Forgotten Realms Wiki:Past-tense policy

I would like to propose that the Forgotten Realms wiki should be separate from the timeline of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting itself; I feel we should not define the grammatical tense of our articles by the advancement of the setting.

I don't feel the practice of establishing a current year for the wiki serves any purpose, and can in fact hinder our efforts to provide an accurate summary of the Realms. The setting itself may advance a year every six months of development, and I believe it's worthwhile to keep track of this advancement. But I think we need to see ourselves as historians, chronicling events and observations that have already occurred.

If we want to write articles as if we are a part of the timeline, then we should do so as if we live well after the latest officially published material. Currently that would place us beyond the sample chapter provided for The Orc King. -- Heaven&#39;s Agent 19:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Timeline
Especially with 4th edition now the current edition of the game, due to the 100 year advancement of the timeline, some statements are not accurate for all times, so a distinction should be made. You can use timescale to indicate that a more accurate date or time is required. As an example:


 * Azoun IV is the King of Cormyr.

This would be better written as:


 * Azoun IV was the King of Cormyr between 1336 DR and 1371 DR.