Template talk:Birth date and age/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Edit request from Robertmdorman, 20 September 2011

Quentins Year of birth is 1980 as stated in his Bio on his official website. Please make corrections

Robertmdorman (talk) 19:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This page is for making changes to the template itself, not the uses thereof. You need to change that on the article page or ask for it on the article's talk page. Skier Dude (talk) 04:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Age doesn't show up on mobile wikipedia

when you view a page using this template through the mobile version of wikipedia, the age doesn't show up. Is this supposed to happen, because it doesn't seem like it should? 128.113.17.57 (talk) 21:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

It should show; sounds like a CSS issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

comparing the html of the mobile and regular views, the span tag that holds the age doesn't even show up. Do you know who else to report this to? Zr2d2 (talk) 20:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Try WP:VPT; I've notified the mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailing list. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:03, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

From the mailing list:

This seems to be because the age is in a span tag with the "noprint" class applied. The mobile frontend code strips out noprint sections.

Why is this necessary? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

the noprint class applied to the span was my conclusion. I think people viewing wikipedia on mobile devices should be able to see a person's age Zr2d2 (talk) 20:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I guess the reasoning is that the age should not be printed as it is subject to change over time; i.e. it is a dynamic field. — Edokter (talk) — 12:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed; but that's not a reason not to show it to people viewing our mobile site. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like you fixed it. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Not really fixed, just hacked around. Anyone interested should follow bugzilla:33189 (or maybe bugzilla:29157). --MZMcBride (talk) 23:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Should "age" be changed to make it clearer that it refers to the present age of the person?

One detail of the "Birth Date and Age" template may confuse readers.

The problem occurs at the point where the subject's current age is shown.

As an example, consider the article "Shirley MacLaine." The template, which includes Ms. MacLaine's photograph, appears as follows:

Birth date and age/Archive 3
Shirley MacLaine in 1987
Born	Shirley MacLean Beaty (1934-04-24) April 24, 1934 Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Actress, singer, dancer, author, activist
Years active	1953–present
Spouse(s)	Steve Parker (m. 1954–82, divorced)
Children	Sachi Parker
Relatives	Warren Beatty (brother)

Everything under the heading "Born" pertains, as expected, to MacLaine's birth. Everything except the parenthesized phrase, "(age 77)."

At first glance, it is not immediately clear when Ms. MacLaine was, is, or will be 77.

Was she 77 at birth? Clearly not.

Was she 77 when this photo was taken? Initially, that seems the most logical conclusion. But that is not correct either.

Having twice failed to bind the stated age with a date, the reader must cast around and conclude that the stated age applies to now.

This "age today" feature confuses me every time I see it. One might conclude that I am simply a dunderhead -- likely true. But the fact that this layout confuses me might indicate -- does, I think, indicate -- that many other dunderheads are similarly confused.

This leads me to propose a small alteration in the appearance of the template, one which will speak clearly to those who, like me, are easily confused, yet will in no way impede those more insightful readers who immediately understand that "(age 77)" refers to the subject's age right now.

Instead of the appearance above, I suggest that the output of the template should look something like the following, where for ease of alignment I have used fixed-width type:

Born	   Shirley MacLean Beaty
           April 24, 1934 
           Current age: 77
           Richmond, Virginia, U.S.

Occupation Actress, singer, dancer, author, activist

Years      1953–present
active

Spouse     Steve Parker 
           (m. 1954–82, divorced)

Children   Sachi Parker

Relatives  Warren Beatty (brother)

Here is an alternative that adds no height:

Born	   Shirley MacLean Beaty
           April 24, 1934 (age now 77)
           Richmond, Virginia, U.S.

