Author: rosspatterson

Description:
Once again the topic of auto-formatting of dates has erupted, this time on en:WP:MOSNUM. As sometimes happens, this discussion has morphed into a discussion of editors vs. readers, or more correctly registered users vs. anonymous users. The key complaint in this discussion is that auto-formatted dates don't help anonymous users (because they have no preferences), who then must suffer mixed date formats that aren't visible to registered editors. This appears to be a valid complaint.

The issue of anonymous users and lack of auto-formatting appears to be easy to solve: set a default date format of something other than "No preference". If I read the MediaWiki configuration documentation correctly, simply setting $wgDefaultUserOptions['date'] to 'mdy both' in LocalSettings.php would make the default the American English norm. While there may be some discussion of whether 'mdy both' or 'dmy both' is the better choice, I believe either is better than the current situation.

Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement