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Formats for the Previous Years and Current Year

Previous year articles should be only one sentence, unless that year was the first or last year of a decade, century, or millennium.'

THus, the article for 2009 may begin as follows.

2009 (MMIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. It was also the last year of the 2000s decade.

As 2009 is a previous year, leave out 2009th year of AD/CE, 9th year of 3rd millennium and 21st century. This information is only if a year is ongoing, not previous nor future.

For 2008, leave out 2008th year of AD/CE, 8th year of 21st century and 3rd millennium, and 9th year of the 2000s decade. This information is not that important as 2008 is a previous year. Leave that information ONLY for the current year.

Homerjay90 (talk) 19:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Current year articles:

2010 (MMX) is a common year starting on Friday, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, and is the current year. It is also the 2010th year of the Common Era or of Anno Domini; the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 1st of the 2010s decade.

or

2010 (MMX) is a common year starting on Friday and is the current year. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2010th year of the Common Era or of Anno Domini; the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 1st of the 2010s decade.

It clearly makes more sense to say common year starting on Friday instead of common year that started on Friday, even though we did say leap year that started on Tuesday when 2008 was the current year.

Homerjay90 (talk) 19:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the Gregorian Calendar and Anno Domini are in the same year. ApprenticeFan ^{talk contribs} 02:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

ApprenticeFan: While I also oppose these changes, I'm not quite sure I understand your rationale. Could you rephrase? Homerjay90: The problem with "starting" is that it's in a progressive tense. The -ing suffix implies continuity or sustenance. But years (unlike cars on a very cold day) are not found "starting" over a period of time; rather, they begin where the infinitesimal space between 23:59:59 and 00:00:00 comes to an end. As for trimming down the leads of past years, I really cannot understand why this would be even remotely desirable. We don't trim down biographies as soon as someone dies. In fact, biographies often are expanded following the subject's death, as the restrictions of WP:BLP decrease. And I fail to see how the past is "not that important". History is not some exercise in triviality. I appreciate the fact that you're now making use of the talk page; however, I respectfully disagree with these particular suggestions. Cosmic Latte (talk) 15:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops, nevermind. Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

So, the format should be ...?

There has been so many reverts/changes/edits by this user, (and maybe others), that I am not 100% sure what the proper format should be in the first place, looking at the last 3 years.
Is it, (as in 2009)

2009 (MMIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. It was also the last year of the 2000s decade.

or, (as in 2008)

2008 (MMVIII) was a leap year that started on Tuesday. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2008th year of the Common Era or of Anno Domini; the 8th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 9th of the 2000s decade.

or, (as in 2007)

2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar.

Our own guidelines are not exactly clear on the format that we should be using, (for current and past years).
If we need to fix/revert/edit some of the changes made we first need to agree on what the proper format should be. FFMG (talk) 05:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I would go with the 2008 format because it provides the most information to the reader. The 2007 sentence is useless and is the sort of thing that people will probably read three or four times while they wonder what on Earth it is saying. The problem with 2009 is that its second sentence is part of the 2008 format but goes nowhere near far enough. Definitely 2008. --Orrelly Man (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Lead for Year articles.

The recent, and due largely to the disruptive edits of one particular user, tiresome, dispute over the introduction to Year articles is unnecessary and could easily be avoided. There is actually no need to identify which year of a century or decade a particular year is. In fact because millennia/centuries and decades are identified differently mentioning both is actually confusing; more confusing for those people who are of sufficiently limited understaniding to be able to work out that eg 2010 is the 2010th year of the Common Era/AD! Centuries, decades and adjacent years are all indicated in the infobox at the top of the page. Nothing more is required than:

2010 (MMX) is a common year that started on a Friday and is the current year. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2010th year of the Common Era or of Anno Domini.

...with appropriate changes for non-current years. (A) link(s) to general discussions of the numbering of millennia, centuries and decades could be added.

Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with that, just as long as the same standards (except, obviously, for the "and is the current year" phrase and for basic verb tenses) are applied to past, present, and future years. The proposed version is nice and succinct, and the reader should be able to deduce the additional info. Cosmic Latte (talk) 04:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems fair enough to me, (and cleaner), we just need to update the project page with example of past/current/future years. FFMG (talk) 06:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I would go with the 2008 option in the topic above. --Orrelly Man (talk) 13:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Whichever it should be, it shouldn't be any of the "Thursday of the Gregorian calendar"-type ones. I still can't understand why that format was ever promoted in the first place, as it is grammatically nonsensical (does one year start on "Thursday of the Gregorian calendar" and the next on "Friday of the Julian calendar"?). Cosmic Latte (talk) 23:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it OK if the beginning of the 2010 article is:

2010 (MMX) is a common year that started on a Friday, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, and is the current year. It is the 2,010th year of the Anno Domini or Common Era, and the first year of the 2010s decade.

I think it makes more sense to say "common year starting on [day], in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. What do you guys think?

You are right on mentioning that it's pointless to say which year of a century, decade, or millennium a particular year is. But it does make sense to say so if a particular year is the first or last of a century, decade, or millennium.

For instance, it makes sense to say 2010 is the first year of the 2010s decade, 2009 was the last year of the 2000s decade, 2001 was the first year of the 3rd millennium and 21st century, etc.

Continental738 (talk) 06:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the comma (2,010th) should be there, although this really falls under WP:MOSDATE, rather than here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:25, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Transient superlatives

I have been wondering how best to treat such entries as the Burj Khalifa and MS Oasis of the Seas. The notability of such entries rests on their being currently the superlative of their type. Similar entries have been made for their predecessors, whether all have been correctly entered or adjusted to reflect their status as a previous recordholder I haven't bothered to check. The first problem is to identify at which point they become notable; at the point at which they pass their predecessor (if that can accurately be identified), on their completion, on their official opening or (in the case of a vessel) on their maiden voyage. Is it superfluous to have more than one entry on the same topic? Is it even appropriate to include them? They aren't events as such (their opening might be but the notable thing is really their existence). I really think there needs to be some sort of policy/guideline on how to treat such entries. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 00:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

In contrast to my previous position (which, in retrospect, seems as horribly contrived as my Billy Mays defense), I would say that opening ceremonies are scarcely notable at all, unless something particularly notable (i.e., something more notable than the already-expected opening) happens at the actual ceremony. Grand openings seem sort of like collective announcements, or like announcements of "being-states" rather than of "action-states"; and, like regular announcements, they can correspond with notable entities/events, but they don't actually constitute these entities/events. However, I think a "Records set" or "World records" section could be useful. But it might be a challenge to determine what kinds of records to include and which to exclude. Cosmic Latte (talk) 22:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

2000s?

The 2000s page seems to have been all FUBAR-ed again. Should it be cleaned up and have trivial material deleted? I liked the format it held before it became a cluttered mess. (Tigerghost (talk) 07:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC))

WP 1.0 bot announcement

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What year are we working on, folks?

