BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Purpose

This page guides the presentation of Dates and Numbers in articles. The aim is to promote clarity, cohesion, and consistency, and to make the BattleTechWiki easier and more intuitive to use.

Where this manual gives options, Editors are encouraged to maintain consistency within an article unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. Additionally Editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style; revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion fails to resolve the question of which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Dates and Times

BattleTechWiki uses the day-month-year format across the entire database, except in cases where quoted material presents it differently (see BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style § Quotations).

• 15 April 1987 / 5 August 2023 / 31 March 3039
• Not: April 15, 1987 / 5 August, 2023 / the 31st of March 3039

Ranges

Year–year, month–month, and day–day ranges are done using an en dash (–) without adding spaces.

• 2881–2882 / May–July / October 1–9 / 5–7 January 2979
• Years should not be abbreviated (3026–28), as in most cases they are linked ([[3026]]–[[3028]]).

If at least one item on either side of the en dash contains a space, then a spaced en dash is used. InfoBoxes should use this format to save space, but within the main body text, Editors are free to write in their preferred style and do not need to use an en dash in these cases.

• April 20 – November 10 / 3 June – 18 August 3052 / March 3022 – January 3023
• from April 20th to November 10th / from 3 June to 18 August 3052 / between March 3022 and January 3023

Note in the second example of each line above, "3 June" is necessary for consistency with the day-month-year format of 18 August 3052, which it is paired with.

Approximate year

To indicate "around," "approximately," or "about," the term circa is used before the year. Editors are permitted to abbreviate it (c. or ca.) or write it out in the main body of an article, though abbreviation is used for InfoBoxes, system Political Affiliation sections, and other timeline lists.

In order to de-emphasize the specific year, which is not certain, do not link the year (ca. [[3025]]) unless it is one of the aforementioned cases.

Decades and centuries

When referring to a decade as a chronological period, always use four digits and an s (the 3080s). Do not use an apostrophe (the 3080's). Since this represents a range of years, it should not be made a link (the [[3080]]s). In this example, the Reader would be directed to a list of events specific to only 3080.

Centuries are always written out (the twenty-ninth century) and contain an additional hyphen when used as an adjective (the thirty-first-century technological resurgence).

Mid is a prefix and should be hyphenated (the mid-3080s, the mid-thirtieth century). Late and early are adjectives and do not have a hyphen (the late 3050s, the early twenty-eighth century).

Hours

BattleTech uses Terran Standard Time, or possibly Terran Synchronized Time, which is 24-hour military time without the colon (1703 hours or 1703 TST). Hours under 10 should have a leading zero (0815). 24 should not be used for the first hour of the next day (e.g. use 0010 hours for ten minutes after midnight, not 2410 hours).

Numbers

BattleTechWiki follows the Chicago Manual of Style and generally writes out all whole numbers from one through one hundred. There are many exceptions, including but not limited to:

• Dates and times (as explained earlier on this page)
• InfoBoxes
• Military command article titles (1st Davion Guards, 304th Assault (Clan Ghost Bear))
• Vehicle profile stats
• Quoted material where it is presented differently

Additionally, percentage and degree values use the number and word (45 percent, 34 degrees Celsius) in main body text, but in InfoBoxes use symbols.

 {{InfoBoxPlanet
 | name                = Barcelona I
 | position            = First
 | distance            = 7.47 days
 | gravity             = 0.93
 | temperature         = 34°C
 | water               = 45%
 | continents          = 2 (Norn, Moira)
 | population          = 321,964,000 (3150)
 }

Writing out numbers also applies to ordinal numbers (first, twenty-second, ninety-third), fractions (two-thirds, three-fifths), and ratios (they had a three-to-one advantage).

Commas are used after every three digits for clarity (2,460,545,000), while a decimal point (not comma) is used to indicate values smaller than one (7.47). Values with a decimal do not need to be spelled out. Add a zero before the decimal if the number is less than one (0.93).

Number ranges are joined by an en dash (e.g. Handbook: House Steiner, pp. 26–27), the same as is done with date ranges (see § Ranges).

Measurement

BattleTech uses the metric system, with size often measured in meters (m) and distances measured in kilometers (km). Except in InfoBoxes or tables, these words should never be abbreviated. One notable exception is speed, which is commonly displayed as km/h and permissible in main body writing.

• 12.5 meters / fifty kilometers / 64 km/h

See also

• BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style
• BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Relative time references
• BattleTechWiki:Manual of Style/BattleTech Style Guide