Template talk:Birth date and age

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Template:Birth date and age is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template.

Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.
Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.
Templates for deletion This template was considered for deletion on 2007 November 8. The result of the discussion was keep.

y m d ⇒ December 25, 1984 (1984-12-25) (age 23)

{{Birth date and age|1984|12|25}}
{{Birth date and age|||}}

d= m= y= ⇒ March 12, 1990 (1990-03-12) (age 18)

{{Birth date and age|day=12|month=3|year=1990}}
{{Birth date and age|day=|month=|year=}}
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[edit] Refresh

A name parameter has just been added to {{coord}} with strong consensus after a lengthy debate for the same reasons as here. Since all the arguments were the same and there was only a single person opposing both here and there, can we now move forward and add the parameter here and to {{Birth date}} as well, by doing the required edit? --Para 11:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Suggestion: "born YYYY, age XX" variant for dab pages

Suggesting an optional parameter such as {{bda|1958|08|29|dab}} that would make its output: born 1958, age 48 (i.e. prefix "born", unlinked year only, age without parentheses). This could be used for living people entries in dab pages. So, instead of currently:

The inserted template would give us:

(It have left the parentheses out of the template, because some dab cases may need additional info inside the parentheses.)

Pros
  • Same as in infoboxes
  • This would probably provides ways to automatically detect outdated dab pages, via bot or SQL queries. (Scanning dab pages, if the entry for article John Doe uses {{bda}} but article John Doe has a death-year category, we have detected a problem, Houston.)
Cons
  • Until a dab page is updated, we could get some "Granny (born 1880, age 127)" displayed.
  • Lots of transcluded templates for non-article pages, if performances are still to be considered.

Just a thought... — Komusou talk @ 01:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Problem: Say that John Doe was born in late 1920 (month perhaps unknown), and it is early 2010. Is his age reported as 89 or as 90?

    The granularity of the data corresponds to the length of time for which the report can be wrong. If the day of birth must be given, but nothing finer, then the result may be wrong for as much as one day every year; if the month must be given, but nothing finer, then the result may be wrong for as much as thirty one days every year; if the year must be given, but nothing finer, then the result may be wrong almost constantly. —SlamDiego←T 15:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
What about "(born 1920, age 89–90)"? This is what we've done over at {{Birth year and age}}. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 22:49, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
That, or just infixing “approx ” are probably satisfactory resolutions of the problem. (Your resolution of course has the distinct advantage of bounding the approximation.) —SlamDiego←T 11:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Yup. We thought about putting "about" or "~" before the age, but decided that the simplest and clearest way was just to provide the range of ages. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think I'm in favor of this, it seems like unneedful complication of the dab pages. Remember, dab pages are simply there to navigate people to the correct page as quickly and efficiently as possible, more information than is needed to do that simply clutters things up. The year of birth is useful to tell people apart, like the American Football players Mike Smith born in 1959 Vs the Mike Smith born in 1981, but I don't think an updated age would significantly add to the utility. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 16:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Good point. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 03:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infant parameterization

This template needs to be parameterized for infants. A look at the children field in the Tiger Woods infobox is a primary example. The template should either have a parameter that calulates age in months and days or if the age is less than 1 year it should automatically do so.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

For clarity, at Tiger Woods it would make sense if the age said age 3 Mos. or age 3 Mos. 13 Days.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure, but there may also be instances where instead of age in months and days age in weeks and days may be desirable.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 22:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
How about a variation with a different name, such as {{infant birth date and age}} based on {{infant age}}? --Uncle Ed 22:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed with Ed (other than that the template he'd like to base the variant on is a redlink ;-). This template need not get any more complicated than it already is. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I intended that {infant age} be based on {{age}}, of course. ;-) --Uncle Ed 23:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I guess I will consider {{age in years and days}} or {{User current age}}.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 03:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Oops. I can't use the latter of the above as it produces a whole userbox. Is it possible to create a {{age in year and months and days}} like it though?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 03:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course it is. I don't see why you'd want a template name no one could remember though. The "infant" prefix mentioned above ought to work just fine. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Just a quick question... Is this age scheme used on both sides of the pond? I know Americans use the months figure when speaking of a child under two years of age but is this common in Brit English as well? I'm just wondering if the group that has responded to this so far are all Americans or if we have a diverse representation here. Dismas|(talk) 05:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Date mathematics templates

Shouldn't this template be included at Category:Date mathematics templates.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 12:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linking

{{editprotected}} The template should not automatically put links on the month-and-day and on the year as they are largely irrelevant to the article.--SilasW 14:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The dates are linked because when linked the WikiMedia software detects them and displays them using what ever the user's preference for date display is. See Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and Help:Preferences. -- PatLeahy (talk) 15:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I've disabled the editprotected request while discussion continues. Cheers. --MZMcBride 19:35, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Somewhere Wikipedia advises against links that do not benefit an article. I had just removed dozens of pointless month-and-day and year links from a sports article but one pair remained which trial suggested was coming from the date and age template. If it is an unsurmountable software "feature" let it stay... though simplicity...--SilasW 21:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
You're correct; this is not ideal. However, you can see the links you removed did have some purpose. There has been some work to create a syntax which separates the concepts of linking and date preferences. I followed up here to find out what is happening with that effort. -- PatLeahy (talk) 22:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add IW

Add no:Mal:Fødselsdato og alder and da:Skabelon:Dato_og_alder. Nsaa 08:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Year without month and day?