I'm back from my latest banishment. Someone pick a number between, say, 1 and 1400 (per WP:RECENT, imo)? -- Kendrick7^talk 04:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The answer must be, 42, but what are you asking for really? I am not sure I follow. FFMG (talk) 04:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

How many roads must a man walk down? I saw, er, heard (in an overflow theater) Douglas Adams circa 1992 when he was lecturing about the dodo birds. Dodos are fearless, and as such, widely regarded as stupid. But it's somehow admirable, their naivete. As such, with my similar faith in humanity: I am king of the Dodos imo... so pick a year, any year. Let's write some %#@$^^#@$ wikipedia, people!!! -- Kendrick7^talk 06:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

We Were working on 1929 and it kind of fizzled. Wrad (talk) 06:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

And I put in some work there too.[1] I see a lack of {{welcome}}-ing new contributors, which isn't helpful, but otherwise, that was, what, 9 months ago. At this rate, we'd be done updating the almanac pages by 4018 if my math is correct. I'm happy to move on to something new. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Just cleaned up 1974 if someone wants to double check.

Will move on to 1975 unless someone is doing it. FFMG (talk) 14:23, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look around. But if there's no mention of my birth in there, I'll be disappointed. ;-) I'm more of a middle ages guy.... -- Kendrick7^talk 03:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know where to put this but I was looking at the year 1966 and february is completely missing from the events list. The whole month just vanished! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.189.170 (talk) 12:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of 130s BC

An article that you have been involved in editing, 130s BC, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/130s BC. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Jeepday (talk) 22:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The decade articles are dreadful

They are just collection of lists about what happened, with each editor adding indiscriminately fact after fact. There is no overall narrative (except in the introduction). After reading a particular article, I don't know what events were the most important, or what events lead to other events. I don't know what were the themes that emerged. There are lists of wars, but I don't know if any overarching event took place in the decade that lead to these wars breaking out. Developments in computer games are explained in great detail (replicating what exists on other pages), but I don't know how information technology helped in the space race in the 1960s or reengineered office work in the 1990s. Names of sporting celebrities are splattered like vomit in the article ("I want to add all the famous baseball players of the decade"... "hey, don't forget about cricket players"...and left uncheck, the lists get unwieldly)

In short, these articles have absolutely nothing to do with history. All facts and no wisdom.

We should have shorter, tighter and more selective information about each decade. They should be written as essays - narratives that select (say) ten important themes of a decade editors can agree about. We learn what happened, how it happened, and what consequences emerged. How did the survivors of the first world war shape the 1920s. As babyboomers settled down in the 1970s and oil prices grow how did politics change in the West? And lists should be used sparingly.

Kransky (talk) 13:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I admit I have not even looked at any decade articles, but I do intend to create them for New Zealand for 1800ff so the content/format is of interest. What I would expect in such an article would be major international events such as wars (ie long-standing such as Sri Lanka, or multi-national) and multi-national political developments (expansion of EU); possibly major deaths with widespread international impact (ie Elvis, Michael Jackson); major technological advances (iPod is the only recent one that comes to mind); and major disasters (Boxing Day tsunami, Haiti earthquake). What should not be included: any other deaths; film releases; game releases; sports results; minor disasters (plane crashes); and of course anything that is of no international notability. I don't know that I would stick strictly to a narrative, I think a list of years and the major events for each (with no more specific dating) would be useful. Any entry would have to have its own article and therefore the use of references should be fairly minimal. Essentially similar criteria, but more strict, to that used at WP:RY could be used for decades (at least more recent ones). DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I wonder then what value these articles would have if we just listed what events happened within in each year. We would just be duplicating what would be in the respective year category, as well as the relevant thematic article (do we want details of "1977: two 747s crash in the Canary Islands" to appear in 1970s as well as 1977 and all the other articles listing aviation related disasters?

History of Spain is an example of a "narrative" approach, in which the most important themes are discussed, peppered with events as appropriate. More detailed information is relegated to other articles (Mid-nineteenth century Spain, Reconquista etc). With one reading a reader can get a good idea of what historical forces influenced Spain.

World War Two is another good example. Imagine how useless and overwhelming the article would be if the invasion of the Soviet Union was explained through a hundred dot points. Listing the albums of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth is not going to help me understand Grunge and its antecedents.

How would you teach New Zealand's history in the 1800s? I suppose you would discuss the Maori wars, European settlement, development of the wool industry etc, rather than point out what happened where and when without any contextual elaboration.

Perhaps, to impose some discipline here, we can rename these articles (eg: List of events that took place in the 1880s), and then rewrite the decade articles (eg: 1880s) in a narrative format. Kransky (talk) 06:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: New List of events that took place in the [decade]s category

Following on from my comments above, why don't we have two sets of articles for each decade.

In (say) 1940s, we will take the narrative approach as I have explained above - take several judiciously selected themes and events of a particular decade and explain their wider significance. So in this article we would have paragraphs on the war, the post-war environment, the start of the Cold War, decolonialisation, the coming of pop music, war's gifts to science etc. Short, sharp and to the point.

And in List of events that took place in the 1940s, we will list all the events that took place, list famous people of the decade etc, best selling films, people assassinated, computer games released etc just as what we have in most articles at the moment. In my opinion, for many decade articles which are just streams of lists put together, this is the most appropriate name.

This is no attempt to be cute or disruptive. These two types of articles are not mutually exclusive. The lists article says what happens, the narrative article explains what the decade was all about.

Any thoughts? Kransky (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds a good plan (though it would only work for decades for which sourced material on their significance etc. could be found).--Kotniski (talk) 10:37, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

CommentIn theory I am supportive and in favor of the idea of a list article and an in depth narrative about each decade, however I am not bothered in the least by the presence of both in the same article...Modernist (talk) 12:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Consensus needs to be reached before major changes would be made. Please discuss the split proposal here. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I have made the proposal in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years, because the issue affects several decade articles, not just 2000s. Please comment in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years, rather than the talk page of any particular article. Kransky (talk) 12:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I see having 2 separate articles as unnecessary. If there is a sufficiently strict criteria on what should be included in the list then a single article would not be so large that it would need to be split. And I don't see that the narrative (which should merely describe the most important points of the decade) would be particularly large unless someone is getting close to OR or POV. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the proposal would be a good way to solve WP:SS issues with articles that are (otherwise) justifiably bloated. But, along the lines of what Derby said, I find it unlikely that these articles will become justifiably bloated in the first place. As far as the event-list goes, it could be restrained by criteria like those we use for individual-year articles such as 2010 (e.g., case-by-case consensus is reached that an event is internationally significant, notability is demonstrated by a WP article dedicated to the event, etc.). And the themes section would be limited to what the (presumably scarce) sources generally emphasize--explicitly--as the decade's themes. And if both sections are kept in-check, they ought to be able to fit within individual articles without requiring WP:SPINOUTs. Cosmic Latte (talk) 23:47, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I myself oppose the "split" (you cannot really split anything yet since the summarized content Kransky wants to keep in the decade articles themselves hasn’t been written yet). The split proposal originated from Kransky hopes to summarize all decade articles and converting all lists to prose sections and excluding much of the current information with the goal of having a brief overview of each decade - he wishes to move all the current decade articles to the articles called List of events that took place in the XXXXs and creating new short articles which would only focus on the general themes of each decade which would replace the current decade articles.

