Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years/Archive 5

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Archive 1

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Categories: Year lists, Events by year, Categories by year

Hi. I've got a confused merge request at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 February 3#Category:Categories by year that someone here might be able to help with or shed light/solutions on. Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 05:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Fictional events

Every now and then we seem to get some entries on the year article related to random fictional events. Harry Potter's birth date is one, the date of the brief epilogue to the Harry Potter series (2017) is another. Of their nature, these events are all over the calendar, and for the most part they're clutter. Very seldom does the date of a fictional event have any real world significance. One could make a case for 1984 and various century or millennium ends, but for those particular cases perhaps tagging a fictional section onto a very real-world oriented article is not the best choice. Any ideas? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 18:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd say you'd have to take this on a case by case basis. As you said, some of them are notable enough for inclusion, but most aren't. Wrad (talk) 18:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Birthdays

This hidden text is found in the birth sections of date articles (eg 7 May);

I have found a constant stream of non-notable birthdays also being added to year articles and have been removing them as I come across them. Is there any objection to me adding similar hidden text (the bit about non-notable birthdays) to the year articles also? I guess it would need to go back to 1950 or so. SpinningSpark 00:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Not at all. Wrad (talk) 00:08, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me. You may need to add something about X's 18th birthday not being a notable event unless the celebration has global importance, even if X has an article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Decade names

I've just noticed that "noughty" decades are named in a potentially misleading way. We have, for example, 1100s (and corresponding categories etc.) used to mean the decade 1100-1009. But in normal English, the 1100s are the 100 years from 1100 to 1199 (are they not?) How about renaming these articles and categories more accurately (i.e. rename 1100s to 1100-1109, and make 1100s either a redirect to 12th century, or a disambiguation page).

Where these decades appear in navigation boxes (in lists 1100s - 1110s - 1120s) I think the use of the shorthand notation is justified, since the context makes the meaning clear. However the articles and categories should be correctly named.

Another small technical problem is that Category:1100s is taken to be a subcategory of Category:12th century, which means Category:1100 ends up in the 12th century whereas it was actually the last year of the 11th. In fact there's a box at the top of the Category:12th century page which illustrates this problem by the way the decades are mis-defined there. This mess might be best sorted out by using 1100s as the name of the century category, rather than 12th century (and similarly for all other centuries).--Kotniski (talk) 09:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

We could just have a thing at the top saying: This article is about the years 1100-1109 for the century, see 12th century. Wrad (talk) 15:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. The hat note is probably a good idea, both for the articles and categories, but we've got a number of automated scripts and templates which require the name be consistent. (I edited one a few months ago.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Like which? Maybe they could be tweaked without too much difficulty. More important is that Wikipedia be consistent with the real world (i.e. normal English usage in this case). --Kotniski (talk) 15:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the ambiguation exists in the real world as well...Wrad (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

True, but in my experience the 1100s far more often refers to 100 years than to 10 (and people don't really have a good name for decades like the one we're in now - see 2000s). Even 1110s is not standard usage as far as I'm concerned, though at least that doesn't suffer from having another expected meaning. Incidentally, I've tried to repair the inconsistencies at the top of Category:12th century, by adding a note and defining a slightly different template. If there are no objections to the way it's done there, we can carry it over to the other century categories. --Kotniski (talk) 16:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I object to that, too.... :) (And I had category:12th century on my watchlist, for some reason, before this discussion.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I also object to your term "repair". "Repurpose", perhaps, but not "repair". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain why you object? I don't see anything obviously controversial in it - it certainly makes more sense than the way it's done now. (I'm not repurposing anything, just trying to state what the purpose currently is.) --Kotniski (talk) 16:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

It's repurposing: 1100s is now about 1100-1109, 12th century is about 1101-1200. Changing either to realign for consistency or for (or against, as you started to do) what's done in the "real world" is repurposing. Or are you taking responsiblility for editing and recategorizing all articles and categories which refer to a century year. (I've brought a characterization proposal a few months ago in Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards#Categorization and sort keys; may I suggest that your repurposing proposal be brought there, as the proposals are related?) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Even if we agree here, these changes would have to be discussed at the WP:VP for a wider consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