Occupation Actress, singer, dancer, author, activist

Years      1953–present
active

Spouse     Steve Parker 
           (m. 1954–82, divorced)

Children   Sachi Parker

Relatives  Warren Beatty (brother)

I'd prefer we said "Current age: 77" rather than "age now 77". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Changed first example in accord with Pigsonthewing's suggestion. Other arrangements are possible.Dratman (talk) 20:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Tried in sandbox and results seen at Template:Birth date and age/testcases and here. It may be necessary to have <br>(current age. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I've never been confused by this and now that it's pointed out, I still don't see how someone could make the mistake of thinking that the age refers to the person's age at the time of the photo. They're separated by enough space that I don't think of it as a caption. Dismas|^(talk) 02:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Keep as is: it is crystal clear from the first glance that the age means the person's age, not the age when photo taken, not the age of birth, not the age as of other events in the article, and not the ages of children and relatives. Just nothing to discuss. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 18:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

• The unsurprising fact that some people find the existing template completely clear has no bearing on the question of whether a significant number of people find it confusing. Since including the word "present" does no harm to those who already understand, and since the proposed change takes little space, I am asking for reasons why this change should not be made, rather than reasons the change is unnecessary. Before answering, please look at CambridgeBayWeather's example. It is always better to err on the side of clarity if the cost is small. The question is, what possible harm could come from adding the word "present"? — Dratman (talk) 05:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Should "age" be changed to make it clearer that it refers to the present age of the person.CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Keep as is. As noted by Mr. Czarkoff above, that is very hard (read, impossible for the average person) to misinterpret. St John Chrysostom ^view/_my bias 02:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

  Keep as is I really don't see how any reasonable person could get confused about this. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 10:25, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

  Keep as is. I don't see how this can be confusing. We put it next to the birth date - that makes it pretty clear that this is just a way to save you from having to do the mental arithmetic to work out the current age. SteveBaker (talk) 02:01, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

  Keep as is: not confusing in anyway that I see. --lTopGunl (talk) 00:06, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Add hidden sort key

Can somebody please add a hidden sort key so that the dates using this template can be sorted when in a table? It currently does not work properly, perhaps the template:dts function or similar can be added to this template? I have updated the sandbox template with my own suggestion which moves existing text.

Birth date and age template	Birth date and age template (sandbox)	Dts template
(1987-02-04) February 4, 1987		February 4, 1987
(1963-03-05) March 5, 1963		March 5, 1963
(1993-08-07) August 7, 1993		August 7, 1993
(1973-05-04) May 4, 1973		May 4, 1973

TheBigJagielka (talk) 12:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Please note earlier discussion, relating to a sister template, at Template talk:Start date#reorder output to make sortable. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:15, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Glitchy, or just me?

I happened to be looking at the page Junior Brown a few minutes ago and noticed that while he was born on June 12, 1952, his age was listed as 59. Tracking through the source code brought me to this page, which has code beyond my understanding, so I figured I'd just leave a note. Double-checking the original page, his age now shows 60, however. I don't know what went glitchy, but since it happened, I just figured I'd mention it. --BBrucker2 (talk) 21:03, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Something similar is going on with Patrick Wolf. He's still listed as 29 (turned 30 on 30 June), even after I made a minor edit to try and jiggle it. Almost looks as if it's a bit slow to update.
—Leif Arne Storset 16:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

He is 29. His birth year is listed as '83 which would make him 29, not 30. Dismas|^(talk) 23:04, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Birthdates converted to Skype phone numbers?

From Talk:Prem Rawat#Info box, it seems an editor is this template from an article due to his getting a Skype phone number on the birthdate/age. It seems like an IE/Skype plugin overreaction to the hidden ISO numeric date string. Would there be an effective fix for this, or should we avoid pandering to isolated MS/Skype defects? Dl2000 (talk) 15:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Ask Skype to fix their buggy plugin. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:52, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 6 December 2012

Subject Allan Stewart Comedian - Birth date is incorrect in the box. I have corrected it further down the item but cannot change the protected box. I am his brother-in-law.

Brachy8 (talk) 12:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Birth date and age/Archive 3}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 December 2012

Art Larsen passed away Dec 7, 2012 in San Leandro, Ca. He was 87.

68.12.106.44 (talk) 04:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template {{Birth date and age}}. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 31 July

Please wrap (age x) to <small> tags.--Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 21:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Why? Dismas|^(talk) 00:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Not a good idea, for accessibility reasons. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:05, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with you. I've suggested this, because I've seen it in other templates, for example in: Template:Start date and age. Besides this, <small>, a HTML standard is just to use it in appropriate cases, example: Edit summary. --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 14:51, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Not done: I've marked the request as answered for now - admins are only allowed to answer protected edit requests if there is a consensus for them, and that doesn't seem to be the case here. Perhaps ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 16:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Use more than once in an article?

