Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/Archive 3

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January13 Events

20th anyversary of January Events in Lithuania is not important to mention in the leading page? Argubaly lithuania won its independcencss by it http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=563916&vId=[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.119.154.120 (talk) 08:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Does anybody _read_ the articles first?

That sure sounds snide, but what does this sound like?

"Its 48th and latest major eruption was a quiet effusion of lava on July 14, 2008,[5] which was aggravated when a lahar caused by the rains of Typhoon Durian followed on November 30, 2006."

Notice the two year discrepancy, the wrong way? That bit of non-sequitor has been in there since January 2010. How does something like this get posted to the main page without a read-through?

Here's the goof, part of where people seem to differ on whether it's a burp, belch, or boom. [2] and Mayon Volcano Shenme (talk) 02:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Does anybody read the articles first? I read what goes on the Main Page, but I don't know of anyone who reads the articles just before they get linked from the Main Page. Wikipedia is edited by volunteers like you and me, so thank you for noticing, and feel free to continue to help solve the problem you have identified. The edit you linked was routine vandalism. I checked the reference and changed 2008 back to 2006. Art LaPella (talk) 05:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

April Fools!

Just to remind everyone here, some nominations have been piling up Here for the April Fools Selected Anniversaries. Last year a few people stated they were disappointed we just used the ones from the year before. Hopefully a new set can be created this year!--Found5dollar (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Selena

Will Selena be featured again this year on March 31? She was featured in 2009 and 2010. I'm hoping that she will be featured again this year. AJona1992 (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Adding an article to tomorrow's selected anniversaries

(Moved to Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/March 5). Prioryman (talk) 13:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Referencing issue

I'm not reporting this at WP:ERRORS because I'm not sure it is an error. However, the Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff is on OTD as the anniversary of a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The problem is, virtually all of the article is unreferenced and thus the claim is unverifiable. Can we please ensure that this sort of thing does not happen in future. Mjroots (talk) 13:01, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Blurbs too long

Over the last couple days as I've tried to balance out the Main Page, I routinely discover that OTD is taking up more than its fair share of space. That is, ITN will often be shorter in length than TFA, but still OTD takes up too much space -- despite only having five blurbs. An example of a blurb from today (March 24):

1980 – One day after giving a sermon in which he made a plea to Salvadoran soldiers to stop carrying out the government's repression and violations of basic human rights, Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.

Surely, you can see how this can be cut down. "Repression" and "violations of basic human rights" are similar in meaning so the latter can be cut down. "While celebrating Mass" is not particularly important. The first clause even could conceivably be cut down to simply "One day after giving a sermon decrying the Salvadoran government's repression". There are a multitude of ways to cut this down, but these lengthy blurbs -- which you don't see on ITN and certainly don't see on DYK -- need to go. -- tariqabjotu 13:12, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Battle of Towton

For tomorrow, the 1461 Battle of Towton should be replaced because it's the Featured Article. Art LaPella (talk) 20:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Centenary of Tsinghua University

On 22 April 2011, Tsinghua University, one of the top Chinese universities, will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Could we list it on that day? Laurent (talk) 13:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Staging areas

I just put in a "staging area" at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 2. The idea is that when blurbs are in the commented-out section, those links are not visible from the "What links here" page for each article. By doing it this way and wrapping this new section in <noinclude/> tags, it should hopefully make it easier to figure out where else an article is being used and thus make it easier to avoid repeats. I'm planning on converting all days to this format, unless there's a flaw in my logic or if anyone has an objection. howcheng {chat} 20:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Indianapolis 500 centennial

On May 30, 2011 it's the centennial of the first edition of the Indianapolis 500. I suggest you to pick it for this year's May 30 selection. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:59, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Star Wars Day?

Really? This is considered notable? Thankyoubaby (talk) 08:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Check who writes Wikipedia: geeks... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:45, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hawkhurst Branch Line

The Hawkhurst Branch Line closed in June 1961, thus the 50th anniversary is approaching. The article is rated as a GA, and I'd like it to appear on OTD if possible. There are three relevant dates. 10 June was the last day of regular service, 11 June was the last passenger train (a railtour) to run over the line, and 12 June was the official date of closure - i.e. the first day with no service. Mjroots (talk) 19:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Blurbs on wars, and capitalisation following a colon

This project seems to have a convention on presenting items on wars with a format war name colon capitalised incident.

This seems ungrammatical. A colon is not ordinarily followed by a capital letter. Although MOS#Colons states that this can sometimes happen, it notes that it is more often found in US English (and therefore is in violation of WP:VNE), and that it is used especially if the colon serves to introduce more than one sentence, which is not the case in these blurbs. That section of our MOS is introduced with A colon (:) informs the reader that what comes after it demonstrates, explains, or modifies what has come before, or is a list of items that has just been introduced. That is not the usage here. the practice has been overturned in discussion at WP:ERRORS. Kevin McE (talk) 00:05, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Based on a random sample, that convention is followed on about half of the pages. 365/2=183 times. They are unprotected except for the current page (and maybe the next one?). So if a consensus agrees with you, are you volunteering to fix it? Art LaPella (talk) 02:35, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
I normally only note these issues when they become accessible via WP:ERRORS, at which stage they are beyond my editing authority. Are you defending the current practice, or simply washing your hands of responsibility for correcting it? Kevin McE (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
The practice looks OK to me as an American. I won't stop you, but I don't intend to put my own name on corrections. Others also watch this page, but not very many. Art LaPella (talk) 18:53, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
Colon (punctuation)#Use of capitals certainly makes it sound like a WP:ENGVAR issue. Anomie⚔ 20:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Ascension

Wouldn't it make more sense to link to Feast of the Ascension instead of Ascension of Jesus? Bo Lindbergh (talk) 22:28, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

July 17 suggestion

The start of the Spanish Civil War seems to have been marked with regularity over recent years; this year will be 75 years on. There is, however, now a new article to consider in exactly how it is marked: Spanish coup of July 1936. Not a perfect article, but worth considering alongside a link to the Spanish Civil War page itself (now considerably improved). Thanks Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Support. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

June 24 changes proposed

Please see Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/June 24. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

2 proposals for 28 June

Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/June 28 StoneProphet (talk) 16:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Neptune

{{Edit protected}} Addition: Neptune completes it's first orbit since its discovery in 1846 by Johann Galle.

