BCE Dates?

variable

I found a few old discussions (for example ~2014 — https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/41160/bce-dates) but was unable to find anything fairly recent.

how does one cite BCE dates. For example "~429BCE"?

bwiernik

Put that in Extra like this:

original-date: -429?

variable

I do so, with this example, I get this. See the "C.E" which is incorrect.

```
1. Sophocles. (1928). Sophocles’ King Oedipus: A Version For The Modern Stage [Pdf]. In David R. Clark & Rosalind E. Clark (Eds), & William Butler Yeats (Trans.), Volume II: The Plays: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Series (unexpurgated, Vol. 2, pp. 369-400,882-891). Scribner. https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Yeats_Oedipus.pdf (Original work published 429 C.E.)
```

adamsmith

Which style is that? Note that you have to use the extra field and you have to add the - before 429 (which works for me)

variable

Ah ha! the use of the 'extra' field was key. I was using the provided textbox for "original date").

internationaled

It does seem to me to be a true and legitimate bug that entering "429 BCE" gets morphed to "429 CE". That could be a problem for a new user or someone who isn't familiar with these forums.

I've been using Zotero for eight years now and only today noticed this was happening. I don't remember the last time I tried to use a BCE date in a paper but am wondering if it got changed to CE, and I just missed it.

I wonder if allowing BCE dates in the date fields is on the roadmap. But I know there's always so much on the roadmap.

adamsmith

To be clear, what's happening is just that anything other than a plain date Year/Month/Day date in the date field gets ignored, including BCE, minus signs, any ISO8601 date notation, etc. That's certainly not great and a better date field is needed -- I do think it's somewhere on the list, but it has been for quite some time.
(Technically I don't think it'd qualify as a bug -- it's not unexpected behavior from Zotero's end -- it's just bad UX)

internationaled

on my installation, it does actually appropriately handle “C.E.” if the user includes that in the field. Typically it’s BCE that I need, though, not CE. So there’s something going on besides numbers exclusively, but it’s not consistent or incomplete in its implementation, which is why I was thinking of it as a bug. But I guess the nomenclature isn’t important—just the fact that it’s on the list for attention at some point.

adamsmith

No, it just adds CE to every date with <4 digits. You adding CE in the date field equally does nothing.

internationaled

I see. Thank you.