Is there some technical reason, this template can only be used once in an article? If yes, this should be added to the documentation, and the template could be expanded to red text flag the additional uses. (This edit prompted this question https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zo%C3%AB_Keating&curid=577042&diff=574858996&oldid=571160501 ). -- Lentower (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

It's obviously technically possible since the previous version of the article used it twice. But it wasn't necessary. The DOB is already in the lead as well as the infobox. Dismas|^(talk) 15:33, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I made the edit mentioned above. I have been updating articles for living people that use {{Birth date}} in the infobox to use {{Birth date and age}} instead. While doing that I have come across a few articles which used the birth date templates twice, once in the infobox and again in the text. I reviewed Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Opening paragraph and it refers to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Dates of birth and death, which states:

• Dates of birth and death are provided in articles on people, generally at the start of articles.
• For an individual still living: "Serena Williams (born September 26, 1981)"
• In biographical infobox templates, provide age calculation and microformat compatibility with date mathematics templates.

I cannot speak to the issue of whether two birth date templates for the same person in a single article for causes any technical issues; for that you'd need to ask someone more familiar with the microformats emitted by these templates. However, I can say from having edited many biography articles over the years that the vast majority of articles I have seen do NOT use these templates twice; they use the template in the infobox and plain text in the article, such as "(born September 26, 1981)" or "(born 26 September 1981)". -- Zyxw (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Comma or semicolon instead of parens?

A few times recently, such as in this edit to Philip Heymann, I've wanted to change an article with text like "John Q. Public (born January 1, 1900)" to show the age. But the two options with this template don't seem very good. Just applying the bda template gives "John Q. Public (born January 1, 1900 (aged 113))" which nests parens and looks bad. And of course, the age could be given twice, but that's error prone since a person may update one and not the other. Is it reasonable to ask for an option to this template to produce "John Q. Public (born January 1, 1900; age 113)"? Am I missing something? Thanks! jhawkinson (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that is a good idea for biography articles, but only those without an infobox (the example which comes to mind is composers, where the consensus of WikiProject Composers is that the lead should not contain an infobox by default, per Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers#Biographical infoboxes). Note that the similar template {{Start date and age}} does have a parameter to change to separator between the date and the age. Until such a change is implemented here, you might consider the following:

• Entry: (born October 30, 1932; age {{age|1932|10|30}})
• Result: (born October 30, 1932; age 91)

-- Zyxw (talk) 16:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Age in years + months + days

Any template to calculate age with more details? For example: (age 30 years, 4 months, 10 days) instead of years-only (age 30). --Zyma (talk) 20:26, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

User:Zyma, I figured that a list of people in office would have that so I checked List of Presidents of the United States by time in office which lead me to Template:Age in years, months and days. Dismas|^(talk) 00:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Dismas, good, but I want a similar template like "Birth date and age". We give birth date to it and it calculates age in years, months, days. --Zyma (talk) 04:53, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That's exactly what this does. Or do you mean that you want it to include the word "age" before the figures? I don't see anything that includes the word "age" in the output, so you might have to make something based on that template. Dismas|^(talk) 05:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but I want another version of this current template that returns "exact age" not just years. For example, If I give it 1982-12-29, It returns 31 years, 3 months, 2 days (current age, 2014-03-31). The current template only returns "age 31". I want something like this: Please see, Age Calculator . --Zyma (talk) 11:01, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I still don't understand because I thought that's exactly what I linked to. If you put 1982-12-29 in to the above template you get 41 years, 4 months and 22 days. So what else do you want? Do you want the hours and seconds as well like what your link provides? Dismas|^(talk) 13:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Solved. Oops... Sorry... Dismas, you're right. That template mentioned by you is what I really need. I've tested it. Just my carelessness. Thanks. --Zyma (talk) 06:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Nowrap

This template never used to create linebreaks in infoboxes before the (age xx) part until recently...does anyone know what happened and if it can be changed back? Connormah (talk) 00:30, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Template does not detect invalid month values

I just came across an edit in which an editor added an invalid month value to this template, but the template did not display an error message.

