Wikipedia talk:Days of the year/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 4

Proposed guideline

In order to move this proposed guideline forward, open discussion needs to take place to form a consensus on the guideline's content. As written, the proposed guideline represents several years worth of discussion on the topic (both here and at WP:DAYS) as well as longstanding practice. Please comment on the guideline as it is currently written indicating your support or specific (actionable) objections. Thank you. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 18:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Support becomming official. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Births and deaths

I think an article about a couple, such as Siegfried & Roy, or Edward and Elaine Brown, might allow birth and death information to be listed in the day and year articles. If the article is about an event, rather than the person, that would be quite different, and should not be allowed. I realize that this is a proposed expansion, but it seems fair. I wouldn't object strenuously if it didn't happen, though, because of the slippery slope. (If two, then why not three? If three, then why not an entire generation of children, etc.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

At the moment, I have no other concerns with the principles or the wording. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the slippery slope becomes an issue. As in the case of Jonas Brothers. I think the same criteria that applies to creation of articles is a good minimum for these purposes. Roy Horn doesn't have an article of his own, because he is not notable outside of the duo - makes sense to me. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 19:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

But Edward and Elaine Brown used to be at Edward Lewis Brown, with the brains of the operation added as an afterthought. Oh, nevermind. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Law and crime related

I suggest adding "globally important" or similar verbiage to some of the items, such as:

• Globally important verdicts and court decisions
• Passages of globally important legislation
• Major UN Security Council decisions

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur Smart (talk • contribs)

My suggestions above were never acted upon nor commented upon, so I'll assume there is no interest in them. Sorry. --Art Smart (talk) 22:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Question: along your line of thought, then, US income tax laws should not be added? mathwhiz29 21:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I would consider that an accurate statement. US income tax laws have little global impact. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 01:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Scientific events and accomplishments

I suggest adding "major" to the following:

• Major milestones in space exploration
• Major scientific discoveries

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur Smart (talk • contribs)

My suggestions above were never acted upon nor commented upon, so I'll assume there is no interest in them. Sorry. --Art Smart (talk) 22:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts

On first reading, my reaction is: this is very good. It gives a clear set of criteria for inclusion, which is good. It reflects current practice and policy. Kudos to those who have put this together.

A minor point: you might want to find different examples in the "What is not notable" section. The current ones could be mis-read as implying "two Finnish deaths are as notable as ten Israeli deaths", or "two murders are as notable as ten deaths by terrorism" which is unfortunate. I know that this is not the intent, but it could be read that way especially if you use hot-button issues like terrorism and Israel as examples. Just a thought. Best, Gwernol 19:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed the references to national distinctions, as suggested. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 17:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Support becoming Official

I would support this proposed guideline becoming an official guideline. It has been and continues to be the 'official' guideline for the WP:DAYS articles. For the most part people accept this, however some people who, when told to refer to this guideline for inclusion standards, argue that it is just a proposed guideline and therefore doesn't need to be followed. Moving this proposed guideline to official status would not only reflect the current, widely accepted, standard, but could also help avoid needless arguments and edit wars.

I would, however, like to see an expansion/clarification of the inclusion guideline for the Births and Deaths. Currently inclusion needs only to be an article meeting WP:BIO standards, not a redirect or group page and some mysterious measurement labeled 'more stringent notability' . The birth and death sections, at least to me, are incredibly fat with non-notable people. I really don't think we need every politician, actor, and musician listed. I think we only should have people who have made significant historical contributions to the world. I would suggest that anyone born after 1970 have not lived long enough to have made a significant contribution to the world (there are exceptions of course) and therefore should not be listed.

Having said that, I don't think the Births and Death as they are currently worded should prevent the guideline from becoming official. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Grouf completely. I also would like to see some clarification about births and deaths, but support this guideline becoming official. – Psyche825 _(talk) 17:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I support it becoming official. Great work, and thanks to everyone who collaborated on it. --Art Smart (talk) 23:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Mufka asked me if I'd voice my support since I'm citing WP:DOY in edit summaries - and I have to say yes yes yes. I have the year pages 1980-now watchlisted to patrol autobio/fan cruft, and a few DOY pages have crept in there from collateral damage. The 'what is not notable' section in particular is great, and exactly what is needed. I wish the Year project had something like this! Bazzargh (talk) 02:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't support becoming official

