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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Revisions

Since discussion has died out on this again, I propose moving forward with Rick Block's suggestions here. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 20:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Expanding notability criteria

Please make constructive suggestions for expanding the notability criteria.

Notability of people

Taking an idea from Wikipedia:Recent years I propose that an addition to define notability in measurable terms might be helpful.
Birth dates of living people are only to be included if the person has articles about him or her on Wikipedia in at least ten languages. (Bill Clinton, for example, has several foreign language articles on him, listed on the left sidebar.) This is a minimum requirement for inclusion. Many articles will not merit inclusion even though they may have enough foreign articles.
That would probably encourage badly translated orphaned articles like those discussed at Talk:Huang_Xianfan.--Skyfiler (talk) 18:54, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
For simplicity the same criteria could be applied to deaths and to the birth of people who are now dead although they seem to self police to a greater degree. Drappel (talk) 15:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I would support this. As you can see, this was proposed below. We need to get some renewed interest in stamping WP:DOY as a guideline for that to be enforceable. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I need new glasses, I see it now. Drappel (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
In the meantime, I would not use that as a reason for removing entries from the date articles. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Interestingly even using a zero interwiki count to show lack of notability on one day was enough to cause notice. Drappel (talk) 13:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal of text for Births and Deaths guideline

1 Only the births and deaths of people who are themselves subjects of Wikipedia articles should be listed. However, being the subject of a Wikipedia article is only a minimum requirement for inclusion in a Wikicalendar article. Not all people meet the more stringent notability requirements for Wikicalendar articles.

2 Being part of a group with an article or having the page that bears one's name redirected to a different article does not qualify as having one's own article. Having a Wikipedia user page does not qualify as having an article.

3 To have an article, a person must meet the criteria outlined in WP:BIO, and to warrant inclusion on a WP:DAYS page, a distillation of the most notable of the notable, the biography should more than exceed those basic criteria.

4 Notable in the sense of being "famous", or "popular" (although not irrelevant) is secondary. Notability should not be assumed unless the person has received a prestigious international award or honour, or has been often nominated for them or the person has made a contribution widely recognized internationally that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field.

5 The text of a biography included on a WP:DAYS page should include enough information to explain why the person is notable. Notability is not conferred by being a sportsman of only local or team supporter interest; being a performer known only in one country; being a politician of less than national office; nor in any field of endeavour unless the person is of the highest international standing.

6 A numerically based assessment of notability to be applied is that births or deaths are only to be included if the person has articles about him or her on Wikipedia in at least ten languages. (Bill Clinton, for example, has several foreign language articles on him, listed on the left sidebar.) This is a minimum requirement for inclusion. Many articles will not merit inclusion even though they may have enough foreign articles. --- End of proposal. Drappel (talk) 14:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

--Comments on proposal Although my suggested expansion of the guideline has created more text, by explaining the rational I hope the casual editor (who is more likely to add less notable people) will gain an understanding of why they have been reverted. To use only paragraph 6 or similar would achieve the desired effect, the remainder are functionally only to reduce the hurt that inexperienced editors may feel when a minor figure is removed and to explain why not all people meet the more stringent notability requirements for Wikicalendar articles. Drappel (talk) 14:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't oppose these suggestions in general, but all these minimum requirements still leave a lot to interpretation as to what is evaluated to make those minimums not enough. The criteria need to be as simple as possible. #1 and #2 are established. Requiring x number of foreign language articles is objective, but not a foolproof qualifier. If one has an English article, notability is established sufficiently to warrant the creation of another language article. I don't think other language Wikis would access notability much differently than English. One does not need same-language sources to support a bio. The language requirement weeds out a lot, but it doesn't give us a simple definitive qualifier. Additionally, since this is the English Wikipedia, whether someone has an article in another language isn't really indicative of notability to the English audience. As I said, I don't oppose the idea, I'm just not sure if it would stand up to scrutiny. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 17:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I have no objection to the guidelines as drafted and would be happy to support them becoming official (or whatever the word/process is called); all the while they remain as a draft I feel wary of adding please see WP:DOY to edit summaries in the event of disputes that such and such a person is awesome, cool, the best xxxx in zzzz so of course he/she is notable.
Numbers have a quantifiable feel to them but not essential in explaining reasons or although I do not subscribe to the viewpoint there is always I am the Law. -- Drappel (talk) 18:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Section size limits

Please make constructive suggestions for limiting the size of the sections (Events, Births, Death, Holidays and observances) by number of entries.

  • I suggest adding the rule from WP:Recent years that, "Deaths are only to be included if the person dead has articles about him or her on wikipedia in at least ten languages." Some similar count might be helpful for births, i.e. people don't get added until there are articles in 5 languages about them or something. — Ken g6 (talk) 18:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Strong oppose because this will create a huge bias towards sportspeople, entertainers. Some army commanders, emperors etc only have 1-2 languages. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Regional date articles

Please make constructive suggestions for the creation of regional date articles.

Referencing

Do none of these types of articles need any references? OlEnglish (talk) 21:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

No, these articles do not require references. They are really just lists and everything that is listed must be supported by a link to an article that supports the entry in full. This is specified in the project page WP:DAYS. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 22:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Guideline

Wikipedia:Recent years went from a draft guideline to a guideline in less than a month. It seems unreasonable that we could not get WP:DOY moved over as a guideline as quickly - especially considering much more work has gone into this one. WP:DOY is a de facto guideline. There has been no substantive objection to enforcement of it in the last 6 months. It is the standard, it is followed, and it is enforced. No constructive objections to the content of the guideline have been raised. I suggest that it is time to move forward. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 00:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree we need this as a guideline, in its present form it would carry more weight than as a draft and I assume more stringent criteria could be added by consensus at a later date. Drappel (talk) 14:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
How was this adopted YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
If you are asking about where consensus was built for this to be a guideline, it is in two areas: first is the discussions that have occurred on this talk page over the last few years and second is in the fact that the days of the year articles have sufficiently wide exposure for the implementation of this guideline over the last few years to have gained implied consensus from the community. There is rarely any dispute over the content of the days of the year articles and their format and content has been governed by this guideline. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 11:10, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for holidays and observances guideline

I think we need to make a guideline for the holidays and observances section, because the formatting of the content is inconsistent. I'm almost finished with my little project of 'reorganizing' this section. I think I will put a guideline in here when I'm finally finished with this 'project'.

