Last modified: 2008-08-26 20:21:33 UTC

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Bug 15313 - Date conversion to/from ISO 8601 creates errors for old dates
Date conversion to/from ISO 8601 creates errors for old dates
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 15311
Product: MediaWiki
Classification: Unclassified
User preferences (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Normal normal (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2008-08-25 22:05 UTC by Gerry Ashton
Modified: 2008-08-26 20:21 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
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Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments

Description Gerry Ashton 2008-08-25 22:05:05 UTC
Dates in any format except ISO 8601 (that is, like 1582-10-04) are normally understood to be in either the Julian or Gregorian calendar, whichever was in effect at the place and time of interest. The ISO 8601 standard specifies that those dates are always in the Gregorian calendar or proleptic Gregorian calendar (that is, Gregorian rules extended backward before that calendar existed). Conversion from one format to the other causes a change in the meaning of the date. There is no warning on the preferences date and time menu (at least in English) that the software has no metadata about the calendar, and has no ability to convert Julian to/from Gregorian.

Simple solution: Eliminate ISO dates as a display option.

More nuanced solution: divide the preference between

(1)general purpose dates (for which no ISO display option is offered) and 

(2)timestamps for events that occur within the servers running wikimedia software (which are almost certainly in the Gregorian calendar) for which the ISO display format is offered.

Inadequate workaround: warn on the date and time preference window that readers who choose the "2001-01-15T16:12:34" should not read any text discussing any person or event before AD 1752.
Comment 1 Brion Vibber 2008-08-26 18:38:26 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 15311 ***

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