(unindenting to save space) In the case of Category:12th century, all I mean is that Category:1100 is currently in Category:1100s which is in Category:12th century. Meanwhile 1200 is in 1200s which is in Category:13th century. Hence Category:12th century does in fact cover the years from 1100-1199, which is what I wrote. My other change was to the YearsInCentury template, which should show the decades as they are actually defined (both here and - in 8/10 cases - in the real world), i.e. 1120s means 1120...1129 etc. I don't think see how making this clarification entails any need for mass editing and recategorizing.--Kotniski (talk) 17:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Category:1200 is also in Category:12th century. Also, WP:SUBCAT specifies that categories are not necessarily nested. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

All right, I'll try and write a less categorical explanatory note (but not today - time to break off for Easter).--Kotniski (talk) 17:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I've edited Category:12th century again with what is hopefully a more acceptable note. As regards the main issue of renaming articles like 1100s, I think I'll take it to WP:Requested moves to generate a wider discussion.--Kotniski (talk) 10:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability?

Does the project have notability criteria? It seems the year pages mostly agree with the style guide on WP:DAYS (At a minimum, all events, births, deaths, and holidays should be linked to existing Wikipedia articles and those articles should mention the specific events. This will aid greatly in maintaining the credibility and verifiability of the date articles.) but not the more stringent notability criteria of the proposal at WP:DOY. However, I can't see this stated anywhere. Is there a guideline for the year pages that I've missed? Its been easy to remove the redlink cruft where the strapline says 'future world president', but for the redlinks with straplines like 'American Singer', I'd like to be able to link to a reason for the revert. Bazzargh (talk) 19:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I usually work with older years, so I don't have experience with this problem. Wrad (talk) 21:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If the person does not have a WP article, then he or she is not Notable. That's my working philosophy. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

This should apply to events as well. If the event has neither a page of its own or is mentioned in the place where it happened then it isn't notable. Unfortunately there are also numerous cases where such a page exists but probably shouldn't! DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 04:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Though I certainly agree in general, and this is generally used as a standard for removing spam links, there is an exception that is also generally made on such pages as notable alumni, which is people who would clearly qualify for a Wikipedia article where it has not yet been written, for example, a 19th century US state senator--and in that case the nature of the obvious notability is specified. the red links that result get filled in fairly rapidly. This also applies to other subjects, tho the decision isnt quite so easy there. The burden of proof is obviously on the person who proposes it, and the solution for challenged items to to write the stub article. DGG (talk) 03:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested moves

(Starting a new section to link to from WP:RM.) It is proposed (see also discussion a bit above) to rename the articles 1100s, 1200s, etc., which in fact concern decades, to 1100-1109, 1200-1209, etc. Although it is convenient for project maintenance purposes to have these names referring to the decades, normal English usage is for them to refer to the centuries, i.e. 1100s should be about the years 1100-1199, not just 1100-1109.--Kotniski (talk) 10:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Strongly oppose. The term can mean both; but this provides a uniform series, clarified by the infobox. Leave well enough alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Septent. Wrad (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  - Well, I wish it were so. But I suspect that for every reference you can find where the 1100s refers to a decade, I can find several hundred where it refers to a century. I would like to be proved wrong, since making the change would obviously involve a lot of tedious work, but from my own experience and googling there doesn't seem much doubt what the term normally means.--Kotniski (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    - Meaning depends on context; the context here makes the intended meaning plain. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
      - What context? Article titles are pretty much context free. I can accept 1100s as shorthand for a decade when it's part of a list 1100s - 1110s - 1120s etc., but as a title for an article it won't generally appear in such contexts.--Kotniski (talk) 17:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
        There are a lot of article titles with that problem. You just clarify by adding a blurb near the top saying This is about the decade, for the century, click here. At least that's how wikipedia normally does it. I think it makes more sense to leave it as is and do something like that than to change all the article title in a way that is internally inconsistent. Wrad (talk) 17:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
        Well, that partially solves the problem, but not for all purposes. Wikipedia normally tries to name its articles accurately (otherwise there wouldn't be all those Requested Moves debates). Consider for example what happens when editors want to create wikilinks in articles. I'm sure editors don't always check out every link they use; if they do a preview and the link shows up blue, they may well just assume it has the natural meaning. So you get an editor writing "in the 1100s" - meaning what it does, i.e. the century, but wrongly linked to an article about the decade. Or another editor, more scrupulous but too trusting of Wikipedia, who checks out what the 1100s article refers to and assumes that he can write "in the 1100s" in his article to refer to the decade - this time the link is right, but the average reader of the article (who probably won't be following the link) is seriously misled. Even in cases where no-one is actually misled, it looks bad for articles to be wrongly titled. You might argue, for example (and someone no doubt already has) that Warsaw should be renamed Warszawa for "internal consistency", since all other Polish cities are listed under their Polish names, so why should English usage be a consideration?--Kotniski (talk) 18:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
        These are navigation pages, not articles. They have a nice, consistent, working format, defensible as usage. Please chill. If you want to go amend the handful of actual articles which link to 1100s, do so; if not, the obvious solution is a dab header. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
        I don't know what you mean by navigation pages. 1100s at least looks like it's supposed to be an article. And the problem with linking won't be solved in the way you suggest - firstly 1100s is only one of a class of such articles, and secondly new links might be created at any time, so someone would have to keep monitoring them - pointless if the problem is simply that the articles are misnamed. Again, if you can convince me that usage supports 1100s as a decade, I'll be more than happy, but I haven't seen any evidence for this so far.--Kotniski (talk) 19:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
        See Wikipedia:Basic navigation: pages intended largely to get from one article to another; chiefly but not only disambiguation pages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know that I agree that decade pages are navigation pages. To be honest, they're pretty lame and aren't really anything. Stubs? Wrad (talk) 20:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Unexpandable stubs. But calling them navigation pages provides me with a reason for not proposing their deletion, which would be a lot of effort for no benefit to the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree strongly. They are expandable. Lots of things happen every decade that could be added to these pages. Entire books have been written about decades. Wrad (talk) 20:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree with Wrad on this point. But whatever they are, while they're in Wikipedia mainspace, I still believe they should be named in accordance with real-world usage.--Kotniski (talk) 20:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

