The past tense - a question

Teach

This discussion was created from comments split from: Your diary in LE forum.

SLB

This will probably end up being moved, but it's related to my last question. Look what I found in Cityville 2's Wikipedia page:

On Feb. 5, 2013, Zynga announced that CityVille 2 is cancelled

Do you have to use "is" there? Is it even correct? I reckon you don't like using the present to talk about past events, do you? Couldn't they have said "CityVille 2 was cancelled" or "CityVille 2 had been cancelled" or something else?

Teach

Yup, moved as you suspected @SLB. As I often say, there's the way you should write it, and then there's the way people actually write.

You couldn't use "was cancelled", because some people might understand that to mean it is no longer cancelled.

I would have written: On Feb. 5, 2013, Zynga announced that CityVille 2 has been cancelled. (It was cancelled in the past, and is still cancelled.)