Forum:Making pages for BC years

Index → The Panopticon → Making pages for BC years

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Huh, a reference to a specific BC year. Funny how that happens. (GRAPHIC: The Time Hotel ^[+]Loading...["The Time Hotel (illustration)"])

Pretty simple forum here: it has been long-standing policy/precedent (not exactly sure where the policy is, I tried checking and couldn't find it) that BC years don't get their own pages, seemingly* since template:Timeline doesn't work well with them. I... find this utterly absurd, especially considering pages like 89/Feather/50 - it'd be nice if the template worked with it, but we shouldn't refuse to properly cover BC years just because a template doesn't work with it, especially since the template isn't exactly essential to the page's functioning.

I think these pages should follow the naming scheme of "[number]BC", so for example "1800BC" or "9BC".

* I think I heard this somewhere, but I can't remember where and can't verify that it's true - it is one of the only reasons I can think of for this, though. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 22:21, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

I do agree, I think we should have BC pages. It's a time travel franchise, it inevitably visits times older than the last 2024 years sometimes, we need to be able to cover that properly. One tiny change though - pages should be (e.g.) "9 BC" (with a space) not "9BC" as you had it - with a space is how BC years are written generally. Warrior2852 ☎ 22:47, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal to have BC years. I think the policy against having them is a relic of the old FANDOM-run wiki and the old team of editors and admins of that time in the earliest days of that wiki. This should be overturned. We WILL eventually get around to that period and then it would be stupid if we can’t cover those times, or equally if we’d lump them into a single page called “BC years” or something. I also agree with Warrior2852’s proposal that it should be "[X] BC" rather than "[X]BC". Danniesen ☎ 00:27, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

We should have BCE pages (and, perhaps more juicily, BCE century pages), and I agree with Warrior2852 that a space is normally used between the number and the letters. I think that "BC" is an antiquated term and doesn't make sense to be used in a system of pages set up in 2024/25. Sure we're a fictional wiki, but even in fiction BC is being replaced with BCE. Articles in Doctor Who Magazine have used BCE at least since 2015's DWM 487, and it has appeared in various modern releases such as The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse, The Ruby's Curse, and most releases from Cubicle Seven since 2017. BCE has also appeared in various releases dating back to the 1990s, including Introduction and links and the novels of Kate Orman. Given that BCE is favoured in real world non-fiction, I think it makes sense to go with it for the same reasons that we tend to favour that articles for real world concepts be named after their recognisable real world names when there's an amiguity on which name to use. TheChampionOfTime ☎ 00:29, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree… However I still think we should have "BC" as redirects at least. Danniesen ☎ 00:51, 25 December 2024 (UTC)