While I do believe that some sections within long decade articles should be converted to prose, I believe that we should not create separate articles for the general themes and the list of events of each decade. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 16:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Moved discussion

Moved: was at Talk:2000s (decade)#Split proposal for all decade articles

It has been suggested by Kransky that this article and all the other decade articles be split into two sets of articles:

• One set of articles would contain an in depth narrative of several selected themes and events of a particular decade and explain their wider significance. (2000s (decade) for example)
• The second set of articles would contain mostly lists of prominent events, prominent events in culture, notable people assassinated, etc - mostly what we have in most decade articles at the moment. (List of events that took place in the 2000s for example)

Please express your opinion on the proposed split. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 20:05, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I have made the proposal in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years, because the issue affects several decade articles, not just 2000s. Please comment in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years, rather than the talk page of any particular article. Kransky (talk) 12:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Split discussions should be discussed in the articles pages (after placing the split template at the top of the articles) and not in the wikiproject pages without anyone knowing about them. I have placed split templates on top of the big decade articles (with referrals to this discussion). Hopefully more users would start expressing their opinions about the proposed split IN HERE soon. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 13:52, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

First, the obvious question: why?
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 22:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Compromise proposal

Since we do not really have anything to split yet (the summarized version are not written yet) and because a decision must be made soon - I suggest that at this point we'll remove the split templates from the decade articles and do one of the following options:

1. The users whom are in favor of the split would create improved summarized versions of the decade articles in their personal space and only bring back the split templates after their finished so that we could discuss it before they would add all their work.
2. The summarized sections would be added gradually in order for everyone to be able to take a part in the editing process and so that the final version would be acceptable to all sides.

Either way, I added a notice at the top of the decade articles which indicates that the articles contains lists which may better be presented using prose.

What do you think? TheCuriousGnome (talk) 07:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that I have been busy in other areas and thus have not had time to give such a re-write the attention it deserves. But I like your approach. Perhaps some editors with time on their hands and a commitment and reliable track record to these articles could each pick a decade, and then write in their personal spaces a short (no more than 1000 words) article in prose. Kransky (talk) 08:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion the prose should be written for most of the current list sections separately - for example, instead of having a list of covering the most prominent events in the field of space exploration, we'll have a prose which would cover the same topic in a more summarized way (yet without removing the essential data you get in the list version). I am sure that if we'll keep the notice for a while some well educated wikipedian history buff with a lot of time on his hands would come along and fix this up. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 15:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

If there is no objection to this proposal, I’ll go ahead and remove the split template from these articles tomorrow. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 20:19, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that is best at this stage. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Elections, etc.

OK, I removed national elections, inaugurations, anniversaries (not associated with time capsules), and (all but one) parole/prison release dates from years 2013 through 2059, although 2016 has been reverted. If anyone objects, please let me know.

For what it's worth, I removed the US elections, as well as Scotland, Philippines, and British Columbia.

I was also wondering about the Olympics, and FIFA tournament years. I would think that we shouldn't have an entry, at least until there is at least a bid for that year. The Olympics probably should be listed in the year article when the site is selected, but I'm not sure about FIFA. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I object... Having been away for a while, and suddenly wanting to find the date for the 2016 election in United States, I suddenly found it had been removed with-out even a notice in the 2016 page. United States elections are followed world over and they have a direct effect on the world. I also feel other elections should be re-added. One person should not have the right to determine if a subject should be in an article or not as it relates to this and similar other matters. I am almost angry over this. Magnum Serpentine (talk) 14:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

That might be a good reason for inclusion in 2016 in the United States but the policy here is that no country's elections are more important than any other's except where there is a significant change ion political direction (i.e. abolition of monarchy; move from democracy to totalitarian state). As there is no suggestion at this time that any future election in the US will feature such a change there is no justification for including it in a Year article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

This use to NOT be the policy. It use to be fun to read the year articles and read each date. (I am one of those who enjoy reading chronologies). Now, you can't mention a Presidental Election that might effect the world simply because all elections are important? Wikipedia is not the same any more. I am very saddened by this.Magnum Serpentine (talk) 01:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Elections are included in e.g. National electoral calendar 2010. At this stage those interested in that topic appear to have not deemed articles of sufficient importance more than a year in the future. As with many subjects there is far too much information on that subject for it to all be included in Year articles. The Year sub-category articles cover these subjects separately and therefore in more detail. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 01:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Births and Deaths in Year articles

I am currently having a revert war with an editor who is claiming that anyone with an article should be included in the Births or Deaths section of a Year article. Obviously I disagree. I have (slowly) been tidying up 1906 - 1910 to reflect their international nature. Taking the guideline at WP:RY as a basis I have removed any births and deaths with apparently insufficient international notability, but only if there is an appropriate Year in Country article to put them in (unless they are clearly not international). I have generally based this on:

0 foreign language articles - clearly of no international notability 1-3 foreign language articles - extremely limited international notability , excluded unless there is an exceptional reason not to 4-6 foreign language articles - limited international notability, inclusion/exclusion based on quality of English article and whether foreign language articles show local notability rather than c&p of the English article 7+ foreign language articles - included unless there is an exceptional reason not to

The discussions in question are Talk:1906 and Talk:1908. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:59, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

The section for the 1420s

The entry for the 1420s is nearly empty - it could probably go on the To do list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arcelios (talk • contribs) 12:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Religious info

As per a discussion on 2010: (I've included the trail of conversation from there)

per this edit [2] the editor who reverted said "some are clearly false and not done in other articles." For the former i would like to know what is false. For the latter WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a reason for removal. Either we remove all or none.Lihaas (talk) 06:25, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

January 1 having religious significance in Christianity is false. As for "not done in other articles", it's also not done in the WP:YEARS examples. If you think the changes should be made, get consensus in that project first. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:47, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

As per the link: "New Year's Day is the first day of the year. On the modern Gregorian calendar" --> "It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named" The requisit edit then says "a religious festival founded in Western Christianity though now globalized "

Then see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS because it exists on other pages is no reason to keep it. And then the years link says "Be sure to cite everything in this section." The cites, as mentioned are provided. One can't have info for one thing and not the other.(Lihaas (talk) 07:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the only justification I can see for adding the religious content to January 1 is WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:23, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The site refers to other pages NOT this page. "In various discussions regarding a wide variety of articles, editors will inevitably point to similarities across the project..."

