Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Days of the year/Archive 5

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Film listings

Hanuman Das (talk · contribs), apparently thwarted from creating separate "X in film" pages (such as the now-deleted March 15 in film page) has taken to adding sections into date pages (as in here). Pretty big step. So, what's the feeling on the appropriateness of these? Yes? No? Maybe? --Calton | Talk 05:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I expressed my opinion at WP:AN#March 15 in film. The user rejected my comments, and proceeded to continue adding the movie releases to the day of the year pages. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 06:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I did not reject your comment. I said I would be happy to keep the film info in separate articles. You didn't even respond to that suggestion. Since it has been threaten that those articles were deleted AND I was advised to put their contents into the Day of the year articles, that's what I've been doing. Frankly, I'd prefer separate articles WHICH HURT NO ONE. I asked you to quantify the harm done to Wikipedia by having those separate articles in scientific terms, but you ignored that. Well? What precisely is the harm? —Hanuman Das 06:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I did respond to that comment -- I said that this information serves no purpose whatsoever, in any form, either in individual articles, or on the day of the year pages. The only reason I haven't mass-reverted your edits to the day of the year pages so far is the thread on WP:AN. While I've been waiting for further input on that thread, you've been continuing to make edits that you have been warned are likely to be reverted. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 06:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it would be only polite of you to also take it up on WP:FILM, where some people seem to like the idea, and the main objection is that there's no point in working on it because of the idiot deletioninsts who like to delete any list having to do with film. Nobody has called it pointless or objected on any other ground. Funny, that. —Hanuman Das 06:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
OMG, Jim! I see you've been here all of from September of this year! How'd you'd get to be such an expert on everything? Is there somewhere I can go to get some of the expertise myself? Maybe the Johnny Depp article? —Hanuman Das 06:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Is there somewhere I can go to get some of the expertise myself? I'm sure a lot of people have been asking that question about you. Meantime, at the risk of editcountitis:
  • Total edits: 10,893
  • Mainspace edits: 6,084
  • Total edits: 5,148
  • Mainspace edits: 2,957
So he has twice the edits you do in a mere fraction of the time. You sure you want to continue the dick-waving? --Calton | Talk 07:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
idiot deletioninsts who like to delete any list having to do with film You may want to brush up on the those mindreading skills while you're at it.

Oh my, Calton, just as civil as usual I see. Called any other women stalker boy lately, or is that reserved for Ekajati? —Hanuman Das 07:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm being factual, spam boy. And being criticized for incivility by someone using a phrase like "idiot deletioninsts" (sic)? "Mr. Pot, it's Mr. Kettle on Line 4: he says you're black."
P.S.: I have 18,000 edits and have been here as long as you: do you have an insulting excuse for dismissing me, too? --Calton | Talk 07:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

WARNING I came here due to a film being added to a date I watch, and I find a full-blown flame war going on, usenet style. Be aware; I have used up all my tolerance this week on others. If I see one more post here not addressing whether films should be added to date articles, but comparing, exchanging or even discussing insults, I will block for disruption.

That said, adding film info to date articles is absurd. It is trivia-creep. Don't do it. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 10:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Support - per KillerChihuahua. Rklawton 13:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I support NOT adding movie release dates to date articles. —Wrathchild (talk) 20:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I also support not adding film info to articles. Too trivial. Fabricationary 07:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Need for explicit statements of project guidelines?

We've had a lot of good discussion on this page, but would it be helpful at this point to summarize our working guidelines on the project page, such as:

  • Only the births and deaths of people who are themselves subjects of Wikipedia articles should be listed. To have an article, a person must meet the criteria outlined in WP:BIO. Being part of a group with an article or having the page that bears one's name redirect to a different article does not qualify as having one's own article. (And of course, articles are not userpages.)
  • Only the births and deaths of human beings should be listed.
  • The date pages should be kept clean of trivia such as film history, fabricated holidays and observances, fictional events, etc.
  • Items listed under "Events" should be notable on a global scale, as defined by such and such criteria. Also, only past events should be listed - the Wikicalendar is not the place to speculate on future events.