There is a need to categorize these amazing variety of world's observations and holidays. So far the categories are: independence or national day (important year), observations based on Julian calendar (e.g. Russian observations and orthodox lithurgic church), sidereal calendar (e.g. Indian festival that can varies by maximum 2 days), equinoxes and solstices (e.g. may day, jule, lammas), lunar days (jewish, muslim, chinese calendar; not included in days of the year, it's a pity though), nanakshahi calendar, well-established hallmark holiday (talk like a pirate day), days that is celebrated for 3 days maximum (New Year), greco-roman festivities, "the first of monday" days, christian feast days (especially the carnivals), secularized christian feast day (saint james, saint john, saint lucia, etc.), and "day closest to" days (e.g. martin luther king jr. day). --Rochelimit (talk) 21:03, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Custom warnings for DOY pages

I have added some custom user warnings as subpages to Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year. These are taken from User:Mufka's custom warnings (with permission). I just added some usage notes. There are redirects created as subpages to WP:DOY which are much more convenient.

Mufka has created more templates, which he listed here, and I will likely add these to the project space eventually.

Usually I don't think it's worth bothering with a warning for most unhelpful additions to DOY pages, and in cases of blatant vandalism a standard user warning template is usually fine. On occasion these custom warnings can be useful though. Winston365 (talk) 04:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

"Only the births and deaths of people who are themselves subjects of Wikipedia articles should be listed. To have an article, a person must meet the criteria outlined in WP:BIO. Being part of a group with an article ... doesn't count." I would posit that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are individuals with Wikipedia articles, it's just that, since they are notable for the same very notable act, their articles are combined as one. They don't fall under the "part of a group" thing. It's not like they're a member of Heaven's Gate or something. One was just removed from September 11 citing this, and only this, as the reason, and I want a clarification if that's a valid reading of it. --Golbez (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's pretend that Harris and Klebold are known, not by the pairing of their actual names, but as the "Columbine Capers". In that case, Dylan Klebold would redirect to Columbine Capers. However, "the page that bears one's name redirected to a different article does not qualify as having one's own article." The nominal difference between "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold" and "Columbine Capers" would probably be as arbitrary or accidental (thanks, perhaps, to some smart alec journalist who likes alliteration) as the difference between "Dan Cooper" (the alias used by another famous criminal) and "D. B. Cooper", as he is popularly but incorrectly known. For a different illustration of my point, consider the Dynamic Duo article. The link for one of the members (Gaeko) redirects to the group-name page (and the other member, Choiza, doesn't even get a redirect). The individually-named Gaeko redirects to the group-named Dynamic Duo just as much as the individually-named Dylan Klebold redirects to the group-named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (who, unlike the Dynamic Duo, simply lack a catchy pseudonym). If one thinks that Klebold is a biographically important individual, then one might want to make the case at Talk:Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold that he deserves a separate article. If such a case succeeds, it would unambiguously permit Klebold's mention here. Cosmic Latte (talk) 18:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
I normally read that guideline as meaning the individual should have their own article to themselves, which I think was the original intent. It is a bit of a grey area though. In this case I would be in favor of removing Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as they aren't really individually notable (in my mind), but there are similar situations (Bonnie and Clyde and Leopold and Loeb come to mind) where I would lean the other way. If there was strong consensus that they belong on DOY pages it seems ok to me to bend the rules a little bit, but it isn't likely to get much support from me. Winston365 (talk) 00:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

recent people

Seeing what I considered a promotional listing here, I decided to do a check. I see that (beyond the obvious basics, such as having an article in the enWP) the criterion is given as having 10 articles in other language Wikipedias, but I think the essence of it is widely recognized international notability not merely having an article count--as commented in the discussion there, the article might simply be a more or less mechanical copy entered on the basis of there being an article here and nothing further.

Using the most recent births for Oct.9 ,I list them in groups with my opinion, along with the number of current articles in other Wikipedias.(Each group is in reverse chronological order) Atthis point, everyone so far is someone whose field I do not really know much about, so I'm basing it on the articles, plus my experience of what happens at notability discussions and the like.:

Ones with less than 10 other articles, and whom I do not consider as having international standing, & are therefore not suitable for such a list

  • Tyler James Williams (7) actor, only one major role in one series, no international awards or major industry awards,
  • Bill Walker (basketball) (5) basketball, only a short college career and a minor professional career
  • Ghetto (rapper) (0), challenged for even ordinary notability, no listed charting records.
  • Stephen Gionta (2) (ice hockey) , not even one full year in a fully professional senior team, barely meets ordinary notability standard
  • Spencer Grammer (7), actress, no listed awards, only 2 major roles
  • Shi Jun (4), footballer, unimportant senior record "found it difficult to command a regular first team position"
  • Zachery Ty Bryan (5), actor, several major roles in minor shows, but only one major role in major show.
  • Ibrahim Fazeel (1), footballer, only minor regional awards
  • Alex Greenwald (1) , musician, career with various bands, one of which is important.
  • Rale Micic (0), musician, no real evidence of major importance, though puffy claims for it
  • Kieren Hutchison (2), actor, no major roles in major shows
  • Steven Burns (1) entertainer, important role in one major show only
  • Audie England (3) photographer, & actress, barely notable if that.
  • Sarah Vandenbergh (0) actress, no major roles, barely notable, if that.
  • Jason Butler Harner (3) actor, apparently no major roles.
  • Jason Jones (activist/filmmaker) (0) producer of one film
  • Simon Atlee , not even an article about him, fianceé of Petra Němcová (14), important actress

Ones having 10 or more of articles, but where I strongly doubt they are suitable here despite that:

  • Jodelle Ferland (14), actress. but with only one actual award, and that only as a Young Actress Award.
  • Andreas Zuber (12) (race car driver) no actual world championship or even near it. Only 3 Formula 1 first places.
  • Brandon Routh, (18) actor, only one really major role

Ones I am unsure about are

In that same period, the ones I consider appropriate are 

Opinions?    DGG ( talk ) 00:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
The 10 article requirement does not apply to the days of the year articles. So far it is only applicable to the year articles. I don't oppose applying that requirement though. It would be helpful to put some concrete parameters to the currently ambiguous requirement that being the subject of an article is a minimum requirement. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 01:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
An improvement on the notability guidelines for births and deaths would be lovely, as they stand now they aren't particularly helpful. I have always been a bit skeptical about the WP:RY 10 article requirement though. Other Wikipedia projects may have very different standards for notability than the English language Wikipedia. Tying notability standards on part of the English language Wikipedia to those of other projects worries me a little. I have never been able to think of a better idea though, and I doubt there is any other metric that would work as well while being so simple.
This would be a major shift when it comes to Days of the Year articles. Scanning over a random sampling of 20 of these articles I found only 1054 of the 3313 births had 10 or more interwiki links. That's less than a third, and means that there are around 40,000 entries in the Births sections of the 366 Days of the Year pages that don't currently meet this requirement. Winston365 (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually I should have been looking for nine or more interwiki links, not ten. This doesn't have much effect on the final numbers though. Winston365 (talk) 04:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Additional comments