Some editors suggest that other editors ignore the advice here because at the moment it's not a guideline, it's not policy. If that's the only reason to !vote for it then I can't support it. It's a nice bit of advice, it's clear and easy to understand. So I give it a weak support, but I'd hate to see it being used at ANI. Dan Beale-Cocks 20:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That would be the case with every policy. If every policy was voted down because editors violated its suggestions, no policy would ever be ratified. This guideline is more important to prevent edit wars and to help guide discussions about what should be included in the date articles. It is also important to note that many editors have been blocked for what would be considered violations of this proposed guideline. It is already practiced and enforced. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 20:55, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you be more specific as to why you would "hate to see it being used at ANI"? Could you provide some suggestions as to how we might improve this guideline so that it would, in your opinion, be easier for Admins to arbitrate should it ever be brought to WP:ANI? I don't have any experience requesting Admin intervention so I'm not entirely sure what would stand up in a review. Since you brought up WP:ANI I assume you are familiar with that process so I would like to hear more from you. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Ann and Bob have a content dispute. Ann thinks an event is important, and should be included. Bob doesn't. Without this guideline either: 1)They have to talk about it on the talk page, and try to build consensus or 2)edit war. With it being policy Bob can try a bit of talking, revert Ann once or twice, and then go to ANI to complain about "inappropriate" content. But do you really need this guideline to be official to take action against Ann? Especially if, as Mufka say, it's already enforced. Dan Beale-Cocks 23:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Here's my first thought (I may have another but don't hold your breath): If it's already enforced why not make it official? If it's not official why are we enforcing it? We have stated many times to various users that the WP:DAYS articles don't follow all the standard policies (ie no refs, no red links). Unless we have an official policy or guideline aren't we in violation of WP:POLICY? Without this policy/guideline becoming official couldn't someone report us on ANI and force us to ref every entry, allow red links, and generally make a mess of the work we are trying to do? Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

For the most part, the question of whether an event is "important" is a content dispute, so shouldn't be subject to ANI sanctions. Once a "consensus" is obtained that the event isn't important, that would be different. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've changed to support. Thanks for putting up with my waffling, and I hope it wasn't too distracting. FWIW, that's a really nice set of writing. Much easier to read and understand than some other notability stuff. Dan Beale-Cocks 04:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Dulcem's objections

I do not support this proposed guideline. It's emphasis on events that are "notable around the globe and throughout time" will only result in a Western-focused mess, totally ignoring vast swathes of the world. What's wrong with being inclusionist on these pages? My view is that if something is notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia, and that thing has significant date connections (date of birth, date of death, date of release, etc.), it should be fair game for inclusion on these pages. — Dulcem (talk) 22:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not see the current state of the date articles as a "Western-focused mess". And this proposed guideline only codifies current practice. This proposed guideline helps to layout what should be included but it has no provisions for excluding events based on region. Also, while I do not have exact numbers, I believe that the greatest proportion of the English Wikipedia's editors are from western countries and therefore it would not be surprising that other cultures are under-represented in the listing of events. Being more inclusionist in these pages would reduce the overall value of the pages. They would end up being lists of everything that ever occurred on a given date. In that case, they would be nothing more than listcruft (albeit marginally notable listcruft). -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 00:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, obviously we have a difference of opinion. We need to reduce Western-centric bias, not codify it. How does the current proposal do this? — Dulcem (talk) 02:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Specifically what about the proposed guidelines do you see as being Western biased? -- Rick Block (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The entire premise is Western-focused, or will at least lead to articles that are so. Let's consider a few bullet points:

• Beginnings, ends, and perhaps significant battles or movements in global wars or wars involving at least one country considered a world power at the time of the war. A significant battle would be one that changed the course of a war, such as D-Day. Why the requirement that one country be a world power? What about significant civil wars, like the Second Congo War? Or one involving two lesser powers, like the Char Bouba war?
• Formation of major alliances in which at least one participating country was a global power at the time of formation. Again, this is biased toward world powers (i.e., the West, mostly). Why should the formation of the Bank of Central African States not get a mention, for example? It involves six sovereign nations and is hardly insignificant.
• Natural disasters that significantly impacted a major metropolitan area or country (the tsunami of 2004, Hurricane Katrina). Just one listing should do - the date the hurricane formed, date it first made landfall, date it dissipated, etc. are not relevant. Number of deaths is not a qualifying factor. Why "a major metropolitan area or country"? Is it not enough that only villagers were killed when Lake Nyos belched toxic fumes in 1986?

