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Category:Years

Someone has been adding all the individual year categories to Category:Years, and someone else has been attempting to remove the century categories. I think this requires discussion. Both editors will be invited shortly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I am both editors. I had neglected to sign in for the century edits.
I realize now that I should have initiated a discussion first. My motivation is this: Category:Centuries and Category:Years seemed to duplicate each other, and so I decided to include the year categories directly in Category:Years. I felt that this would be more useful. I will hold off on the rest of these edits pending discussion. By the way, shouldn't all year articles be included in Category:Years? --Eliyak T·C 15:22, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I proposed (a little further up in this article) a protocol for which year/decade/century/millennia articles should be in which year/decade/century/millenia categories (with appropriate sort keys). Unfortunately, it didn't get any comments. The related category Category:Years in the future should also be considered, as it carefully includes all year/decade/century/millennia articles. Perhaps we should propose that, together with the proper use of Category:Years, Category:Decades, Category:Centuries, and Category:Millennia, and produce a unified field theory system of time categories (noting that some of the decade articles have moved.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:46, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I thought I did, anyway. Maybe it was at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Time. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Found it: Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards#Categorization and sort keys. Clearly, I agree with your sorting ideas. I would say that Category:Chronology is the top level category, and that Category:Years, Category:Decades, Category:Centuries, and Category:Millennia should respectively contain all year, decade, etc. categories. In a parallel scheme, each millennium category would contain the appropriate century categories, each century category its decade categories, each decade category its year categories.
In theory, there could also be categories such as Category:Years of the 19th century, although that may be going a bit far. On the other hand, this idea has already been implemented in part of the category scheme. --Eliyak T·C 16:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
This sounds like a much-needed enterprise. I just wonder if a bot should do it instead of us humans. Sounds pretty tedious. Wrad (talk) 17:02, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
A bot sounds like a good idea, but we humans have to decide what the bot is to do. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I think it should start small by just doing what Eliyak said in the first paragraph of his last post. Wrad (talk) 17:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

What I wrote is basically the way things currently are, probably with the only real exception being Category:Years. Category:Years is being treated as the parent category for this system, when Category:Chronology seems a better choice. --Eliyak T·C 20:17, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It's been a week, and there has not been much interest in this topic. There do not seem to be any objections though. Therefore, if there is no continued discussion over the next couple days, I'm going to move ahead with my evil scheme. --Eliyak T·C 14:02, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
OK, let's do it. Please be careful with sort keys. I like your ideas, but it does involve changing a number of articles, so I wanted to attempt to establish consensus, unlike the WP:MOSNUM date delinking. Perhaps you should place a note on the effected category talk pages, Years, Decades, Centuries, and Millennia. This change, unlike the date delinking, is reversable in the unlikely event a contrary consensus emerges. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:12, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Large Death Toll in History

It seems that a lot of note-worthy events are those that caused a lot of casualties. Although these are important would it make more sense to separate them out? It just seems odd to scroll through "this day in history" to find so many "and then xxx people died in a xxx explosion." Especially if it doesn't have its own Wikipedia entry or name (i.e. "The Great xxx.")Rotorius.kool (talk) 00:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It would make sense to have separate pages for natural disasters, terrorism and accidents (plane, rail, boat etc) as these are of such frequency that they can't all be notable. Perhaps some minimum number would needed for the year pages. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 05:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Multiple events (births, deaths) on the same day

I only noticed this because of User:Greg L, but....

In, say, 1925#July–September events, which is the appropriate format?