Copying the below from January 4
Several editors have objected to my removing entries from the births and deaths lists in order to achieve a better balance. Their objection seems to be that, since any entry with its own article is "allowed", all are of equal importance. I don't agree. At the moment these lists consist largely of the names of young (in some cases, child) sportspeople and entertainers at the expense of anyone born before 1930. Is this really what people are looking for in an encyclopedia? Deb (talk) 16:10, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Let's not discuss this here. A more central location is better. Please bring it to WT:DOY. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 16:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


I've now had the argument with both User:Lectonar and User:Jac16888; the latter believes that everyone who has an article should be listed in the relevant date article rather than try to achieve a representative sample. I tagged the January 4 article with the relevant tag - since clearly US-centrism inevitably goes hand in hand with the trend towards recentism, but User:Mufka removed it. So... Deb (talk) 21:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
As you can see from previous discussion, there is support for trimming the contents of the date pages but the challenge is agreeing on an objective method to determine what should be excluded. The language of WP:DOY is, and has been, vague. No consensus has been reached on inclusion restrictions. Ideas? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 00:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
The problem will be to get an "representative" sample; every sample will necessarily be biased by the editors choice. Bias is here, but I think the inclusion of younger people in the day articles proves this (it is a measure as to who edits the articles). This guideline here is what we have, and I think we should stick with it until we find some solution. Lectonar (talk) 08:19, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I voiced my opinion in March at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Days of the year. I'd like to see all biographical entries included and I can't see the problem of being inclusionist apart from the size (even then, you have the argument WP:NOTPAPER). The status quo could be fed by container categories, such as those used on other Wikipedias, but I can't see that being done here at any time in the near future. Jared Preston (talk) 08:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal that was made in March and, moreover, I see no contradiction between my actions and the present guidelines. What you need to decide is whether these pages are here for the benefit of readers or contributors. If you feel they are here primarily to enable contributors to add the birthdays of their favourite singers, porn stars, baseball players, etc, then there is no need for a guideline at all. If, on the other hand, you think that they are here for the benefit of readers who may wish to find out things they don't already know, the present state of affairs needs addressing. Deb (talk) 12:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Here is the proposed wording from the March discussion:

When compiling lists of events, observances and persons for inclusion in Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year articles, it is necessary to keep in mind that what's listed should be notable both around the globe and throughout time. It should be relevant to more than just one group having strong interest in the listing unless that one group is representative of the majority of Wikipedians everywhere, regardless of nationality, interests and beliefs. Events, observances and persons having only the potential to become notable in the future are at no time to be included in these lists and should be removed promptly upon discovery. Persons whose sole claim to notoriety is their being associated with a person, group or event that is notable are at no time to be included without concensus having been reached prior to their inclusion. The Days of the year articles are not meant to be lists of everyone or everything having a Wikipedia article.

As it's worded, it can't work. The statement that persons having only the potential to become notable in the future are at no time to be included in these lists means that WP:N can't apply as a basic qualification because those individuals would not have bio articles anyway.
I don't think it's ever been proposed and I don't know how feasible it would be but what if the requirement for inclusion in the main date pages was that the individual had to have a bio article that was at Featured status? Then we could dump everything else, with only the WP:N restriction to January 1 births or even Category:January 1 births. This could be mostly handled by a bot. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like a potential way forward. There would still be issues of recentism and globalisation, but it would certainly be better than the existing situation. Deb (talk) 16:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
How well an article is written on Wikipedia has nothing to do with a person's global notability. Albert Einstein is only a GA, not FA, and thus would not be applicable to the list. We can't use WP:BIOG/A's quality scale for this project. But we could easily create 366 birth list articles (and deaths; but good idea btw), siphon off the lists and at some point in time, when there are enough supporters, suggest category containers at WP:CFD. The latter would take a lot of effort on our part though. At least with articles we'd then be left with the "Events" and "Holidays and observances" sections on the current days' articles. Would we need to create a new task force for WP:WPBIO regarding January 1 births? Jared Preston (talk) 18:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
The FA (and GA for that matter) criteria would be an indication that the subject meets WP:N (obviously) and that the subject was significant enough to warrant the effort in creating a FA/GA. You won't find FA/GA's for most of those who we would likely deem not notable enough. We're talking subjective criteria anyway — at least this is black and white.
For several years we haven't garnered sufficient interest in putting together criteria for this. I'm not hopeful that we'll get much input on whatever we try to do. If we move the births and deaths to separate pages, then we end up with a lot of bloated other pages and nothing in the main date pages. I don't think the goal is to try to make the date pages smaller, just more relevant. Do visitors read the date pages and say "show me someone I've heard of" or "show me everyone born today"? Personally I think the latter puts us in the realm of tldr. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to be honest with you, Mufka – I belong to the latter group, which is why I love these pages. Coming across names (biographies, even when stubs) of people I've never heard of before, born on a certain date, interest me. I read a lot more BLPs and biographies of those born within the past 100–150 years than I edit. Of course it would be nice if we would all just put our effort into writing better bios. But you are correct, garnishing support will be tough. I don't know where the WP:DOY project wants to go to with time. As a leading member, what do you enjoy about it? I fear that one answer to the problem would just be to get rid of the lists altogether, but that's not a solution either... Jared Preston (talk) 19:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
To be honest, surprisingly enough, I don't read the date pages — ever. My interest is purely in maintaining whatever consensus for the project exists and helping to form guidelines that make sense and are sustainable. I'm a janitor, nothing more. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
You do such a great job in anti-vandalism, too, and whatever comes out of this I thank you for your efforts. Jared Preston (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
My question for Jared is - do you only want to come across living people you've never heard of, or would you like to come across people who may be of purely historic interest? Deb (talk) 20:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Both. For different reasons. But I don't have a problem with most of the bios being for recent, still living persons, if that is the next question. I'd welcome more historic additions too, but I'm not much of a historian when it comes to writing and research (for red links). Do you have a personal preference either way? Jared Preston (talk) 21:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I'd really like to see an even spread, a more representative sample, as well as keeping the list short enough that people don't get lost in it. It's far too long at the moment. Deb (talk) 10:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Deb, what do you propose as criteria? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 12:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Criteria need to be coordinated by all project members. Deb has tried to cut the crap, to put in bluntly, which I know was done in good faith, but was alarmed/confused, and so wasn't surprised either that it was enquired on his/her talk page as to what he/she was doing. With hindsight, this was obviously an attempt at tackling this problem by Deb, but obviously such modus operandi will not be supported as long as we have vague guidelines and consensus. Jared Preston (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Correct. And thus my question. Perhaps Deb has an idea we hadn't considered. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 01:30, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

