Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Days of the year/Archive 8

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Introduction revisited

Could be resolve this logically?

My take on the situation:

  • We need a consistent approach with these Calendar Day artices. A consistent approach is taken with Calendar Month articles.
  • Everyone has a POV of particular dates, and any other subject for that matter. I may think that one particular date is important - you another. It is just an opinion.
  • The best approach I think is to clear the intro part, and use the "disambiguation page" approach. If there is one and only one link, this could be used instead of a disambiguation page.
  • Yes, it may be viewed as "consistent foolishness", but what other way is there? We must have some rules here.

Wallie (talk) 09:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I propose that the following bullet be considered as the standard going forward. It should be noted that the use of the {{for}} template does not infer that a disambiguation page that does not currently exist should be created. There are options to the template that allow it to be used to point to existing pages.
  • The introduction for date pages should consist only of the {{Day}} template except in cases of days having specific calendar-related significance (e.g. January 1, February 29, or September 22). In cases in which other articles need disambiguation (e.g. July 1) the {{for}} template may be used as the first line of the article.
Let us move forward by discussing why this bullet is or is not appropriate. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 01:04, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
See Archive 7 for history. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 01:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
July 1 is actually an interesting case. I think this is saying the dab link to Canada Day would go away. I know this is different from my first thought on this (now archived), but in this case (and I'm not Canadian) I'd actually be OK with:
For the Canadian holiday, see Canada Day. For the Ayumi Hamasaki song, see H (song).
There are two points. First, I don't see any particular need to limit the disambiguation to just the {{for}} template. Second, I don't see a need to exclude national Independence Days and other holidays of similar significance (e.g. May Day or even Christmas). I'm not sure the wording would need to change (perhaps "the {{for}} or similar disambiguation template"). I think the point is that the intro is for calendar-centric information as opposed to events or holidays, and there should be one and only one disambiguation line, making the criteria for what makes it to this line extremely exclusive (and I'd pretty much never expect to find a disambiguation page for a date). Calling it (in the bullet) "disambiguation" carries the right connotation, implying a hatnote should be used only in cases in which a reasonable person might expect to arrive at the linked page when entering the date and pressing GO. This requires a bit of judgment, but I think better reflects current practice as it has evolved (which is always a good thing - creating rules to try to impose new behavior rarely goes well). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
No disagreement from me. By the way, the Canada Day link on July 1 is using the {{for}} template so it wouldn't go away (should it?). But some leeway on which template to use is reasonable and expected. I think what our goal should be is to prevent free-form intro writing. I think it is an especially important criteria that one should reasonably expect to find the linked page on visiting the date article. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 02:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
This goes right to the heart of what I was objecting to. It is called political bias. Most countries have a National Holiday. However, very few call it "Independence Day". This is very very POV to my mind. We should allow ALL national days, or none of them, irrespective of what they are called. We should make rules which suit everyone, not just the cultures of certain select Wikipedian authors. What goes in the intro and where it is linked to should be standardized. It could mean that every date has a disambiguation page (I hope not!). The 12 months seem OK. What have the days become so inconsistent? Wallie (talk) 19:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Rick. A question for you. Please tell me if you can think of ANY country's national day which is not "significant". A country's national day is always important for the country. Wallie (talk) 19:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
EC: I'm not clear on what you are objecting to. POV and bias have nothing to do with coming up with a standard for introductions. The argument is very clear: If someone types in July 1 and it is reasonable for them to expect that they should find themselves at an article other than the date article July 1, then disambiguation is necessary. I cannot think of any example where a dedicated disambiguation page should be necessary.
What is biased or POV about:
For the Canadian holiday, see Canada Day. For the Ayumi Hamasaki song, see H (song).
-- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Hopefully no one objects if I give my opinion on the question posed to Rick Block. Every national day of every country can theoretically be listed under Holidays and observances. A mention in the intro is purely to help a reader who typed in the name of an article and expected to end up somewhere else. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:58, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
For the Canadian holiday... is biased. As you mentioned, it should be listed under Holidays and observances (I think that means not in the intro). For example, August 1 is not listed, and it has been a national holiday since 1291. Wallie (talk) 20:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Direct answer - I would not exclude any country's Independence Day from mention in a hatnote. I wouldn't go out of my way to add them all either. I don't think of this as political bias, but practicality. I'd venture a guess that there aren't any readers of en.wikipedia who would expect May 20 to take them to an article about East Timor's Independence Day. Mostly because I suspect we have very, very few readers from East Timor. This is the English language Wikipedia, so there's certainly plenty of systemic bias toward English speaking readers. Including hatnotes for the convenience of English speaking readers seems to me no more biased than having the articles in English to start with. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

