Talk:305

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305 CE?

This article says it is about the year 305 CE. What does the CE stand for? The disambiguation page lists it as 305 A.D. and that's the only abbreviation I remember at the moment... -Mike Payne (T • C) 21:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CE stands for Common Era and is an alternate abbreviation, supposed to be religiously neutral. However, AD is the most common one, but the AD should come before the year (AD 305, rather than 305 AD), since it stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for The year of our Lord. If the abbreviation was to be written out, you could not say In 305 the year of our Lord, but it would have to be in the year of our Lord 305. Thus, it must be AD 305 rather than 305 AD. /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 21:23, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"305 in the year of our lord" would seem fine to me... Personally every time I've heard it spoken it's been with the year number first, as in "305 A.D." This also holds true for "305 B.C." Wouldn't it be "A.D. 305" and not "AD 305" too? Once there's a consensus I'll change the articles so they all look the same. -Mike Payne (T • C) 21:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here on Wikipedia, it's common practice to write AD, not A.D. Secondly, I would advice you not to to change any CE/AD notions, since there is no consensus and both styles are considred equal here on Wikipedia. Thirdly: Yes, often people write 305 AD, but look at it this way: If you skip the our Lord bit, which would you prefer: In the year 305 or 305 in the year? /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 22:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]