As everyone can now see, this is where we end up every time someone brings up changing the criteria. Blah, blah, blah, silence... Five+ years of nothing substantive. I don't know how to fix it. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 12:42, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. That's how Wikis work. How you fix it is if you want to make a change, propose a change and then run with it if there's no objection. -- JCaesar (talk) 03:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

'Minor' terrorist events

Does anyone else agree that it seems in poor taste to refer to an attack that killed 10 people as minor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.159.62 (talk) 11:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

What is your proposal for alternate wording? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 14:25, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Individual Pages for Birth/Deaths

The rules as written on calendar dates is people should not be added unless they have "individual pages." The problem is for many people—particularly some sibling pairs or trios—who did their undeniably notable work together, the Wiki does not include individual pages for them, because that's clutter. On the other hand, today, a few individuals have taken it upon themselves to scrub these siblings from the date pages and have not responded to my attempts to discuss this on their talk pages. So I'm taking this to the Wiki community. It is my understanding the purpose of the "individual pages" rule on the calendar dates is to restrict it to only notable people, which I understand. There has been over the last week an edit war between One Direction fans who keep adding the birthdates of the individual members. However, the other groups I've found who, just at a cursory glance, are technically being excluded because of this rule include:

These are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. I submit they are all notable enough to be included, and the "individual pages" designation was not intended to exclude them. To say they cannot be included because they do not have individual pages, but they cannot have individual pages because that would clutter the Wiki seems to me to be the very definition of a true catch-22. I'm not asking to open the calendar date pages to people not notable enough to have their own pages. I am, however, suggesting the wording could be changed so as not to exclude individuals like the Grimm Brothers, the Lumière Brothers, the Wright Brothers, the Andrews Sisters, the McGuire Sisters, the Coen Brothers and the Wachowskis, all of whom are absolutely and undeniably notable enough to be listed. It seems to me we already allow a certain amount of discretion when it comes to notability, particularly in the "Events" sections of Calendar Dates pages. There absolutely has to be a way to phrase the rules so as to allow a certain amount of discretion for births and deaths. -- JCaesar (talk) 08:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The guideline as written has worked well for many years. It's vague enough in many areas to be problematic. In this area it is very clear. If someone is notable only because they are part of a notable group, they are not notable individually and should not be included. They are notable because of a partnership. The community has deemed that the individuals are not notable enough to be the subject of an individual bio so that is a good test for us here. If this is opened up, the lines will get very blurry. As you can see from previous discussions, the effort has been to find ways to limit inclusion, not expand it. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 11:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
OK. Seriously? Where the f*** does this conversation belong? I posted it on talk pages - yours, Eposty's, Calendar Watcher's, and at the beginning, I was very polite. I posted it on the page CalendarWatcher directed it to. You moved it to WT:DOY. And on that very page, I'm seeing that this very discussion has come up as long ago as September 2010 and has not reached a consensus yet. (The section you'll want to look for is "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.") At this point, I feel rather like I'm calling a company that is putting me through an automated system before finally directing me to an outsourced customer call center that won't resolve my problem, and the way I deal with that is I either hang up and call corporate headquarters, or I cease giving that company my business. As Wikipedia is not getting money from me, I'm really feeling like ceasing to give this company my business by way of time by way of edits - which I have made, referenced and cited, for almost 10 years now. As I said to CalendarWatcher, it seems to me the only rule that has fallen completely by the wayside is WP:IAR, and it is exactly why I know very few people who have any interest in improving or maintaining Wikipedia for anything other than vandalism or self-promotion, which is exactly the opposite of the spirit of the Wiki. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be uncivil, and I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but that's the truth at this point. -- JCaesar (talk) 11:33, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
So let me get this straight, just because I want to be 100% crystal clear. The goal of the rules is not to prevent people from adding the birth dates and death dates of just any old person they know, but is specifically and intentionally to prevent people from adding the birth dates and death dates of the Brothers Grimm, the Lumière Brothers, the Wright Brothers, the Andrews Sisters, the McGuire Sisters, the Coen Brothers and the Wachowskis - and while we're at it, as this very page says—without response—Bonnie & Clyde and Leopold & Loeb. Somehow, it cheapens the Wiki to note the birth and death dates of those undeniably notable individuals. Is that your position? I'm not strawmanning, and I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm asking for clarification. And if it seems like I'm getting as frustrated as someone trapped in a Joseph Heller-esque ludicrous paradox, that would be a very fair assumption. -- JCaesar (talk) 11:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Edit Conflict. OK. You've had your rant. Now that the discussion is in the correct place, make your argument. Please take the time to read the archives so that we don't have to go over the same stuff again. If you have new points, I'm happy to engage in discussion over them. If you want to revisit old points, I'm happy to discuss those as well. One thing that I can guarantee is that consensus on this won't be reached today. Please be patient with the process. In a show of good faith, please don't go hunting out examples to make us clean up. That would be intentionally disruptive and you'll end up blocked from editing. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 11:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I've already stopped doing that last night. I reacted the way I did because you and two other users—completely of your own accord, without any consensus—made a decision, and the only reason I got involved was to illustrate how ludicrous your position was. Initially, the only edits I made were to restore the Andrews Sisters, and I used as an example the Wright Brothers and the Coen Brothers and the Wachowskis, and then you took it upon yourself to "fix" what was not broken to any sane person's mind. And I'm sorry, but on the Wright Brothers alone—which you edited out—of course they're notable enough, and of course they wouldn't have separate pages, and it really did seem like I was arguing with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse.
The other thing I will note, however, is this: Of the examples I gave, all are grouped together because they are siblings, which means they were born to the same parents, in more or less the same place, at approximately the same time. Siblings are not the only people who work as a group. However, when siblings work together, they are often called "the (Blank) Brothers" or "the (Blank) Sisters," and the Wiki treats them as one to avoid clutter. So if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had happened to have the same parents, they should no longer be treated as individuals? Watson and Crick? Eastman and Kodak? Waldorf and Astor? Lenin and Stalin? Who, exactly, worked alone enough to qualify as an individual if his or her sibling wasn't involved? Honest to God, this discussion just seems insane. I'm sorry, but it seems completely insane. -- JCaesar (talk) 11:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh, and one more thing (and again, if I seem frustrated, it really is because this conversation is incredibly frustrating): Again, I understand having notability rules, but we already have notability rules on calendar date pages for the top part of each page: Events. The editors all just sort of agree which events are notable enough to list and which aren't, and while it's not a perfect system, it has 366 examples of it working well enough for the Wiki. Editors are smart. Admins are smart. But to say people have to have worked individually without any help from their siblings or a cohort with whom they are invariably linked—which is precisely what you've said—is to say editors and admins can take no discretion whatsoever. In that case, why have these pages edited by users at all? Why not just program a script that automatically pulls birth dates and death dates from individual pages and posts them automatically, and then prevents users from editing it? I'm admin with a site that uses Wiki software. It's not that difficult a script to write. -- JCaesar (talk) 12:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Just to chime in a little: Mufka did not make WP:DOY, he is just one of the (most active) contributors keeping an eye on it. I can understand your frustration up to a point, but this is something which does not have to be solved overnight or in 1 week....and that consensus has not been found up until now is (mostly) due to the fact that we have not many people participating in discussion. Discussions here tend to peter out silently...(see the talkpage above). So, let's not get hasty......Lectonar (talk) 12:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
And please understand, I'm fine with that, but Mufka moved this conversation here, and to repeat an analogy: It's like I'm being sent through an automated telephone system to speak with a customer service representative who can't help me. At a certain point, even if my issue was rather minor—and this one was very minor—it's become a bigger problem by virtue of there being nobody on the phone who can help me with this minor issue. It's just by the time you run through the rat's maze, at the beginning, you didn't think anything of it, but by the time you've spent hours on what should have been a simple issue, you can't help but be like, "I WILL DESTROY ALL OF YOU!" And that's kind of the position I'm in now. -- JCaesar (talk) 12:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
And to be clear: It's not a consensus that has been held off overnight or for one week. From what I see on this page, it's a consensus that has yet to be reached in two years. So I do have to wonder how long I'm supposed to wait to make helpful, relevant edits to the Wiki. Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? Am I supposed to have this page on my watchlist in 2063 before I can make an edit? -- JCaesar (talk) 12:41, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
For me it is like a consensus has not been found until now just because no one really cares, imho (or better:cared). And frankly, I lack your verve...you can call me lukewarm for that, but although I have been faithful to Wikipedia for a long time, nothing and I repeat: nothing, here has ever made me think anything like what you are thinking now (about wanting to destroy things). And obviously it is not a simple issue at all, not for everybody anyway. Perhaps posting this to one of the village pumps would be helpful, and get more eyes on this. Mufka is only upholding policy as it is, and doing his job as an admin. Cheers. Lectonar (talk) 13:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
"I WILL DESTROY YOU!" was a joke. Hyperbole. -- JCaesar (talk) 13:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I understood, although being german, I understood, it just seemed...over the top for this topic. Lectonar (talk) 14:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Ach, Sie sind Deutsch? Ach, so. Ja, ich machte nur Spaß. Es war ein Witz. -- JCaesar (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to set your expectations, sometimes consensus to make a change never happens. Some of these discussions are more than 6 years old with no consensus to change. To help us move forward, it's probably better to keep the discussion on topic. We know how frustrated you are but Wilbur Wright's inclusion or exclusion from the Births or Deaths section isn't going to change the world. There is no hurry to form consensus. The current state isn't diminishing the quality of the project.