Can someone look into tweaking this template so that it accepts only the year of a person's birth? For many people, particularly those who lived centuries ago, only the year of birth is known. ({{Death date and age}} should be amended in the same way.) — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 05:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

How would the age be calculated without a date? Dismas|(talk) 05:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

{{CURRENTYEAR}}-[year of birth]. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 06:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so let's say I was born in 1980. Am I 26 or 27? Without a month and date, you don't know. Dismas|(talk) 08:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
You could subtract the birth year from the current year and add a tilde before the age. So, if only a birth year is passed to the function, for someone born in 1987, you would get 1987 (age ~20) for the rest of this year, and 1987 (age ~21) during 2008. —MJBurrage • TALK • 12:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Or have the template return "1987 (age about 21)". An example where such a modified template would be useful is the article "John Parkinson (botanist)" who lived from 1567 to 1650; neither the full date of birth nor death is known. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 13:47, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

See {{Birth year and age}} and {{Death year and age}}. -- PatLeahy (talk) 16:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the existence of these templates to our knowledge. Wouldn't it be better to combine the two templates into one? The use of superscript in {{Birth year and age}} and {{Death year and age}} looks a bit odd to me. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 04:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion: current age

{{editprotected}}I think the template should be edited to add the word "current" before "age". I can't imagine I'm the first to come up with the idea, but I didn't find a mention of it in the discussion. -Eric (talk) 16:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. This template is used in many infoboxes, where space is at a premium. --rogerd (talk) 18:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I guess it is cleaner at one line. -Eric (talk) 02:28, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Not done. Gimmetrow 05:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Format output

There's a major problem with the template, and it's to do with the output. Typically dates in Wikipedia are formatted according to:

  • American Dating: January 28, 2008 or
  • International Dating: 28 January, 2008

International Dating is actually far more common on a global basis than American Dating, but looking at Wikipedia you wouldn't know it, and it is a trivial matter to find (say) an article on an English person with their significant dates displayed in American Dating format.

You might say, so what? Just set your date preferences in your user profile and everything appears fine. 28 January 2008 looks exactly the same as January 28, 2008. Well, fine, but most of our users are casual readers who don't have accounts or user names or date preferences. They see dates in the "raw" format, regardless of personal or national preferences. The Manual of Style notes: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should generally use the more common date format for that nation; articles related to Canada may use either format consistently. Articles related to other countries that commonly use one of the two acceptable guidelines above should use that format.

However, it then goes on to say: In biographical infobox templates, provide age calculation with {{birth date and age}} for living people and {{death date and age}} for the deceased when the full birth or death date, respectively, is known.

Looking at such a template, I see: This field is only relevant for individuals. The artist's date of birth; it is preferable to use {{birth date and age}} (for example {{birth date and age|1949|12|31}}) to display current age. For dead people, use {{birth date}} (for example {{birth date|1949|12|31}}.

Editors are not told how to format output so that International Dating is used for those articles where it is appropriate. My guess is that most editors would follow the instructions, use the template, look at the output, and see the date formatted as per their preferences. They wouldn't see any problem. They wouldn't be seeing the article as a reader without an account would.

In fact, to find out how to format output, an editor has to come to the template page, where he or she finds out that an optional parameter of "df=yes" must be used. This is both obscure and non-intuitive. Not surprisingly very few editors use this parameter.

Now, I realise that very few editors would even see the problem, let alone care. Most editors, I suggest, are also American, and if they think about it at all, they would say "Meh. The world can kiss my date."

But Wikipedia is a global project, and we should be doing more about internationalisation than paying lip service.

My solution, if anybody is still reading and still cares about the quality and image of Wikipedia, is to change the input format from the neutral "year|month|day" to wikidate format. Using wikidates is easy and common, and the output format can then be the same as the input format, we don't need to have a default output and the problem disappears. However, this requires some programmer action to implement, and stirring programmers into action, especially if they can't see a problem in the first place, is one of the labours of Hercules. --Pete (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused ... ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) has been around since 1988, and we should all be using it ... what's the hold-up, people?? —72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) 17:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm confused too. Pete, what is "Wikidate format" – is it the form "2008-01-05"? If so, are you suggesting that all dates throughout Wikipedia should be displayed in that form? Honestly, I don't see how that's more intuitive than "5 January 2008" or "January 5, 2008" (plus it looks really ugly in the middle of prose). In fact, if a reader is unfamiliar with that format, he or she might think it means "1 May 2008". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 17:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Description Typo

Typo in "See Also" of template description. Says "Except that "(age ##)" appears after the death date" twice. First one should say "birth" instead of "death.24.82.158.115 (talk) 04:07, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

fixed by an admin 24.82.158.115 (talk) 05:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)