The template should populate an error category, and optionally display an error message, when it is given an invalid date. Invalid dates would include dates in the future, months less than 1 or greater than 12, or days less than 1 or greater than the number of days in the specified month. Optionally, the template could look for ages greater than known human life spans.

Here are some examples of invalid dates that display without an error:

• {{birth date and age/sandbox|1923|19|16|df=y}} → (invalid month)
• {{birth date and age/sandbox|1923|0|16|df=y}} → (invalid month)
• {{birth date and age/sandbox|2023|9|16|df=y}} → (invalid year)
• {{birth date and age/sandbox|1723|9|16|df=y}} → (invalid year – person is dead)
• {{birth date and age/sandbox|2013|9|32|df=y}} → (invalid day)
• {{birth date and age/sandbox|2013|9|0|df=y}} → (invalid day)

My template-editing skills are not sufficient to add this feature. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I have added some crude date error detection and error messages in the sandbox. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I am doing some validation work and in a run of 10,000 biographies, I found 10 birth/death templates that had invalid dates. A small percentage but it equates to over 1000 invalid templates lurking. I came to the talk page to bring this up and found that User:Jonesey95 already has a solution. What do we need to implement it across the various birth/death templates? Periglio (talk) 23:09, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Periglio that building validation into this template would be a very good idea. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 00:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Can a template editor please copy the sandbox code into this template in order to implement the error checking and categorization shown above? If there is a better way to do this error checking, feel free to improve upon my crude coding. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:21, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

If the roll out is a success, a similar edit will be appreciated on the remaining birth/death templates - which raises the question should the maintenance category be a more generic Pages using templates with an invalid date parameter Periglio (talk) 09:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I count 15 birth and death date templates. Some of them have some error checking already, but I did not see any categorization, which is the only way to track down these errors systematically. I would be willing to try to add error checking to additional templates.

The category name I have chosen is too specific to cover all of the templates. The one suggested immediately above is too general. It would imply that Category:CS1 errors: dates would be a subcategory, for example.

How about "Pages using age template with invalid date" or "Pages using birth/death/age template with invalid date"? – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:02, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: One thought about this before we implement it - perhaps we should make the maximum allowed age greater than 125? The oldest person ever was 122 when they died, and that figure can only increase in the future. This might result in an embarrassing situation for us when one day the oldest person in the world has "invalid age" displayed in the infobox of their Wikipedia article. I would suggest something like 150 - I don't think anyone will be reaching that age any time soon. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:06, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

That's fine with me. Maybe 130? I figured that 125 gave us enough breathing room, and as soon as someone reached 125 and the template spat out an error, we'd hear about it here and make the trivial fix. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Not before somebody spots it and writes a blog post or news article about it. :) I still think 130 is a little dangerous. 140 should be safe for quite a while, and 150 should be safe for a long while. But don't underestimate the capacity of people to forget to update templates when they seem to be working with no errors... — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 03:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I've edited the sandbox so that the code is easier to read and uses less #ifexpr statements. I've also made the error message and the category only display in the main namespace - is this desirable? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:15, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, on second thoughts, I've made the error message display in all namespaces. The category is still only activated in the main namespace. That's probably better for writing test cases, etc. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 02:20, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

That's more or less how we do it with CS1 citation errors. The errors display in all namespaces so that editors can show examples of the error messages (e.g. on Talk pages) and so that editors can be alerted that they have made an error (e.g. on Draft pages), but Categories are applied only to namespaces for which it makes sense to do so. You can look at the note on a page like Category:CS1 errors: DOI to see the namespaces that are not "categorized".

Are we ready to move the sandbox over to the template? I'm curious to see how many erroneous template parameters are out there. And if it works well, we can roll out similar code to the other age templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I've updated the main template. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 04:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Interested editors can see the growing category (74 pages at this writing) at Category:Pages using age template with invalid date. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:44, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Question about error message

Hi. I found this conversation after the number of pages transcluding {{error}}s went from zero to 546 overnight (which happens to also be the population of Category:Pages using age template with invalid date.