, my addition refers to this page (as mentioned in the summary) for "consistent details"Lihaas (talk) 08:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

What "consistent details"? And, some of the "holidays" are secular; "in India" was more correct than in Hinduism". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The holiday (Holi) is not a pan-Indian holiday, as per for Nagaland, J&K (or the K at least), etc. It is a Hindu holiday, (albeit Diwali has an added caveat as rightly written) a simple link on there would add the caveat that it is not celebrated by the churches and mosques of india. (it is also celebrated in Nepal, btw (which should be added) and possibly Bali)

Which holidays with the caveat are secular? Other than new years, where i have already put the added caveat that it is now universalized as per WP:Common sense. yom kippur, rosh hashanah, christmas, Eid are secular?Lihaas (talk) 09:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to explain what the holiday is, the wikilink is sufficient except where a holiday of the same name is on different dates under different religions. The main purpose of including them in a year article is to identify on which date the holiday falls. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

That's better stated than what I said. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

If one has an explanation then the other does, its synthesis and a euro-centric bias to say only non-western holidays need the caveats. The main purpose to list them to identify the date is agreeable, not question that. However, with the reasoning above that "i see no reason...except..." doesnt account for the descriptions of the holidays that do mention its connotation (ie- per religion or "celebrated in...") it warrants a "globalized" tag when it asserts on non-western religions but doesn't say New years (for example), or Easter is celebrated within Western christianity (bear in mind that Orthdox easter is a week later, and Orthodox christmas is different too)Lihaas (talk) 06:18, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Only when the same (named) holiday has different dates in different religions, is there a need for the description as to which religion it's in. If the article Ramadan specifies the religion, and the dates are the same in all sects, then we don't need to name the religion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Holi, Diwali, and Eid don't have different dates and the requisite cite also mentions the information over there.Lihaas (talk) 06:31, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Point taken. Let's remove the information as to what religion is involved from those articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:34, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. nice, friendly consensus ;) Lihaas (talk) 06:39, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

NPOV/Easter

Per the section labeling Orthodox Christmas seperately, and with the caveat, from "Christmas" it is more globalized and NPOV to state the definition for both. Can't have it being euro=centric in its worldview.Lihaas (talk) 06:31, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Explain yourself. I thought we already specified Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:34, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The eastern part is added, but the western caveat has not been done. We are presuming christianity is affiliated with western europe which says "Christmas" is the main day on dec 25. Am i being a little clearer?Lihaas (talk) 06:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The Armenian info is on the Christmas page (even i didnt know). im going to alter my own edit to make it consistent with the 1-day difference cited for the equinox (cleans the page up a bit)

"(link will display the full calendar)"

I've recently come across the convention used in 1 where the lede links to common year starting on Saturday and then adds the text "(link will display the full calendar)" afterwards. As was pointed out in this revert, this seems to be used on other articles as well. The sample text for ledes for year articles does not contain this text, and rightly so: it's an egrecious self-reference which may very not be true if the article is printed, or read aloud, or the text copied elsewhere. Was this ever discussed? Is there any real argument for keeping it? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

As there's been no reply, I'm going to remove this text again as I see it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Last decade of century

Fcsuper (talk · contribs) has been removing "last decade of the century" from the lede of 90s through 1690s, at least. I think this should be discussed, before taking the action. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:39, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

See also talk:1590s; I don't know of any other relevant discussion section, and I wouldn't have thought to look there. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion: Century dates do not match decade dates in Wikipedia decade articles. The terms "century" and "decade" have different definitions that do not agree with each other (nor should they need to). The current structure of articles for decades follows colloquial use of term decade, but makes reference to the formally defined term "Century" in a way that is counter to the referenced definition of Century. In my view, there is no need to reconcide "decade" with "Century" in Wikipedia, but the term "Century" should still be used according to its formal definition regardless to the common colloquial use of "decade".

So, I propose adding the term "full" to each xx90s decade article where the statement "last decade of" appears (to read "last full decade of..."). This allows for the continued use of the colloquial "decade" term, while following the sourced used of the term "Century". Or, I am also open to removing any reference any decade being "last" of any century, and letting the matter be self-evident. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 21:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

It is incorrect to assert that our usage of "decade" and "century" is inconsistent with the articles Decade and Century:

A decade is a period of ten years.

— Decade

A century (from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred) is one hundred consecutive years. It is also a Roman term. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages (e.g. "the seventh century AD/CE").

— Century

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that references to decades (ie first/last year of decade; first/last decade of century) is unnecessary and confusing. Surely most users would understand that 18211820 is the first year of the 1820s and 19901999 is the last year of the 1990s. Pointing out that 1999 is the last year of the 1900s but not the last year of the twentieth century (which are clearly important) does not need the comparatively trivial addition of references to decades. I can't that this would significantly contribute to tthe casual user's understanding of the article. As long as there are links to the Decade and Century articles that should be sufficient.DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Quoting DerbyCountyinNZ above (in case he thinks better of it)

"Surely most users would understand that 1821 is the first year of the 1820s and 1990 is the last year of the 1990s."

The fact that he might write that, even by mistake, is justification for reporting that 1820 is the first year of the 1820s, and 1999 is the last year of the 1990s. But that's not the issue in question. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:37, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Lol. That'll teach me for trying to squeeze in editing while I'm at work! DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 00:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Arthur, please note the following from the Century article which did not make it into the quote above:

"According to the Gregorian calendar, the 1st century A.D./C.E. started on January 1, 1 and ended on December 31, 100. The 2nd century started at year 101, the third at 201, etc. The n-th century started/will start on the year 100×n-99 and ends in 100×n . A century will only include one year, the centennial year, that starts with the century's number (e.g. 1900 is the final year in the 19th century)."

Since the year/decade articles are created per the Gregorian Calendar, this is context in which they should be defined rather than trying to redefine "Century" (which would be unfactual) or create a new definition for "Decade" (which would be OR). It's best to just not deal with the issue at all by either removing mention of "last" or "first" or by applying Century correctly by adding "full" to the xx90s decade articles (and presumably similar correction to "first" decade articles too). I'm in favor of either solution. The current wording in the xx90s articles as being last of a century is simply not factual. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 23:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to "full", but you seemed opposed to that as being unsourced. I also think we require some indication of consensus before making a family of changes, even if only on 21 articles. (2090s exists, doesn't it.) We had some consensus on 1900s → 1900–1909 → 1900s (decade), even though the templates haven't been properly updated for the second move yet. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favor of adding "full" to xx90's decade articles -OR- I am also in favor of not making any comment about a decade's place within their century. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 04:27, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Given the fact that there is no further comment, I'd like to make sure we have a decision. Since there will always be an open question as to which years are apart of each "decade", I'd like to take action to remove all comment within the xx90s articles about their place within their centuries (i.e., remove the whole sentence about the decade being the last). This is the cleaniest solution in my mind, as it simply covers the facts without needlessly getting in to an area of some debate. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 19:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's the best solution, and it would be nice if someone else would comment, but I consider that acceptable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

As per my previous comment I'm in favour of removal of the sentence. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 20:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Task is complete, now for a new (related) topic. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 02:57, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

First decade of century

I've noticed that the first partial decades of the x00s years often mention being the first. As per the above discussion, it seems reasonable to remove the "first" reference. Also, the names of the articles for x00's decades does not match common wikipedia guidelines. I suggest renaming those articles from "x00-x09" to "x00 (decade)" and updating each of the disamg pages that link to both the century and decade articles. Also, the disamg articles themselves seem to make unsupported statement about centuries being x00-x99. I've changed 600s (decade), 600s and 600-609 as an example — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 03:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

How can we set up things so links show for both BCE and CE as well as for BC and AD on dates?

