Template talk:Birth date and age

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Template:Birth date and age is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.

Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

This template was considered for deletion on 2007 November 8. The result of the discussion was "keep".

This template was considered for merging with Template:birth-date and age on 2016 July 24. The result of the discussion was "no consensus".

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An error

There is an error at the end of "Examples" section. It needs to be fixed up. – Hamid Hassani (talk) 06:12, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I edited the documentation to explain that "Feb." (with a dot) gives an error. Johnuniq (talk) 06:46, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Age calc?

Kiri Te Kanawa turned 80 today. Why does the calculation from 6 March 1944 result in 79 (while 5 March 1944 results in 80)? -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:56, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And now that I looked again it was correct, but I'm quite sure I saw 79 a minute ago. - Cashed version perhaps? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pages only update when they are purged. That normally happens when someone edits a page and saves a change. If no change is needed but you need to update the page, click edit at the top and then Publish. Do not enter an edit summary. Nothing appears to happen (there is no change to the page history) but the displayed page is regenerated and that means all the templates are re-evaluated. That will cause the correct date calculations to be used. Johnuniq (talk) 09:21, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: What you describe (click edit, make no changes and save) is not a purge but a WP:NULLEDIT. Whilst this will work to update an age, it's not required - a WP:PURGE is sufficient. That page describes some ways of carrying out a purge. Personally I've enabled "Add a "Purge" option to the top of the page, which purges the page's cache" at Preferences → Gadgets. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:42, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tracking Category added incorrectly (fixed)

Anne van Aaken uses this template and gets the category en:Category:Date of birth not in Wikidata added (see its page information), despite the Date of Birth actually existing on the linked Wikidata Item: d:Q22236485. On the other hand, I've just added the date of birth to the Wikidata Item for Royce Adams (politician): d:Q124357417, and the wiki page no longer has that category, so something still seems to be working. I looked at the template, but I'm not sure what is wrong. Anyone any idea what might be going on with Anne van Aaken? Zvpunry (talk) 16:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind. It turns out someone had added that category to the article manually. I've fixed it. Zvpunry (talk) 16:31, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How to dodge 122 year rule

I'm writing a sandbox about a fictional character who's older than 122 years Cheeky91021 (talk) 20:35, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The template gives an error if an age is greater than 130. There should be no problem with 122. The template is for a "living person's date of birth and age" and includes metadata. There is no way to dodge that with this template. If you want an age which updates automatically, use:

{{Age in years|1 April 1800}} → 225

Johnuniq (talk) 03:14, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]