Removal: Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, proclaimed a revelation recommending polygamy.

Brought up at WP:ITNC but numerous concerns were raised that it's not ITN material and should be at selected anniversaries instead. Thanks! Swarm X 20:01, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

If this is done quickly, remember to remove the apostrophe from "it's". Art LaPella (talk) 20:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure selected anniversaries is allowed to do anything from the current year. Is it? We could do something like "1846-Neptune is discovered" though. I'm not sure if it's worth doing it now though; only 80 minutes before this page rolls over. NW (Talk) 22:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Too bad. Swarm X 00:22, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Plus, as Howcheng mentioned (and I can't believe I didn't catch this), the anniversary was July 11, not July 12. NW (Talk) 00:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Howcheng...? According to the Space.com article provided (which was from July 12) it was going to happen "tonight" at 22:27 UTC. Swarm X 00:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
You would have to ask him about it. NW (Talk) 11:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
I was just going by what's in the Neptune article. howcheng {chat} 16:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
This is essentially being listed as an anniversary (terrestrial) of an anniversary (neptunal, or whatever the correct adjectival form is). There is no actual event or happening on July 11/12 to commemorate in future years, so oppose. Kevin McE (talk) 16:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Richard Nixon

In looking at the talk page as part of the article improvement drive, I notice that it has been used, on August 9, seven of the past eight years to support the anniversary of Nixon's resignation. The only other time I see a selected anniversary for this article is December 21, 2010, which I'm guessing is for the 40th anniversary of the Nixon/Elvis meeting. Nixon did many things besides resign and meet with wacko pop stars who want to be appointed a federal special agent and who have shown up at the gates with a gun (no kidding, Elvis did). Perhaps next year a different event can be used? Maybe the anniversary of his visit to China in February?--Wehwalt (talk) 05:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Nixon's resignation is one of those significant anniversaries where there we be more complaints if it was *not* featured. Of course, there is a separate article on 1972 Nixon visit to China that has been featured in the past.[3] Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, Nixon/Elvis was pretty much a one-time deal. But otherwise, what Zzyzx11 said. howcheng {chat} 17:50, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I suppose. Sigh.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Pakistan

How come Independence Day (Pakistan) was not featured on today's date in this section? Mar4d (talk) 09:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The article requires more references. Having a serious maintenance tag on it disqualifies it from being included. howcheng {chat} 17:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

A misplaced question?

I'm not sure where to raise this question, so here it comes: Is there a permanent link that will at all times show the selected annivesary queue for tomorrow (the day after the current date)?--Nø (talk) 14:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no such page for tomorrow's SA/OTD, so your best bet is going to be Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow. howcheng {chat} 17:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Great - thanks!--Nø (talk) 19:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies

According to our own article on Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, the "portrait" currently featured in OTN is a "false portrait", and not even her at all. So why is this portrait used to portray her when we have actual photos of the real person? The359 (Talk) 09:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

9/11 attacks

Why is there no mention of the September 11 attacks in the section "On this day"? This event is at least comparable in historical significance (if not more so) to the two battles linked to in this section -- in fact, it can be argued that the attacks were THE most significant event to ever happen on this day -- so it should definitely be included. To not even mention it is unconscionable at the very least. 67.169.177.176 (talk) 05:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

According to WP:SA#Staging area, "Also, to maintain some variety of topics on the Main Page as a whole, an event should be hidden if it is also the featured article or the featured picture for that particular day." So it isn't just September 11; every event is treated that way. Art LaPella (talk) 17:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

OCD awareness week

I feel the need to say that OCD awareness week is currently ongoing in the UK this week. --Adamd1008 (talk) 11:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Selected Anniversaries is for "selected anniversaries in history taken from each day of the year's events and holidays/observances section and from current Jewish, Islamic, and other lunar-based calendars" -- not current events (WP:SA). EEng (talk) 14:42, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
I've been checking and re-checking this. Can I stop now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikilinking

Discussion moved to Talk:Main page#OTD wikilinking. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Is there a particular reason why the year is wikilinked in each SA/OTD entry? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The OTD pages are designed to mirror the the style of days of the year lists (e.g. the January 1, January 2 ... December 31) pages. The days of the year pages link to the year articles (e.g. 2011, 2010 ... 900, etc.), and the year articles link back to the days of the years. This style is detailed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year#Style and Wikipedia:Days of the year, among others. If anything, you should propose such changes on those pages first.
Furthermore, as stated in many discussions here on Talk:Main page, the Main page is treated more as a portal to let users explore the different articles around Wikipedia, and thus the guidelines on WP:OVERLINK are more relaxed. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

October 15 - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the UK?

