Tardis:Date links
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Interlanguage links → Don't over-wikify → Redlinks → Self links → Section linking → Linking to Tardis → Date links |
It's important to be judicious about when you link to dates. Dates should certainly not be linked every time they appear on a page. Generally one link per section for a particular day, month or year is sufficient. And you should take care to link to the right date page. In many, many instances, however, you shouldn't link at all.
Get the right date
For every day and month — and for many years of the 20th and 21st centuries, we have four different pages. Make sure you link according to this simple chart:
| none | (people) | (releases) | (production) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A date without disambiguation is one that happened in DWU stories, as in: "Ben and Polly stopped travelling with the Doctor on the same 1965 day on which they had started." | Applied only to the truly vital statistics of a real person. So when you link to 1969 (people), you're saying that 1969 is the date of birth or death of an actor, director or some other such person. | For release dates of DWU stories or non-fiction about the DWU. So when you you link to 23 November (releases), you're saying that an episode, novel, comic strip or even reference book about the DWU was released on 23 November. | Production dates are those that directly relate to the making of DWU stories or non-fiction, like 22 November (production). So, for example: On 22 November, the day JFK was shot, the second episode of The Daleks was being recorded in Lime Grove Studio D. |
Know when not to link
Only link to dates that have something directly to do with the DWU. If there is merely indirect relevance, don't link.
With (people)
For instance, if you were adding text to a page about an actor, and you mentioned that he "appeared in a 1965 episode of The Avengers" or that "she appeared in EastEnders from 2000-2008", you should not link to either of those dates.
We want Special:WhatLinksHere/1965 (people) reports to contain only links to people who were born in or who died in 1965. We don't care that someone might have bought their first car in that year. Date pages ending in (people) are about vital statistics — not career trivia.
With (releases)
Equally, it is not usually important to link to the date of a DWU story release on any other page but the story page. Please do not use language like, "Tom Baker appeared in the 2013 (releases) episode The Day of the Doctor". Although there are some cases where giving dates for stories may be useful, they are rare, and in those cases, they shouldn't be linked. Why? Because dates with (releases) are about things that were released — not the people who were in the things that were released.
With (production)
We also don't want (production) dates to become sullied with links that are actually about the production of shows outside of the DWU. For instance, let's imagine that on the Peter Capaldi page we said:
- Around 2005, Capaldi was hired to play Malcolm Tucker on The Thick of It.
Although it might be important to note this year for readers, since 2005 is a year of great importance to Doctor Who, we wouldn't link to it. Why? Because that sentence is talking about 2005 as it relates to the production of a different programme. Conversely we would link to a production year in this situation:
- In August 2013, Capaldi was publicly announced as the actor chosen to succeed Matt Smith.