As for the event criteria, does everyone still think what we came up with earlier this year is appropriate? I apologize for its bulky title - if we still think it's viable, we could move the page to a more appropriate title (maybe something like "WikiCalendar Event Criteria?") and link it to the project page so it's readily visible and can be referred to when need be. Fabricationary 07:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Does anyone object to the above points being put on the project page? Fabricationary 07:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with "Only the births and deaths of human beings should be listed.". If an animal is notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, then it should be fair to note its birth/death on these pages. This shouldn't be a serious problem in practice; very few animals reach this level of notability. I agree with all of the other guidelines. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 07:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as animals with Wikipedia articles, you've got the clones, dogs, cats, orcas, etc. Not that many in comparison to humans with articles, but still enough where we should decide one way or the other. Fabricationary 07:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Turns out there's a catch-all category: Category:Famous animals. Hmm...more than I would have guessed. I still think that Koko (gorilla) is more interesting than any hundred wrestlers...but I can see this getting out of hand if someone goes on a mission to add all of those (hundreds?) of animals to the date pages. Like most things around here, this would all be fine if we could just count on common sense to prevail. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 08:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, my best bet would be to try to include only those persons and/or animals (and I belong to both WikiProject Cats and WikiProject Dogs) who either have or we think would have Top or High- importance to one or more existing projects, as per the standard assessment criteria at, for instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Charismatic Christianity/Assessment#Importance scale. Otherwise, given that we have at least about 300,000 biography articles, we could expect every page to have at least one or two thousand entries, which, while they would certainly be encyclopedic in terms of inclusiveness, would be monsters to develop and maintain. Maybe taking a similar approach to the various important dates would work as well. Badbilltucker 15:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your input, Badbill.
The way it seems now, based on my observations, is that there's not that many editors actively adding valid (i.e. not redlinked/no-linked) entries to the Wikicalendar, so those 300,000 or so biographical articles will never all end up on the project. Your idea of only allowing those of high importance might be something we have to implement if there is a rash of adding entries, perhaps bot-driven. I checked all of today's births, December_30#Births, and only Rudyard Kipling, Sandy Koufax, and perhaps Tiger Woods (out of a hundred-and-then-my-head-spun entries) would qualify for listing if we only took articles of top or high importance. The vast majority of articles had not been given ratings, and many (maybe even the majority) did not even have the template for future ratings (or talk pages did not exist). It's going to take a lot of work by editors who assign those ratings to get to a point where we can use those ratings as a discerning factor in deciding who is "notable enough" to include.
I'm going to go ahead and add the list of items above to the project page, minus the animals one until we can establish a consensus. Anyone else have thoughts on this? (Where's Rklawton, and doesn't CalendarWatcher monitor this page?) Fabricationary 03:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

One page per day?

I can see there is one page called January 1, 2005, but not January 1, 2007. Why? Wouldn't it be better to be able to link to January 1, 2007, instead of January 1, 2007? Then you can see what actually happened on that particular day instantly. Jacob Lundberg 15:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe what has been done in the last year or so is to make a page for a month of year (so January 2007 would be this month's page) and have events listed for each date as subheadings. I personally prefer that way to having a new page for every day - in fact, January 2005 already exists with all that information for each date already! Perhaps the individual date pages should be deleted or merged? Fabricationary 15:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Why not have both? I don't know how the month articles are generated but couldn't it be possible to make sure that the same information is available under the heading "January 1" on January 2005, as on January 1, 2005?
If I for example read about some one who is born on January 1, 2005, and I want to know what other things happened that day, I will have to click many times before I can read about it. I think creating one article per day would be a good way of making Wikipedia even better. /Jacob Lundberg 20:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it's needless clutter, but this is not the project that oversees those pages. You might want to bring your ideas up at the place that deals with these matters, Portal:Current events. Fabricationary 22:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Non-notable?

The July 21 article has an item for the release of HP7. It seems pretty clear to me that this will be notable on a global scale and for years to come (at least 'til the fuss about the 7th movie dies down, and it is almost certain that there will be a 7th movie). Maybe the exact date of the release won't be important in a few years, but it will be this year.