So the first thing I noticed is that {{birth date and age|1935|28|5|df=y}} results in:

So what's so invalid about April? Why does the template translate 28 to April?

I see, and 29 is May... shouldn't the template just suppress the display of day and month when the month is greater than 12? Just show the year alone and hope that at least that's correct.

Anyhow, elevating these to {{error}} status puts them in my highest priority queue. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The first one I fixed, was vandalism by a one-edit IP... this error check is another excellent vandalism detector. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:49, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Suppressing it would make new errors a lot less likely to be caught by editors unfamiliar with the template. As for why 28 becomes April, that's because Template:MONTHNUMBER uses {{#expr:(((10.5+{{{1}}})round 0)mod 12)+1}} to calculate the month number if it is passed a number, and if you plug 28 in there it works out to 4. I imagine it was made to work with modulo 12 so that it could play nicely with other templates, although it seems to have backfired in this case. Personally, I think we should work on adding all of the age templates to Module:Age, which is already quite well-developed. That would enable us to catch dates like 30 February and 31 June, and would mean uniform error checking across all of the different templates. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Go for it! Wbm1058 (talk) 15:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The second one I fixed was someone who died long ago. The documentation says This form is only intended for living persons. but doesn't say exactly what to use instead for dead persons. I assume that my fix was the correct thing to do? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Item #3: So we shouldn't use this for organizations, like the Continental Army in Military history of the United States. Is there an alternative template for organizations, which can "live" much longer than us mere mortals? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Item #4: I imagine that transposed dates may be a common error. Probably a mistake not to require named parameters for the month and day of birth. This error check will not catch transpositions when the day of birth is between the 1st and 12th day of the month. Not sure what we can do about that at this point. – Wbm1058 (talk) 15:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

In answer to the original question: this template takes year, month, and day as arguments, in that order. "28" is not a valid month.

I have updated the text on the Category page to explain how to fix common errors. For someone who is dead, use {{birth date}} instead.

I think {{Start date}} is the right template for organizations. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:13, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Item #5: Given that this edit introduced the error, I see that template:Birth date hasn't had this error check added to it yet. The lead just says "born 1934". I might guess that the intended date is April 21, but would need to look for confirmation of that. My inclination is to remove the month and day, rather than assume or guess. But certainly {{Birth date|1934|21|04}} displaying (1934-09-04)September 4, 1934 (September 4, 1934) is an error on our part, which isn't even being reported yet! Wbm1058 (talk) 16:23, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

You are correct. Please read the discussion above. By my count, there are 15(see below) of these age templates. The idea was to apply the error checking to this template to make sure it worked as intended without significant negative side effects, then roll out error checking to the other templates. We are on day one of the implementation, so we are still in the learning phase.

It would probably be better to roll up some or all of these templates into a more comprehensive set of two or three templates instead of having a different template to maintain for each minor variation. For example, there could be a parameter |age= that would control whether or not the age was displayed. That could cut the number of templates roughly in half. I am not a programmer, however, and I suspect that a clever person could merge most of these templates (or create a Lua module) into a very small number.

If you find types of errors that are not described in the Category page's explanatory text, feel free to add them.

P.S. You're welcome! I'm so happy that I could provide you with some useful, satisfying work to do. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I stand corrected. There are more than 15 of these templates. The navbox does not list {{age for infant}}, {{age in weeks}}, {{age in months}}, and a number of others. This is definitely a nice little challenge for someone who is looking for a template merging project. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:00, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes this is what happens when things are designed by a committee of independently working editors. I'm amazed that this problem, as widespread as it is, hasn't been noticed and dealt with much sooner. I'm a retired programmer, but Mr. Stradivarius is more up-to-date and fluent with Lua, so is our go-to guy for the coding fixes. Believe me, I have no problems finding work to do. I'd much rather delegate repairs of this sort to other volunteers, so I can focus on more programming-related tasks. But I've found that a lot of gruntwork doesn't get done unless you do it yourself. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:05, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Just want to add my thanks too for getting this implemented. Periglio (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Templates are sharing the same documentation

