Talk:Lists of Presidents of India

I wanted to add here, as well as on User talk:Eclecticology that I think the creation of 02-11 etc. is a really bad idea, because they are ambiguous. I believe that it is much better to go with February 11 as the link, even if you want to write the ISO date in numbers in the article. DJ Clayworth 15:32, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"however the rider in favour of parliament vides Article 53 of the Constitution". I was trying to reword the article slightly, but I couldn't work out what this meant. DJ Clayworth 15:55, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

That clause was none of my doing, and I'm not sure what it means, although vides is used by some to mean "see". Anyway, here's Article 53:

(1) The executive power of the Union shall be vested in the President and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with this Constitution.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision, the supreme command of the Defence Forces of the Union Shall be vested in the President and the exercise thereof shall be regulated by law.

(3) Nothing in this article shall -

(a) be deemed to transfer to the President any functions conferred by any existing law on the Government of any State or other authority; or

(b) prevent Parliament from conferring by law functions on authorities other than the President. -- ☮ Eclecticology 08:56, 2003 Nov 14 (UTC)

Eclecticology: If you check Wikipedia:Votes for deletion you will find that the vast majority of people are in favour of keeping dates in the standard format. Maximus was merely expressing the opinion of the majority in making the changes he did; please do not revert him, and please do not revert me. If you disagree I suggest discussing it here and on VfD. Thanks for your cooperation, and please keep contributing to this page. I like what I see here. DJ Clayworth 23:19, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

VfD is a haven for control freaks intent upon imposing the tyranny of the majority, so I usually avoid it. Anyway at least I've made some progress at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) where at least some consideration is being given to the ISO 8601 format as a fourth alternative. I fully intend to switch back articles where I was the first to use dates in the article, and dis so with the ISO format. I expect this to be respected in the same way that I would respect the system which others have initiated on other articles. The plea not to revert is disingenuous when it comes from someone who has just reverted. ☮ Eclecticology 08:56, 2003 Nov 14 (UTC)

"VfD is a haven for control freaks intent upon imposing the tyranny of the majority". Unlike those who revert without discussion. RickK 21:46, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I like the look of the ISO 8601 dates in this tabel much better than the written out dates. And in this context, a date like 05-03 is unambiguous, as it is preceded by a year. However, as a separate article, the format is ambiguous, as there is nothing about the phrase 05-03 that suggests it is an incomplete ISO date. 05-03 should either be deleted, made into a disambiguation page, or made into a redirect to the only sensible interpretation: 5 March ;)

Take a look at the dates of the Governors General: they are piped to the written out dates. Would this be acceptable? Eugene van der Pijll 10:50, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi Eugene. Yes, I'd be happy with the format you use for the GGs. I still have a minor issue that the ISO date format isn't detected by the 'preferences' conversion software, but that's small. I'm happy as long as we don't have to use 05-03 as a date. DJ Clayworth 14:39, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Ahh, this must be the "context". Well, the thing about article titles is you can never guarantee how they're going to be used - some European is eventually going to come along and write about 01-05-1483 and be talking about May - hence the need to disambiguate. Martin 19:32, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I Agree Martin. DJ Clayworth 20:27, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well, let's put it this way:

I intend to continue doing what I have been doing in articles where I am the one to first introduce dates, including the use of redirects.
In doing so I will only use this format when it is preceeded by the year.
If someone chooses to alter what I have done using piping to maintain the appearance, I won't revert that, but I will revert if they force some other appearance.
I will revert the change of the redirect pages into disambiguation pages. It has been more than a year since I began using this precise format, and no genuine ambiguous situation has arisen. Please note that I always use leading zeros; this would leave only three potentially ambiguous pairs of dates in the last three months of the year. The remark about what some European might eventually do is nothing more than idle speculation.
As long as the redirect technique is being used, I accept the responsibility of making sure that it works correctly.
Nobody is saying that anybody else has to use 05-03; for me it is a question of those who do want to use it being able to use it.
Tim is looking into the "preferences conversion software". I am certainly willing to be co-operative with him. ☮ Eclecticology 01:02, 2003 Nov 15 (UTC)

Regards disambiguation, perhaps I'm trying to solve future problems here:you aren't gonna need it, etc. I still feel disambiguation is the correct approach, though, but I won't edit war over it. If somone else agrees with me, they can reinstate my edits.

Regards dates - well, I've made my opinions clear enough before, as have you, so we'll have to agree to disagree here. Martin 01:25, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the Yagni reference. It's a trap that I've often fallen into. ☮ Eclecticology 02:49, 2003 Nov 15 (UTC)

Please explain how 05-03 is unambiguous. Is it May 3 or March 5? RickK 21:45, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It is May 3. It is always used with leading zeros, and always in conjunction with a year, (except, of course, in a meta-discussion such as this one). No-one AFAIK tried to claim this format before I adapted it. See Martin's Yagni reference above. ☮ Eclecticology 02:14, 2003 Nov 17 (UTC)

Speaking as a European, what you just said is completely wrong. 05-03 means 5th March in Europe, whether or not there are leading zeros. DJ Clayworth 14:23, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Having read this discussion (a bit too late) and subsequently reading up on the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) linked to from here, I'd like to make clear that my intent was not an attempt of vandalism. My intent was to make the tables of the pages PM and Pres. of India more easier to read and edit. The fully-spelled-out month names seemed to take too much space and looked disorderly stacked, whereas the existing date format (numeric month and date) was confusing to read. I basically settled on a mon dd, yyyy date format, which I felt saved valuable screen real-estate (esp. in a table) without any loss of clarity. I only ask you not revert all the edits I've made so far if you're intent on going back to the previous date format. Incidentally I'd be interested to know if anyone found it more confusing or unclear than the normal date format standards? TIA - Phil R 14:22, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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