Template talk:CurrMY

About rewriting statements "as of YYYY-MM-DD" into "as of currMY"

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of changing phrases like "as of year/month/day" into "as of {{currMY}}". Before the change, it seems to be a specific statement, which is either true (and will remain true) or false (and will remain false). After the change, it is not a specific statement anymore -- rather, it becomes a whole sequence of different statements, some of which might be true and others might be false. I think it might be better to have in the wiki (sometimes) an obsolete information with specific date, rather than true statements (sometimes) automatically becoming false statements. Confocal (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this. HotdogPi (talk) 19:09, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

ditto Book (talk) 22:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

For a statement "as of {{currMY}}, no pattern with such property exists", it will remain true as long as no such pattern exists, and it is more up-to-date than using "as of year/month/day" when somebody just happened to think of checking the status. When a pattern with such property is found, it is expected for editors to delete in time the statement that has just shortly become false and add a description for the fresh discovery. What is the point of keeping a misleading (by virture of being outdated, not reflecting recent situation) statement of non-existence of something if nobody intends to update it? (Note: on the other hand I am fine with an existential statement like "as of year/month/day, one or more pattern with such property exists"; even if outdated it is verifiable and less misleading than the contrary.) GUYTU6J (talk) 03:02, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• A statement with a specific fixed date is not misleading, and does not cause any harm, even if outdated. There's nothing wrong with having a statement "As of 2012, ..." even today in 2023. What is misleading is the idea of putting in statements that automagically become false in the midnight, and expecting that other editors will be particularly happy about this and agree to make them true again and again. TL, DR: do not create more work for other editors. Confocal (talk) 03:25, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I am only concerned about statements of non-existence, which automatically becomes false once an existence is found and thus should be edited out. "As of [an outdated] year/month/day, no existence of something is known" has a implication, which is misleading: that this "something" was, but is no longer of interest of anyone, such that no one has attempted to find/build this "something", let alone updating this statement, since the outdated date. And there was a discussion on your talk page that opposed claims of "no longer considered important/interesting".

I would say that a simpler way "not [to] create more work for other editors" is to eliminate a direct statement of non-existence. GUYTU6J (talk) 04:06, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• I do not see any such implication. A statement "As of 2012, no existence of X is known" does not seem to imply anything about whether or not X was/is of interest to anyone -- let alone any further attempts to find/build X. Confocal (talk) 04:22, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

• The template {{currMY}} currently fails to give any answer to the question "What are the intended contexts where this template is designed to be used?" Existing transclusions are apparently problematic, precisely because they do not have a fixed date where a fixed date is expected. Statements "As of (date), ..." are supposed to have fixed dates, not something updated dynamically. As it stands, I think the template should be deleted and transclusions should be (by default) reverted to the last version before the edit which added the transclusion. Confocal (talk) 04:23, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

That you do not see the implication does not ensure that no LifeWiki reader would think that way and then ask questions like "what is the current status, and why is LifeWiki not updated".

The template {{currMY}} is to update statements of non-existence automatically so as to reduce workload for editors (no need to manually update like this). Statements of existence backed by construction/proof has a fixed date (that of publication), while statements of non-existence not backed by any rigorous proof do not because they are (to different possibilities) prone to be ruled out in a future date. GUYTU6J (talk) 04:50, 23 February 2023 (UTC)