Template:Birth date is using Template:Birth date and age/doc, which makes the advice on when to use {{Birth date}} rather than {{Birth date and age}} doubly confusing. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:36, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

It uses code such as this to know what to display

{{#ifeq:{{#titleparts:{{PAGENAME}}|1}}|Birth date and age — Wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Another reason to merge some of these templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Progress tracking

• 415 remaining articles in Category:Pages using age template with invalid date, get 'em while they're hot! Wbm1058 (talk) 14:14, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
• 365 left. Wbm1058 (talk) 12:50, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
• 222 left. Thanks for the help, whoever is working on this. Much appreciated! Wbm1058 (talk) 14:36, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
• After a bit of effort I have got it down to three lists, of which the errors are not obvious. MilborneOne (talk) 19:20, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

In the List of archdeacons in the Church of England and the two other lists, the erroneous date is hidden inside a <span style="display: none;"> block. Search for display: none;">{{birth in the wikitext to locate it. I have to run, otherwise I'd fix it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:41, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

OK the user had a dummy date of 2038 in the hidden template, corrected, down to zero. MilborneOne (talk) 12:59, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Well done. Any objections to adding error checking to {{Death date and age}}, which appears to be roughly as popular as this one? I have added error-checking code to Template:Death date and age/sandbox. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:06, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Birth date

I noticed we are now getting errors because the {{birth date}} will not accept missing date like the {{birth year and age}} does, can we display the date of birth for those that have died if only the year or year/month are known? MilborneOne (talk) 20:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

A lot of the articles are just using the date in plain text rather than use a template. MilborneOne (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

See the category page for helpful tips. In this case, use {{Birth-date}} if only the year or the year/month is known. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Error checking for {{Birth year and age}}

I have added error checking to the sandbox for {{Birth year and age}}. See Template talk:Birth year and age to comment. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:24, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Default to smaller font size for age in parentheses

As Template:Marriage just smaller-sized contents within parentheses, I feel this template could also take the same approach for consistency and better visual. Timmyshin (talk) 13:45, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Birth: (1962-12-20) December 20, 1962

Marriage

Dave

​

​

(m. 1995; div. 2002)​

I think I agree the smaller size looks better> Just needs someone to do a sample across all the birth/death templates Periglio (talk) 19:53, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Allow optional parameters, making the "age" indication more useful

A number of pages present an incomplete birth date (e.g. only the year is specified). In these cases, this template can't be used. Wouldn't it be better to let these pages use the template anyway and show an "age" estimate instead of the exact age? For example, if the birth date is 1950, one could use {{Birth date and age|1950|?|?}} and the page would show 1950 (age 64-65) instead of just 1950. In fact, since today it's almost 2016, the age must be either 64 (e.g. if born on Dec 31) or 65 (e.g. if born on Jan 1). I think it's better to show two "possible ages" instead of showing nothing at all --William Di Luigi (talk) 02:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Nevermind, I realized there is {{Birth year and age}} which does exactly that. But still, why are there two templates to do the same thing?--William Di Luigi (talk) 02:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Extra space

I'm seeing an unwanted space after age, i.e. (age--100). See also Template talk:Spanish name#Double space. SLBedit (talk) 02:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Let's try it: (1993-02-04) February 4, 1993

Only one space there.

Let's try it for age 100: (1915-02-04) February 4, 1915

Only one space there too. Can you provide an example of this double-spacing? It may have been a temporary problem with WP. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:00, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I see two spaces instead of one. There are spaces also before m(etres). SLBedit (talk) 03:15, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I see one space. Perhaps this is a browser issue? Could you tell us what browser you're using? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 05:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It's probably other issue on my side. SLBedit (talk) 16:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

No birth date

Corbin Braxton (Virginian), has an unknown birth date. The parameter in the info box for date of birth does not allow for "unknown", but it does allow "0000" for a birth year without generating an error message.

But at age of death, the infobox does not allow for 0000, nor unknown, nor unk, so an “Expression error: missing operand” is generated.