OK.

  • Let's allow hatnotes/disambiguations only, for anything not directly date related.
  • Lets allow national day hatnotes (is this one per country?) - whether they celebrate independence or not.
  • What about events (which ones, if they are to be included?)
  • What about songs etc?

I still think that it becomes very subjective. I think it is more to do with a person's age rather than their English speaking or even nationality.

Wallie (talk) 07:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The suggestion is to allow hatnotes only for disambiguation, i.e. only in cases in which a reasonable person might expect the article name to refer to a different article. Some cases are obvious - for example the song titled "July 1" (although even this one isn't that obvious, since the song doesn't have an article). Some cases are a little less obvious, like July 1 meaning Canada Day or July 14 meaning Bastille Day. If we phrase the rule as "for disambiguation only" I don't think we have to enumerate precisely what this does or doesn't include. It seems you want a strict rule that requires no judgment at all to apply. That might be nice in a way, but it's not really how things work here. Rules evolve from observing what people in the aggregate actually do, since if they're actually doing it there's clearly a consensus to do it (it's sort of like the development of a scientific theory based on observation).
We may want a short list of examples - actually are there so many that we can't just list them here for future reference? The ones that immediately come to mind for me are:
  1. January 1 -> New Year's Day
  2. February 14 -> Valentine's Day
  3. March 15 -> Ides of March
  4. March 17 -> Saint Patrick's Day
  5. April 1 -> April Fools' Day
  6. May 1 -> Labour Day
  7. May 5 -> Cinco de Mayo
  8. July 1 -> Canada Day (and the song I guess)
  9. July 4 -> Independence Day (United States)
  10. July 14 -> Bastille Day
  11. October 31 -> Halloween
  12. November 11 -> Remembrance Day/Veterans' Day
  13. December 25 -> Christmas
  14. December 26 -> Boxing Day
  15. December 31 -> New Year's Eve
What these have in common is they all fall on a specific date, they're named, and they all have articles. They're either national days or widely recognized holidays, but that doesn't mean we need to include hatnotes for all national days and all widely recognized holidays. I'd be fine with adding more, but wouldn't expect there to be lots and lots more. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I have added some more national days too.
  1. January 26 -> Australia
  2. February 6 -> New Zealand
  3. April 25 -> Anzac Day/Remembrance Day, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand
  4. August 1 -> Switzerland
  5. August 15 -> India
All of the above are as important days, as all have articles and fall on a specific date as mentioned by Rick.
All these fill the above criteria Wallie (talk) 11:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The other (main) criteria is that such hatnotes are only for disambiguation, i.e. provided in cases in which a reasonable person might expect the article name (the date) to refer to a different article. Just to clarify, are you saying that you think there's a reasonable chance someone looking up January 26 is actually looking for Australia Day, etc.? The proposed rule (which I think is still proposed, not agreed on) is "if disambiguation is needed, then add a hatnote" not "if it's a national day or widely recognized holiday that falls on a specific date, is named, and has an article then add a hatnote". -- Rick Block (talk) 14:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The very reason for having hat notes (where DID that term come from?) in the first place is for disambiguation--resolving ambiguity--not as some alternative way to elevate some dates or events above others. None of the new additions by Wallie are anywhere close to needing disambiguation, and I'm at a complete loss to understand the rationale--other than Wallie's personal opinion as to what constitutes 'important'. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 14:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Be honest, Rick. Are you really trying to say that Canada Day is more important than Australia Day. Your purpose IS to elevate some dates, but only if they are in certain countries. I just want a level playing field, minimizing POV. Wallie (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
It's not about importance. Again, it's still a proposal, but I think the idea is that the hatnote is not saying "in our editorial opinion the most important thing that happens on this date is <blarg>", but "many readers, when they arrive here, are expecting to see <this other article> instead". Does July 1 = Canada Day meet this criteria? Frankly, I don't know, but somebody, at some point, added it so I'm perfectly willing to accept it. I'm perfectly willing to accept a hatnote for Australia Day if "January 26th" is synonymous with Australia Day (which it may be in Australia - I do not know either way), but not because of "POV consistency". I don't know where you live, but in the US the holiday on July 4 is generally referred to as "the fourth of July", not US Independence Day. Similarly, "Cinco de Mayo" can clearly be confused with "May 5" (and if they commonly call it Quatorze Juillet in France there's confusion with Bastille Day). My question to you about Australia Day is not rhetorical. To your knowledge, is Jan 26th synonymous with Australia Day (i.e. do people in Australia not refer to this day as "Australia Day" but as "Jan 26th" or "26th of Jan")? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:26, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