I've added a citation needed tag to the unsourced assertion in the lead of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day that it is now marked in the UK. I've never seen any indication of this, and indeed (living in the UK) had never heard of the day until now. It's named only as marked in the US and Canada at October 15, and I think its appearance on the main page should be limited to this rather than claim it is a UK event when no sources or further information are to be found on wikipedia. U-Mos (talk) 12:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Year wikilinking in OTD

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Should the years be wikilinked in On this day entries posted to the Main Page? This question concerns simple year links (for example, 2011) in the entries on the pages listed at Category:Selected_anniversaries_by_day. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

What purpose would year links serve? What's the back story? Is someone pushing for this? Dicklyon (talk) 03:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Check the current mainpage. The backstory is the years are already wikilinked but not all agree this is a good idea as it may be a distraction from the main articles etc. Nil Einne (talk) 03:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. No - per WP:OVERLINK. A sea of blue is not helpful to our readers, and in most cases these pages are not very helpful in allowing the reader to understand the bolded article. Systematically linking the years here because it's the current status quo is not good practice. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  2. Abstain - I see arguments on both sides, but the utility (or otherwise) of the links can't be determined by the spike in page traffic, especially with events like Pearl Harbor 1941 will see extra traffic regardless, and we don't know if the folk that visited the page got value from it, nor what other value was missed due to the presence of the link. Rich Farmbrough, 17:26, 5 November 2011 (UTC).
Do you mean linking just the years at the beginning of each item, like here: Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/May 14. Is that what you are talking about? If not, what? In puzzlement, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:35, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes - whether these years should generally be linked or not. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:01, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • See no harm in it. The "sea of blue" argument does not hold here because ir is simply the year dates at the beginning of the items that are blue: Not very threatening. What is way worse are all the non-important links within the items themselves. Thanks for bringing this up. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, because I see selected anniversaries as more of a portal to other content than as just a showcase of one particular article. Drawing attention to the year articles from the main page is also a good way to give readers a feeling of how big this encyclopaedia is - it's a lot more believable to the human mind than just saying "the English Wikipedia has 3.8 million articles". — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 03:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

The current status quo is to wikilink all years that appear on the OTD section. This has been the standard guideline since OTD's inception. Years are found in two places:

  1. At the beginning of each event blurb, marking the year in which the said event occurred.
  2. In the holidays/observances line, where applicable (see WP:OTD#Maintenance guidelines). In general, National Days, Independence Days, and other holidays celebrating the nationhood of a country are marked by the year of the significant historic date being observed. For non-Gregorian-based holidays whose day of observance changes from year-to-year, the current year is listed.

These links point to the corresponding year article, which comprises of a larger list of events that happened in that specified year. Historically, the Main Page has been treated more as a portal to let users (especially new users) explore the different articles around Wikipedia, and thus the guidelines on WP:OVERLINK tend to be more relaxed there than a regular article. In addition, WP:UNDERLINK maintains that links should generally be created to relevant connections to the subject of another article that will help readers understand the article more fully; and articles with relevant information should also be linked. The year an event happened, and what was going on in the world during that time, can provide such sufficient context to readers exploring the Main page. What happened on a particular day may have been influenced by events that previously happened that year. Or the event in question could have affected later events. Or the year can provide a clue on what the culture, society, and technology was like during that time. Such extra links are most likely useful to newbies, who usually see only the Main Page first, and are less likely to be familiar with any of the other areas of Wikipedia. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone actually follow these links? Are the viewing stats for 1861, 1875, 1920, 1983 and 1997 going to be much higher today than they were on Tueday of last week? Kevin McE (talk) 10:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, there is usually a spike in traffic on the year articles, especially when major significant events are posted. For example, when Attack on Pearl Harbor was posted on December 7 of last year, there was a significant increase of traffic around that time on the 1941 page.[4] If you look at the stats for the 1861 article during this past April, there was a noticeable spike around April 12 when Battle of Fort Sumter appeared. And how about this past September's stats for 2001, when there is a significant increase during 9/10 and 9/11?[5] I will concede, however, that not every event is equal. When Heidelberg University was posted last week on October 18, 1386 did receive a somewhat of a spike, but not in the thousands of page views like those other major events.[6] Zzyzx11 (talk) 12:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
It seems to me that having the links there is a good thing. howcheng {chat} 23:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Just because something has been done in a particular way for years is a poor excuse for not re-evaluating it from time to time. Is there any evidence that the increase in hit count in years derives from it being on the main page, as opposed to being a 'referral' from the articles such as Pearl Harbour or September 11, or an independent search? At present, OTD is among the most densely linked piece of MP. I guess the idea is to encourage readers to look at October 26, and some of the events that occurred, such as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is fair enough. Cross-linking it to these years – or inserting another dimension into the matrix of coincidences – seems a bit of a distraction from what we hope to focus on. Anywho, the mind boggles – how mentally or physically challenging can it be to type out up to four digits in the search box? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:50, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
While it is true that correlation does not imply causation, I would counter with Occam's razor. Because of a general date de-linking movement across Wikipedia, the year 1941 is not linked even once in Attack on Pearl Harbor, thus by definition there were no "referral" clicks. Coming to the conclusion that on December 7, an unusually large number of people manually entered "1941" into the search box is a bit of a stretch IMHO. howcheng {chat} 23:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
However, WP newcomers may be clicking the year link mistakenly thinking they will reach the event being listed. Although I do not favour year linking in articles, in the particular context of main page anniversaries I still think linked years are helpful and worth having. Thincat (talk) 14:16, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
  • It's disingenuous for long-time campaigners for fewer links (who on the whole I very much agree with) to use OTD's relatively high proportion of them as a reason for de-linking years. Wikilinks have been reduced elsewhere on the grounds that we should only link to relevant terms, or terms which a particularly high percentage of users wouldn't understand. In the context of an individual blurb, the year is of considerable relevance, certainly more than the date. —WFC— 02:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • It becomes a problem due to our systemic bias towards our own life and times. The 1838 year article linked today is concise and selective enough to give some context to the event recorded in OTD; in the 1996 year article, not the epicentre of any particularly historic events, the month of February has more events recorded than the whole of 1838, and so no meaningful perspective of the latter year is easily derived. Barring an extraordinarily powerful anti-recentism campaign, this is pretty much inevitable. Given the nature of OTD, I would suggest that the need for consistency, and the relevance of the year link for the earlier events that we record, makes retention of the links appropriate. Kevin McE (talk) 08:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

If there are no objections within the next week, I am going to close this RFC with the conclusion that year links are to be retained in OTD blurbs, as that seems to be the consensus. howcheng {chat} 10:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Looks like RFC bot beat me to it. howcheng {chat} 18:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nov 8

