Category talk:Events by month

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Scope[edit]

I am seeking others' perspectives on the appropriate scope of this category tree. Since categories are not usually watched, I am pinging editors with a vested interest (@Jim Michael: and @J 1982:) as well as some of the active WT:CFD regulars (@Armbrust:, @Bencherlite:, @BrownHairedGirl:, @Debresser:, @DexDor:, @Fayenatic london:, @Good Olfactory:, @Jc37:, @Johnbod:, @Kbdank71:, @Oculi:, @Peterkingiron:, @SMcCandlish:, @SmokeyJoe:, @Redrose64:, @RevelationDirect:, @The Bushranger:, @Timrollpickering:, @VegaDark:).

Summary

Should one-time historical events by categorized by the year and month they occurred, instead of just the year?

Background

Until this month, this category tree mainly (perhaps even exclusively) housed and organized content on periodic events such as public holidays (e.g. Category:Observances by month‎). In the past two weeks, the category tree has been fully intersected with Category:Events by year. The current structure is:

Category:Events by month
A. — Events by year and month – e.g. Category:1897 events by month
A.1. — Events by month-year – e.g. Category:April 1897 events
A.1.a. — Events by topic and month-year – e.g. Category:April 1897 sports events (also listed below)
A.2. — Events by topic, year and month – e.g. Category:1897 sports events by month‎
A.2.a. — Events by topic and month-year – e.g. Category:April 1897 sports events (also listed above)

Pros and cons of the recent change

Pros
- Diffusion of categories such as Category:1917 events and Category:1917 in sports.
Cons
- Month is typically non-defining for historical events. To be sure, certain events are seasonal (e.g. weather), but month is not a core, defining characteristic of events—e.g. it is largely inconsequential whether that hurricane hit Galveston in August or September 1900 or that building was bombed in February or March 1993.
- Category clutter—imagine 50+ events by month categories on Battle of Aleppo (2012–16).
- Completing and maintaining the scheme would require tremendous effort (for little/no/negative value to navigation). Level A represents potentially a few thousand categories (conservatively, let's say 2,000). Level A.1 multiplies this by 12 (24,000) and level A.2 multiplies it by perhaps 40 (80,000) based on Category:Events by topic. Level A.1.a/A.2.a, in turn, represents about 960,000 more subcategories.

Options

Do not categorize historical events by month. Restrict this category tree's scope to recurring events that always take place in a particular month (e.g. Christmas). (At a glance, it appears the new categories were added without replacing previous categorization, and so could be removed without any concern for upmerging.)
Categorize historical events by month. Continue to intersect this category tree with Category:Events by year.
Something else.

-- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised this discussion never got any engagement despite all the pings. For what it's worth, I think this is a no-brainer for 1, per WP:NONDEF. I stumbled on this after seeing this edit on my watchlist, which I don't think served any useful navigational purpose. The issue with an example like that is that there's no particular reason that a reader of One, Inc. v. Olesen would be interested in, say, Battle of Hayes Pond, just because it also happened in the US in January 1958. But I can imagine there being exceptions for certain topic-specific categorizations. For example, someone reading about a WWII battle that occurred in January 1941 might legitimately be interested in navigating to other WWII events that happened during that month (or the months immediately following/preceding). Colin M (talk) 17:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

CfD Notice - Merging old events by month to events by year[edit]

Hello, please note a discussion is open at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_May_26#Category:February_1010_events regarding merging ~2000 older events by month to the associated events by year pages. Please see the CfD discussion for more information. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 15:14, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1800s sports events categories have also been merged, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_16#Sports_events_by_month. – Fayenatic London 09:42, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]