They are. If no one else supports this idea, it should be WP:SNOWed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Instead of just saying "they are", maybe you can provide some evidence? Then we'll all be happy (it's not like I'm looking forward to renaming all these articles). --Kotniski (talk) 21:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

They are what? Navigation pages? Wrad (talk) 21:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

They are named in accord with real-world usage, at least with one of the two usages. If you don't want to rename all these articles, don't do it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I see. I really agree in this regard. The ambiguation exists in real life. It's unavoidable. Thus, I think it's wise to stay with the status quo. There is always a hazard when wikilinking that the editor will mistakenly link to the wrong thing. That isn't really the problem of anyone but the editor. They just need to be aware. Wrad (talk) 21:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, the linking problem isn't quite as huge as one might think, see here. Not many articles link to the 1100s page, and most of those that do seem to be linked correctly. Wrad (talk) 22:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, in only the second one I checked (Leaning Tower of Pisa, now corrected) I found a mistake of exactly the type I predicted. All I'm asking for is a few references to some good real-life sources where "the 1100s" refers to 10 rather than 100 years, like you both claim it can. Because all my experience and Google searching tells me that the century usage is the overwhelmingly dominant one.--Kotniski (talk) 09:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking for evidence that the linking problem is as bad as you say. One in 250 isn't that bad. There just aren't very many articles linking to decades. Wrad (talk) 16:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I never said it was particularly bad, although since I found an error at only the second attempt I'm quite sure I could find some more. It's just one reason why the naming of articles should not be totally out of sync with standard English usage.--Kotniski (talk) 16:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

We do already have a series of articles on the 12th century, 13th century, etc, do we not? That's what the century usage of terms like 1100s and 1200s would point to.. I think we're just fine continuing the usage of these pages as decades. LordAmeth (talk) 23:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I can see what Kotniski is saying, but I just don't think that the confusion is enough to merit such a big change. Wrad (talk) 23:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

All right, since no-one else sees this as a problem, I'll withdraw the proposal.--Kotniski (talk) 09:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Update: this problem has come up again at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)‎#The 1700s and several people there agree that there is a need to make a change along the lines I proposed. If anyone has any good arguments against (such as references to sources which actually use things like 1700s to refer to decades), then please make them there.--Kotniski (talk) 08:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Merging years in poetry to years in literature

According to our Literature article, the most basic literary types include poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction. If that's true, why do we have year in literature pages AND year in poetry pages? I stumbled upon these two types of pages and found that the poetry ones could easily be combined and should be combined with the literature ones. Most readers won't find the poetry pages because the literature pages usually have a remnant of a poetry section.

Therefore, my proposal is to combine them. If we could get a bot to do a rough merge, that would be great. I (and anyone else who wants to) would then go through and polish them.

While we're at it, I also propose that the confusing "New books" heading be changed to "Novels".

