Thread:Shabook/@comment-26838855-20170326180253

After yesterday's discussion, I thought this through:

For hard solid, dates, for example Howard Stark's death, that would remain "Date of Death: December 16, 1991", right?

But for flexible dates that we have only reasoned out, and are not confirmed (most dates on pages), dates should not be specific, as that may give the impression to readers that that is fact, which it is not, it is fanon.

However, would that mean removing most dates from so many pages? I had a thought.

What about using the term "circa", usually shortened to "c." This term, usually used before a date, implies "approximately" for the given date - telling the reader that it is an educated guess.

So, take for example Grant Ward. His date of death according to the fanon timeline would be January 24, 2016, but this is by no means confirmed. However, it is often helpful to have some sort of date, especially for the "age" in the infobox.

So my suggestion - and I just wondered your opinion on this, would be "Date of Death: c. January 2016", using circa the reasoned month for articles, or something similar if you had another suggestion. This tells readers that this is not a factual date by any means, but that it is at least approximately close.

If you do agree, I wouldn't be able to just go and change all the dates now, nor do I expect you to want me to, but if you do agree or have a similar thought, or a system you want to employ, then over the next few months, I, and others, could ease into the new system with any new articles and/or edits that are made to existing articles, at whatever pace you wish.

Let me know what you think, thanks for your time.

Also, did you want the same rules for both character pages and events pages, or separate rules for the two? 