Option 1 seems to meet the current Wikipedia:WikiProject Years guidelines.
Option 2 is preferred by, for example, Deb
Option 3 differs from option 2 only in the absence of invisible comments, and spacing. I saw some of those in 1926, so it seems to be another established format. Also, if we decide on a format, should we request a bot? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Additional option

From 1921#March–April births:

Birth/Death Dates Discussion

You know what I think, but I'll reiterate for the sake of another attempt to achieve consensus. I started using this format (option 3, I suppose it was) a very long time ago, after having done much work on the year articles in the early years of wikipedia, because I felt it was an improvement and it helped remove duplicate links. Later, I learned that another "standard" had been agreed by a "project" of whose existence I was unaware. People kept reverting what I'd done, so I came back and raised the issue here. There seemed to be consensus that my preferred option was the best one, but others said they would like the dates commented in, so I started using this format. A few months later, lo and behold, I was wrong again. Pardon me if I don't have the patience to continue banging my head against a brick wall. Deb (talk) 19:51, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
This is kind of how I felt when people reverted year summaries. It seems like no matter what kind of consensus a person might have on year articles, it is impossible for one person to change all year articles to meet whatever new criteria was agreed upon. Therefore, most year articles continue to follow older criteria. Therefore, people who are unaware of the consensus revert the new changes, wondering "Why is this article not uniform?" It is a tricky, frustrating, and slow process, but I think it works out in the end, because ultimately wikipedians respect consensus. Wrad (talk) 20:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I prefer option 3. Wrad (talk) 20:21, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
A bot would be able to do it much better, and would probably solve a lot of problems. Wrad (talk) 20:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Ahem. There was no consensus to change from the style agreed to in the August 2005 survey when you (Deb) asked to 2005, in 2006 (when the duplicative style was finally inserted back in the WikiProject itself), and in December 2007, although the !vote was something like 3 to 1 (weak oppose), but that doesn't seem to be consensus compared to the number of voters in 2005, when thousands of articles need to be changed and the changes should be made by a bot. If consensus is established here, we need the bot to convert the entries and all the hidden comments, with various exception reports for human intervention. Before the consensus is determined and placed in the appropriate WikiProject articles, and a little more time is set for comment, the old (2005) format should be used.
As an aside, (and probably a separate section of this talk page), we should establish a protocol for multiple notable deaths from a common cause; such as The Day the Music Died, in 1959#January-March deaths on February 3; Space Shuttle Challenger, in 1986#Deaths January-March on January 28; and Space Shuttle Columbia, in 2003#Deaths February 1; all handled slightly differently. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
2005 is a long time ago. And I wouldn't say the number of people who voted then was large. Deb (talk) 00:14, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
About 12, I think. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
This is not in itself an argument, but I think you'll find that several of those are no longer actively involved in wikipedia, and at least one of them changed his mind on the second "vote". I believe we should be moving on, constantly improving, not stuck in a rut, and that's why I agreed with Wrad (eventually) about the summaries in year articles. Deb (talk) 11:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Two swallows do not make a summer comments in favor do not make a consensus; at least not one sufficient to override a previous consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:42, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Once again I'd say that's a matter of opinion. Deb (talk) 16:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I would, too. Do we really have to call in an RfC every time we want to change our ancient year policies? Maybe what we need is a newletter bot or something... Wrad (talk) 19:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
When considerably fewer editors comment now than in the previous consensus, and when the consensus effects a fair number of articles (2500 or so), we do need to announce the proposal to a wider group. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:06, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and not an RfC, but people within the project, should suffice. 21:26, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, if it comes to that, I prefer option 2; but, when agreement is reached, the change to option 2 should be made by a bot, provided that an exception handler can be written to at least recognize articles which are in neither format, and to appropriately edit articles which have multiple deaths from a common cause. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:29, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
And the invisible comments should be changed when the format is changed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