This makes me wonder why all future events and all events pertaining to books, etc. are considered non-notable. Brian Jason Drake 09:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Right, we don't post most entertainment evens or any future events. Rklawton 13:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I gathered that. I still don't understand why. Brian Jason Drake 03:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Consider what would happen if we did. Rklawton 19:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
What would happen? Clearly we should not post most entertainment events, but there seems to be clear evidence (best-seller list, movie revenues) that this is a very significant one. Why does it matter if it's in the future? Brian Jason Drake 02:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
How many books are currently on the best seller list? How many rotate through that list each year? Answer: waaaaay too many. Rklawton 15:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
How many books get turned into record-breaking movies? How many books top best-seller lists for weeks (months?) at a time? Brian Jason Drake 02:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Alot. However, few will have ANY cultural impact. HP7 on the other hand, will be significant event for millions of people, being that it is symbolic of the end of 'childhood' for many people who grew up reading these books. Bigbrisco 17:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what you wrote about a symbolic end of childhood for millions. That, however, is nostalgia and not "cultural impact." We aren't going to look at the world differently because of the HP7 movie release. Consider Star Wars episodes I-VI. Only Star Wars IV (the first one released) had any meaningful cultural impact (ushering in a new standard in science fiction movies) rates a mention in these articles. Rklawton 18:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

How significant is The Fellowship of the Ring? From the state of the article, not very, at least compared to Harry Potter. I've just removed this (as well as HP7 again) from the July 21 article. Brian Jason Drake 12:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

References?

The July 21 article has one item that can be verified using reliable sources (the HP7 release date). The reference is also given in the HP7 article and no other item in the article has a reference. There appears to be nothing on the project page about references. Brian Jason Drake 09:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This is basically a list, so the source articles should hold the references. Rklawton 13:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I interpret this to mean that no Wikicalendar articles should have a references section. Anyone disagree? -- Mufka (user) (talk) (contribs) 17:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Project page

This talk page has a lot of great ideas. Isn't it about time we moved some of them over to the project page? Rklawton 04:13, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I got an idea.

I think there should be listed in "Deaths on RANDOM DAY" how the people died. Just short about that. That would save people having to go to the article to see it, what do you guys think about that idea? TheBlazikenMaster 23:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

P.s. When someone replies to this please leave a comment on my talk page. Because I'm not part of this project. TheBlazikenMaster 22:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Not unless the way they died is somehow significant. Brian Jason Drake 01:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Note from new user

[moved to User talk:Relentless1234567#Note from new user by Brian Jason Drake 01:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)]

Images

What's with the lack of images? A recent edit adding the first image to July 21 was reverted. Brian Jason Drake 07:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point.. the German wikipedia has loads of images on their days of the year.. why don't we? 131.111.8.98 08:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
see also the discussion above. 131.111.24.187 16:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion criterion *greater* than article status?

Just based on recent observations of some DOTY entries that have been added (things such as kids who have articles because they are in some Nickelodeon "pop" group that will last for 6 months) is it about time that we set the bar for having names included higher than simply having an article? I wouldn't so much say that this is an argument about notability as it is about the quality of the DOTY pages.

Back of the envelope calculation, there are around 9000 articles on living people who's surnames begin with A (I got fed-up counting after that) - total estimate (for living people only) of, what, 50,000-100,000 + ? 365 days a year gives us ~ 200 entries per day for people born from ~ the 30's onwards. At the moment we look to be, on most days, averaging ~ 50 or so living. Obviously the fact that we only have 50ish means things are ok, but I thought I should post this comment as I am noticing quite a few entries appearing which are basically junk (Nickelodeon types, as mentioned above). They have articles (debates about the wikipedia wide notability criterion can be left to another place) and so our current guideline set makes it ok for them to have a DOTY entry - despite the fact that I think it is a useless entry which devalues the DOTY page rather than enhances it. Is it time we (those of us who patrol DOTY pages on a daily basis) started to raise the bar a bit for entries above and beyond "has an article"? SFC9394 20:32, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Bot Status

Was a redlink bot ever made to find redlink additions to the births/deaths sections? I imagine one would still be useful. Soosed 06:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems that only certain dates use the Day template to begin their article, while the majority do not (see here). My opinion is that there should be conformity, so, should the Day template be deprecated or the other dates converted to using it? Any thoughts? Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability guideline page obsolete?