So let's start the discussion with the understanding that consensus exists for the inclusion of only those individuals who are the subject of their own bio article. This is an indisputable fact. Your proposal is that this be changed. Lectonar's suggestion to bring it up at Village Pump or RFC is a good one, but I can tell you from experience (and Lectonar can attest) that you will very likely be disappointed.

Please don't misinterpret this as meaning that I intend to block your efforts. My concern is and has always been about precedent and manageability of whatever guideline we agree to. Grey area is painful to manage. Allowing individuals that are a part of a group brings up more questions about where the line is drawn. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 13:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I can attest to that :). Lectonar (talk) 13:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
And it's my contention that any system where Orville and Wilbur Wright cannot have their birthdates or death dates added because they don't have their own page is a catch-22 and ludicrous. And now you're saying to move this conversation elsewhere again? Hulk smash.
(Relax, Lectonar, that was a joke. I'm not actually the Hulk. ;) )
Again, my whole point in bringing up the Wright Brothers was how silly this hair-splitting is. And it's hair-splitting. If you go back to my first comment on this whole thing - in reversing an edit by Eposty - my revision undoing actually started with, "C'mon." Just like when I undid a revision a few weeks ago to the page for the 1995 movie My Family where someone claimed it was a remake of a 1999 movie, I made a joke. Not uncivil. Not attacking. Just joking. Because it was humorous last evening. Now? It's become a huge waste of time. To say that the Wright Brothers aren't worthy of having their births and deaths noted is just... I mean... what? That wasn't my intention at all. And that's why I said I'm just going to list people who don't have their own pages, because if we're just going to be ridiculous, why stop at ridiculous? Why not got whole-hog ridiculous? Why stop with just the people I could think of off the top of my head as ridiculous? I'm not editing any page at this point. I don't really want to, but if you do, hey, buddy... suit yourself, I guess.
I mean, if we're going to get so nutty that we delete the Wright Brothers, probably the easiest thing for you is going through day by day, clicking literally every birth link and every death link and deleting anything that turns out to be a redirect. I mean, I'm not saying you should do that, but if that's what you think is easiest, I can hardly stop you, can I?
Of course, it seems to me what would be easier—and far be it from me to tell you your job—would be just to add to the birth date/death date/event date/start date/end date templates (and then create "highlight dates" or some such) auto-cats and then delete the calendar date pages altogether. That would probably take you and a couple other volunteers—I can name two people who might just—no more than a week to finish.
But if I have to keep moving conversations on any topic no matter how obvious, and if I have to spend the better part of one evening discussing why Orville Wright is notable enough, and if I'm accused of edit warring and editing in bad faith when I'm making a fairly obvious point, and if I have to wait an indefinite time to see if an obvious point is an obvious point, quite honestly... you know what? I'm gonna eventually just say, "Forget it. Sorry to have made good faith efforts to improve or maintain the Wiki and taken it at its word that it welcomed good faith edits. I have other s*** to do. Have fun, y'all." And really honestly, that doesn't seem to me to be the spirit of the Wiki. As someone who has written the rules of a Wiki before, that seems to me to be the precise opposite of what I was going for with the rules. -- JCaesar (talk) 13:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually I think I saw someone doing that, from time to time, and that is only half a joke ;).....but also keep in mind please (although I am quite sure you are aware of it) that me, you, Mufka, User:X etc. are doing things here voluntarily, and (mostly) in their free time. This may seem urgent now, but it really isn't. And if you are so tech-savvy, moving this concersation to the village pump is really no great deal. Lectonar (talk) 14:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh, yeah. I completely understand that, and that's why my frustration. The only guy I ever banned from the Wiki I admin (outside of vandals and spammers) made good contributions, but after five months of him arguing with me and other admins and demanding we spend days of our lives doing things to make it more to his liking, he was more trouble than he was worth. And again, that was my point. My point was not Mufka or somebody else should police the calendar pages of all redirects, but rather, "Wouldn't it be silly if you policed these pages of all redirects? OH, MY GOD, YOU'RE POLICING THESE PAGES OF ALL REDIRECTS!" I genuinely never thought the Wright Brothers or the Coen Brothers or the Wachowskis would ever be removed, and I still find it ludicrous that they were. -- JCaesar (talk) 14:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
And just to be clear, when I first brought up the Wright Brothers (let alone the others), it was totally in my mind a situation of, "Hahaha. That's so silly. That would never happen, them deleting the Wright Brothers. That would never happen, because it's just too ludicrous." And then it totally happened, and that's when I went, "NO! NO! NO! You totally misinterpreted what I was saying!" I wasn't trying to be a jerk, but again, when I'm talking with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse, at a certain point, I just have to try to beat them at their game, y'know? -- JCaesar (talk) 14:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Hmmm, I just had a look at your contributions, because I was guessing you must have seen Wikipedia in its earlier days (and so you have, and there are big gaps, time-wise, in your contributions pattern), and remember how it was done then.....let me just say in the meantime, Kansas was going byebye, and things have become a lot more bureaucratic than before...but I am digressing: no one is saying that the Wright Brothers are not notable and delete-worthy (or we wouldn't have an article about them in the first place)...we are really just talking about the date articles here. Lectonar (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I actually edited under another name long before (and simultaneously as) I used this one. I did stop editing around 2010, 2011 altogether because of the bureaucracy, and when I came back, I had forgotten the password for the other account, and I was very, very hesitant. Because of the bureaucracy. Truth be told, I'm still very hesitant. This discussion isn't so much my first complaint with Wikipedia's increased bureaucracy as it is my "line in the sand." -- JCaesar (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The only reason I have been removing the singers from One Direction and then the Andrews sisters (when the last one died) was because they did not go to an individual page but the group page... When editing dates, I see "people without Wikipedia articles" and took that to mean that since they did not go to an individual page, they should be removed... It doesn't matter to me what is decided, but I wanted to explain my edits in the matter... To avoid further conflicts, I will avoid making these changes in the future... Better to leave it alone and let someone else do it... posty (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

