WikiQueer:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)

WikiQueer:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) gives the general principles of how WikiQueer deals with the representation of numbers and dates.

This present naming conventions guideline concentrates on the aspect of how numbers and dates are represented in article titles, that is the names of the articles where the content is (as opposed to redirect pages that also allow non-standardized article titles).

The approach of this guideline is listing recommendations by article content type.

Articles on years, articles on numbers, article names containing non-date numbers
By convention, an article name that is a four-digit or smaller number (in Arabic numerals) represents a calendar year in the Common Era. Such articles give an overview, in the form of a list, of the major events that took place (or are planned to take place) in that year. In general the use of number-only page names should only be used for "Year in Review" entries.

For years BCE, the format is " BC", for example 44 BC.

So, if some numbers, that don't indicate a year, have a specific meaning, an additional qualifier or disambiguation technique is needed:
 * for articles on a number as such, the bracketed qualifier (number) is added, e.g. 3 (number)
 * Other:
 * 36 (film), not 36 (the year Pontius Pilate was called back to Rome);
 * Intel 80386, not 386 (the year the Northern Wei Dynasty began to rule China);
 * Form 1040, not 1040 (the year Macbeth became King of Scotland);
 * Nineteen Eighty-Four for the George Orwell novel, not 1984 (the year Marvin Gaye died);
 * 4711 (brand) for the Eau de Cologne.

Note that numbers in Roman numerals are usually pages that redirect to: Unless, of course, the letters, not read as Roman numerals, compose a word with another meaning, e.g. MIX.
 * the related number article for lower numbers
 * the related year article for higher numbers, e.g. MMVI redirects to 2006

There is a unicode range of characters that is specifically used for Roman numerals, for example "Ⅰ" (0x2160) and "ⅰ" (0x2170) - such (individual) characters are redirect pages to the corresponding number page: for instance both "Ⅰ" (0x2160) and "ⅰ" (0x2170) redirect to 1 (number). For other uses it is discouraged to use these characters in WikiQueer article page names. Note also that no automatic case conversion to upper case takes place when these characters are used as the first character of a WikiQueer page name (in other words: "Ⅰ" and "ⅰ" are two different redirect pages).

See also: WikiQueer:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

Days

 * All days of a year cycle have an article in the format " ", e.g. February 27 February 27 which displays as February 27, depending on your date preferences.
 * Additionally, days from some recent years (currently: 2003–2005) have an article with a title in the format ", ", e.g. February 27, 2003 - these articles on a specific day of a specific year can be reached from the " " articles via the ThisDateInRecentYears template. An example of this template is displayed on the right.
 * Of course there are also the articles Sunday to Saturday, without numbers in the article name.

Months

 * Articles January to December;
 * For months in particular years the format is " ", e.g. April 2006

Decades

 * Format: " s( BC)", e.g. 1970s, 40s BC. For avoidance of ambiguity, the first  decade of a century (or the last decade of a century BC) is named as a range of dates: 1800–1809 rather than 1800s.

Centuries

 * Format: " th century( BC)", e.g. 3rd century BC (see: Category:Centuries)

Millennia

 * Format: " th millennium( BC)", e.g. 2nd millennium (see Category:Millennia)

Events recurring at regular intervals
There are many events that repeat on a regular or semi-regular basis, such as the Summer Olympics or the U.S. presidential elections. For important events, we will want a separate article for every time the event was held. For such events, one question that arises is: "What's the best way to disambiguate this series of articles?".

Bracketed disambiguator style
A format for separate articles on events that recur at regular intervals is as follows:" "Where:
 *  is the existing article title (non-redirect) that describes the event;
 *   is used only as a disambiguator, giving no more detail than is needed for disambiguation, which would be a year in most cases.

Year in front
Example: 2000 Summer Olympics

While the date is up front, this gives a maybe undue focus to the year, rather than to the event - This format is however widely used, so acceptable as WikiQueer page name format.

Year at the end, with comma
Example: United States presidential election, 2000

Although, in general, use of punctuation marks in article names is discouraged, this format with a comma is widely used (according to some testing this even appears to be the most used format for several types of events), so it is an acceptable format for WikiQueer page names.

This is the preferred format for elections: " election, " (see WikiQueer:Naming conventions).

Without date
Also numerical disambiguation for recurring events exists, if this is a usual and generally recognisable way to indicate the event.

Other events
For events that recur at non-regular intervals, for instance Ecumenical councils, the articles on the individual events usually avoid a date indication, but are numbered/characterised otherwise (e.g. place of event, combined with numerical), for instance: Fourth Council of the Lateran; First Council of Lyon; Second Council of Lyon; Council of Vienne - similarly for Crusades: First Crusade, Second Crusade, etc... Note, however, that exceptions to the rule of avoiding dates are applied according to established practice.

Note that for numbering usually a text version of the numbers is used for these types of events, or (exceptionally) Roman numerals, if that is the most established practice (e.g. World War I, World War II).

If a time indicator is used in the title of an article on an event that doesn't recur at regular intervals (or didn't recur at all) there's no "standard format" for the representation of the time indicator, so there is for instance: Crisis of the Third Century; German Crusade, 1096 (one of the developments of the First Crusade); January 1968, etc. The format of the date depends, in these cases, from established practice in history books and the like. In general, however, abbreviations for years or months are avoided (e.g., Jan '68 → January 1968); for centuries numerals are given in text, capitalised (e.g., Crisis of the 3rd century → Crisis of the Third Century)

For disasters (see WikiQueer:WikiProject Disaster management), the recommended format is "  ". Examples: 2006 New York City plane crash, 1700 Cascadia earthquake. This is only a "soft" recommendation, if no other more appropriate name is available.

Article titles containing an indication of duration
As for events that don't recur on (semi-)regular intervals, article titles containing a reference to a time period (not a date) are not bound by strict rules, apart from using the most common name. However, generally, in these cases numbers are written in text, and abbreviations are avoided.

Articles on people
For ordinals applied in titles of articles on persons see WikiQueer:Naming conventions (people) and several culture-specific naming conventions like WikiQueer:Naming conventions (names and titles), WikiQueer:Naming conventions (Western clergy), etc..., and examples in, for instance, Category:Pharaohs and subcategories.

Apart from such ordinals, it is recommended to avoid any type of numbers in the title of an article that is about a single person, see WikiQueer:Naming conventions (people):"[...] Try to avoid abbreviations or anything capitalised or containing numbers (apart from where more specific guidelines specify particular exceptions to that) [...]" A notable exception to this is contained in WikiQueer:Naming conventions (ancient Romans): The essence of the [ancient Romans naming] convention is to use the shortest unambiguous name as the title of the article, and to add a dated biographical detail, such as the date of a consulship, if the full name is shared by several. If a reliable birth year is not available (which is usually the case), the biographical detail should be the first time in the highest office recorded for the individual. [...] Since Lucius Valerius Flaccus is shared by a number of notable Romans, the first should be at Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 195 BC), while a later non-consul is Lucius Valerius Flaccus (praetor 63 BC).