Talk:Black Saturday

Merge (other days of the week too)

• Oppose. Since no reason or discussion has been given, I'm not sure why else to oppose it, except that one is an article and one is a non-article dab. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Both seem to contain the same sort of list. In fact, I'd support merging all "List of Black xxxday"s into the corresponding "Black xxxday"s. DH85868993 (talk) 21:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - and similarly for the other six days of the week. There is no rhyme or reason why one event or item is included in one article and not another. Suggest using List of Black Saturdays as the basis (I like the year-date-event system), keeping the "black days of the week" template, and adding sections for "May refer to: Historical events, Music, Film," etc as appropriate. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 08:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Black Saturday (or any other day of the week) is ambiguous and so needs a dab page; this dab page can only be one that "lists articles associated with the same title", i.e. a list of all the various Black Saturdays. --Giuliopp (talk) 20:47, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
• ""Support"" --Gerty (talk) 18:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support I don't see why this should have its own article, if it can be easily merged to the disambiguation page.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫T 10:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

• Support. I dont see why this has not been done already. King Curtis Gooden (talk) 03:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I've just performed the merge on Black Saturday. Will do the rest of the days of the week also.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 04:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The proposal is to merge the list into the base name dab, not to point the base name at the list. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll assume we're going to base the discussion here. I concede your point that this should be the primary article, but am not sure what your basis is for reverting. Other than trivial issues of multiple links and excessive length per entry (which is easily rectified), what exactly is your objection to this revision? In an article mainly composed of historical events, it makes sense to order them by the date on which they occurred. Indeed, there is no guideline at WP:MOSDAB that specifies that the entry must start with the name of the linked article, and even if there were, WP:IAR would apply. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:IAR still needs consensus to apply, not just your dissatisfaction with the consensus guidelines. What exactly is your objection to the properly formatted version (which happens to be order reverse-chronologically, as it was before, which is just as sensical an order)? And MOS:DABENTRY: "The link should come at the start of the entry." -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support: Echoing the above, the other article seems to have the same "purpose" as this one. 67.170.244.238 (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

OOPS! Forgot to sign in. riking8 (talk) 01:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support per (almost) all the above--Breawycker (talk to me!) Happy Black Friday! 14:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

How should we merge?

OK, so we have overwhelming support for a merge to Black Saturday (and all other black days of the week too). However there is dispute as to the nature of the merge. At the moment we have one page as a DAB to events referred to as "black sunday" which have their own wiki page, the other is a list of such events which do not yet, or would not ever, have their own page. I didn't have consensus for WP:IAR when I performed that merge a while back, so I'm seeking consensus now. JHunter is correct to suggest reverse chronological order, and it should not be hard to comply with WP:MOSDAB re: putting the link at the start of the entry. Should we however go against MOSDAB and include "Black Saturdays" which do not have their own article in the "historical events" section? I'd say yes, because to have the separate "list" article is unnecessary duplication. Thoughts?--Yeti Hunter (talk) 09:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

List of Black Sundays is currently in the form that I think would give us the best result.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 09:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem that I pointed out still holds: if you want to merge them into the disambiguation page, you will then be disambiguating Wikipedia articles, so Black Saturdays without articles wouldn't be included. If you want to merge them into a list article, you'd still need a disambiguation page for efficient navigation for readers who are looking for a particular Wikipedia article. The suggestion to "merge" a list article with a navigational non-article page, despite the overwhelming support, has the problem that we cannot have a page that is both an article and not an article. The usual approach for red links on a dab page is to include a blue link in the description of an entry without its own article. The possible solution is to create stub articles for the remaining red links. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:48, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the list isn't an article either - it's a series of one-line, one-link descriptions almost identical to the requirements of WP:MOSDAB. I'd be inclined to ignore MOSDAB, as contemplated in the guideline, purely for the fact that it will be a much neater result, not to mention much easier to perform the merge without making a few dozen one-line stubs purely in order to stay within the letter of a guideline. Personally, I don't think that would add much to the project.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 11:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The list is an article, a list article. That's what lists are; see WP:LISTS#List articles. I'd be inclined to observe WP:MOSDAB, purely for the fact that it is already neat. The stubs don't need to be included, but the entries don't need to be included either then -- if there's no information on Wikipedia, there's nothing to navigate to. Again, it's a matter of trying to have it both ways: an article and a non-article navigation page at one title. It doesn't make sense, overwhelming support or no. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I do want to have it both ways, because in this case it is the most useful presentation of information for the reader. It makes no sense to merge the info to a bunch of one-line stubs, which will probably get deleted. Neither does it make sense to keep the status quo, or to delete the verifiable information entirely, just because of a guideline. This is absolutely classic IAR.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 23:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

