Why do profile links have birth and death dates?

Question

From looking at Help:Links, it would seem that profile links used to include just the name of the person. Now they include birth and death dates. I get how the dates would distinguish people with the same name, but then I see people editing the dates out of bios, an extra step after the copy and paste. Wishing I could avoid the extra step.

Answer 1

You don't have to put them in.  For instance, if I link to my father, I just put his Wiki ID and his name:
[[Haywood-42|Sam Haywood]]

Comments

But...that's kinda manual. Copying and pasting a link is convenient and error-free, except for those pesky dates. I thought that's what profile links were for! Is there anywhere else to use them?

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*shrugs* leave them in, and cut out the extra step, or delete the dates.  It's up to you.  With or without, the link will go through.

Answer 2

Unless a feature can be developed to have an option of leaving dates in or leaving dates out, I say leave them in. It is far easier to delete them than to add them. Going with Véronique's preference would create more work for those who prefer having them (like me.)

Comments

This is in WBE as an option in the Scissors feature.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:WikiTree_Browser_Extension#Scissors

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Good to know, Ian! Thanks!

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For my two cents, it would be better to leave the dates in, especially if you are linking children in their parent's profile such as a listing of their children. It is policy that the list of children contain at least one fact, like a birthdate, date of death, or perhaps spouse. Also, it is easier to back out the dates than to add them in later.

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What is the link to that policy please, Lucy? I agree it's a good idea, but I don't recall having seen it as a WikiTree rule.

Answer 3

I think there must be some way of doing this as when you add a child to parents, the automatic sentence includes parents without dates and (more importantly from my perspective) the mother without her married surname. I've got used to always editing the links, but would be interested in knowing if there was a solution that came with an automatic choice of format.