See User talk:Psychless/Temp work for an example of a combined page. Please post your support or disagreements. Psych less 15:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. there has been a problem in some cases justifying the poetry pages for the individual years. And also changing New Books to Novels--but this will need checking to see that all of them in fact are novels, and not, say, short story collections, and a heading possibly for other new books. Cf. 1608 in Literature and many other years around that time with political or religious or travel works. Given the amount of cleanup needed, it may be as well to go manually in the first place for both. I'm willing to do a few as a trial. DGG (talk) 15:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Does this not lead into the grey area of what a novel is? See eg Tale of Genji#Stature, or Novel#Early_novel.2C_1000-1600, etc. I suspect the title of that section is deliberately vague to avoid miscategorization. Bazzargh (talk) 16:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

List of state leaders in ...

Hello,

I take it that the articles like List of state leaders in 1878 is subject to this Project.

My question is: by what principle are state leaders included or excluded. What about territories that are not (independent) states, neutral territories, condominia?

My question mostly pertains to Moresnet, which is listed in these articles but which was not actually a state. The lists give the monarchs of the two powers that held the condominium (Netherlands/Belgium and Prussia) and gives the mayor. I don't think a mayor (appointed by subalterns of the major powers) can be classified as a "state leader"?

I am awaiting your response. Str1977 ^(talk) 13:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Weather

There was a "little ice age" in the 1300s or thereabouts. In some cases this "must" have affected crops particularly in the north, England, Scandanavia "should have" been affected. The problem is pinning down an exact year, pinning down the exact affect, the exact place, etc. But anyway, is this sort of thing wanted? Certainly can't pin down by month or day! This was pretty important if you were interested in eating back then! :) It "should have" had a deleterious effect on the growing season. Student7 (talk) 16:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

numbers that could be either a year or an emergency telephone number

I am re-introducing a proposal that was rejected 2 years ago, to see if consensus has changed (or a previous consensus has now become a lack of consensus). Specifically, I think that 911 should redirect to 911 (disambiguation), and the current article be moved and renamed to 911 (year). Please discuss/vote here, and also see my related proposal.

If a new vote reveals that consensus has not changed, then I shall be glad to abide by the result, and make no change to the article as it currently exists; likewise, if there is no consensus now, then I intend to abide by the results of the previous consensus. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 15:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

1345 question

I've put this up for RFC in several relevant areas. Here is the dilemma. Months ago I and another editor decided to be bold and make the 1345 article something that could potentially be an FA instead of the lame lists that we usually get in year articles. We put it up for DYK and it was on the main page for awhile. It was a huge success. Most editors agreed it was much better than the typical style. We started work on a 1346 article. However, User:Deb thinks that all articles should be uniform and wants to confine the summary-style articles to the background (1345 (summary)). I believe if we let the 1345 article summary stand in the main 1345 space, it will encourage other editors to make quality year articles. For older year articles, especially, timelines simply don't work. We don't have very many exact dates for things this far back, and most/all of those dates deal with western events, making year articles dealing with the Middle Ages and further back very western-centric and very poor quality. So, should 1345 be a summary article, or should it be a timeline article? Which do you prefer? Wrad (talk) 23:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm having some trouble here. An admin has decided that the summary should be in a different article called 1345 (summary). This is unprecedented and I think we should restore it as it was, with the summary on the 1345 page and the timeline on a separate page. The talk page for the summary seems to reflect this. Anyway, if summaries are going to be consigned to "back space" then I'm not going to bother writing them anymore. I have a nice summary for 1346 about ready, but I don't want it to be on some summary page no one's going to look at while the lame timeline setup remains on the main 1345 article. Anyway, what do we want? What do we really want for year articles? Do we want these lame list timelines or do we want nice summaries like 1345 (summary) with FA potential. Which do we want to showcase? Which do we want to work toward? I ask this especially in the case of older year articles, for which accurate-to-the-day timelines are nearly impossible to flesh out and a summary is really the best we can do. Please tell me right now before I waste my time writing more year articles. If you want the lame, listy, timeline crud, then I'm out. Most people seemed to really like the change my 1345 article brought on, and I hate to see it all thrown away like this. Wrad (talk) 18:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I would be grateful if other people would comment on this. What I saw was an article that was completely out of kilter with every other year article - nice, but in my view doesn't belong at 1345, so I moved it to what I feel is a more suitable title. It's my view that when people look at the year articles, they are usually looking for the salient facts. There is no doubt a place for a prose summary of the events of a particular year, artificial though it may be - but I don't think this is it. I protected the page purely to stop the to-ing and fro-ing between me and Wrad, while I tried to work out what was going on. See both our talk pages for more history. Deb (talk) 19:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for insulting my edits as "artificial". You obviously don't care how many editors loved the summary. You personally hate it and want to hide it, never mind what the rest of wikipedia says. I wish that you had considered the many supporting comments on the talk page BEFORE changing it to what you personally thought it should be. That is not something an admin should be doing, in my opinion, is ignoring consensus. We will never get the kind of discussion here that we had when 1345 was on the main page and everyone was talking about it. The only one who doesn't see the fact that this is a developing format with vast wikipedia support is yourself. That's just how it is. I think it's disgusting that someone can have so much power that they can revert that big a majority and protect it without me or any of us peons being able to do a thing about it without painstakingly explaining things and kissing the soles of your feet, all the while being accused of all sorts of things by someone who just doesn't know the situation. Wrad (talk) 19:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The 1345 (summary) page looks terrible. How can anyone see how we've been trying to improve that year article with all those messed up templates? Obviously, since I worked on the 1345 article too, I'm on the same side as Wrad. The reason we put that article on the mainspace was so we could be bold and show our idea off, so that consensus could work it out. If you look at the talk page, consensus has been for our changes. Some have asked that we make a 1346 article as well, to see how that turns out. Wrad has been working on this as well. The thing is, we still need to have this out in the open, so everyone can see what we're trying to do, rather than hide it in another page that hardly anyone goes to.Tea and crumpets ^{(t c)} 19:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Tea and Crumpets and I worked on that article and MOST people liked having the summary instead of that lame, partial, western-centric timeline. Let me list a few of the many comments we received: [1] [2] [3] [4] [[5] [6] [7]

