Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly

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This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here, and Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Before making any major changes to these guidelines, please use the discussion page to ensure that your changes reflect consensus.

Shortcut: WP:DATED

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1 Preferred style: use precise language
2 Another option
- 2.1 In special cases
3 Discussion

[edit] Preferred style: use precise language

Unless you are writing on pages that are regularly refactored, such as Current events, you should avoid statements that will date quickly. Phrases to avoid include "recently", "in modern times", "now considered", "is soon to become", and "the sixties"; instead use phrases such as "as of October 2001" or "the 1960s." In many cases, such statements are also more precise.

Imagine someone is reading your words in six months, five, ten, fifty years. Will they still make sense?

Using precise language that will not sound dated if the article is never edited again is considered the best practice.

[edit] Another option

That said, it sometimes suits the article to include time-sensitive statements that will need to be updated in the future.

The As of mechanism helps us to include current and timely information with less risk that someone browsing the Wikipedia in 2009 will read an article about that new album that is due in spring of 2004...

A link to As of 2005 will redirect to the 2005 page, acting the same as a 2005 link. However, once redirected, you can click the subtitle "(Redirected from As of 2005)" to return to the actual "As of 2005" article, and from there you can use the "What links here" link to find pages that may need updating.

In most cases, you'd create a standard link, such as: [[As of 2005]] or [[As of 2005|Currently]]

See List of "As of" pages

[edit] In special cases

If you believe that the article is not likely to need review until a different year (perhaps after the next Olympic Games or the like), you can link only the words "as of":

[[As of 2009|As of]] 2005

which would appear as:

As of 2005

The "As of" would link to As of 2009 while the "2005" does not link. The link to As of 2009 means that near the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010, someone can go to As of 2009 and use the "What links here" link to see a list of articles that need reviewing.

A newer mechanism, under development, is Template:Update after; it fixes many of the problems with As of.