@posty...you have done nothing wrong, don't worry, and you are free to make any edits when they are within policy..Lectonar (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I will add I totally agreed with your removal of the One Direction page. This whole snarl started because I thought your interpretation of the rules with regards to Patty Andrews was a little too narrow, and I just undid that one revision—not any of the others relating to OD—and left a note on your talk page and moved on. It's happened in reverse to me on this Wiki and on ones I adminned, and it's totally cool. It happens to the best of us. I'm not arguing people like you should be discouraged from editing. I'm arguing people should be encouraged to edit, and if they overstep, they overstep. It's cool. Move on. -- JCaesar (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Edit Conflict: What's wrong with checking the date pages for redirects? When I had copious amounts of free time, I spent hours doing just that. That's what janitors do. Clean up messes. May I ask one favor of you? Most of your comments fall under WP:TLDR and don't make much of a concise argument. You speak of how frustrated you are and how absurd the situation is, but if you want this to move forward, please make a policy argument with suggestions on how it can be implemented. You may already know that RFC and VP are ways to get people to join the discussion here, not start things new somewhere else. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 14:34, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I know. That's why I didn't think you would do it for something that obviously didn't need to be cleaned up in the first place. Here's a concise argument: This whole thing seemed silly in the first place. I genuinely don't understand how this got to be a "thing." But here are my policy arguments, concisely, both of which I've made already:
Either A.) You can automate the whole system, delete the individual calendar date pages and move births, deaths, events and highlights to auto-cats where you don't have to do a thing, and the category pages will be filled without your involvement or anyone else's, or
B.) You can trust the discretion of the thousands to millions of editors who aren't vandals or spammers.
I know the latter seems difficult, but it shouldn't be. Most of us won't add non-notable births or deaths, any more than we add non-notable events. On the rare occasion we do, allow the editors to catch what's not notable, and if there seems to be a dispute, then step in, and err on the side of notable and good faith rather than "strictest letter of the law." How's that as a suggestion? -- JCaesar (talk) 15:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
A) has been discussed before but never gets any traction. B) does that mean members of One Direction get added? Who decides? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I haven't read the previous discussions (other than this one) on this, but has anyone suggested changing the criteria from (paraphrased) "there is an article about this specific individual" to "there is a biographical article about this person"? Wright brothers is clearly a biographical article - but, it is about 2 people rather than just one. One Direction is an article about a band, not a biographical article. Enforcing this rule requires distinguishing biographies from other types of articles, but I think this would not be difficult. Other examples that have been mentioned here:
Frankly, I don't see any particular problem with enforcing the current rule under this interpretation either. The clear intent is that there is a biographical article about the individual. Wright brothers is this for both Orville and Wilbur. The argument that Orville Wright's birth/death dates should not be in the DOY pages because Orville Wright is a redirect seems like a clear violation of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that's a distinction we can work with. How shall we handle the grey areas? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 18:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Before working all the details (I suspect some element of judgment will be involved - and I know this is not desirable), can we hear from some others about the general idea? Another example is Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (clearly a biographical article). I'll note that how the rules are currently interpreted, Morton Sobell qualifies for inclusion in the DOY pages but neither Julius or Ethel do - which seems entirely perverse (I'd wager far more people have heard of Julius and Ethel Roseberg than have heard of Morton Sobell). -- Rick Block (talk) 20:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Apologies in advance if this is TLDR, but I've got a lot to respond to.
  1. I think the general suggestion is brilliant. Spot on. Excellent. The only change I would make is to the wording, "there is an individual page and/or a biographical article." This will eliminate 99.9% of the gray areas when someone points out, "Ah-hah! Gavrilo Princip doesn't have much biographical information!" and will save Mufka and company a lot of tsuris in determining what does and does not constitute a bio. Only in the 0.001% of cases where siblings or married couples or two- or three-person partnerships worked solely together do the admins need to make a judgment call.
  2. I don't think the Andrews Sisters are that gray, but if it's the wording of the first few sentences and the color of the info box that is the hold-up, I'll be more than happy to edit that right now. McGuire Sisters are—of all the ones I listed—clearly the least notable, and I'm not going to put up too much of a fight on that one, although it's my contention that if they hadn't all three (to be blunt) happened to have popped out of the same vagina, they'd definitely have individual pages. But fine, whatever.
  3. "The clear intent is that there is a biographical article about the individual. ... The argument that Orville Wright's birth/death dates should not be in the DOY pages because Orville Wright is a redirect seems like a clear violation of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY." My point all along. Thank you.
  4. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is another great example. Thank you. So is Bonnie and Clyde.
  5. As for gray areas in general, a certain amount of gray area is inevitable. If nothing else, there has always been and will always be a certain amount of gray area as to who does and does not warrant an individual page. This can never be avoided. Fortunately and unfortunately, you admins are not automatons. The down side of this is, to quote the (brief) policies page on the Wiki I admin—the policies page I personally wrote—"Remember, the administrators are human. We make mistakes. We have bad days. There have been incidents where we have been unnecessarily harsh or banned someone who didn't deserve it, then thought better of it or had another administrator or editor told us we overreacted. It happens, and we're really sorry." The upside of this is I personally have faith, most users have faith, and indeed clearly Wikimedia, Inc. has faith in your personal judgment and discretion in almost all circumstances, and when you make an error in judgment, there are other admins and such who can double-check your work. You don't need to be a slave to the letter of the law, and it is up to you whether to make your job easier or harder. You have the power of Grayskull. You can do eet! -- JCaesar (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