In my opinion, what we have here is a drive-by move by an admin who didn't really know the whole history behind what she was doing. Tea and Crumpets and I were bold. We made the change. It was subject to heavy discussion by several editors, the vast majority of whom were ecstatically in support of the change. Wikipedia editors have already said what they want! The only thing for us to decide is whether or not to respect that and let the summary be in the main year space and show people what kind of quality year articles are REALLY capable of! Wrad (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I prefer the "standard" version. I have no object to WP:BOLD changes provided that all the navbars are present in both articles, and appropriate hat-notes are present, but, once reverted, WP:BRD suggests it should have been left in the standarized form while discussion is happenning. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're saying. No discussion was happening when I changed this months ago. This project was (And, for all intents and purposes, still is) dead. It wasn't like it was a major article that thousands of people see and comment on. I prefer, and so do most editors, as I have shown, a version that is not a lame, western-centric list. Besides, the standard version simply doesn't work for older year articles because there are no exact dates to put in the timeline. The only dates that are available are invariably from European sources, leaving readers with a poorly-written, poorly organized mishmash that doesn't tell them a THING about what the year was all about. The standard version may work with more modern article, as I see you tend to work with, but it doesn't work with older articles. We went through all these arguments months ago when 1345 was on the main page as DYK. Wrad (talk) 23:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

May I also point out that it was Deb who was being bold. She was the one who reverted from the original consensus as established on the 1345 talk page. I tried to start discussion and restore the original, but was just attacked and accused of all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. Wrad (talk) 23:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, the summary article is a vast improvement over the timeline. Instead of pushing the actual article to a disambiguated title in favor of the list, I think we should move the list to Timeline of 1345 or the like. That article is an example of the kind of thing that will hopefully exist at every year article eventually.--ragesoss (talk) 01:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm posting here in response to the RFC. I've never been involved with year articles, so take this as an outsider's view. In my opinion, the prose ("summary") version of the article is much better than the timeline version; I wish we had more year articles like that, which can actually be readable rather than just being laundry lists. However, I don't think Deb was being unreasonable in trying to keep things consistent, and I urge both "sides" to calm down. Consistency is important too, and a general consensus is needed. The discussion at Talk:1345 (summary), while encouraging, had a limited scope and cannot so easily overturn a consensus that affects thousands of articles. The place for the general discussion is here, at the WikiProject, so I am hopeful that after this thread is over we will end up with a solution that everyone finds agreeable. My preference would be to have the prose summary as the main article (when available), with the timeline as a supplement, either as a section/appendix of the main article, or as a 1345 (timeline) or equivalent. But really, I don't see it as a big deal; either way can work when appropriate hatnotes are used. --Itub (talk) 08:54, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I also really liked the prose summary, but would like to see the timelines included in the article. The timeline is much easier to find a specific event of just to get an overview of what was happening during that year. I can also just look at the timeline if I'm looking for a certain event that I remember happened "around 1340 or so". Also, if the timelines are "lame and western centric" why not include the non-lame and non-western centric info in the timelines as well as the prose sections. Maybe the timeline could be included either as the introduction, or early in the page, with the prose expanding and increasing details on the timeline.Tobyc75 (talk) 14:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I already explained above why "non-lame and non-western centric info" simply can't be included in older timelines (i.e. before about 1500). There isn't any day-specific info available beyond the west. Dates are needed in some form in order to make a timeline for the year. Since for many Eastern events we have no more specific information than the exact year (or season, if you're lucky), all Eastern events are left out of the timeline. It's inevitable. The only way to fix the problem is to have some sort of summary on the main space to explain the events of the year more generally. There is no way around it.

