Wikipedia:Requests for comment/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013/AD/BC v CE/BCE

Possible question
Some people use AD/BC to show whether a date is in the last two millennia or older, others use CE/BCE. Wikipedia as a Global, volunteer written project lets our first volunteer editor who uses either system choose the variant for that article. Which of the following do you agree or disagree with

I would greatly prefer it if I could choose whether Wikipedia showed me articles with AD/BC or CE/BCE.
I would somewhat prefer it if I could choose which system I read Wikipedia in, but I wouldn't give that much priority.
I'm familiar with both AD/BC & CE/BCE and equally comfortable with them
I'm usually not bothered between AD/BC & CE/BCE, but sometimes an article is about a Christian subject and it seems wrong to use CE/BCE or a non-Christian subject where AD/BC seems inappropriate.

I think this question would get some useful feedback from our readers, without giving them an option that we can't/won't deliver such as "you should standardise on the one I prefer". Ϣere SpielChequers 06:24, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can see why you have excluded "you should standardise on the one I prefer" but I think a lot of people will want to say that anyway. Not being able to say that will just annoy them. They will see it as "You're pretending you care about my opinion but really you want to ignore me." Maybe we do want to ignore such people but if that is the case we shouldn't get their hopes up. Yaris678 (talk) 16:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We shouldn't ask what we can't won't or shouldn't promise, and we shouldn't give the readers a choice that is an editorial one. We could make this a display option so the readers can choose what they see. But if we were to change whether we store it as one or the other that is a decision for editor, if only because abandoning the compromise and letting one side win means that we would lose some editors from the other side. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]