How can we set up things so links show for both BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) as well as for BC and AD on dates? For example, it seems that 166 AD shows as a link, while the other accepted form, 166 CE, does not? Is there some easy way to change this or does someone have to tediously go through all the dates and creat a redirect for each one? I would appreciate any help with this important task. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 03:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Try WP:Bot requests - it's quite an easy bot task. If no-one steps up, I can do it, but not till mid-August.--Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Years in Theatre

Hi, I am a member of Wiki Project Theatre/Music Theatre and pondering as to why there are "Years in theatre" articles, when they are so unsubstantial. There are only two articles - 2008 in theatre and [2009 in theatre]]. The main problems I have are that there are only these two articles, and the 2009 article seems to have been left abandoned half way through the year. Also, the two articles are far to American/Broadway centric to be counted as an overview of theatre in that year. The 2009 article has a lot of incorrect information (Shades, King Lear, The Indian Wants the Bronx, The Stone, Be Near Me etc etc etc) all played non-west end houses such as the Donmar/Young Vic/Royal Court and not in the west end. Could members of this project please give me their views?Mark E (talk) 16:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles For Deletion

I have nominated 2008 in theatre and 2009 in theatre for deletion, as I feel the "years in theatre" thing is going nowhere, and hasn't been active for awhile. These are the only two articles in the scope and I can't see any work being done to create the other years. There are more comments in the AFD page at why I think they should be deleted. Please comment Here -Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 in theatreMark E (talk) 10:00, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Years in philosophy

Just a heads-up to this project that there are some new stubs such as 1649 in philosophy, with as yet minimal content. Is there a standard format for "Year in foo" pages? I've browsed your project page but can't find one. I was inclined to delete the header/lead "1649 in philosophy", but wasn't sure what sort of lead sentence was the standard, if there is one! And are "year in" articles expected to have references for each item? I've tagged this as {{unref}}. PamD (talk) 22:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, just spotted that it's not a new stub, just a newly stub-tagged stub - User:Yobot has just tagged 4 "Year in foo" stubs (2 Mexico, 2 philosophy). Possibly the set of (empty) subject headings was long enough to prevent previous bots from stub-tagging them as very short articles? PamD (talk) 22:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Prehistoric art

While stub-sorting I've found various articles like 80,000 BC in art which need some attention - not a "year" article, doesn't say what period it purports to cover, etc. It's not clear what hierarchy of articles there ought to be for the early periods of art. These are linked in the page List_of_years_in_art and in the category Category:Years in art, and Table_of_years_in_art#Other_years_in_art is a bit vague about them. Someone more expert in art history, or in the handling of "years" in WP, might like to tidy them up! I'll post this message at a couple of other relevant pages in the hope of finding an appropriate enthusiast to take them on. PamD (talk) 07:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-specific (ie not definitively based on a calendar) Year in Art articles should be Afd'd. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 02:57, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Years articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Years articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:51, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Years in Norway

Should the Years in Norway articles including less significant information such as ALL winners of local reality shows, establishment dates of ALL Norwegian bands (including minor bands), etc? Please express your opinion here. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 18:47, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

1977 is wrong concerning displayed calendars

Please see my note on Talk:1977
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 17:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Holidays in year articles

I removed some subnational holidays from 2006, but dozens of "independence days" appear in the holiday section of 2007. Any consensus on these? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Independence days are anniversaries and should not be included in Year articles. Only internationally celebrated holidays should be included. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Intro text

The intro text in for example 74 BC, "At the time it was known as", is clearly european centered. The year was only known by the Roman name in the roman areas, which pretty much only included Italy at the time. In all other places of the world, ie outside Italy, the intro text is wrong. Furthermore it was only known as 74 bc since the middle ages in christian europe, not the rest of the world. Taketa (talk) 08:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Also see Talk:74 BC - Taketa (talk) 09:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

BC or BCE?

I was just editing the articles on 4th millennium BC and 5th millennium BC and I noticed that BC (before Christ) was being used throughout. Isn't BCE (before common era) more standard in academic works now days? Especially if talking about cultures outside of the Western, Christian influence? Jaque Hammer (talk) 16:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

According to WP:MOS both are used. Whichever style is used first, go with it. ~EdGl! 01:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

BC and BCE is another one of those style features that seem to endlessly flip-flop as editors impose their own preference. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a style_guide template for the talk page that would list the date format, American vs. British English use, BC vs. BCE preference, citation name format, and so forth?—RJH (talk) 22:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

importance?

I've noticed that all of the 'year' articles I've looked at have ??? as the importance.

This is probably right. I can't see that any one year can ever be more important than any other.

is there any way to remove that field?--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

We should remove the importance parameter. __meco (talk) 20:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

And the associated categories, too, I hope.--Robert EA Harvey (talk) 22:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Bannerspam

See my comments at Template_talk:Unreferenced#Internal_References --Robert EA Harvey (talk) 23:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Repeating dates or sub bullets?

The project states that dates should be repeated like this:

== Events ==

* [[January 1]] – Event 1 ...
* [[January 1]] – Event 2 ...

However, this is only done from 1991 onwards. On the almost 2,500 year articles before that (from 499 BC to 1990) there are instead sub bullets like this:

 
 
== Events ==

* [[January 1]]
** Event 1 ...
** Event 2 ...

Personally, I prefer the sub bullets, but is there any agreement on how this should be written? To keep it consistent, I would like to change it to sub bullets on the remaining year articles too. In my opinion, it's easier to see that two events took place on the same date with them and secondly, it would be a lot easier to go through the nearly 70 articles from 1991 to 2059 (from 2060 onwards, the years redirect to decades) than the nearly 2,500 articles from 499 BC to 1990. /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 13:19, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought consensus had been established for a modified sub-bullet format:

* [[January 1]]
** <!--January 1--> Event 1
** <!--January 1--> Event 2

This allows a primitive check against moving lines. I think Deb may have changed most of the articles before consensus was obtained. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears I was wrong. There was an inconclusive discussion in Archive 8. There still doesn't seem to be a consensus to change from the specification in WP:YEARS, which is the repeated option. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:59, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Categorization of years by country

User:Alan Liefting has been doing semiautomated mass edits to remove year by country categories from year in country articles. For example [3] where Category:2006 by country is removed from 2006 in Singapore because the article is in Category:2006 in Singapore which is a subcategory of Category:2006 by country. I think this confuses some category uses and causes difficult navigation from Category:2006 by country. You have to go to the country subcategories just to see whether they have a year article (many of them don't but only have articles about specific events). It seems directly against Wikipedia:Categorization#Eponymous categories which says (bolding copied from the guideline):

In any case, an article should not be excluded from any set category on the grounds that its eponymous category is made a "subcategory" of that category.