If we change the wording to be "there is a biographical article about the individual" how will we determine that it is indeed a biographical article? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 18:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Again, that's why I recommend making your job easier by changing the wording to "there is an individual page and/or a biographical article." Saves you headaches for the 99.999% of people who have individual pages, and then only on those very specific rare instances do you have to worry about making a judgment call. -- JCaesar (talk) 18:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
In fact, you could even say "there is an individual page and/or a biographical article (e.g.: Wright brothers). Now people know what you're talking about by "biographical article." -- JCaesar (talk) 18:45, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Also, doesn't WP:BIO and WP:BASIC pretty much already cover what constitutes a "biographical article" by implication? -- JCaesar (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
It appears that the Italian Wikipedia already has bots listing every single birth date on its individual page. It sounds insane, but at least they're completionists. For example, here's everyone for October 21. Mewtwowimmer (talk) 20:14, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: New Section for Artistic Releases

Given how entirely unclear it is what movie/book/album releases should be noted in "Events" and which shouldn't (and upon asking about it, I'm even less clear than I was before), I propose a new section to each calendar day page between "Events" and "Births." This section could be either:

"Releases in Arts and Entertainment" - For releases of films, TV shows, books, albums, singles, Websites, etc. Same notability rules as anything else on these pages. You can require that the work or works have a dedicated page on Wikipedia. Or

"In Arts and Entertainment" - Which would allow not only release dates but also allow the fictional events some users have been looking for a place to add - e.g., June 16, 1904 (setting of the novel Ulysses); February 2, 1993 (setting of the film Groundhog Day), March 22, 2228 (birthdate of Capt. James T. Kirk). Again, same notability requirements as everything else.

These new sections could be added by one editor copy-pasting to all 366 relevant pages within a couple days and populated by what information is already there at first, or by two or three editors within a few hours. It would encourage new users to post relevant, accurate information and would save admins the trouble of deciding what is and is not a "social milestone" worthy of inclusion in the "Events" section. -- JCaesar (talk) 21:43, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Why just "In arts and entertainment", i.e. why not add "In science", and "In politics", and "In <xxx>" for whatever some editor is interested in? The point is that this is a slippery slope. If we add "In arts and entertainment" we would be setting a precedent for the addition of topic specific sections. Why doesn't, say, Portal:Music/Anniversaries/January fill the need for a place to put all the relevant music events (for the entire month of January)? I could maybe see adding a "See also" section to each DOY article with pointers off to topic specific chronology pages - but adding events to these pages that are almost certainly mentioned elsewhere seems redundant. In an ideal world, I think the purpose here (ability to find things based on the date they occurred) should actually be served by the category system - but this gets complicated quickly and ultimately requires something like Semantic MediaWiki (don't hold your breath waiting for Wikipedia to be converted to use this).