OK. I am unfamiliar with July 1, but that doesn't mean it isn't important/used. In the US, I always thought that "Independence Day" was used a lot. There was even a film made about it! I am also definitely familiar with the fifth of May. In Switzerland, the national day is usually known as the first of August. The 15th of August is certainly used in India. The 9th of May is also widely used in Russia. President Bush also attended the ceremonies there. You just have to Google these to see. If any date means anything to me, it is probably the fifth of November - Guy Fawkes night. However, that is noy there either. Wallie (talk) 18:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know, in the US it's hardly ever called "Independence Day". Do you go to "5th of November parties" (meaning "Guy Fawkes night parties")? I have an Indian friend at work and he said he calls Aug 15 "Independence Day" (India has sort of a lot of people, so this may very well vary). Specifics aside, are we now talking about the same thing? Does the proposed rule convey this meaning (at the risk of speaking for Mufka, I think this is what he has in mind)? Are you still concerned that this is POV or culturally biased? -- Rick Block (talk) 01:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes. I am very concerned at the cultural bias. I think it is obvious. I think that you could say that for "31st of October parties" as opposed to "Halloween parties". I can see the case for the Fourth of July but most of the others are known by their day name, not the calendar date, this includes Christmas and Christmas Eve. Wallie (talk) 08:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
It seems that the "reasonable expectation" theory isn't going to work mostly because reasonable people can disagree on just about anything. This is because, as an American, I cannot know how observances are perceived in other regions. I have my 10 or so holidays that I recognize by date, but it is reasonable that someone in Australia has 10 different holidays, some that I've never heard of.
Due to the nature of the encyclopedia and the dominant demographics of its editors, bias will always exist. Bias cannot be eliminated, but in order to keep the utility to the average user as high as possible, concessions need to be made that, unfortunately, reduce the flavor of the articles - especially lists. Why, you ask? Because if we say that we will make an effort to be inclusive, we couldn't argue against 20 hat notes on the top of every date article - and that would be disruptive.
So where does that leave us? Consider what a disambiguation page is: It is a list of things that have a common characteristic - usually a name. What is a date article? It is a list of things that occur on the same date. By my crack analysis, the date pages are just disambiguation pages. So why do we need to disambiguate from a disambiguation page? The things that we would be disambiguating are already listed on the pages (with the exception of things like that July 1 song, which doesn't have an article and thus, does not need disambiguation). I can see the argument that the pages are too long to be effective dab pages, but there are some pretty long dab pages (e.g. Sage). In this case, hat notes would be used for things that are not events or observances. If this is the solution, we also need to address the unwritten rule about images in the date articles. If the articles are to be completely objective, that means no images. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Mufka. I think that I agree on the points you make here. So how do we move forward? Do we remove all the disambiguation notes and images? I think you are correct that due to the "dominant demographics of its editors, bias will always exist". That's where nasty foreigners like myself come in and try to bring in other perspectives. I think it is important to bring in other viewpoints. It is a pity that certain people from the "dominant demographics" may also have closed minds (not your good self of course). Wallie (talk) 20:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Given your obsession and edit-warring, I'd say that your referring to the 'closed minds' of others is more than a little hypocritical. Nor does draping yourself in the shawl of martyrdom make you look any better.
Meanwhile, I'd say that no, date pages are not disambiguation pages in any meaningful sense of the term, since there's no ambiguity involved in the entries. Rather, they're consolidation and organisation pages, revolving about the organising principle of chronology, so there's no contradiction nor redundancy in adding disambiguation or hat notes as necessary. This is unrelated to Wallie's particular hobby-horse, his solution-in-search-of-a-problem whereupon he imposes his personal opinion of what's important and elevating them--you'll recall that's what he started out doing, singling out certain historic events as 'most important'--all without the slightest evidence so far other than his vague feelings that there is a problem or that his claims regarding disambiguation are true. I find it hard to understand what, exactly, he is hoping to accomplish here other than scoring points. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 00:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