Huh? isn't the fact today it is Nov 8, St.Michael's day, way more significant than it being St.Demetrius' day in Coptic & Serbian? We already had St.D listed on Oct 26th as the normal calendar - why have it again with this 13-day-erroneous Julian calendar?? Eugene-elgato (talk) 07:06, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Bangladesh Liberation

December 16, 1971 is an extremely important date in the entire Indian subcontinent as it was the day Pakistan signed the instrument of surrender, ending the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War and the Bangladesh Liberation War, leading to the creation of Bangladesh. The date is celebrated as Victory Day in Bangladesh and Vijay Diwas in India. This year also marks the 40th anniversary of the surrender. This assumes high importance to three countries who together comprise about 23% of the entire earth's population. I would think it is important enough to warrant a mention on the front page. Is there a nomination procedure? Or is it too late now? Have also posted this on the December 16 talk page. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 15:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Both Victory Day (Bangladesh) and Vijay Diwas (India) articles are stubs and thus ineligible to appear. Instrument of Surrender (1971) is also on the short side. Finally, both Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and Bangladesh Liberation War have reference problems, which also makes them ineligible. I would love to accommodate this date, but I can't find a way to do so. howcheng {chat} 20:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Fair Enough. I feel the Instrument of Surrender (1971) article has all the content it can potentially have - but I'll defer to your judgement on this. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 has reference issues in only one section. I'll try and fix these in time for the next year. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 09:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

OTD article a mess

I'm referring to the 1066 Granada massacre article – there are two links that lead back to the same article (not just a specific section). It also seems that the article is very thin on detail, and there may be undue bias due to its WP:Coatracked with a largely irrelevant biography of Joseph ibn Naghrela. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Where the hell was Robert Burns?

Why was the birthday of Burns, Scotland's national poet, not mentioned? --John (talk) 21:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Burns supper is currently ineligible due to maintenance issues. Please see Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries#Criteria for listing items on this set of pages #8. I suppose we could link to Burns himself ... didn't think of that. —howcheng {chat} 22:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, that is what I was thinking. Never mind, maybe next year. --John (talk) 22:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I did add him. He was visible for 1.5 hours. Sorry about that. —howcheng {chat} 00:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for 14 February

From above, an endless sea of people holding red and white flags are marching in the middle of a city highway surrounded by palm trees

Bahraini Activist Talk to me 17:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

70th Anniversary of the Battle of Singapore aka Fall of Singapore (1942 WW2)

Must admit I didn't know it was today myself. Was this even suggested, and where is the proper forum to make such suggestions? --220 of Borg 13:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Either here or on the talkpage of the relevant day (ex. Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 15). However, that particular entry is not eligible because it has an orange cleanup tag on it. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I see, thank you for letting me know that. A shame that 'additional citations' tag has been there for a year! - 220 of Borg 15:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

70th Anniversary of the Bombing of Darwin

I have come on here today expecting the bombing of darwin to be on the historical anniversaries list, but instead I see something about an American president and burning books? Do the editors no take this site seriously or what? The bombing of Darwin is listed as the third most important historical anniversary in Australia because of the massive impact it had, so why is this not listed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Collingwood26 (talk • contribs) 03:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

You are one of the editors, so turn the question onto yourself. The instructions for how to add an anniversary are at the top of this page. OTD makes no particular effort to prioritise 'round number' anniversaries, so add it sometime, and it might get selected next year. Kevin McE (talk) 08:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

It can't be added next year, as next year is the 71st anniversary. You would have to wait until 10 more years to post it back on here. I get the feeling you are biased with countries, or how else could book burnings in Canada be considered more important? Or perhaps even racist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.189.192.240 (talk) 23:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

That is an absolutely unfounded allegation, that I would ask you to retract immediately. There is no reason, as I have stated above, that a 71st anniversary cannot be included at OTD: today's selection includes 338th, 201st, 70th, 38th and 13th anniversaries. Kevin McE (talk) 23:36, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

April 1: discussion initiated

Interested parties may wish to contribute here. Kevin McE (talk) 14:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

1 March 2012

Independence Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina! --Wustenfuchs 11:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Didn't know that the holiday had its own article now, because Bosnia and Herzegovina is ineligible due to a {{refimprove}} tag in there. Adding. —howcheng {chat} 17:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on Main Page affecting April Fools Day Tradition

There is a discussion on the Main Page relative to the April Fools Day tradition that would affect this page---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 00:50, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

This is the same discussion as referred to in the message 2 items above this. Kevin McE (talk) 06:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

April 8 2012

BOAC Flight 712 has been on OTD for the last couple of years. This year, can we make the Jane Harrison (GC) article the bolded article if the event is featured? The article on her is not in bad shape, even though it's not a GA like that on the accident itself. Mjroots (talk) 17:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I imagine that blurb will be omitted this year, but it's not a problem to have both articles in bold at the same time. —howcheng {chat} 19:58, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for April 22nd

The 100th birthday of Japanese film director Kaneto Shindo is on April 22, 2012, which would put him in a small group of noteworthy film directors to reach this milestone. He is also the last surviving filmmaker of the immediate post-WW2 generation from Japan (Kurosawa, Mizoguchi and Ozu were his contemporaries)--66.212.78.220 (talk) 20:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Change to staging area