I just wonder: the project page links to the Wikipedia:Notability on a global scale over time page as a help to editors for deciding which events are notable and which aren't. But said page opens with the following message: "This Wikipedia page is currently inactive and is retained primarily for historical interest." My question: is the guideline page still "in force" or not? If not, where's the current page? Please help me out here. --Wernher 20:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don’t have the answer but am interested in it. I had been thinking of starting a discussion here on the subject of notability, as it refers to the Days of the Year pages and contacting the users who seem to be interested in the Days of the Year pages to ask them to contribute their thoughts. And have only not done so while I try and put my own thoughts in order before sharper minds than mine run circles around them (but basically I think there are a lot of entries of minor global notability especially in the births section). --Drappel 02:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see the page on notability here tagged as a guideline. I started a discussion on that page's talk page here. I hope that some consensus either way can be reached. -- Mufka (user) (talk) (contribs) 16:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Link to IMDB on this day

IMDB has a nice feature for each day that I thought may be useful to put as a link next to the New York times, and BBC link. Here is an example of the page [1]. What do you all think? Remember 21:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I do not think it is a good idea because one addition will lead to another then another untill we have this--
I feel that in this case less is more. --Drappel 18:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


Consistency in headings

I've been noticing that many of the Wikicalendar articles have many different types of headings. For example January 1 has headings Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and observances, By observance, By faith, By Country, By City, Day of the week, References, External Links. January 2 has Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and observances, Religious Observances, External Links. January 3 has Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and observances, External Links. And that's only the first three days of the year. I'm in favor of limiting the headings to Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and observances, External Links. This would also conform more closely to the template. Anyone opposed? -- Mufka (user) (talk) (contribs) 02:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

'Another this day in' link

An editor has begun adding Today in New Zealand History links to the date pages. I don't think they are necessary/appropriate so I wanted to discuss it here before removing them. I think what's there is enough and a line needs to be drawn somewhere. I also noted that the editor appears to be somehow affiliated with the site. Thoughts? -- Mufka (user) (talk) (contribs) 00:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Also the site appears very parochial, which seems to be its intention. Since this is an international site it does not seem very appropriate, additionally the site is already listed as one of more that a dozen on the List of historical anniversaries page, where people in search of the more obscure anniversaries will undoubtedly find it. --Drappel 00:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
As the one who added the links, I'm happy for them to be removed if you don't think they are appropriate - I didn't think they were any more parochial than Canada's ones though. It is a government website and the content is provided by professional historians so there should be no concerns about accuracy. I only added links for the remaining days in July so far. Jamie Mackay 04:58, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering where we have got to with this? Can I carry on adding External links to the date pages, or should I remove the ones I've done so far (7)? I am also very happy to add actual events, births and deaths where these seem to have a more international interest if that seems appropriate. Jamie Mackay 21:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Personaly I suggest that you do not add more linkings to the NZ day in history pages, but that is my opinion, I suspect not many people had noticed the ones you did and have not therefore formed an opinion. With regard to your comment about Canada, although most days it does include international events which I had not noticed in the NZ ones there is also WP:OTHERSTUFF to consider, if you feel that the Canada listing is not worth having then you could start a discussion here. In addition I suspect that the addition of another "this day in history" link would lead to the addition of more and more, see above at the IMDB discussion. --Drappel 18:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough - I'll remove them then Jamie Mackay 03:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Future events

Discussion on the topic of adding future events to Wikicalendar articles has come up on August 8. The best place to continue discussion is here. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 01:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

This discussion began with the addition of the future date of the 2008 Olympics. This quote from above should help to set the stage for why this is contested.