The guideline also seems to contradict itself. In one area, we are told that births and deaths are not considered notable for inclusion, but then we are told "Only the births and deaths of people who are themselves subjects of Wikipedia articles should be listed." Likewise, in one area we are told not to include festivals, but later we are told holidays are OK. Why the dual standard?

I appreciate that there is a lot of room for cruftiness on these pages; the release date of the Fantastic Four movie should probably go unmentioned. But let's not paint ourselves into a corner that only allows dates of "global significance" and thus shuts out the history of large portions of the globe. — Dulcem (talk) 00:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The reason for using global significance as criteria for inclusion is to create a resource that is relevant to the widest possible audience. Events that have only local impact would not be relevant to the widest audience. Suggesting that locally notable events be added is like a type of fairness doctrine. Passers by are less likely to stop and read a long event list that is full of events that are not of interest to them and they would ultimately stop reading the pages altogether because they have to sift through a lot of nonsense (relatively speaking). The goal is to increase the overall utility of the pages.

As far as the contradictions in the way it is currently written, the section headings could be adjusted to be less confusing. This was a patchwork from other pages. The intent (evidently unclear intent) was that the events sections of the date articles should not contain births, deaths or holidays. Those entries should be listed in their respective sections. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 16:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I have tried to adjust the headings to remove the apparent contradiction. As for the inclusion of events I think this guideline should be a place to start. Some events are not truly globally notable but should still probably be included. The examples you give, as well as others, should each be considered on their own merits. However I think we need to be fairly strict with the inclusion of natural disasters. Many people die in disasters many many times throught the year, but very few of them really are notable. They should be included within the article for that village/area, as they are of local interest, but really didn't make much of an impact on a national/global scale. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

(Thanks to Rick Block for pinging me on my talk page to return here. Sorry for the delay!) I must still lodge my oppose to the guidelines as they stand because I still feel that will result in a Western-centric mess that ignores much of the world. However, I would at least be more at ease if the proposal explicitly said what Grouf says above, that more regional events can be added to the lists according to their own merits. In fact, I would be completely happy if we started some sort of subpage system.

Take our page on 5 May for example. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a few of the events there would be removed if this proposal were enacted:

• 1215 - Rebel Barons renounce their allegiance to King John. This was part of a chain of events leading to the Magna Carta signing.
• 1925 - Afrikaans is established as an official language in South Africa.
• 2007 - Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507 crashes in Cameroon.

Rather than deleting these events outright for being of only local or regional interest, perhaps we should establish pages like 5 May in Europe and 5 May in Africa where they could reside. Then, when "On this day" selections are made for the main page, these regional events would be in contention with the multi-national events for main page exposure. I could live with that.

Another concern is that the current proposal seems to be focused on the modern, post-nationalist period. How do we determine whether a war involves "at least one country ... considered world power" in times and places that are prenational? I'm thinking of, for example, wars between Native American tribes or coalitions or encounters between European colonialists and native peoples. Are they inherently non-notable for these lists? — Dulcem (talk) 00:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Kingturtle's objections

I do not support these guidelines. I find them constraining, limiting and against the interest of Wikipedia. The guidelines are so restrictive that we will only be left with nation-to-nation relations, war-related events, and the occasional invention.