User:Aircorn had an idea to make the staging area more informative by adding what year(s) each blurb has been featured. In order to do that, each blurb cannot be moved in and out of the staging area via cut-and-paste, so I've been experimenting with moving the staging area into an editnotice. See Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 20 for the first day this was implemented. Feedback from others who periodically update OTD would be appreciated. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 05:17, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there a way to see wikilinks formatted as New York instead of [[History of New York|New York]]? The April 20 version has lost this ability that I have come to rely on. Now, there is no easy way to check for misformatted wikilinks (for instance, three square brackets instead of two, a round bracket instead of a square one, or a redlink). It also makes the text harder to read (reading helps me notice problems like missing prepositions). There are advantages to seeing the unformatted code, but if I want to see that I can use edit mode. Perhaps copyediting the unused events doesn't matter because they don't show, but they often get copied into the area that does show. Art LaPella (talk) 16:53, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
I have come to realize that normal users cannot edit editnotices, so I'm going to abandon that format and go back to how it was. —howcheng {chat} 19:19, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Or you could include some BIG BOLD INSTRUCTIONS. But I don't see the point; perhaps someone else needs to know what years something was featured, but I don't remember needing that information. Art LaPella (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I may be dense, but I am struggling to determine how one submits anniversaries for "On this day..." (Returning to the main page, I am not sure how I even found this page.) Does one physically add an entry to the particular Month Day events list? Are all entries for a particular Month Day then considered for listing on "On this day..."? Is there any means for an author, in an article or its talk page, to request evaluation for entry to a particular events list? Or is there a "staging area" separate from the Month Day events list in which proposed events should be entered? If so, where exactly is the "staging area" found? --Rpclod (talk) 13:40, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Someone wanting to submit an anniversary for "On this day" would probably try the "Edit" tab first, which is unfortunate, because that tab is only for administrators editing the code that holds the Main Page together, not its readable content. That has occasionally been discussed at Talk:Main Page but it hasn't been fixed. If the would-be anniversary submitter then tries the Main Page's "Talk" tab, his chances for success improve. Near the top of that talk page are instructions for a list of things including submitting anniversaries, which directs you here. That does a better job of explaining the rules than directing you to the 366 pages for each day (perhaps by design, thus insuring that people know the rules first). But there are links at the bottom of the page where it says "January – February – March ..." and from there you can see or edit the page for any day of the year, except today and yesterday's pages, which are protected if you aren't an administrator. Yes, you physically add an event to any day of the year, like any other page (and perhaps get reverted like any other page, especially if you haven't followed the rules). There is no formal procedure to request evaluation of edits to those 366 pages, but I think this talk page would be the best place. The staging area of a page like Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 20 can be found by clicking "show" in the blue horizontal line across the middle. It is explained here. Art LaPella (talk) 22:54, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

25. April

The 25. April 1974 was the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, and the 25. April is still celebrated as a national holiday in Portugal. It's also highlighted on Portuguese wikipedia.... Is there any way to highlight this more prominently? If I understood it correctly, up to 3 events can be highlighted on the top (currently ANZAC day and Yom Hazikaron) - where can it be discussed to include this too? Khuft (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Star Wars Day

Again? Second year in a row. That's dumb. --PHof7 (talk) 15:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

On this day - June 22

The German invasion of the Soviet Union is not mentioned? Are you kidding? The Chesapeake–Leopard Affair is more important than the start of the biggest war in the history of the world? --93.188.37.239 (talk) 11:10, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Operation Barbarossa#Reasons for initial Soviet defeats is tagged as needing more references, thus making the article ineligible to appear on the Main Page. —howcheng {chat} 18:10, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
That's a strange rule, it's the date that's important not the article. Either way, why not link to World War II then, fellow administrator. --77.52.24.220 (talk) 20:08, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
It's not a strange rule: we do not feature articles on the Main Page that are of poor quality (the exception is Today's Featured Picture). It's also a rule that the date in question has to be one of the most important dates relevant to the article in question. WW2 is such a huge topic that you can't really pick one single date to represent it. —howcheng {chat} 00:05, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Honduran coup: factual error yesterday (June 28)

The factoid yesterday (June 28) about the 2009 Honduran coup d'état was clearly biased. It called the event an "ouster", not a "coup", unlike the article title; and it stated as fact the anti-Zelaya allegation that his principal intention in beginning a process to modify the constitution was to serve more than one term as president. The former is perhaps excusable, as "ouster" is spin but not inaccurate; but the latter is completely beyond the pail, as there is no direct evidence that he even had that intention at all. I guess it's too late to fix things, but certainly the process broke down in this case; on both counts, the article itself mentions the positions, but very clearly states they are held by a minority. Homunq (talk) 13:28, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

non-neutral article

Hi, I believe that presenting the fleeing of palestinian soldier from Ramle and Lod as an israeli expel order is incorrect and harmful. Even it was true, I haven't seen any mention on this table about the malicious acts of the Jordanian army against the jewish population in Jerusalem and Kfar Etzion. I demand in the name of justice and fairness remove this link, it is harmful for the Israeli visitor... by the way, hizballah on this day began the 2006 Lebanon War, please replace it for more relevant news...Exx8 (talk) 12:47, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

OTD at WP:ERRORS

I'd be grateful if someone could respond to the issue I've raised at WP:ERRORS. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Moved from WP:ERRORS:

According to cited material in our article on the expulsion, Rabin's role is disputed. Futhermore, the explusion itself is, it seems, disputed. I don't particularly care what the truth is, but if stuff is appearing on main page, we have to be really careful that it's presented neutrally, so giving one side of a contested story, no matter how well it is contested, isn't great. --Dweller (talk) 13:21, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

From my reading of the article, the disputed part is who actually gave the order. According to Rabin, Ben-Gurion ordered the expulsion, although he may not have actually verbalized it. Allon says Ben-Gurion didn't make any such order, nor did he. Gelber believes that Allon was responsible. The only factual bit out of this is that Rabin signed the order: The article states unequivocally, "The expulsion order for Lydda was issued at 13:30 hours on 12 July, signed by Rabin." —howcheng {chat} 16:47, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
The article includes Allon's view that there was no expulsion, with this piece of cited text "He said the residents left in part because they were told to by the Arab Legion, so the latter could recapture Lydda at a later date, and in part because they were panic-stricken". It seems the issue is contentious, so should not be presented as uncontentious. --Dweller (talk) 08:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
His is apparently a minority view. Footnote 45 says "The IDF archives holds two nearly identical copies of the expulsion order" so its existence is not in doubt here. —howcheng {chat} 16:05, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Official Wikipedia app display

I spotted this post at Talk:Main page:

the new version of the "official" Wikipedia app for iOS devices (iPod, iPhone, iPad) only displays TFA and ITN. The other sections are deliberately omitted. (I assume the same is true on Android.) If you have any comments for the developers of the mobile app, they can be directed to the feedback mailing list at mailto:mobile-feedback-l@lists.wikimedia.org

As this is one of the sections omitted, I though leaving a note here would be appropriate. Carcharoth (talk) 07:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

1980 - July 24

"1980 – At the Moscow Olympics, Australia's Quietly Confident Quartet swimming team won the gold medal in the men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay, the only time that the United States, who were boycotting these games, has not won the event at Olympic level."