No, the most useful to the reader depends on the reader: someone looking for a particular Black Saturday is best served by the disambiguation page cleanly disambiguating the encyclopedia-covered topics for that ambiguous title, and someone curious about the set of things called Black Saturday is best served by the list article. That is, the current arrangement of a list article and a non-article disambiguation page. This is a classic case of the reality bearing out the guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:02, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Re-reading the "overwhelming support" above, it does appear that the overwhelming support was to get rid of the list and rely on the disambiguation page. Yours was the only voice for carrying over the extraneous (from a disambiguation perspective) bunch of links and non-article entries from the list article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:05, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Well what is your proposal? Presumably you'd agree that the status quo of partial duplication is undesirable, so what would be your criteria for inclusion in the "list of"?--Yeti Hunter (talk) 01:52, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Really? I'm not sure why you'd presume that, when everything I've said is the opposite. Redundancy is not always bad, and in this case it serves the readership better at the (slight) expense of the editorship, which is as it should be if that trade off needs to be made. A disambiguation is needed, and exists. I have no opinion if the list is encyclopedic, but if it is, it's in the right place. If, on the other hand, as some of the other editors have chimed in, the list is not needed because the disambiguation page is sufficient, the list can be deleted or turned into a redirect. Yay. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:28, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I've left a note at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages requesting comment as to whether date-first formating or link-first formatting ordered by date is more appropriate for Black Days of the Week. I agree with you that the "list of" articles should be redirected to "Black xxxday", and I have no objection to only including events which have their own articles. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 05:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

(coming from wp:MOS/DAD) To me, the 'link-first sort by date' version looks confusing as at first glance, for having no apparent sort criterion. Mostly because with link-first I'd expect the usual DAB alphabetical sorting, something like:

• Black Saturday (1621), a dark, stormy day in Scotland, taken as a sign of Armageddon
• Black Saturday (1983), the crisis when the Hong Kong dollar exchange rate was at an all-time low
• Black Saturday (1988), the single worst day of the fires in Yellowstone Park in 1988
• Black Saturday bushfires, when a series of bushfires burnt across the Australian state of Victoria in 2009
• Black Saturday (Cuban Missile Crisis), when tensions reached their height in 1962
• Black Saturday (France), the busiest day of the year when many people go on holiday
• Black Saturday (Lebanon), a series of massacres and armed clashes in Beirut in 1975
• Black Saturday (Mau Movement), the killing of 11 unarmed people by New Zealand police during a 1929 Mau demonstration in Samoa
• Black Saturday (wrestling), when the WWF took over the TBS time slots that had been home to the GCW in 1984

see also

• Battle of Gazala, a 1942 battle between the German Afrika Korps and British armoured divisions
• Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, a 1547 battle fought between the Scottish and the English Royal armies
• Black January or Black Saturday, a crackdown on Azeri demonstrations by the Soviet army in 1990
• Cairo Fire or Black Saturday, a series of riots in Cairo in 1952
• Operation Agatha or Black Saturday, the 1946 British arrests of Jewish paramilitaries
• Holy Saturday

The date-first could probably drop the day, keeping only the year, as it will have few, if any, events in the same year. And that would be my preferred option (so far), something like:

• 1547: The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the second last battle fought between the Scottish and the English Royal armies
• 1621: Black Saturday (1621), a particularly dark and stormy day in Scotland which was taken as a sign of Armageddon
• 1929: Mau movement#Black_Saturday, the killing of unarmed Mau demonstrators by New Zealand police
• 1942: At the Battle of Gazala, the Afrika Korps inflicted a heavy defeat on British armoured divisions
• 1946: Operation Agatha, a British operation against Jewish paramilitary organizations in the Mandate of Palestine
• 1952: Cairo Fire, a series of riots in Cairo marked by arson and looting
• 1962: Black Saturday (Cuban Missile Crisis), the beginning of the military confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba

[etc.]