United States-specific events included on year pages

Project members may wish to contribute to this discussion re: the inclusion of Baseball World Series trivia on Year pages and the related topic of the enormous number of U.S.-specific entries on international pages due in part to the extreme lack of Year in the United States pages. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 11:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a strange entry, It does not even link to the Cubs, I am also not sure the international relevance of such an event. I am even more suprised that two established editors did not come to an agreement in the talk page.
We would probably not have it in the 2008 article, so why have it in the 1908 one? It does sound like trivia to me.
I also think that some users should be blocked for a while to cool off, ([1]) FFMG (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
As it appears that certain editors are unable to differentiate between what is notable in the United States and what is internationally notable as required by a Year page I'm happy to abandon any attempt at applying wiki criteria in this case. It has been rather difficult to not respond to the personal abuse from an anonymous editor whose only wiki contribution has been this issue (if I was a conspoiracy theorist...). Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 11:40, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I've notified an admin of the situation and he agrees it is concerning. He's watching the guy. Wrad (talk) 19:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
In my experience, the easiest way to maintain article quality is to have a goal you're aiming for. Maybe if, say, we aimed to have the 2008 article at GA status by February or March, we would be able to set a good precedent for the other year articles and drastically increase the quality of the system. Wrad (talk) 19:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Reformatting semi-vandal

Histrydude (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been reformatting a number of year articles; some of the changes make sense, and some (italicising musical groups and companies) do not make sense to me. Any comments? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:58, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I think our work volume is so large and our numbers are so few that we need to choose our battles carefully. This doesn't seem like a worthy battle. Maybe we should set some goals for the new year! Wrad (talk) 17:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

1346 GA nomination

1346 is up for GA status. Have a look if you like. Wrad (talk) 03:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Chinese zodiac?

A number of anons and new editors have been adding the Chinese Zodiac years to current articles (approximately 2006–2017). I've suggested we add that to {{Year in other calendars}}, but is there a better place? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Common year starting on Thursday

A number of well-intentioned editors are making grammatical edits which break the wikilink to Common year starting on Thursday, etc. Is there any chance that we could agree to wrap those in a template, such as {{YearCalendar|Common|Thursday}}, so that edits are unlikely to break the links? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:52, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no doubt we need to rethink our templates. Wrad (talk) 19:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Guideline draft

Our rules for inclusion for on recent year pages (e.g. 2009) are almost impossible to know unless you already know them. For that reason, I have begun a draft for a guideline on recent year pages. Wikipedia:WikiProject Years/Recent Year guidlines draft. Let's get this hammered out and posted. Wrad (talk) 20:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Oldest Person in the World, passing

From 2009, what's this WikiProjects views on adding every Oldest Person in the World title holder to their respective YEAR article's death section (when they pass away)? GoodDay (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe it happens too regularly to be included. Unless the person breaks the old record by a good amount or is notable for some other reason, I don't think year pages are the right place. Wrad (talk) 00:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The oldest person title is really just trivia and if they were allowed then a case could be made for similar such trivia as tallest, heaviest etc. There are already too many persons of limited notability on year pages without adding even more. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 03:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

A proposal

Given that articles such as 1925 are not very useful to provide context, not even where it might in principle be useful (e.g., an article about an event having happened in 1925 would want to link to 1925 if that article were better organized, like the one about 1345), I would propose:

What do you think? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 13:47, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, Category:1925 births sorts people alphabetically and gives no information other than their names, whereas 1925#Births sort them by birthday, and also gives the nationality, occupation, and death year. I have no strong opinion on whether the latter is useful, but I don't think it would do any harm, if it were in a separate place rather than in the year's main article.
Wrad, you say "the rest sounds pretty good" but disagree with deleting; what would you propose that 1925 should contain, when the lists are moved to their own titles, until a prose article is written? -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 17:40, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Thousands of articles link to 1925. It is simply not an option for us to delete it. I don't really think that there is any reason to split things off until a summary is written, anyway. Wrad (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I totally agree. Deb (talk) 18:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
It won't be thousands soon. I think that the way to save these links and to save the year article itself from being orphaned would be to organize them along the lines suggested. Each entry should fit into a general category within that year. What we need now is to decide what those categories should be. I think that just leaving it at events might be too broad. I suggest using a grouping that we already have such as:
  1. 1925 Biographies
  2. 1925 in Economy
  3. 1925 in Geography
  4. 1925 in Maths, science, and technology
  5. 1925 in Art, architecture, literature, and media
  6. 1925 in Politics and warfare
  7. 1925 in Religion and philosophy
  8. 1925 in Society, sports, law, and sex--2008Olympianchitchat 08:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Year articles will never be orphaned. They will always link to each other and their subarticles. That in itself adds up to thousands, or at least several hundreds. Deleting them is not an option and is taking it way too far. If we want year articles to improve like 1345, 1346, and 1347, then we have to start somewhere. In answer to your question, Army, about what 1925 would be on a split off, again, I don't see why it should be split off unless a summary was written. Otherwise the split-offs would be just as low-quality as the article itself was. Wrad (talk) 17:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