I dont understand. Is this some masked attempt to make the US boycott an anniversary? Or is the Australian victory in one event very significant for some reason? --173.32.76.20 (talk) 05:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Australia's swimmers are very competitive, but this is their only gold medal in this event, which was made easier by the US boycott. —howcheng {chat} 17:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
That should hardly qualify it as an anniversary though. Does every country that won a single gold in this (or any) event have its own anniversary? --173.32.76.20 (talk) 00:19, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
No, but it was a huge deal in Australia. And it has Good Article status, which is a contributing factor. —howcheng {chat} 08:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Possible updating of criteria for On this day...

On this day... seems to draw an impressive number of readers to articles - just checked a few and the spikes tend to be in the five figures; however there is a heavy weighting towards the C20th; I was looking through the archives and it seems this has been raised a couple of times in the past, with the responses being (1) difficulties of calendrical conversion (2) lack of decent pages for earlier topics; various conversion tables/programmes are available and the fuller pages for each day have many earlier happenings; I was wondering if it would be possible to amend the criteria a little so as to help counter Wikipedia:Systemic bias etc; of course the criteria are guidelines not scriptures, so were there truly to be no significant and detailed pre-C20th pages available for a certain day, then there could potentially be an IAR get-out; how about, as a starting proposal (still resulting in a heavy recentist bent, but a little more balanced at least):

for days with five slots:
  • No more than one dating to after 2000
  • No more than two dating to after 1900
  • No more than three dating to after 1500
  • No more than four dating to after 1000
  • ... leaving at least one slot for something prior to 1000
and for days with six:
  • No more than one dating to after 2000
  • No more than two dating to after 1900
  • No more than three dating to after 1800
  • No more than four dating to after 1500
  • No more than five dating to after 1000
  • ... leaving at least one slot for something prior to 1000
Would that work do you think? Or should we aim to be even more balanced and try something like (for days with five slots, and still heavily weighted towards the most recent happenings):
  • No more than one dating to after 1900
  • No more than two dating to after 1500
  • No more than three dating to after 1000
  • No more than four dating to after 1
  • ... leaving at least one slot for something prior to 1

Thanks a lot, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 22:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but this is perhaps a bit complicated, especially given that there are many days when pre-1000 events are not available (if you're claiming an IAR exemption in a majority of cases, there's something wrong with the rule you're ignoring, right?). Nikkimaria (talk) 04:56, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Well I'd agree with that - and finding enough dating to pre 1 might be a little difficult without some time in the library; but the first set of guidelines could work (with any sixth slot then left as a joker that is up for grabs); (other than for today...) of those I've chanced to look at there are typically several pre 1000; I'm pretty sure there's going to be no dates without at least a couple of significant pages pre-1500 so, if this is too ambitious for now, we could make it:
  • No more than one dating to after 2000
  • No more than two dating to after 1900
  • No more than three dating to after 1800
  • No more than four dating to after 1500
  • ... leaving at least one slot for something prior to 1500
Might be a small step in the right direction... Thanks, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 10:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
This is far too complicated as well as restrictive. There are varying factors to consider when scheduling articles: chronological diversity, geographic diversity, topic diversity, and simply article diversity (meaning we should avoid have the same articles appearing year after year). Your proposed rules only deal with chronological diversity. Obviously most of the time it's impossible to schedule articles to accommodate all five axes, so often we'll have to sacrifice one or two in order to achieve diversity among the other axes. For example, one day may have all 20th century and later articles, but be varied among locations and topics. So while your proposal is certainly well-intentioned, it's just not realistically usable. —howcheng {chat} 17:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Counter assertions: it's extremely straight-forward and liberating... Well, "the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there", so this should be ok in terms of temporal and locational diversity; at the moment we seem to get strings of C20 dates, pretty unvaried and maybe falling foul of WP:Recentism; I agree it's nice that the rules are undeveloped, unlike those for dyk; but this bias is perhaps the consequence; we get 21st century elephants and no Constantine, who converted the Roman Empire to Christianity - major significance issues, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 09:39, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
No, Constantine was omitted this year for article diversity, because he's shown up a lot over the years. Let's make this clear: With the exception of holidays/observances, no article is guaranteed an appearance on any given day (assuming they meet the quality criteria). —howcheng {chat} 11:41, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
Agreed that no page should be guaranteed an appearance - this one only came to mind because it was a couple of days ago and, where I went to school, modern history began with the whole chi-rho thang; good to know the entries get juggled, I wasn't sure - confronted with a wall of 19xx up to now I've just sighed and looked away; re the suggested update, I can see how it might level the playing fields for Peoples without History to have it effectively begin c.1900, but sometimes it's nice to broaden the gaze a little, and it might help counter recentist bias; if we want to avoid confusing people, how about, and even less ambitious: (1) No more than half of entries to date post 1900; (2) No more than half of entries to relate explicitly/predominantly to the Anglosphere; do you think that might work? Simple enough? Any alternative suggestions as to wording/how things might be improved? Thanks, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
Have you tried to add ancient events to On This Day articles and been reverted? Or are you just trying to somehow force volunteers to find such events (a tactic that is more likely to reduce the number of volunteers than to increase their output)? Art LaPella (talk) 03:02, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm certainly not asking anyone else to do any grunt work; just first things first and before this volunteer expends their time it would be good to get sign-off first for more balance in the rules; were some such step forward made, I would also be happy to stop by at Wikiproject Greece & Rome / China etc and leave a message that, thanks to revised rules, there's a new potential channel to highlight their pages; people may be encouraged to help populate the fuller lists were they to think there's a realistic chance of a front page appearance - especially as the no of views seems greatly in excess of the average dyk; Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 08:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm still against these rules because they're too inflexible. For example, articles about Roman emperors tend to be very well written and researched. With these rules in place, we'd end up with a glut of articles on them, giving readers topic fatigue. There was one administrator putting in a lot of articles on Vietnam and cricket. All of them were A-level, GA, or FA, and yet we got complaints that were just too many of them. So while I am in favor of guidelines that say "try to do this" I am dead-set against sharply defined rules about it. —howcheng {chat} 18:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Ok, and I'm kind of with you on the aversion to hard and fast rules, thanks for your time and comments, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 20:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Just chipping in a little comment really - on this day articles are good, and I like that they are spread out over the time periods, and rotate slightly from year to year to give variety. I think that often you get the opportunity to post about an event that happened exactly 100 years ago - the nice round number often means that the TV news will be covering the article and people may wish to find it. For example today in the uk there are a lot of '100 years since the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster killed 439 miners' type news articles - so I had expected to find that article in the otd list. I think broadly speaking my criteria for the posting admin ( i presume its an admin?) would be to take (from the anniversaries list)
  • the oldest event of the day (that got an entry),
  • the most significant event of the day (in their opinion),
  • the best article (at random if multiple featured),
  • the worst article (in the hope that it gets improved),
  • anything with a nice 100/0 year anniversary,
  • the third(4th?) youngest event (this will stop it being toooo recent, but will automatically change.
I think that makes 6 but there will probably be a small amount of overlap so if there is I'd go for
  • something outside the anglophone countries to fill the space.
Ok well that's my tuppence worth (2 cents). EdwardLane (talk) 09:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Television