There's a proposal on the table that we add a rule of the form:

  • The introduction for date pages should consist only of the {{Day}} template except in cases of days having specific calendar-related significance (e.g. January 1, February 29, or September 22). In cases in which other articles need disambiguation (e.g. July 1) the {{for}} template may be used as the first line of the article.

If we keep the hatnote specifically for disambiguation, i.e. we're only talking about things that are known by the calendar date (syntactically, not semantically), I don't see any issues with this. If you don't know whether Australians refer to Australia Day by the calendar date [I asked an Australian colleague and he said they don't], this simply means you have no grounds to comment on whether a hatnote for this day should exist. The question is not whether you recognize that the date coincides with something, but whether the date is actually the name (e.g. "fourth of July" or "Cinco de Mayo" or "Quatorze Juillet"). If we're strict about this rule, I think we may be talking about only a handful of cases, actually fewer than the list I suggested above. Perhaps (ignoring the July 1 song):

  1. January 1 -> New Year's Day
  2. April 1 -> April Fools' Day
  3. May 1 -> Labour Day
  4. May 5 -> Cinco de Mayo
  5. July 4 -> Independence Day (United States)
  6. July 14 -> Bastille Day

Are there any other specific cases anyone thinks meet this rule? -- Rick Block (talk) 01:26, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Does silence mean folks agree with the above, and can't think of any other cases? Please comment. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

What bothers me is the requirement here of jettisoning flexibility and common sense in favor of drawing up stricter and stricter rules, all for the sake of fixing firm black-and-white boundaries to rein in one specific editor's eccentricities--eccentricities which, based on some of his assertions about events and names, don't even seem particularly well-founded. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 15:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

There should be flexible. The reader should be able to learn about cultures other than his own. Kingturtle (talk) 15:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with that. I tried putting in dates from other cultures and was very quickly reverted. If the "special dates" are to be limited to the UK and the US, then the impact should be limited as much as possible to my mind. Wallie (talk) 21:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand CW's and KT's views on this topic. Are you both saying no particular rules are necessary for the intro section? For example, are you both OK with the current intro to September 11 which mentions the 2001 terrorist attacks and the 1973 coup in Chile (effectively elevating these events to "most important on this date" status)? I notice this revert by CW - is the issue the form rather than the substance, i.e. would you be OK with mentioning India's Independence Day as text in the intro as opposed to a hatnote? Please elaborate what you both mean - examples would help as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Rick. From what you are saying, this whole episode is becoming a farce. It is so UK and US biased it isn't even funny. If this sort of bias continues on Wikipedia, then only people from the US and UK will treat it seriously. Others will recognize it as a marketing tool to promote UK/US interests. Wallie (talk) 21:01, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to find out what CW and KT are suggesting. From what I've heard they don't seem to want any rules, but at least CW clearly has an opinion on what he thinks is and is not acceptable. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes. CW does have an opinion of what is acceptable. He does not want any rules, only his rules. It is clear that he has personal dislikes, like me, and will immeditely revert anything any such person writes. His actions are clearly supported by Wikipedia. So I guess I will have to accept that. Wallie (talk) 11:25, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Category sort tags

Yes, back to the perennial sort tag question....