At User talk:Alan Liefting#Emptying of Category:2010 by country Alan Liefting stated there is a convention supporting his edits but he couldn't point to a discussion or guideline. Do people here know such a convention? Has it been discussed? PrimeHunter (talk) 05:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

An inspection of the sub-cats in Category:Categories by country will show that the guideline is almost always ignored. From a usability point of view, which is something we should always consider, it is better to have a lower population in a category even if a reader has to do one more click to get to a desired article. The articles in a category can be thought of (in this instance) as subservient to the sub-cats since the latter are the first to be listed. Listing the eponymous articles is therefore redundant and fills up the limited space of 200 entries in a category. I feel that where possible it is best to keep with the 200 entries per category to make navigation easier for the reader. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 08:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

That is completely against the guidelines and we only have your assertion that they are "almost always ignored". If you believe that to be the case you should go to the Wikipedia:Categorization page and advocate the removal of the quote provided in bolded script above. I personally find your reasoning that "it is better to have a lower population in a category even if a reader has to do one more click to get to a desired article" to be completely contrary to intuition and ease of navigation. Whio cares how many entries there are in Category:Years in France? I move that all of your edits described above be reversed, preferrably by yourself. __meco (talk) 14:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

My assertion is quite easily checked. If you look at the sub-cats in Category:Categories by country you will see that the guideline is not adhered to, especially for the major topic areas such as law and geography. There is even hardly any need for you to check the sub-cats since the number of categories and pages are listed at Category:Categories by country. Also, note that, as an example, Category:20th century by country does not have the eponymous sub-category articles listed. Why is it that you find my reasoning "to be completely contrary to intuition and ease of navigation"? As for the example of Category:Years in France it would be ludicrous to have every year of the history of France listed in that category, which is why it is broken down in smaller geographical and chronological sub-cats. This keeps it within the 200 page limit.

Getting back to the issue of categories by country I would like to see the WikiMedia software altered so that categories can list 250 entries rather than the 200 entries that we have at present. That would ensure that all countries will be on one category page making navigation somewhat easier.

Finally, the issue should be resolved before you move that I undo all the edits that I have made. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask of you that you do not continue making these edits en masse while this question is being discussed here and at Wikipedia talk:Categorization where you have issued an RfC on this. __meco (talk) 17:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The guideline says "set category". I'm not sure whether the year by country categories should be considered set categories per Wikipedia:Categorization#The category system but in either case, I think it's best to have the existing year articles available together in a category, especially when they don't have navigation templates. If category size was a serious problem (which I don't think it is for countries) then it could be subdivided by continent. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

146 AH

Article 146 AH contains essentially no useful content. It was de-PROD'd with the following justification: "Contest WP:PROD deletion. There's no point in picking off an individual article in this way when the same reasoning applies to many other articles in this series. I would suggest starting a discussion at WT:WikiProject Years."

This article is part of a long series under the Category:Years AH category tree that are of the same form (with a few exceptions). They have a set of section headers and a calendar conversion, but no useful content. Many could be simply expunged under speedy delete criteria A1 without going through the PROD process, or else they can be linked back to the AH century articles (as a number already have, especially in the first century period).

Is there a preference, or another alternative?—RJH (talk) 19:46, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with speedy delete for 146 AH and all similar individual years. Any actual content could be included in the relevant century article as suggested. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought the Jewish years should be deleted, where the only content was the calendar and connection to the Gregorian calendar. This has even less content. (And, for what it's worth, I'm Jewish.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:13, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that somebody was just inclined to populate the year templates that appear at the top of the pages. But if we delete the empty year pages, that will leave a bunch of red links that somebody is liable to re-create to no useful purpose.—RJH (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm attempting to AfD 115 AH here because it was de-PROD'd with a recommendation to take it to AfD. I guess we'll see what happens. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The result was no consensus. So we have useless, empty articles that nobody wants to delete.—RJH (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It looks like there already was a precedent for delete here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1114 AH.—RJH (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Seeming all AHs have been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/320 AH. 65.93.14.196 (talk) 06:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The outcome was a delete all.—RJH (talk) 22:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Linking dates for date preferences

It appears the general policy about linking dates on the year articles (such as November 6 or 8 June) is that dates should be linked, in order for every user's date preferences to be preserved. However, recently, I've started to notice, that it doesn't work. I don't know if there is something wrong with my computer or with Wikipedia, but even though I have my date preferences set to DD MMMM (8 June), linked dates appear to me as MMMM DD (June 8).

Then, there's also the question about "germane" links, i.e. as it says on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (linking): "Month-day articles (February 24 and 10 July) should not be linked unless their content is germane (i.e. "relevant and appropriate") and topical to the subject. Such links should share an important connection with that subject other than that the events occurred on the same date. For example, editors should not link the date (or year) in a sentence such as (from Sydney Opera House): "The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007", because little, if any, of the contents of either June 28 or 2007 are germane to either UNESCO, a World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House."

Most of the time, the date linked on the year articles are not germane, which speaks in favour of not linking the dates. Now, today, I just discovered the nifty little template called {{date}} which formats the date according to the user's preference without linking it. Both {{date|June 8}} and {{date|8 June}} format the date according to your preferences (in my case 8 June). I would therefore like to propose the use of this template for all dates on the year articles. I myself would have no problem adding it as I go along and once it's added to all year articles, most people would probably not find it hard to use it in the future. Secondly, right now, linking or not linking dates and format ("day-month" or "month-day") varies if you look at year articles from 499 BC to today. With this template, we would get a unified date appearance, without having links that don't go to relevant articles. With a little effort, it would soon be added to the 2500+ year articles that we have.

So, I have the following questions:

• Does anybody know why the date preferences don't work for linked dates? Is it just my computer or is it something to do with Wikipedia?
• What's your opinion on the date template?

/Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 21:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Strange! I always thought date formats for year articles had displayed as ddmmmm even if the linked date was mmmmdd but on checking I see that it is indeed mmmmdd. Maybe I didn't notice, which is surprising as it is something that really annoys me. I have definitely changed the linked dates on some earlier Year articles to ddmmmm as this is the date the should be, seeing as year articles are international and therefore should use the international date format. if there is a template which displays dates in the users preferred format than I am definitely in favour of its use wherever possible. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that the RfC which led to the change in the linking guidelines you mention, specifically exempted all timeline articles, including year articles—whether or not that made it into WP:MOSLINK. I suspect the errors in the earlier year articles were due to bots which failed to observe the actual guidelines, and the fact that the earlier year articles were not as well watched.

Furthermore, the {{date}} template displays dates in the specified option (default is dmy), not in the user's preferred format.

If we choose to change the guidelines so as to not to link the dates, it is the option of this project, but I think it's a bad idea. There is no way to have the dates display as the user's preference. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

At least one bot worked in chronological order, so it didn't get blocked from the year articles until it hit a year I was watching. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it appears I was a bit too hasty. It seems a bad idea after all. I withdraw my suggestion as of now. However, I still wonder why linked dates are not formatted according to my preferences at the moment. /Ludde23 ^{Talk Contrib} 23:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Template:SLBY

Not sure if this is the right place to be posting this but I wasn't sure where else.. I wanted to bring this to someones attention and it's likely noone will notice at the Template talk page.