This article looks well-written, but I don't see it as part of On this day yet. Is this article good enough to be part of it? If so, which info is interesting? --George Ho (talk) 00:52, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

There are several television-related articles that have appeared on the Main Page in OTD: Philo Farnsworth, John Logie Baird, and field-sequential color system are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. The television article itself is ineligible due to the orange {{globalize}} maintenance tag in the "Funding" section. —howcheng {chat} 07:58, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Born on this day

It would be an excellent way of showing more of the very best that Wikipedia has to offer its readers and would no doubt enhance their experience of the Main Page.

On This Day

It's odd that despite having probably the most extensive coverage of anniversaries of any web source, Wikipedia is nowhere cited when you look for "On this day". The article of this name was exclusively about the BBC website and I've hijacked it to make a wider set of links for resources on Wikipedia, but left the original lead as I don't know whether the BBC was the first to use the phrase in this sense. It's easy to find uses of the term in poems or hymns, but was their website the first to use it as a link for each day of the year? I'd guess that some newspaper had thought of it earlier, but I don't know. Chris55 (talk) 12:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

fifty prostitutes

The article contains two POVs but you quote only one of them. Xx236 (talk) 12:31, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Anniversary of Mussolini's coming to power

On 30th October 1920 the Benito Mussolini came to power which caused a lot of suffering to many people. How come this is not featured? DancingPhilosopher my talk 14:53, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Per the rules, in order to be listed on OTD, an article may not have yellow-level or more severe maintenance tags in it, and Benito Mussolini has several. —howcheng {chat} 07:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

January 20 suggestion

Please see Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/January 20. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 19:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Rules interfere with improving the encyclopedia

The "rules" shown here are enforced as though they were WP:Policy when in fact they simply make the encyclopedia less accessible to editors who wish to improve it, and thus they effectively make the encyclopedia worse. Case in point: Wikipedia_talk:Selected_anniversaries/February_1#Columbia_disaster_for_2013_.2810_years_after_2003.29 (sdsds - talk) 11:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Today's articles for improvement and the Main Page

A discussion is ongoing over at Talk:Main Page regarding the integration of Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement on the Main Page. Due to the formatting issues this presents, representatives of DYK, ITN and OTD are invited to give comment and help sort out the best solution. The full solution may involve the 2013 main page redesign proposal, which will be starting an RFC shortly. --NickPenguin(contribs) 17:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Carnaval!

The 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th of February are days when many Latin countries celebrate the Carnaval! Cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Barranquilla attract millions of people around the world and being such a prominent festival, should be on the Events list!

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.38.240 (talk) 02:32, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for the Main Page that affects this project

A proposal is being drawn up, which directly involves both the In The News and On This Day project. In order to integrate Today's article's for improvement onto the left hand side of the Main Page (under DYK), it is being suggested that ITN and OTD both carry one additional item. The reason for doing this is because adding TAFI makes the left hand side have too much text, and generating empty whitespace on the right hand side (example here). If there are no objections to this proposal and the editors involed in the project approve the addition of one item per cycle, then TAFI can be integrated on the Main Page. Please comment here to voice your opinion. --NickPenguin(contribs) 03:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for February 2013

Please see Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/February#Bahraini uprising. Mohamed CJ (talk) 08:00, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Filipino American History Month

Filipino American History Month was first nationally recognized in the United States by the Senate of the 111th Congress on the 1st of October, 2009; this was followed up by the House of the same Congress on the 2nd of November, 2009. If content were to be added to the selected anniversaries template, would it be better on the 2nd of November, or the 1st of October?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Assuming that the criticism section is fixed up, then October 1 would be better. —howcheng {chat} 07:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I have removed contentious content that was not verified, and removed the text of the resolution which can be found in a new reference. Do these changes satisfy the concerns?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks good to go now. I will add it to October 1. —howcheng {chat} 18:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks!--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Bayard Rustin