January 1, for example, presently has the category tags:

  • [[Category:Days of the year|January 01]]
  • [[Category:January|January 01]]

Perhaps it should be:

  • [[Category:Days of the year|01-01]]
  • [[Category:January|001]]

The first one is pseudo ISO 8601, so that it's mm-dd, for sort order. The second one has an additional 0, to prevent the order being:

etc.

This would lead to Category:Days of the year being in chronological order (with some exceptions, such as February 30), although we still need a modified {{cattoc}}.

It would also lead to the days being "featured" in the month categories, as January 2007 already has a sort key of 2007 in Category:January.

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. If there is no fierce objection, I'm going to finish them all the way they are (doing more than just add the cat), then we can get a real bot to change them however we decide. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:20, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
No problem. (By the way, is February 30 to be placed in Category:Days of the year. It's not obvious to me.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
It was my intention to exclude the pseudo-dates (February 30, January 0, etc.) limiting the cat to the real dates of the year that currently occur. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, I've already modified the {{cattoc}}. (Is there a template to generate modified cattoc's? I just copied the template and edited it, although perhaps the centered-dot-template should be added.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know there isn't a template for creating cattoc templates but there are quite a few examples in Category:TOC templates -- Rick Block (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd prefer adding a space before the mm-dd for Category:Days of the year (so they'll be indexed under <space> rather than 0 in the cat listing). For the month category, the monthyear articles are using the year as the sort key. This clumps all months in years 1000-1999 together under 1 and all months in years 2000-2999 under 2. What you're suggesting would have the net effect of moving the days from the first letter of the month (J for January) to 0. If we want the monthday and monthyear articles all clumped together the sort key could start with <space> for these as well (or "*"). -- Rick Block (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Am I silly for thinking that we could just number them 001-366? Just in the case of Category:Days of the year. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
My point is that the first character of the sort key becomes a sort of index in the category listing. Using numbers 000-366 or a four digit mm-dd key makes no particular difference to me (although what day number is Sept 30? - without looking it up I know the mm-dd would be 09-30). As long as we prefix either of these with the same character (space or "*" or whatever) then either of these will make the days show up in calendar order. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Because of the February 29/Leap year problem, Mufka's ddd solution is troublesome; do we want it to be the index in leap years, or the index in non-leap-years (with February 29's index being 0595, rather than the correct 060). On the other hand, this only has to be done once. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that there is a problem using ddd in the case of leap years. February 29 always comes after February 28 and before March 1. The category just lists the dates without regard for whether it is a leap year or not. But I think Rick Block's point about knowing which number the date is is important. Using 02-29 is simpler than using 060 if you're passing by and trying to fix it if it gets messed up. One question I have is can the cat be sorted so that January shows up under 1, February under 2, etc.? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 16:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
You could have January under 1 in Category:Days of the year, but that leaves the question open of how October through December are sorted.
  • January 1 having [[Category:Days of the year|1-01]]
  • February 1 having [[Category:Days of the year|2-01]]
  • …
  • October 1 having [[Category:Days of the year|?-01]]
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Kind of extremely geeky, but we could use hex digits for October-December, i.e. A for October, B for November, and C for December. I don't think it would be bad to put them all under <blank> (or "*"). Since the month name is part of the article name, they'll be grouped by month anyway. We could create a custom category index that would link directly to the first day of each month as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't know how to do any custom index voodoo so unless someone has experience with that, we could just go with the 01-01 format with the space index (if that's the correct term). This will all work well for the Category:Days of the year but what, if anything, should be done about Category:January etc.? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:14, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Should we do anything with this? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