January 1909

Are there more month pages like this? Thoughts??? DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 19:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the layout, but I'm not totally against month pages as long as they can be filled with good info. Wrad (talk) 18:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
February 1909 has been done too. They seem overly americanocentric to me. DerbyCountyinNZ 04:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems strange to me that no one has brought this up. A group of users, led by User:Tony1, who believe themselves to be in the majority, have decided that date links are 99% useless and have begun removing them from "year in topic" articles (they refer to this as an "audit"). Personally I think this is a pretty bad idea, but it doesn't seem like anyone else on this project is bothered by it - is that true? Deb (talk) 18:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

What are some examples of what they're doing? Wrad (talk) 18:12, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
1994 in video gaming
2010 in sports
See his contributions from 11:48 trough 11:56 on January 8, 2009. (I don't know how to link specifically to those contributions.) The sports ones seem to have been reverted, but nobody seems to care about video gaming. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, I now reverted his videogaming contributions, pending consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Looks like there was/is a discussion on this at WP:CONTEXT? Wrad (talk) 19:02, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Looks like there was. It also looks like there was agreement that calendar-based articles should have calendar-based links, regardless of the (disputed) consensus that year and month-day links should not exist. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Here is the discussion Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#YEAR ARTICLES ARE NOT 'TRIVIA' ARTICLES. Please take part. This is incredibly relevant to our project. Wrad (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Here is the RfC Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC Wrad (talk) 18:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree that that's the RfC. I also see a consensus not to unlink month-day links from year articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I don't see the purpose of linking to month-day articles on an article about video games. The only good date link would be something like this: "This is an article about all video-game related events in the year 2008." Dabomb87 (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure you understand. This is not just an article about video games, it is a timeline article. How is it out of context to link one timeline to another? Wrad (talk) 22:16, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
You are right, I don't understand, what kind of timeline? Or do you mean that the date articles themselves, such as November 12? If you mean the year-in-topic articles, I agree that they should link to year articles, but not month-day articles. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm undecided on that last point right now (M-d articles). Otherwise we agree. Wrad (talk) 22:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Date articlea are articles you can look at to see "what happened on this day". Remove the ability to link to them and you remove their reason for existing. Deb (talk) 23:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, let's look at it backwards. What is the reason for their existing? What would a high-quality June 10 article look like? Wrad (talk) 23:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • First, Wrad's bot-notice that I just received contains significant information. It is not the year-articles themselves that are regarded as trivial, but the practice of default linking to them from other non-chronological articles. This is a major point that should be correct forthwith. Second, not unconnected with the issue of delinking years and month–day items from year-pages is the unsatisfactory formatting of these openings to lists. Instead of linking (why do we put a huge navbox at the top?), these items need to be properly formatted so they look different from the very next item. Bunching up links is counter to advice at MOSLINK, and draws the reader's attention away from the substantive links in the line. I find it extraordinary that we get this, so often:

June 11 - The Queen of England got up and looked at herself in the mirror.

Rather than this:

June 11 – The Queen of England got up and looked at herself in the mirror.

Or some such, with highlighting and a proper en dash, not a squidgy little hyphen (see MoS for that).

At the very least, can we have a few guidelines here on formatting, even if you can't bring yourselves to dispense with the redundant bright-bluing of the lead item in the lists?

