Template talk:defdate

• This is a template used to indicate when a particular sense of a word first came into use. It is still experimental. See bead for an example.— This comment was unsigned.

I have taken out the color. There was more objection to the use of color than to any other aspect of this template. The use of non-standard color draws attention. Unless the items is of very high importance, the use of color is an unjustified abuse of the user's attention, IMO. There is no evidence to justify giving dates of sense evolution to justify that kind of special attention. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:27, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Uh, okay. I did change the colour after the discussion. Ƿidsiþ 20:19, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

What's this for?

The date a word or sense first appears belongs in the Etymology section. This appears to be adding redundant clutter to entries. —Michael Z. 2011-12-12 20:54 z

• Well, consider an entry like mark. Just how many dates do you want in the Etymology section? Ƿidsiþ 20:59, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

  This is really pretty good for getting toward OED-level comprehensiveness within our practical limits. The small size and placement at the end of a sense line minimizes the clutter, IMO. Consider the contrast in intrusiveness with {{dated}}, {{obsolete}}, and {{archaic}}. In particular, {{dated}} was supposed to accomplish the same result. This template is more fact-based than the often arbitrary assignment of "obsolete" and "archaic". DCDuring TALK 21:39, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

RFD discussion: November 2018–May 2019

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Template:defdate

This template is misused, inaccurate, or unreferenced almost everywhere it occurs. As a particularly egregious example, see mark. It purports to provide some degree of research into an entry's definitions that we almost certainly did not do. In cases where it is not referenced it is often plagiarized from sources like the OED. We should be providing textual evidence for datings and not random, unsubstantiated notes at the end of definitions. DTLHS (talk) 19:05, 6 November 2018 (UTC)`

Keep. There are serious problems with this template, but I don't see how deleting it is a solution. I have seen a great deal of examples that are not misused or inaccurate and need not be referenced because they are original research, just like our definitions. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:42, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep It looks nice and is useful. Including on mark it is beauteous. We should be providing textual evidence for datings but we can’t; also some would go to to other language headers (Old English for quotations for “mark”, when the given date is “9th century” …). Plagiarizing dates is nothing that should raise an eyebrow, it’s like plagiarizing mathematical formulas. Also senses are often sorted by chronological appearance anyway, this template just makes it explicit. Fay Freak (talk) 00:02, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

It is in no way like plagiarizing mathematical formulas. Assigning a date to a specific sense is a subjective exercise that depends heavily on the researchers available sources and what they consider English. It is the worst kind of dishonesty, and we're presenting it like we have some kind of crystal ball into the past of English. "This definition is from X year" is not a mathematical fact, it is the product of serious scholarship and requires evidence to back it up. Cite your sources and stop pretending like you came up with it out of nowhere. DTLHS (talk) 00:35, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Reform the system somehow (???). —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 00:38, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep. At least some of the data is useful. I am certain that we will never have sufficient citation information to replace what {{defdate}} instances have, let alone all the definitions that have no such information and sorely need it. There are important unaddressed issues about sense dating, eg, How uncommon does a term have to be in a century before we show it as out of use? But we do not even have relative frequency indicators for current usage, which allows users (including those who prepare FL entries here) to believe that rare and obsolete terms are suitable for use in definitions. DCDuring (talk) 02:52, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep. Sometimes assigning a date is subjective; sometimes (e.g. when there’s only one sense and a well-defined corpus) it’s objective. Sometimes original research is done (I often comb through Egyptian attestations in various sources to check attestation dates) or sources are cited; sometimes they aren’t. There are many given dates that are neither bad nor copyvios. The rest should be improved. (As far as the particular case of the OED goes, the earlier fascicles of the first edition OED are in the public domain, so many of the apparent copyvios are probably not such in any case.) Providing textual evidence for every dating would be ideal, but deleting all attestation dates seems like the wrong way to go about getting it. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 03:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I never said anything about copyright. Copying from a free resource is just as bad if no attribution is given. DTLHS (talk) 03:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Right, sorry, I must have mentally blurred this discussion together with the other current discussion about defdate. If there’s no legal issues involved, that’s all the more reason to improve what we have/add attributions or other evidence rather than delete, IMO. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep. It is true that in quite a number of cases we don't have the evidence to accurately provide accurate datings of senses without borrowing them from other sources. On the other hand, in other cases we do have such information – when the coinage is fairly recent and can be pinned down to a particular writer's work. — SGconlaw (talk) 03:16, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep per above. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:19, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Keep Jberkel 01:19, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Delete as visual noise placed on definition lines behind definitions, adding very little value to the main use case of a dictionary. Those who want to know the date of the first quotation should look at quotations, whether in the mainspace or in Citations: namespace. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:53, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Keep - as argued above. "plagiarized from sources like the OED" - if it's not a copyvio, it's not a problem. sources should be properly cited, but the OED doesn't "own" the research; word origins/1st known useage are facts, whoever looked it up. intellectual property is bad, but it's not that bad. yet. when ip gets that bad, it's time for the revolution... :p Lx 121 (talk) 13:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Kept.—msh210℠ on a public computer 13:19, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Oops

Sorry, I've been using this wrong on loads of entries. I forgot the "from" bit, putting {{defdate|19th century}} instead of {{defdate|from19th century}}. Just a note so it can be fixed, or reverted, or I get punishment for screwing up again... MooreDoor (talk) 19:34, 21 November 2021 (UTC)