Is there a convention to use here? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:42, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@TheVirginiaHistorian: For the death date you need {{death date}} instead of {{death date and age}}. ({{death-date}} would work as well.) I've made the change in the article for you. For the birth date, I'm not sure there is a way to specify "unknown" in machine-readable format, so I just removed the birth date template altogether. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:31, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. The situation doesn't come up often, and will less so as I advance in the Charts of Virginia Conventions delegates. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:47, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 13 March 2017

Add date of death March 13th, 2017 173.49.208.203 (talk) 18:44, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Not done - this template is for birth dates only, I suspect from your question that you want to change a date on an article. If you are not sure how then perhaps as at Talk:Morton Deutsch, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 18:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

An infant parameter

Could someone add an |infant=yes parameter? So instead of {{birth date and age|2016|11|28}} and {{death date and age|2017|7|28|2016|8|4}} appearing respectively as 28 November 2016 (age 0) and 28 July 2017 (aged 0), the "0" is replaced with their age in months and days i.e. 28 November 2016 (age 8 months and 3 days) and 28 July 2017 (aged 11 months and 24 days). It would save having to use {{Age for infant}}.--Nevé–selbert 19:07, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

•  Note: We could have a |super=yes parameter for the extremely old, e.g. Jeanne Calment, also.--Nevé–selbert 19:12, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template.

On the substance of the request, wouldn't it be more sensible to change the template's default action for ages <1 or >115 rather than add extra parameters? Cabayi (talk) 20:06, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of that. If that's indeed possible then yes, Cabayi, that would be more sensible. Not sure whether that might make it harder to code, though.--Nevé–selbert 21:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC about whether there should be an infant month-day and super year-day parameter

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

General consensus seems to be that for infants under 2 years, age should automatically be displayed in months and days. The situation is however, slightly different with regards to supercentenarians. Multiple comments opposed a year-age breakdown viewing it as innappropriate (see in particular the comments left by Mandruss and MarnetteD). Comments in support of automatic date conversion give reasons of convenience and simplicity for both proposals. None of the supporting !votes consider whether having a year-day display for super-centenarians is desirable in the first place, with the exception of that of SMcCandlish which is neutral on the matter. Further to this Longevity is a controversial topic on Wikipedia, and as such it would be foolish to implement an automatic function relating to super-centenarians without properly considering its merits. For theses reasons I do not believe there is consensus to implement an automatic year-day function for super-centenarians. Brustopher (talk) 17:08, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

---

Would it be a good idea to have |infant=yes and |super=yes parameters? So instead of having to use {{Age for infant}}, |infant=yes would display the age of said infant in months and days rather than years. With super-centenarians, |super=yes would display their age in years and days, rather than just years. Relisted by Cunard (talk) at 18:42, 15 October 2017 (UTC) per Snuge purveyor's review, "lots of suggestions, none in agreement". --Nevé–selbert 23:29, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

•  Note: This RfC applies to Template:Death date and age also.--Nevé–selbert 23:30, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
• Idea: Have the parameters named |md=yes (for months and days) and |yd=yes (for years and days) instead.--Nevé–selbert 08:07, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not sure how an infant is going to meet WP:GNG. For SC's months and days are no more important than for anyone under 100 and we don't need a countdown clock. MarnetteD|Talk 23:48, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

  For example, Prince George of Cambridge born 22 July 2013 (current article created 27 June 2013) ; Princess Charlotte of Cambridge born 2 May 2015 (article created 8 September 2014). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:11, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting my incorrect assumption R. I had not taken royalty into account. I wonder how many of these kinds of articles will exist at any one time. I still don't think that the parameter is useful. Where would it stop - age one? After it stops how would moving the BDA info to the regular field be done. I understand that others will disagree but I just don't see a beneft to readers — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarnetteD (talk • contribs) 16:40, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

After it stops how would moving the BDA info to the regular field be done.

