| Ten Forward → Representation of stardates (Reply | Watch) |
Stardates, reference stardates and SFC years by themselves are very opaque. Dates like 3045.6, 45635.2, 1/9709.01, and reference stardate 2105 are inconsistent and don't make a lot of sense. Few readers can understand them right off, and to do so they need to look up corroborating events or perform calculations. Years like 2267, 2368, c. 2250s, or c. 2157 are familiar and give an excellent sense of when and how long. Though a clever way to fudge continuity or historical errors, stardates are poor way to manage chronology on this wiki. Older timelines using reference stardates and SFC also need to be updated to suit the canonical timeline of modern Trek.
These dates can be determined by correlation to other, dated events, or with calibration and calculation. We shouldn't have anything against them for being unofficial calculations — bear in mind that just about every date we have for the tv series is based off fan-based calculations from given dates and times in the series. These dates are already in widespread, common use across Memory Alpha and Memory Beta.
I believe we should, where possible, supply best estimates for these stardates and outdated timelines. These should accompany the given date in brackets, to make it clear that its only an estimate and preserve the primacy of the original data. For example:
- "on stardate 3045.6 (2267)" or even "on stardate 3045.6, 2267"
- "on stardate 45635.2 (2368)" or even "stardate 45635.2, 2368"
- "on reference stardate 1/9709.01 (c. 2250s)"
- "on reference stardate 2105 (c. 2157)"
This has already been common practice on Memory Beta for many years now, used by many editors, in good and bad ways (poor estimates, replacing the actual date), but I'd like it to be accepted for common use. Not every page and date reference has to have an estimate, but if an editor makes the effort to determine a date for the reader's benefit, it should be kept in place. -- BadCatMan (talk) 04:54, August 28, 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, it's a bump. I'm looking for some discussion from the community. What do you think? -- BadCatMan (talk) 10:10, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- Most reference stardates do not have clear equivalence to canon years or dates. I think that in a lot of the cases where reference stardates are being presented with equivalence to a canon year are pure supposition and a violation of our standard operating procedure regarding formulating speculation as main article fact. As such, these should be removed and not perpetuated by any standard requiring them. -- Captain MKB 14:18, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- Most reference stardates do not have clear equivalence to canon years or dates. I think that in a lot of the cases where reference stardates are being presented with equivalence to a canon year are pure supposition and a violation of our standard operating procedure regarding formulating speculation as main article fact. As such, these should be removed and not perpetuated by any standard requiring them. -- captainmike
16:33, February 18, 2019 (UTC)
- Most reference stardates do not have clear equivalence to canon years or dates. I think that in a lot of the cases where reference stardates are being presented with equivalence to a canon year are pure supposition and a violation of our standard operating procedure regarding formulating speculation as main article fact. As such, these should be removed and not perpetuated by any standard requiring them. -- captainmike