That said, I think you've struck on a good idea. Perhaps we can combine timelines and summaries in the front space. The article, of course, would begin with an intro like any other article. Then the first subsection would be a well-organized timeline so it's easily accessible to those who want a quick reference. Following that would be the summary of the year, and after that our outline of births ad deaths at the bottom. This would make both things prominent and easily accessible. It should please those who favor the summary and those who favor the timeline (we all need both at some point), and it would settle those who are worried about consistency. Wrad (talk) 21:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow, indeed. Another RfC surfer here who has never cared one way or the other about year articles/lists/timelines, so take my opinion as an outsider's view. First, I urge everyone to calm down a little about this, and please refrain from using attacks to try to get your point across. Second, I like the idea initially, but I have some concerns about how it is implemented. The current 1345 (summary) article reads a lot more like a school essay than an encyclopedia article. I'm particularly concerned with the POV of the writing, it seems rather peacocky. Just cherry-picking some from the lead: "struggling to place their puppet emperors over the shell of an old state", "ravaged by the Black Plague", "vanquished the Sukhothai", "quash the rebellion", etc. If this idea is to go further, the tone of these articles must be carefully monitored to remain neutral. Third, there's a fine line between providing context, and muddling article topics. Again cherry-picking, take the first paragraph of Western Asia. Only the last sentence actually mentions the state of affairs in 1345; the entire rest of the paragraph sets up the conclusion. Does all that context belong in an article on 1345? Is the goal of this article to describe the world situation in 1345? Or to presnt interesting events that happened in 1345 in prose form, instead of a timeline? The article, as written right now, doesn't really summarize 1345; it summarizes the early-to-mid 1300's. How is "the Black Plague was to arrive in Europe in two years" relevant to 1345? It's not, IMHO. So where does all that leave me? I like the proposed compromise of merging a timeline and a prose section into one article on the year. However, I caution editors to keep the prose NPOV and focused. Livitup (talk) 16:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been a challenge to write these, and I'm grateful for your support for the compromise. I'm planning on trimming the 1345 article down once this gets settled and I know where to put my 1346 stuff. I took a narrower approach with 1346. It still needs narrowing, so help will be appreciated when it goes up. And don't worry that you're just a "driveby" commenter. This project, if it isn't dead, is at least unconscious, so any comment from anyone on the subject is greatly appreciated. Wrad (talk) 19:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The reasoning behind this approach has never been an issue for me, and I fully support the idea of trying to combine the summary with the timeline (though it's possible that the length of the article might then become a problem). It was only your cut-and-paste move of the original 1345 text, and the failure to follow up with other summary articles, that led me to the action I took. Now that I've calmed down a bit, I would suggest you look at the "Year in British music" articles that have been done so far, for a comparison. Someone else started these, and I joined in later to try and improve them, so they still need a lot of work - but the concept is similar, I think. Deb (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

British Music is sort of what we're looking for, although, yes, they need some work and my goal is to get some years articles to GA or even FA status. As for space issues. I can state outright that there will be no problem with that when it comes to older year articles. If such a problem ever came up, then we could just use WP:Summary style and develop sub-articles as we have with all kinds of other wiki-articles. I just ask that you open up the 1345 article again so that I can start implementing this timeline-summary combo. You can watch over it and help out if you want, of course, if you have ideas. Wrad (talk) 20:13, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I will go ahead and change the year guidelines on this project's page to reflect this compromise. Feel free to reword and discuss as we go. Wrad (talk) 16:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Another outsider chiming in: What Wrad et al. have done with the 1345 article is outstanding and there's no good reason to stop it. It's true, the bland uniformity of timelines is simple and easy to deal with, but I can't see how there's ever anything wrong with... improving the quality of an article. -- The_socialist ^talk? 13:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)