This template seems to be adding red-linked categories to the pages it's transcluded on. I didn't want to bring this to TfD because I think the template may still be useful. I'm hoping someone at this project will know more about it and can fix the code, or do whatever is the current consensus for these pages. -- œ^™ 15:41, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguity between numbers and dates

Please read WP:MOSDATE and WP:Redirect. It's Saddening that numbers like 3, 42, and 360 redirect to their respective years, when nobody wants to go there unless he or she was more specific (e.g. 3 AD, 42 AD, and 360 AD). The redirections as they stand are ambiguous, they do not direct towards the primary topic. I propose that all numbers less than 1000 should redirect to the numerical page (i.e., 3 should lead to 3 (number)), and the names of the chronological pages should be changed to be more specific (i.e., the name of 3 should be changed to 3 AD).LutherVinci (talk) 14:23, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Aside from the question as to whether it should be 3 AD or CE 3, the general rule on article titling would require a separate decision on each number as to whether the year or the number was primary, or whether there was no primary usage; and all the year navigation templates would need to be rewritten. I think it better to have consistency in article titles, than to have complex rules subject to perennial argument. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:20, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying that it is better to be consistent, rather than follow Wikipedia policy or even make sense? The rule is not at all complicated, simply change the name of the 1000 articles from 1 to 1000 to add the simple, 2-character suffix "AD" to the end (so it reads 1 AD through 1000 AD). The numbers 1 through 1000 should be redirected to 1 (number) through 1000 (number). Other than that, the overly-complicated bureaucracy is none of my business.

Whether to add "AD" or "CE" is not an issue, your own red link testifies to that. The only people who want to actually spell out "CE" is only doing that because they are too self-conscious about saying, "In the year of Our Lord" all the time. The overwhelming consensus is to use AD.LutherVinci (talk) 00:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, consistency is part of WP:TITLE, and I feel it should have more weight than is stated at present; User:Born2cycle thinks it should have no weight whatsoever. In any case, it's adequate to support the present naming convention. And, although I would never use CE, I don't consider it an affectation.

And, for what it's worth, I reversed the proposed labels. For the year 3, it would be AD 3 or 3 CE. 3 AD is just wrong. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, in any case, WP:TITLE clearly states the following: "titles are expected to use names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article". So in plain English, the the articles currently titled 1 through 1000 should be renamed to AD 1 through AD 1000 (or 1 AD through 1000 AD, but I don't think it really matters). Also, the numbers 1 through 1000 should be redirected to 1 (number) through 1000 (number) respectively. It's not at all inconsistent or complex, it's just common sense.LutherVinci (talk) 00:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Date unlinking problems

'Lo all. Right, I know that all dates have been systematically unlinked because that software limitation is gone. Obviously, bots or somethings have been going through and unlinking. However, in the YYYY in Country articles (such as 1869 in the United Kingdom, 1869 in Wales etc.), the See also sections include links to the YYYY articles (either as a vanilla link (such as in 1871 in Australia) or in the phrase For world events and topics in 1869 not specifically related to New Zealand see: 1869 (such as in 1869 in New Zealand)), and many of these have been delinked.

Should we remove those links or create a template (an automated form of the above phrasing)? DBD 18:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

As I noted a couple sections above, even though dates are generally not linked, timeline articles (such as ''YYYY'' in Country) are specifically exempted, in spite of overzealous editors and bots. It's probably up to this project, but I think those should specifically be linked, and possibly a template be created to avoid bot problems.

And the reason has nothing to do with "that software limitation". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Adding Decades Prior to 1690s BC, as well as ones after CE 2110s

I noticed our list of decades only goes back to the 1690s BC and forward to CE 2110s, I myself feel it would be fitting to cover all decades as far back as 1990s BC, and for the sake of completing the 22nd century rather than stopping one fifth of the way through, add to it the decades 2120s up to the 2190s, please let me know if this would be OK before I waste my time. - User talk:Phoenix500 —Preceding undated comment added 18:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC).

I think that was a fabulous idea, very contributive, I can see you have now completed up to 2190s but have not yet gone back in time yet, I will give you the go ahead, go back as far as you can. — Robert Page (talk) 02:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I am starting to doubt that I can create such a massive undertaking, but maybe if you and some other wikieditors would work with me, contact me at User talk:Phoenix500, and we could each take a century or two and break it down into decades. —Preceding undated comment added 02:35, 28 April 2011 (UTC).

How to categorize years?

Currently we use millennium, centuries, decades and years to categorize. In many cases, if not most, the decade categories exist solely to subdivide the century category. They serve no purpose in adding navigation and in fact may actually hinder navigation. On most screens today displaying 100 by year entries in a category does not present a navigation problem. In addition, these decade categories tend to be populated with articles that have uncertain dates. If you look at the nature of these, as many as 20% could be in the wrong place since some thing that happened in 1850 could have also happened 1849 a different decade. If we only grouped these by century, we would still have this issue but it would amount to less then 2%. When there are cases that a by decade category is defining, then it should be still used. However most of the existing categories are not defining for the subject articless. This would also reduce the problem of misclassifying years when we put say the 1900s decade into the 20th century, mis categorizing 1900 which is in the 19th century. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:42, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Pmanderson

He just said under Talk:4th millennium BC#"Significant persons" Biblical/Legendary that it should be done to remove any mention of "disputed chronology". AKA: Myths, Legends, Fictional media, Biblical events, and pretty much any event that has any amount dispute to it should be removed from any article on time (e.g., 29th century BC, 24th century BC, etc.). This would, of course, disrupt the entire wikiproject for sure. LutherVinci (talk) 04:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

No it wouldn't, it would actually increase the value of wikipedia as a serious encyclopedic project. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Only myths with a clear chronology should be included; which does not includes Biblical myths. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Til Eulenspiegel‎ (talk · contribs) seems to have resigned over my enforcement of this provision over his protests of an anon removing all myths (or legends) from 17th century BC back. Would someone comment as to whether I was too hard on him? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Chronologies categories. Proposal for a separate work group

All the many separate and entangled category hierarchies based on chronologies lie within the scope of our project. I was wondering if some people would be interested in a structured effort at streamlining these structures, the way they interact with each other, discussing how year categories should be linked up to decades, centuries and millennia categories, general principles for timeline cutoffs, i.e. when moving back in time and items to categorize become more scattered we should have uniform rules and a guideline for setting (or adjusting) such cutoffs. Also the matter of templates that provide navigating features as well as do much of the categorizing would be of concern. My vision is to have a work group subordinate to WikiProject Years that would be tasked with addressing and maintaining such chores. __meco (talk) 16:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, I have made a post at WikiProject Categories about this proposal. It would be natural for this work group to be a collaboration between both of these WikiProjects. __meco (talk) 16:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Grumble. Good idea. The question of whether the articles 201''x'' are in Category:2010s seems to be a current locus of dispute. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:47, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Right. Where does that discussion take place? __meco (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? I'll probably participate, as time allows, but I certainly cannot organize it. (See my user page for reasons.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

New years and decades

A refugee from lv.wikipedia created year articles for 2060–2070, which I've since reverted. And, a relatively new editor created the article 2120s. Whether or not there's enough material there for an article, the {{year nav}} subtemplates need to be rewritten to include the new years and decade, and to handle the move from 2000–2009 to 2000s (decade).