As a side question - probably better for a later step, not to confuse the discussion - some of the explaining sentences could probably be shorter - Nabla (talk) 11:00, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetical sorting is not "usual" for dabs. Sorting is by likelihood where possible, and by a mechanism that will most help the readership find the sought article otherwise. Since the qualifiers in this list are inconsistent, sorting by them would offer no help to the readership. Link-first, on the other hand, is usual for dabs, and helpful. If needed, consistent redirects from the (YYYY) qualifier could be created, but I personally don't see the confusion or need. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Or, if it might be confusing, a leading visible note that the entries are sorted chronologically could be inserted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetical sorting is usual for dab articles, just as chronological order is. It is apparent if you hop around a few dab pages and it is stated in the guideline: «entries should be ordered to best assist the reader [,e.g. in] decreasing order of likelihood as user's target, alphabetically, chronologically, or geographically, not to the exclusion of other methods.». So, yes, the main problem is that the chronological order is not apparent in the (strictly) link-first version, even if you highlight it (that is a good idea, should that option stay we better use it). I'd say my last suggestion above is a rather good synthesis of both proposals. Apparently everybody agrees that chronological order is the best here. Assuming that the problem is only if we should have a format of:

• [date]: [link], text

or

• [link], text including [date]

I presume having the link has the second word in each line is not a serious breach of dab guidelines. I'd argue it is none at all, as the date is 'kind of' a section heading, i.e. it is grouping entries (in groups of one or two, but still grouping). And then, the link comes first. - Nabla (talk) 12:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

PS: It is kind of

[date]

• [link], text

[date]

• [link], text

without the extra line. (Actually, this format is also interesting, I think)- Nabla (talk) 13:16, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I think Nabla's proposal of *[YYYY]-[link], text is very reasonable.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 13:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, alphabetical is one of the usual orderings, but not the usual ordering. Since chronological is also one of the usual orderings, I don't see the confusion. That it is not immediately apparent in this short list has not been demonstrated to be a problem -- are readers who are looking for a particular entry having trouble finding it by the link name? In that case the qualifier is probably poorly chosen. Readers who know the year of the Black Friday sought will probably notice the ordering system easily, and the readers who don't won't need to. If the year needs to be more prominent, *[link] (YYYY), text (bolding added here, not to be used in the entries) would also be very reasonable. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply that alphabetical is the usual sort order, nor the best one, sorry if sounded like it. My point is that while no sorting was apparent to me, I expected that at least it could be sorted alphabetically. IMO alphabetic sorting is a last resource, not a first. In this case, yes, I think chronological is better. We can't know for sure what helps and what does not. But we can try to make a good educated guess, that's what we are doing. So, trying to summarize: Looks like there is agreement that: 1) chronological order is best, and 2) it needs to be clearer, or at least it could be clearer. There are two formatting proposals: A) *YYYY-[link], text and B)*[link] (YYYY), text. I see good things in both. (A) emphasizes the sort criterion, (B) adheres more strictly to DAB page formatting (and following general rules is good and simpler). Maybe we should get more input? How? As this may affect a few (a lot?) more pages, maybe asking at wp:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)? Or RfC, with the above summary?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nabla (talk • contribs) 14:22, 16 October 2011‎

(B) also emphasizes the sort criterion, by unusually inserting the year before the description. (C) would involve creating additional redirects that use the years, since the hypothetical problem being solved is that readers can't easily find their links in the current list but could find them better if the years were used. I don't think the problem exists for actual readers, but if it does, (B) is better and simpler than (A) or (C), and (C) is better than (A) while (A) is simpler than (C). As long as we're all agreed that (B) is a fine the approach, I think we're set. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

(A) would be my preference (since I think it's better to begin with what you're ordering by), but I'll take what I can get. (B) will do nicely.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 21:57, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Good. Agreed. - Nabla (talk) 00:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)