Talk:Macquarie Culvert

Bold formatting for Mrs Macquarie's Road

This edit removed the bold formatting from Mrs Macquarie's Road in the lead sentence. However Mrs Macquarie's Road redirects to Macquarie Culvert, so I suggest that the bold formatting is appropriate, in line with WP:R#PLA. Mitch Ames (talk) 08:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:R would seem to be at odds with MOS:BOLDTITLE. Lots of articles have redirects targeting them and we don't generally bold the names of redirects within the article. If we did, the lead would be a sea of bold in some cases. the exception is where the redirect is an alternative name for the article subject, but that doesn't apply here. This article isn't about Mrs Macquaries Road, it's about a single culvert on a road that no longer exists, so bolding the name wouldn't be appropriate. Mrs Macquaries Road does exist about 180m from the culvert, but it's in a different location to the original road, and if there was an article it wouldn't redirect here. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:37, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

" ...we don't generally bold the names of redirects within the article"
WP:R#PLA explicitly says "It will often be appropriate to bold the redirected term" - if you think this ought to change (to avoid conflict with MOS:BOLDTITLE) you might want to take it up on WT:R

The road that the article refers to is explicitly the original road, not the current road. As you say, they are two different roads, so "Mrs Macquaries Road" could refer to either of them. On reflection, I think the best solution would be to delete the redirect (thus removing any possible "requirement" to bold the road in the article), because the term is ambiguous. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:56, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

I've tagged the redirects for speedy delete. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:08, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

I've also removed the scare quotes that we added when the bold was removed. Other than the punctuation, there is no doubt about the name of the 1816 road. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:13, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Apostrophe

This edit removed the apostrophes from Mrs Macquarie's Road and Mrs Macquarie's Point, on the (quite reasonable) grounds that "NSW geographical names don't include apostrophies".

However recent discussions at

• Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Requested move
• Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Mrs Macquaries Point, Mrs Macquaries Road

suggest the apostrophe might be appropriate here. If nothing else, the articles ought to be consistent, which they currently are not. Mitch Ames (talk) 08:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The apostrophe certainly isn't appropriate for Mrs Macquaries Point. The NSW Geographical Names register is the official register for placenames and excludes the apostrophe, as is common for geographical features.[1] Roads are also geographical features and they omit apostrophes too. A search at http://maps.six.nsw.gov.au/ shows Mrs Macquaries Road without the apostrophe, as do other sources. Use of the apostrophe for Mrs Macquarie's Chair seems speculative. Unfortunately it's not listed on the GNR so it's hard to know but, if we're to be consistent then we should drop the apostrophe. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:56, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

The Point seems straightforward (no apostrophe). The Road is a different question because I doubt any modern register will show the original road, which is the one we refer to here. Dicklyon's posts at Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Mrs Macquaries Point, Mrs Macquaries Road indicate that Road definitely ("engraven in stone") has an apostrophe. The engraving above the chair is less clear - see [2]. The convention of dropping apostrophes "goes back to the 1900s", but did it apply in 1816 when the road was completed? Mitch Ames (talk) 02:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Date formats

This edit restored ISO dates, which are meant for computers, not for humans. While they're certainly permitted, they are confusing at best and lead to inconsistencies in articles, such as already exist at Mrs Macquarie's Chair. It really doesn't make a lot of sense to use different date formats in an article. I really don't see why people are so hung up on using them as they're so unnatural. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:03, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

"... ISO dates, which are meant for computers, not for humans."
Can you provide a reference to support this claim that ISO dates are "not for humans"? My copy of ISO 8601 doesn't appear to limit its scope to computers.

"While they're certainly permitted, they are confusing ... It really doesn't make a lot of sense"
Feel free to raise the matter at WT:DATE if you think that their use is bad for Wikipedia.

"... lead to inconsistencies ..."
Only when editors ignore WP:CITEVAR.

"... such as already exist at Mrs Macquarie's Chair.
OK, that was my fault, and I've fixed it.

"... I really don't see why people are so hung up on using them
Because they are "unambiguous and well-defined".

"... they're so unnatural"
How is consistently big-endian more unnatural than the mixture of big- and little-endianness of dd mmmm yyyy (dd and yyyy are internally big-endian)? How is numbering the months more "unnatural" than naming them?

Mitch Ames (talk) 02:04, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

You have to use a little commonsense here. Look around you and see how many examples of dd/mm/yy, mm/dd/yy, dd mmm yyyy and mmm dd, yyyy (and similar) date formats you can see in the real world. Now compare that to the nummber of ISO dates you see on a day to day basis. ISO dates were created well before ISO 8601 was written because computers had trouble sorting dates; the code was enormously complex, especially when many machines had 16kB or less memory. Using yyyymmdd formats released valuable memory. ISO dates really only entered the non-computer world in the leadup to the Y2K scare and they've never caught on in the real world. Just look at any book, newspaper and so on to see that. It's also why most editors use the dd mmm yyyy and mmm dd, yyyy formats, and why WP:MOSNUM says "Year-initial numerical (YYYY-MM-DD) dates (e.g. 1976-05-31) are uncommon in English prose, and should not be used within the article body". It also says "However, they may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness" but they really make little difference in references and the existing scripts that can be used to fix date insconsistencies in articles can't be used to ignore ISO dates. ISO dates simply aren't natural to the majority of our readers. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)