  • Second – since there's a call for general discussion about the year pages, no one has engaged seriously with my call on this page a few months ago to consider merging year-articles from earlier centuries into decade articles. 1345 proves one point: if you write a good year-article from that period, you suck in a lot of information that would also apply to the surrounding years articles, if they were written in similar detail. Let's face it, a lot of historical events, especially looking back that far, happen over longer temporal periods than a single year. And it's hard to find enough information to fill every single year in, say, the 14th century in like manner. Tony (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Can we use 1346 as a model instead? I think it is better. It doesn't borrow anywhere near as much from surrounding years. I think doing a mass merge is a bit too big of a step then I'm willing to take considering 1346. I agree with you that year articles aren't necessarily trivial (most of them are right now, though, I'll say that much). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrad (talk • contribs) 02:34, January 11, 2009
Actually, , according to WP:DASH, it's supposed to be an em dash (which, oddly enough, is not supposed to be spaced, even if the space is necessary for clarity), and I would prefer:
For what it's worth, I brought up the dash issue in early 2008, but nothing came of it, along with Year/Decade/Century/Millennium categorization and sort key issues. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that it is a spaced en dash, per WP:DASH. "En dashes (–) have three distinct roles ... In lists, to separate distinct information within points" Dabomb87 (talk) 02:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Arthur, well in that case, I formally propose that a guideline be inserted into the WikiProject that spaced en dashes be used. Dabomb is correct, I believe, but the point needs to be strongly reinforced here, as it has been in a few other WikiProjects (?music). Tony (talk) 03:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
It would help certainly help to have a definitive format for dayes in year articles. Having been through the entire 1800s in New Zealand more than once trying to achieve consistency with the base year articles only to have another user continually add entries using his own idiosynchratic style (particularly with regards to Deaths entries), being able to quote a standardised format would make things much easier! DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 04:33, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Colon preference: I don't mind the colon (maybe it's even better than a spaced en dash); the only issue might be if there's a colon later in the point. Can't have two in a row, I think. So that brings me to ask you all whether a single format should be decided on, or whether one gives editors the choice of, say, colon or spaced en dash. It would be nice if it were uniform throughout sibling articles. The other issue is that whether the chronological item opening a list-point is blue-linked or not, I believe it should be bold. I find it very hard to read when the opening item is not highlighted against what is typically a linked item next up in the text. Tony (talk) 08:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree. Tony (talk) 12:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Getting year-articles into gear: a game-plan?

Wrad, I'm unsure what you mean by "most of them are right now". Most of them need serious work in a number of fundamental ways. I suggest a formal project, call for users to sign up, concentrating on one to three specific periods at a time (say, 1340s and somewhere in the 19th century, and perhaps one in antiquity, which would bring in quite different editors?). That might give us a sense of achievement when we can knock off small chunks rather than staring at the whole of time.

Now, I want to ask why the guidelines at the WikiProject say nothing about verification. I see this claim in 2009, for example:

  • "February 17 – It was announced that this is the day that the New Yankee Stadium will be completed."

Announced by whom? How do we trust this claim? I think it's time to get tough on citations, don't you? Tony (talk) 03:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

What I meant was, "Most of them are trivial right now." They, as you say, need lots of work in fundamental ways. I love this proposal and would eagerly take part. Also, have you seen the new guideline we drew up, mentioned in the newsletter? It discusses verification. Wrad (talk) 03:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Citation or not, the completion of the new Yankee Stadium is not notable enough for inclusion in 2009. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 04:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Suitable for 2009 in sports, but not 2009. Wrad (talk) 05:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll read the newsletter soon. I've flicked through the text on the project page, and one thing that caught my eyes was the recommendation against noting election results. Hmmm ... so Obama's election isn't admissable in the 2008/09 year? Unsure about that. It's a hard call. Tony (talk) 08:12, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
It's a lot more complex than just a blanket ban on all elections. We have had serious problems on recent year pages as everyone was putting every election from every country on the page. Now, we don't allow elections unless especially notable. Obama might count, then, as might the recent Zimbabwe elections and negotiations, which were all over the news internationally. Wrad (talk) 20:16, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
What if we did 1340s, 1929, and 2nd century? I think that would help us set a standard for decade articles, century articles, and more recent year articles. Wrad (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
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