On Aug 16, 2011, at 9:19 PM, Rintze Zelle wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 3:10 PM, Bruce D'Arcus <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Rintze Zelle <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Reviewing the EDTF draft, I just noticed the distinction between uncertain > > and approximate dates. Unfortunately, this got mixed up a bit in CSL 1.0 (we > > have an is-uncertain-date conditional, but the spec gives an example of its > > use for an approximate date). We could introduce an additional > > is-approximate-date conditional, if desired. > > To be honest, I don't really understand the practical difference > between the two, or how we would represent them, beyond "c.2000". > > http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/spec.html includes definitions of the > two. Anyway, it's not a big problem, but ideally we should have used > is-approximate-date instead of is-uncertain-date.
As far as I understand it, the practical distinction is that approximate (~) dates express a certain degree of confidence (e.g., 2001~ means c. 2001, it might have been 2000 or 2002 but in any case it is close to 2001), whereas uncertain (?) dates could be farther off (e.g., 1838? could mean 1838, or was it 1383?). Where bibliographic references are concerned I think only approximate dates are actually used. It wouldn't hurt to support both, though. In any case, I agree with Rintze that it would probably be a good idea to introduce the is-approximate-date conditional. Best, Sylvester ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev _______________________________________________ xbiblio-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xbiblio-devel