My bottom line here is that I oppose adding topic-specific sections to these pages, but would be OK with a "See also" with links to topic-specific lists. -- Rick Block (talk) 07:04, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem is - from what I have been told - most releases in arts and entertainment don't belong here, but scientific discoveries and see-alsos do. Personally, I think everything that's notable that happened on this date belongs here, but since the lines are completely not clear as to what does or doesn't (e.g.: As of yet, according to the admins, the release of Dark Side of the Moon doesn't belong here because... well, it just doesn't belong here, that's why. And I must make clear: I'm not a Pink Floyd fan). The idea is to encourage more people to edit. -- JCaesar (talk) 00:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
As for why Portal:Music/Anniversaries/January doesn't fill the need, click it and find out. -- JCaesar (talk) 00:40, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
It seems that what your asking is to add an exemption to allow the inclusion of just about anything. Much of what you're asking is already available in the "year in" pages (e.g. 1973 in music). I'm against Portal:anything/Anniversaries because they are very poorly maintained and mostly forgotten walled gardens. (See Portal:Baseball/Anniversaries). -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 02:11, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with you on the Portal:/Anniversaries.
"It seems that what your asking is to add an exemption to allow the inclusion of just about anything." Yeah. Why not? Serious question, why not? Is there some fear that someday, Wikipedia might just have too much accurate, verifiable, clear information of interest to users? I think most people would actually be OK with that.
Much of what you're asking is already available in the "year in" pages (e.g. 1973 in music). Right. This is the exact same information but sorted differently, and users don't have to click on every year since the dawn of time to find out what artworks were released on February 11th. -- JCaesar (talk) 14:20, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Adding "the exact same information but sorted differently" is not what we want to do. If we just added it all, we have a management nightmare. Having the same stuff in two places is just a mess waiting to happen. It'll get updated in one place but not the other. Errors will be propagated and a fix in one place may not lead to a fix in the other. Just a bad idea altogether. We can go back to the often started, but never finished discussion about overall direction of the date pages and answer the question what is the goal here? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:20, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Another discussion (perhaps humourously) suggested January 1 in the United States. I don't think the arts and entertainment anniversaries should be here, but January 1 in arts and entertainmnet might spark enough interest to be maintained. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
That makes sense to me. Especially if you had a link to the January 1 in Arts and Entertainment or January 1 in Popular Culture (if you want to include sports, too on the January 1 page so people would know where to find it.
"Adding 'the exact same information but sorted differently' is not what we want to do. If we just added it all, we have a management nightmare. Having the same stuff in two places is just a mess waiting to happen." Um... correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this already a problem with literally everything on this page? Like, literally, everything on this page is the exact same information that can be found elsewhere on the Wiki, just sorted differently. All of it. And when somebody's birthday has an error, that error might show up on these pages. And on and on and on.
"We can go back to the often started, but never finished discussion about overall direction of the date pages and answer the question what is the goal here?" It's my impression the goal here is the same as it is anywhere else in the Wiki: To be accurate, informative and interesting for users. Right? I can certainly tell you that if I wanted to look up what cool events happened on my birthday October 11, I'm going to be a lot more interested in the fact that Saturday Night Live debuted or even that Billy Joel released Streetlife Serenade than in the fact that JC Penney opened a store in Delaware. And I'm pretty sure the majority of Wikipedia users would agree there. -- JCaesar (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Correction: Only on the January 1 page can you find out that January 1st is the first day of the year, and there are 364 days remaining or 365 in leap years. Otherwise, yeah, it's all information elsewhere in the Wiki. All of it. Every. Single. Thing. -- JCaesar (talk) 16:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
(ec) Actually, not so funny. See Category:Days of the year in India. Re the goal here, I think WP:DOY does a pretty good job of specifying what to include and what not to include. The first paragraph could be easily turned into a statement of the goal, i.e. "The goal of these pages is to list events that are notable both around the globe and throughout time". Note that this is distinctly not the same as "The goal of these pages is to list every event that has occurred on a particular date", or even "every event about which there is a Wikipedia article". The reason not to be permissively inclusive is because the result would be unmanageably huge pages. For example, with the current criteria of "must have a Wikipedia page" the births/deaths sections alone will ultimately grow to nearly 2,000 entries each (since there are over 600,000 articles in category:living people). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:57, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Uh-huh. So these pages are already going to be long and overflowing with information. And that's... not good because why? I mean, it makes sense to me to break it out so one page doesn't become a monster, but here's the thing: This started because I noticed the release of Dark Side of the Moon was reverted out, and I asked what the criterion was, and the answer I got was if it's a social milestone. Well... how is Dark Side of the Moon not a social milestone? I don't even like the album all that much, and I recognize it's pretty significant and pretty notable. And the problem is if editors keep getting their good faith, factually accurate edits removed, they're just not going to bother editing at all. And if everybody stops editing, that's bad for Wikipedia. As it is for what makes an event "notable" now, the only events I am 100% sure belong on these pages are the ones that have a body count. And that's kinda macabre. -- JCaesar (talk) 17:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
And again, isn't the goal of all of Wikipedia to be, you know, interesting? I'm willing to wager far more people are interested in movies, books, music, paintings and sports than they are in J.C. Penney opening a store in Delaware or Warren G. Harding getting a radio. I will wager good money on that. -- JCaesar (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Create a sandbox example of how you envision a DOY page to look. Pick any date (except January 1 or February 29 as they are a little different and it'd be easier to see where you're going if you take a run-of-the-mill page). -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 17:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure there will be some debate as to what the categories should be, but this will give you a general idea. User:JCaesar/sandbox. (The one I plugged in under "Fictional Events" is BS. I'll edit it out once you've had a chance to look at it.) -- JCaesar (talk) 18:40, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

What about the stuff that's already there? Births, Deaths, etc.? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 18:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
They're already covered by the dates pages the way they are, aren't they? This is just a new place for this specific information in which people clearly have an interest so these pages don't become monsters, and you don't have to define which movies, books, albums, TV shows, sporting events, etc. constitute "social milestones" and which don't. -- JCaesar (talk) 18:59, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
A new place? Then that doesn't fall under DOY, so knock yourself out. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:04, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
A new page, I mean. And it still would be necessary to include a "See Also" somewhere on the DOY pages so people can find it - preferably somewhere they'll look, like near the top. I see what you're saying, though. You were thinking I was going to show how I would redesign the DOY pages as they are. I was going off Arthur Rubin's proposal of a whole new page so these pages don't become too huge and unwieldy.
Stop and think about it from the user's perspective - not the admins, not the editors, but a user who has just logged onto the Internet for the first time. Why would you think they might look up a DOY page? I would guess - with high certainty - the number one reason is that's their birthday. So if you're looking up your birthday on Wikipedia, would you rather see a list of movies and sporting events and albums and such, or a list of earthquakes and hurricanes and school bus crashes? So yeah, you do wanna have something somewhere on the DOY pages. I'll do a sandbox for that here in a sec. -- JCaesar (talk) 19:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
You should be able to spot it pretty quickly at Tutorial Sandbox 2. -- JCaesar (talk) 19:32, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
See also should be at the bottom of the page per WP:ORDER. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
You can also put a "see also" there - and you probably should - but the goal is to have it be very, very obvious that there is another page for that. It helps editors, so they know not to put that information on the main DOY pages. It helps admins, so they don't have to spend the rest of their admin careers cleaning up or moving that kind of information because editors didn't read the whole page from top to bottom. And it helps users - remember the users who are looking up their birthdays? - find it, too. -- JCaesar (talk) 19:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually, check that. I take back what I said. That is not what WP:ORDER says. It does not say "see also should be at the bottom of the page." It says if see also is at the bottom of the page, it should be after "Works or Publications" and before "Notes and References." To the contrary, this seems like a pretty obvious example of the kind of "See also" under "More pages on the same topic" at WP:HN. -- JCaesar (talk) 20:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
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