2. Create a ((DecadeLink)) so that ((DecadeLink|180)) will link to this article, (optionally) with the name 1800s. (I'd do it, but I'm not good with parser functions. I may still get around to it.) (It would also simplify some of the specialized code in ((Decadebox)) to handle past decades going into BC.)
3. Change autogenerated links to decades to use this function.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Update: all moves back to 100s completed, redirects from hyphenated forms created, x00s pages made into dabs. Still no response about what to do with 2000s, so maybe we leave it for now. 0s and 0s BC may as well stay, since there's no other use for those expressions (except that 0s is sometimes apparently used for the 2000s decade, so I added a hatnote to that effect, as well as writing a new explanatory lead paragraph on each page). I would be for moving the other BC decades in the same way as the AD ones: 900s BC to 909–900 BC and so on. Brief googling would seem to indicate that if these expressions are used (and some of them certainly are) then they denote centuries rather than decades.--Kotniski (talk) 10:44, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks, good work. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've also done as Arthur suggested and created a ((DecadeLink)) (though without any option as to the link name). And have updated ((Centurybox)) and ((Decadebox)) to use the new links. Please all keep an eye out for any errors. --Kotniski (talk) 16:20, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think a more elaborate ((DecadeLink)) may be necessary for ((year nav)), but that's certainly cleaner than mine. (If ((DecadeLink)) were interlinked with ((DecadeLink BC)) for non-positive decade numbers, it would centralise the switching in ((Decadebox)) and ((year nav)), but it might burden the server, if I understand the options correctly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:17, 2 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How about the BC moves, then? Are we agreed that 100s BC should be moved to 109–100 BC, 200s BC to 209–200 BC, and so on however far back they go? (Obviously with equivalent modifications to templates etc. as were done with the AD moves.)--Kotniski (talk) 16:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OK by me. Tony (talk) 17:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Support. It's not the issue for me that 1800s is (was!), because reliable sources don't have much to say about that. But, having changed all the others, that's where Wikipedians will expect to find the pages. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Think we could move them to the new location, and wait a few days before creating the disambiguation pages, to allow interlanguage wikilinks to be updated? We're still having troubles, even with 1800s. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for dealing with the bot, that's annoying. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not sure I entirely understand the interlanguage issue (I haven't noticed any troubles with 1800s lately), but OK, I'll do it like that if that's going to help.--Kotniski (talk) 11:03, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Done the BC moves then (between 100s and 1600s BC - that seems to be as far as they currently go). As requested, I'll leave the redirects in place for a few days before making them into dab pages.

The question now arises of the various lists and categories which use these "decade" names - tiresome as it may be, doubtless the right thing to do (though not necessarily urgently) is to bring these into line with the new more accurate article names. I guess there are bots that will help with this - I'll try and get some advice from CfD or somewhere as to how easy it would be.--Kotniski (talk) 14:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sounds good. If you're talking about the page titles of the lists, or links to these page titles, we clearly already have consensus for that, because we've got the argument from WP:NAME. We haven't really made the argument that categories need to change; you might want to run this by someone knowledgeable in cats, such as User:Sam. He will probably recommend that we go through the usual WP:CFD process. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

About the delay, it looks as if 109-100 BC has the proper interwiki tags. If the others do, as well, the redirects can now be replaced by disambiguation pages. We also need to check ((Decadebox BC)), and write ((DecadeLink BC)). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Probably a bit late but I think this was a silly move and completely unnecessary and will oppose any changes to the category names. To have a system where the articles are named 1900-1909, 1910s, 1920s etc. looks stupid. Hopefully some common sense will prevail and these moves will be reversed. Tim! (talk) 19:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You may think it stupid, but it's what the real world does. What we had before was genuinely stupid - WP was trying to pretend that real English usage was quite different than it is.--Kotniski (talk) 10:25, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

1800s[edit]

IMO, it is dangerous to allow the intended meaning of "1800–1809"—an invitation to ambiguity, akin to the now-resolved debate on "billion". In my wide reading in all major varieties of English, I can't remember ever seeing this meaning. Tony (talk) 04:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've seen it in tables, like our decade boxes (but not only on WP), in the immediate context of other decades (1790s - 1800s - 1810s). I think it's only fair to mention it, particularly as we do it ourselves. (On this page as a statement of fact; not as a style recommendation, obviously.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I remember Arthur mentioned some ghits that used "1900s" in this way; could anyone give links? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Kotniski: point taken—I hadn't thought of that. But I think it should be recommended only in the context of a decades. Tony (talk) 15:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Links from http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1900s&aq=f&oq= include

1. http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/decade/1900.htm
2. http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/1900_1909.htm

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.