Thread:Ollie231213/@comment-258494-20170426180207/@comment-258494-20170426222620

Jim1997 wrote: The standard on Wikipedia generally is that whilst somebody is alive, the lead paragraph should include (born x), after they have passed away, it is changed to (birth date - death date).

The phrases "born" and "died" have never been included together as part of the lead paragraph. "Born" in only included whilst the person is alive, because it provides some clarity, as simply including the birth date followed by a blank space could potentially be misleading.

Just my two cents, anyway.

This isn't Wikipedia. I said that the Gerontology Wiki would follow Wikipedia rules in general, but we could make our own policies...for example, Wikipedia doesn't allow "flags" on the supercentenarian lists, but we do.

I'm a bit older than you and Ollie (I'm over 40...gasp!!!), so I come from a different generation. It was very common in the past to use the (xxx-    ) birth/death date format, especially before the internet came along. Part of that was because it wasn't certain if long-ago persons were still living, so rather than imply that they are alive, the implication is that this bio (life) graphy (graph) started with one datapoint (xxxx) and will close when/if the other data point comes to be known.

It was also typical in lists that mixed living and deceased persons.

I prefer the Old Style because, in a way, it makes it more clear that the person is (probably) still alive...a person looking at the list will immediately notice the space.

At this point, technically, I'm the Chief Bureaucrat so I could say "this is the way it's going to be." I was here in 2007. But I'm not trying to make a big issue out of something like this, so I will say this: at this point in time, we can do it both ways. By definition, eventually the living person will pass on (or go to limbo, and we can add a "fl. xxxx" date for last confirmed alive). it's best not to get into a revert war on issues of style.Ryoung122 (talk) 22:26, April 26, 2017 (UTC)