We might as well. I also noticed that Category:Days of the year only has 361 entries....
Simplest approach would be to tag days of the year such as January 1 as
  • [[Category:Days of the year|01-01]]
And days and pseudo-days (January 0, etc) as
  • [[Category:January| 01]] (note space)
The count for months in the month categories was 9 "*", 1 " ", 1 unsorted, 1 missing, so I changed the remaining ones to "*". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
The count on Category:Days of the year is always wrong. Has something to do with page blankings, etc. and it not refreshing properly. I've been tracking to be sure that all 366 are in there. It's easy to check with AWB. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 23:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I think
  • [[Category:Days of the year|01-01]]
should work well. It can cover all months and days. The odd dates like January 0 are not in the cat, and I don't think they should be. The next question is how. I don't think I can do it with AWB. A little complex for me. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 23:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
From parsing the {{Day}} template, I think the following code should work:
  • [[Category:Days of the year|{{#time: m-d|{{PAGENAME}} 2008}}]]
You can append that using AWB. However, I can't figure out how to substitute it. Changing "#time" to "subst:#time" doesn't seem to work. (The "2008" may be necessary to prevent February 29 from becoming converted to 03-01.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
The month tags might be done by
  • [[Category:{{#explode|{{PAGENAME}}| |0}}| {{#pad:{{#explode|{{PAGENAME}}| |1}}|2|0|left}}}}]]
if the StringFunctions extension is available. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
While we're doing this, we should also decide on what to do with the {{pp-move-indef}} template. Someone added it to a chunk of the articles, but not all. Should we add it to all, or remove it from all? I also notice that not all are move protected so they should all be protected to keep it consistent. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 21:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Protection has been fixed on all but June 9. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 22:11, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not able to figure out how to do this easily with AWB. I could do it manually while doing other AWB fixes over a few days, so long as that isn't seen as disruptive. The alternative is a bot. For consistency sake, we should probably add defaultsort to all of the pages - but leave it as {{DEFAULTSORT:January 01}} because it might not be appropriate for it to sort by month in an unrelated cat (few as they are). This shouldn't cause a problem with the days cat because the custom sort will override the default.
BTW, in further response to Arthur Rubin at 23:35, 9 February 2009, I submitted this bug (on the suggestion of brion) that points out the problem with articles falling out of cats for longer than they should after a blanking. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 14:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Date page cleanup

I have completed the cleanup on the date pages. I did the following:

  1. - Unlinked the dates of birth in the deaths section and the dates of death in the births section.
  2. - Added the Category:Days of the year to them all.
  3. - Removed unnecessary, inconsistent comments (e.g. <!-- Preserves autoscroll -->).
  4. - Made the headings all the same format (e.g. ==Events== with no spaces).
  5. - Removed spaces between the heading and the first item below it.
  6. - Added default sort to all of the categories for the first nine days of the month (to be addressed again above).
  7. - In the process of unlinking the years, I made the format of the (b. YYYY) etc. consistent. Some were (born. 1900), (B. 1900), (b. circa 1900), (b 1900), (b. ca. 1900), {b. 1900}, etc.

I error checked every page after the change and fixed minor errors along the way. It is certainly possible that there are minor errors but I think my check was pretty thorough. One possible error that might have slipped by is if the date was formatted like (b. [[1750s|1755]]). My check would have removed the ]] and [[but it would not have picked up the |. I didn't search for the | in my error checking because I saw and fixed very few of these along the way and in my experience, that format was not widely used.

Now I'm going to go soak my eyeballs in something cold and made with yeast. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Listings for Birth on any given day

I've been skimming through the days of the year, and I've noticed something interesting (and a little sad). The listing of births is very long, and for little good reason. Does anyone else find it odd that for pre-1900 the majority of births listed are of scientists, politicians, kings, artists, and noteworthy people, but the post-1900 (especially post-1960) listings are only actors and atheletes? We have more listings for european footballers than anything else. I have to ask, without disrespecting these people, why are they listed? The lists are out of control. If a person is looking for notable people born on a specific day, are they looking to find the whole of the 2008 UK Cricketing roster and the stars of High School Musical 2? No, they want to find world leaders, inventors, prize-winning authors, i.e. people of worthwhile fame. There are also a lot of issues of people on the list that are famous for being famous, like Jackie Chan's father and Paris Hilton. I would like to begin paring the lists down. Peabody80 (talk) 16:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