Also, the {{DecadesAndYears}} template seems to need some more work, as I can't figure out how to tag it to use the 22nd century in 2120s. Any ideas? Pointers to documentation? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This may be too little far too late, but a solution has finaly been found for the {{DecadesAndYears}} template problem, with a new template with {{DecadesAndYears22}} for 22nd Century Decades. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 03:26, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

1999 should be listed as the last year of the 20th century and 2nd millennium, and the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and 3rd millennium

I know this has already been argued on here, but it only makes sense that 1999 was the final year of the 2nd millennium and 20th century, and 2000 was the first year of the new. I mean 2000 was celebrated as the first year of the new millennium worldwide. On the evening of December 31, 1999 going into the early morning of January 1, 2000 there were major celebrations all over the world marking the new millennium, not to mention fears of the Y2k bug, or MILLENNIUM bug, shutting everything down and causing catastrophe. There were just regular new year celebrations on the evening of December 31, 2000 going into January 1, 2001. The first digits of the year 2000 is also the same as the first two numbers of all of the years of the 21st century, and the first number of the year 2000 is the same as all the years of the 3rd millennium. I mean 2000 doesn't say 1-something or 19-something. Just because there was no year 0 according to the gregorian calendar doesn't make 2000 a part of the 20th century and 3rd millennium. When the year 999 turned to 1000, it added another digit to the year, when you turn 10 you go from the single digits to the double digits, turning 40 is a big deal, not turning 41. You celebrate marriage anniversaries, like your 50th, as special anniversaries. Your 50th Anniversary is your Golden Anniversary and marks half a century of marriage. When you turn 50 you mark half a century of life, if you make it to 100 you mark a whole century of life. The same goes with years. The medeival people marked the year 1000 as 1000 years since the end of the BC times, just like 2000 was marked 2000 years since the end of the BC times. Here is an article that will better explain what I am talking about: http://www.mindspring.com/~jimvb/year2000.htm Bjoh249 (talk) 02:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Wrong! And because a large number of people who work using the same calendar are also wrong is no justification for changing thousands of wiki articles. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 05:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

RIGHT!! I am asking that the articles on the millenniums, centuries and decades at least be changed to reflect both points of view. Just because you guys think it begins with 2001, doesn't make it right. Lets not be one sided here. Bjoh249 (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thre is no "point of view". 2000 is the last year of the 20th century and the second millenium. This is a fact, there is no alternative "point of view". Anyone who thinks this is not correct is wrong. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Bjoh249 - Get yourself a massive pile of beans and start counting them. Call the first bean 'bean number 1' and then count up to 100 beans. You now have your first pile of 100 beans. Keep going. Observe that the first bean in the second pile of 100 beans will be 'bean number 101' because 'bean number 100' had to go into the first pile. Now keep counting all the way to 2001. As you can see, the 2000th bean goes into the 20th pile, not the 21st pile, and the first bean in the 21st pile is 'bean number 2001'. Now instead of counting beans, count years. There is no "point of view" at play here, just extremely simple arithmetic.

As far as the article you cite, it actually acknowledges that there was no 'Year Zero' and goes on to argue that there SHOULD have been one. I completely agree, having a year zero makes far more sense. However I also think there should have been no slavery, no Crusades and no Justin Bieber. Sadly, my opinion is nowhere near as important as it should be. Manning (talk) 05:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

The Y2K bug had nothing to do with whether 2000 or 2001 was the start of a new millennium. It had everything to do with limited computer memory during the early years of software development. As to whether 2000 is the start of the new millennium, well mathematically that is just plain wrong. But I can't really fault people for treating it like it was correct. 1 AD is likely incorrectly dated, so why not arbitrarily define 2000 as the beginning of the 3rd millennium and go on from there? It's easier to remember that way. Besides, J2000 is the current Julian epoch; not J2001. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Bullwinkle is a dope

189.106.21.17 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been making many additions to births in 1983–1990. Although, with one exception, I haven't checked notability (as WP:RY doesn't quite apply), zhis entries are mostly of the form.

• February 30 – Bullwinkle, is a dope

rather than

• February 30 – Bullwinkle, dope

Is there anything that can be done to clean up the articles? An edit filter, perhaps? A temporary block for WP:Competence — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Renaming discussion regarding article 1

The requested move being discussed at Talk:1#Ambiguity between numbers and dates may be of interest to members of WikiProject Years. Favonian (talk) 12:17, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Table of contents

I was just looking at some of the years articles and I noticed that none of them have a Table of Contents. I wanted to look at birthdays and for years where there are a lot of events recorded, I repeatedly had to scroll down and up to the right point. I think the articles would be better and easier to use if they had the short, horizontal TOC instead of no TOC at all.--86.178.201.145 (talk) 13:27, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry my responce is long overdue but, That is an interesting idea, in theory, how ever the table of contents would wind up becoming just as confusing by having an overload of results. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 04:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• For more than 5 years, most of the yearly articles formerly had a small compacted Table-of-Contents (TOC), which linked all the major sections (such as "Births" and "Deaths"); however, all of those TOC boxes were removed. See how year "1954" had a Table-of-Contents in February 2009:

• 1954 oldid=268005830 - article "1954" with Table-of-Contents

I had spent months editing the top 500 yearly articles, to ensure that the Table-of-Contents sections were consistent, from century to century, but all that was deleted. This situation is not unusual: just because something is carefully hand-coded into hundreds of articles is no guarantee that another user might not, systematically, delete that from all articles, article after article, after article, until all the hard work is utterly and completely obliterated. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:09, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

November 6, 1957 - Jailhouse Rock seems inconsistent with linked article which says October 17th, 1957

Question from a Noob:

It seems that:

November 6, 1957 at http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/1957 is inconsistent Oct 17th, 1957 used in http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Jailhouse_Rock_%281957_film%29 and also not mentioned as an event in http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/November_6

Is there some reason for these seeming inconsistencies that is not mentioned in the entries ? Is there any tool that can be used to "check" these sorts of seeming inconsistencies ?

163.181.251.122 (talk) 18:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for noticing that difference in dates. The sources are stating "November 1957" for Jailhouse Rock (film), so we can correct those articles. There are occasional errors in many articles, just as there are typos in webpages all across the Internet. That's why we try to check multiple sources, to get the same data about film-release dates, and such. Because many dates in Wikipedia concern England's Old Style calendar, which began on 25 March each year (for over 550 years), it would be difficult to handle all the discrepancies between Old Style and New Style dates, as well as handling date typos in source webpages, so the use of a date-correlation tool would seem too complex. We just need to correct each date to match more than 1 source, and keep handling typos, in each article. At least article "1957" was better than the film article, in noting a November release date (so it is good that they differed from each other). Most issues in Wikipedia must be handled by thousands of hand-coded edits, so it is important to fix multiple problems in each article, rather than edit "3,000" articles for only 1-word changes in each. As we correct dates, we look around to adjust other problems in the text, during the same edit. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Tool to find articles with a certain year/date

Hi folks, I am very new to the project and I have a question. Is there any tool or maybe WP:AWB plugin which tries to find all articles talking about a certain year or date? Maybe even extract the phrase talking about the year from each article and make a list of all of them? Similar to how Magnus' What is that? works? Cool project! --Codrin.B (talk) 23:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

When do centuries begin and end?

Currently, there seems to be some difficulty in determining this. I've started a discussion on the village pump about this (since the earlier discussion, above (with a really long section name), seems to have lost steam; I want to attract a fuller discussion about this). --NYKevin @153, i.e. 02:40, 14 November 2011 (UTC)