By removing the |infant=yes parameter. This is meant to be a technical proposal aimed at benefiting editors rather than readers. Instead of having to use {{age for infant}} for young royals and the like, or {{age in years and days}} for the oldest people on Earth such as Violet Brown, editors can simply use a parameter to do just what those templates offer. It would probably mean deprecating {{age for infant}}, as the new parameter would render that template redundant.--Nevé–selbert 20:14, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) While I haven't yet used these parameters in the course of my work, I think it will work. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 01:22, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose (as discussed in the edit request above) If this behaviour is desirable then it's desirable for ALL infants/super-centenarians and should be produced automatically by the template - it shouldn't require the use of an extra parameter. Cabayi (talk) 06:25, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

  I replied to you above and you did not bother to answer. @Redrose64: Do you know whether it would be possible to do it automatically? Thanks.--Nevé–selbert 08:13, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

  bother? There was nothing there that required a reply. Cabayi (talk) 09:03, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

  This would be the {{age}} template. It returns ages in years: {{age|2017|8|1}} → 6; {{age|2017|1|1}} → 7; {{age|2016|8|1}} → 7. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:51, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

  But not in months & days or years & days? So, I guess there is no automatic way of having this done then.--Nevé–selbert 22:45, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

  Yes, there is: but what I'm saying is that to do this, {{age}} needs modification; and that in turn could affect several other templates. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:53, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

  If you could do it, that would be great.--Nevé–selbert 22:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

•  Note: Perhaps the proposed names for the parameters are a tad subjective. |md=yes and |yd=yes sounds better.--Nevé–selbert 08:07, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
• Comment (RFCbot invite) - I'm wondering if this shouldn't a question of an automatic function and its nullifying operator. So people under age 2 or over age 105 would just automatically get month/day or year/day, unless you set extreme_age_days=no. Just a thought, not a formal proposal. That way, there's no maintenance when a child turns some magic age, nor when a centenarian reaches that magic point. VanIsaac_WS^cont 03:37, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

  @Vanisaac: I would totally prefer an automatic function, and that may help to bring this discussion to an early close.--Nevé–selbert 14:57, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Alternately an extreme_age_days=yes could force the behaviour at any age. So the absence of that parameter would invoke the predefined age limits (which i am sure someone will eventually will want an override for as well) Agathoclea (talk) 07:30, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
• Comment No need for a parameter; simply code the template to use "months and days" if the value is less than a year (or two years, or whatever is agreed). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:02, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
• Merge, but use a single parameter: We routinely merge templates that don't differ from each other but for a minor output change that can be coded as a parameter. The "clean" way to do this is |display=md and |display=yd, with any other option producing the default output. This will obviate having to code up any error handling, e.g. for invalid input or for conflicting |infant=yes|super=yes in the same template, or |md=yes|yd=yes in the same template, both of which could happen with the above proposals (the second being more likely, i.e. because someone thinks "if I turn on both options, I'll get years, and months, and days"; avoid any confusion by giving a single parameter with limited and mutually exclusive output options). That's only if we actually want to use down-to-the-day ages for supercentenarians in the first place.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:49, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
  I also have no objection to the automation sub-proposal, if that's what consensus wants.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:20, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I wrote a couple of date modules that handle durations and more—some of the existing templates have edge cases where the result is not quite right. See {{time interval}} and the demo {{extract}} for some usage notes. I chose |show=md rather than |display=md. The modules are used for {{age in years and days}} and {{age in years and months}} but I ran out of energy before proposing wider deployment. The modules have the logic to emulate {{age for infant}} but I haven't done anything with the birth date part of this template. I'm mentioning that because the modules should be used if a merge is wanted. Johnuniq (talk) 05:46, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Snuge purveyor (talk) 00:26, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose this seems more of a novelty than an actual useful addition. Pincrete (talk) 09:02, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

  Note that there are two proposals, that is we either add a parameter or have the template display said functions automatically.--Nevé–selbert 19:21, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

• No new parameters for such trivialities.
  For the wee ones: Days are overly precise, just as months would be overly precise for an adult. Modify the code to automatically show age in months up to 24 months, then switch to years. Technical details to be determined separately by people who know the internals.
  For the supercentenarians: No change. Days are not only overly precise but unencyclopedic trivia. It is not encyclopedic to track the days of continued existence in a person's bio, however amazing each successive day is. For readers interested in the precise limits of human longevity, we have multiple articles including List of oldest living people. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - Age of infant or whatever the template linked above is does the job just fine, imho no need to include here. –Davey2010^Talk 04:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose it's fine as-is. No need to go into excessive detail. Buffs (talk) 16:07, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.