Does this article qualify as part of Selected Anniversaries? --George Ho (talk) 06:30, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The article appears in good enough shape to be eligible. What date were you thinking of using it on? —howcheng {chat} 04:57, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

TAFI being deployed to Main Page on April 15

This is a notice to let you all know that Today's articles for improvement will be deployed in just under twenty-four hours. For those who have not been following the developments of the section, it will be placed on the left side of the Main Page, beneath DYK, as at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow. This may affect the number of blurbs placed on the Main Page each day in OTD/SA. Comments and questions should be directed to Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement. -- tariqabjotu 00:14, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Battle of York

Can we put the 200th anniversary of the Battle of York (one of the major battles in the War of 1812) up, instead of, say, Animal Kingdom opening? - 198.91.137.249 (talk) 21:34, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Request for comments on the Main Page

The 2013 main page redesign proposal is a holding a Request for comments on the Main Page, in order to design an alternative main page based on what the community asks for. As this may affect your project, I would encourage you to leave feedback and participate in the discussion.

Evad37 (talk) (on behalf of the 2013 main page redesign proposal team) 00:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

HMS Vestal (J215)

Hi, I think that this being the last British Royal Navy ship sunk in the Second World War makes this notable... The anniversary is July 26. Matty.007 18:46, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately the article is currently ineligible because of possibly unreliable sources. If it gets fixed in time, we can look at including it. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 15:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Horrible Histories

May I nominate Horrible Histories, for being the book series' 20th anniversary?--Coin945 (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

For what day? There is no release date in the article. —howcheng {chat} 15:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Millennial birthday?

Wish I had caught this earlier, but today's the 1,000th birthday of the composer Hermannus Contractus -- it's really rare to have exact birthdays for anyone in the early 1,000s; not sure how often WP has announced a 1,000th birthday in the On this Day... -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 05:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Added. Thanks! —howcheng {chat} 15:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Cheers pilot and finale

Give Me a Ring Sometime and One for the Road (Cheers) are graded B-class. Can you add them into specific dates? --George Ho (talk) 01:30, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

For a television show, we only usually put in one listing. Would you prefer pilot or finale? —howcheng {chat} 01:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
The pilot aired on September 30, 1982. The finale aired on May 20, 1993. Either one should replace less significant event of the same day, either September 30 or May 20. As for me, no preference on choosing one, but I like both listed. --George Ho (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC) If you want to choose one, then the finale is more significant because of ratings and massive hype. --George Ho (talk) 18:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

25 July 1943: the fall of Mussolini and of Italian fascism

Good morning
70 yeas ago the fascist Gran Consiglio voted a motion of no confidence against Benito Mussolini, who was arrested the same day by king Victor Emmanuel III and substituted by Marshall of Italy Pietro Badoglio. I think that this date deserves to be mentioned on the main page. Thanks, Alex2006 (talk) 12:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to phase out {{*mp}}

A proposal has been made to phase out {{*mp}}. Please discuss on Talk:Main_Page#Phase out {{*mp}} Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:56, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Stats

With other sections of the main page having WP:TFAMOSTVIEWED and WP:DYKSTATS, I am wondering of WP:OTD has ever thought about determining its most viewed articles. I keep my own archive at User:TonyTheTiger/OTDviews.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:31, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Also noticed Wikipedia:Today's featured article/Statistics.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:19, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

9 November

I would like to nominate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Storm_of_1913 (100 years ago on November 9 the greatest GL storm ever recorded; and the article about this storm, which actually was more than one day long but which was most extreme on the 9th, is very well written). 211.225.33.104 (talk) 03:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Biased editing by User:Howcheng

This user repeatedly inserts pro-western propaganda into the selected anniversaries. He is clearly biased and should not be editing. He also makes his edits right before the page is transcluded so no one else can change it.

For example: October 1, he removes the founding of the People's Republic of China, a day comparable to the 4th of July, with some relatively trivial blurb.

Another example is the inclusion of some trivial blurb from Reagan describing the USSR as an "Evil Empire".

Please censure this propagandist and beware of his bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.189.195 (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Please see the this FAQ item. Short version: China is simply taking a break this year. Not only that, but I added a link directly to National Day of the People's Republic of China and included 2005 Bali bombings, and I'm also Chinese, so somehow that demonstrates a pro-Western bias. BTW, since you mentioned United States Declaration of Independence, that was omitted from the Main Page this year. So suck it. —howcheng {chat} 16:49, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Berlin Wall

I would like to see the Berlin Wall fall in OTD this Nov. 9. Suggest blurb be rewritten to include Günter Schabowski's famed impromptu reply to the press-conference question "when?" — "immediately, without delay" ("sofort, unverzüglich") — which sent droves of incredulous East Berliners streaming to the Wall.

Everyone knows the Fall of the Wall presaged the collapse of Communism, the Soviet Union, etc., and it's not necessary to repeat these truisms. Sca (talk) 17:26, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The Berlin Wall article is ineligible due to maintenance reasons, but the blurb has been included featuring Inner German border instead. —howcheng {chat} 17:31, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Bicentennials?

Criterion 10 says that "Births and natural deaths of notable people can be used only on centennials.". I assume that they can also be used on bi-centennials, tri-centennials, etc? The reason I'm asking is that a while back I created a biography and the subject will reach the 200th anniversary of their birth in about 14 month's time. Thanks, --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 13:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that would be correct. We meant every multiple of 100. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 16:59, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Christmas Day 1066 template

Our OTD for tomorrow features Christmas Day 1066 and states that the last successful invasion of England was the Norman Conquest, but the last successful invasion of England was when William III invaded in 1688 arrived on our shores; it was peaceful but is still considered an invasion. An interesting tidbit about William I's coronation, that we could perhaps use in lieu of the invasion part, is the rioting that accompanied it when the loud acclamation of the peasants was mistaken for a revolt and many homes were burnt and peasants killed --Andrew 14:24, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

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