With respect to Future Events, if we know things are going to happen (i.e. the start of the Olympics) why can't they be listed? I only ask because my entry for the date of the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Games was removed. --Lord Tau 11:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Very rarely do we know of any significant world event before they happen. Sometimes it takes years to recognize an event's true impact. The start of the Olympics, past, present, or future, is not significant enough to be included as an event (with the exception of the first Olympics and perhaps the 1936 Olympics). Rklawton 13:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The rest of this conversation is worth reading above. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 02:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

How should I delete, mark, or nominate non-notable entries?

I'm a new editor, so this may be an already oft-answered question. (And I may be in the wrong place to ask it. If so, apologies.) My question is this: what is the prefered way for an ordinary editor to deal with a probable non-notable entry? I'm not asking about notability criteria (I've read through those discussions). Nor am I looking to discuss a particular non-notable example (I see plenty of those debates as well). Today I used comment tags to remove likely non-notables from January 4 and August 22. Neither had wikipedia articles. Can I just go ahead and edit such entries out? Or is there a prefered template marker of some sort? Or another page to push such things to? Thanks. --Newbie looking for guidance. Hult041956 22:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC) (Added links to the dates for convenience.) Hult041956 22:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove them. Anything with a redlink can definitely be removed. Don't be afraid to be bold. The worst that will happen is someone will revert it. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 22:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism and 3RR

I'm at WP:3RR on October 3, removing redlinked birth/deaths, non-notable events, and miscellaneous external links to http://video.ivillage.com. We need to establish whether removal of redlinked birth/deaths is considered "reverting WP:VANDALISM", and not counted in 3RR. (I only monitor a few dates, but some seem to hit 3RR more often than others.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:51, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Common sense generally dictates how the 3RR rule is applied in this case. I strongly believe that no admin would block for reverting vandalism on calendar articles unless it is a pure edit war. I find that I'm usually reverting several different edits, not just the same thing over and over. I hope that the iVillage discussion takes place here because this is the best place for it. It is a new development and is tainted by WP:COI. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 21:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I've pointed the two logged in editors who have added the link to this page, although I started by pointing them at each others pages for a moment. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Adding iVillage.com's On This Day to references

I would like to suggest that iVillage.com's daily "On This day" video. I will gladly stop posting, as I am connected to iVillage.com, but would love to see it on wiki. The information from the video is taken from various, double-checked sources before put into the piece. I think it's a great source of info, as well as something that is unique from other other references, as it is a video. You can view the latest one by clicking here: http://video.ivillage.com/player/?fid=29619 Patricksandora 21:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Viewers who visit the site are required to watch advertisements before they can watch the video. That should disqualify it from inclusion. I'm also of the opinion that the three external links should be reduced to one because there is much duplication of information on all of the links. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 13:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Year subheaders

Because September 11 was getting rather lengthy, I added subheaders to the events, births, and deaths sections, so that it is easier to read the page or to search it for particular events. I would appreciate comments on the usefulness of these subheaders, and on the possibility of extending this format to other pages. --M@rēino 15:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I really didn't see the article as that lengthy, so I reverted. The sublist for September 11, 2001 deaths seems appropriate, though. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the revert. Subheadings actually make the article longer and harder to maintain. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 20:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist

If you want to add every day of the year to your watchlist, you can copy and paste everyday from this link instead of taking the time to add everything. - User talk:Calendar2123#Days of year -Calendar2123 23:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC) aka User:Michfan2123

I believe this should be considered vandalism

Over the last few days, on a handful of unrelated pages (I'll dig up which ones if you'd like me to, the most recent was Lark Voorhies), I've seen something quite aggravating. A date, for example, January 5, was put in article like this:

5 January

Circumventing user-definable preferences for the purpose of favoring one style of date display. It's unnecessary and unproductive. Perhaps "vandalism" has connotations too strong for this activity, but it's something for which we ought to be looking out and correcting. Tromboneguy0186 20:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't imagine that being very widespread. I'd like to learn more though. In the example you cited, it might be helpful just to drop a note to the editor who added those dates (User:Felicity4711) and try to find out why it was done (looks like someone already did). BTW, this might get more traction on the WT:UTM or WP:VP. This isn't really the place for it. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 00:53, 6 November 2007 (UTC)