You won't hear any argument from me. I'm all for increasing the real utility of the date articles. As you can see, WP:DOY specifically points out that "being the subject of a Wikipedia article is only a minimum requirement for inclusion in a Wikicalendar article. Not all people meet the more stringent notability requirements for Wikicalendar articles." The problem with this is that it leaves a lot to subjective interpretation. I agree that the lists should be somehow limited, but I think if we went as far as WP:RY is attempting to go, there would be significant resistance. This has been discussed in the past (see this, this, this, this) and general consensus is that there should be some limitation. No real consensus exists, though, on what limitations. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 17:12, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
There really weren't many (if any) professional athletes until the 1870s, that would explain why there aren't many (if any) birthdays of professional athletes back in the day.
As for creating a more narrow criteria, I am opposed to any subjective means. If someone is notable enough for an article on Wikipedia, then they are notable enough to be listed on a DoY page. These are encyclopedia pages, not synopses. Although, one non-subjective way to limit some names would be to dis-allow any stubs, with the understanding that once the article is no longer a stub, it can be included. Kingturtle (talk) 19:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree that some objective criteria needs to be established - our problem always ends up being a lack of interest. We had suggested WP:COREBIO at one point. Excluding stubs seems reasonable. Or maybe some other article-class related criteria. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 20:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Another way to approach this is to have other DoYs suck up some of these births and deaths. Kingturtle (talk) 12:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

How is this done?

Do I understand that these pages are filled by individual editors who add all of these various items? Might I ask what could be your reasons for doing so? And how do you go about it? These pages seem a little silly to me, but of course I can be persuaded otherwise. Yours in puzzlement, a friend to all, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Every page on Wikipedia is filled by individual editors. That's how it works. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 12:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. Everybody has his own idea of Internet fun. Yours faithfully, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

AfD

I did not see a specific DoY articles for deletion subpage, but commentary and opinions by members of this wikiproject would be welcome: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/February 7 in baseball. I would note that having DoY pages for individual sports would eliminate some of the issues addressed above concerning latter years on regular DoY pages having so many athletes on them. 69.68.238.142 (talk) 13:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Potential for other DoYs

What are the opinions here of having other DoYs such as Days of the year in China, Days of the year in television, Days of the year in art history and Days of the year in baseball? I've been working with Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball to create such a series for baseball. Kingturtle (talk) 01:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

We've swatted that idea around before as a way to trim the content of the current DOY articles. I'm in favor of doing so for that reason (and generally not opposed even if that is just an unintended consequence). There are two three important factors that need to be considered up front though (IMO). First, you can't argue for their existence on the basis of notability as I would envision that they are just lists. Second, level of interest is important in building them to a point where they are useful (and include more than a handful of entries). Third, there is the potential for creating a walled garden. Would it fall primarily under WP:DAYS or another topic specific project? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 13:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/February 7 in baseball

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/February 7 in baseball has been extended to get more input. Please chime in with your opinions. Kingturtle (talk) 14:42, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


Nationality

On the pages of dates is there a set convention on how the nationality of a person is given, because Russel Crowe was born in NZ, but claims himself Austrailian, and he is called a New Zealander on his birthday short. Meanwhile Keisha Castle-Hughes was born in Australia, but considers herself a Kiwi, and is refered to as Australian/New Zealand actress. Should Russel Crowe's be changed?

Also are famous animals given space on the lists of birthdays, or is this considered too unimportant?

--ScribbleStick (talk) 05:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

For the most part the country of birth is listed unless the individual has moved and become a citizen of another country. Russell Crowe, for example could be listed as "New Zealand-born Australian actor", but since he moved to Australia at age 4, he is Australian IMO. There is no hard rule, and each case can be judged individually. What would the individual say if asked? That is usually a good way to go.
As for animals. There is no explicit criteria for animals and they have been included in some cases, but if they are to be included at a minimum they need to be widely notable and be the subject of their own article. I personally think they should be excluded, but I'm not going to argue that point. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 12:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
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