Being a Main Page hook, Days of the year articles have a purpose to entice users to read more, to go deeper into Wikipedia, and even to become Wikipedia participants. Therefore Days of the year should be interesting, broad, education, and entertaining. The "Must be Internationally significant" push really mutes, even kills, all this. Kingturtle (talk) 14:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Repeating Mufka's statement above, these guidelines reflect current practice. Are you suggesting someone or some group should go through all the existing day articles and add content? I think the basic point is that the editors who currently maintain these articles effectively use these guidelines and are asking the community to officially endorse them. If these become official, then there's a clear mechanism to request changes (this talk page). As it stands, differences of opinion about what should or shouldn't be included on these pages have no particular way to be resolved. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, they are not resolved. I really think the guidelines are awful. The current practices should change. Kingturtle (talk) 14:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Could you attempt to phrase this in an actionable sort of way, i.e. what (specifically) would you like to be changed about these guidelines or what would your ideal guidelines be? I assume you know that community adopted guidelines (as opposed to decrees from Jimbo) reflect current practice and therefore can essentially never be used to force changes. Note the essential problem the guidelines are attempting to address is one of size. If we assume only half of our over 2M articles have some attachment to at least one date (and I think this is low), on average each day article could have about 3000 entries. The intent of these guidelines is to provide a consistent way to decide which of these potential entries might be worth mentioning. Current practice attempts to reduce this to a manageable number by applying a "global significance" filter. What would your preferred approach be? Unless you're willing to propose some alternate set of guidelines (or perhaps some other means of maintaining the content on these pages, e.g. perhaps something similar to how WP:DYK is managed) and convince the folks who regularly maintain these pages to adhere to them, I think you're effectively arguing for a perpetual state of conflict between the folks who don't want these pages to grow boundlessly and the folks who want to add an entry memorializing the release date of their favorite video game. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been working on a proposal here User:Kingturtle/sandbox4, but I've been very busy with other things, and it will be another few months before it is ready. Kingturtle (talk) 01:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't look like much of a proposal to me. Looks like you want to inlude every event that has ever happened from the beginning of time to the end of Wikipedia. That would make these pages incredibly long and useless. I think some of the items you have listed are good, others would be better suited on other lists or projects. It would appear to me that you seem to have bitten off more then you can chew, especially considering you are busy with other activities. Perhaps you could concentrate on a few (maybe 5 or less) items at a time? Help us improve what is here rather then trying to reinvent the project. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is the list of criteria I've been working on for DOY. I feel it is very important to consider non-globally significant events as part of DOY articles. Kingturtle (talk) 19:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

At first glance, that list doesn't look at all different from the existing practice. Other than 'global significance' filter, what is different? And what true problem, exactly, are you trying to solve at the expense of an even bigger problem of creating a bloated and unmanageable cesspit of trivia? --CalendarWatcher (talk) 19:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The list probably isn't much different than what exists, except the breadth is wider. I understand keeping trivia out of DOY - but keeping only global significant things is cutting off our nose to spite our face. A lot of good material is lost with such a limitation. Kingturtle (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This is a fine list of things to consider including, but it's really not responsive to the problem this guideline is attempting to address which is how to decide what to exclude to keep these articles at a reasonable size. Size of the "events" section is controlled today through enforcement of a "globally notable" criteria (it is the current practice that has evolved, done without an explicit guideline). In contrast the births and deaths sections are growing uncontrollably because the only enforced criteria for inclusion is "Wikipedia article must exist" (there are currently 276,000 articles about living people, and certainly at least 90,000 articles about people who've died, so on average there are over 1,000 births per day that qualify under this criteria). I'd think using this list as an inclusion criteria without some counter balancing limit on what to include would make these articles tend to grow to 10x (or 100x) their current size. How would you decide what to exclude to keep these articles at a reasonable size? -- Rick Block (talk) 14:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

A: Good old-fashioned, old-school, informal consensus. Kingturtle (talk) 18:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

That's basically what these guidelines are attempting to do, but rather than leave this to a case by case decision for each of the 366 of these articles the attempt is to establish a consensus based criteria (very similar in spirit to WP:NOT) that would apply in general. Leaving it case by case invites POV-warriors to argue that their favorite <whatever> is special - and, if they don't relent, can claim deleting their fundamentally non-notable entry doesn't have consensus. I'm sure Mufka can provide numerous examples if you'd like. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Moving forward

Are there any adjustments to the current proposed policy that could be made to move it forward? The fact that it is widely accepted and practiced suggests that a small minority object to the principles laid out. If this proposed policy did not indeed have widespread support, there would be a much higher level of edit warring on the topic. A small minority can impede progress but it seems a shame to ignore something that is widely accepted. If accepted, this policy will not be written in stone and new proposals for improvement will have an opportunity for consensus. Stamping this as a policy will have no effect on how the date pages are constructed, but it will aid in preventing vandalism, POV pushing, and edit warring in the articles. The policy would provide a firm backdrop for future debate on the notability issues in the date articles. Without a policy, the date articles have the potential of becoming a list of whatever a passing editor feels should go there and no one will have a leg to stand on in removing anything from the articles - including links to Joe Schmoe the all-American bad ass. At its worst, the proposed policy, as written, is a good starting point and debate on opening up the restrictions can begin immediately. I believe that passing editors and vandal patrollers do not appreciate the value of this proposal but will certainly see the value if the proposal is scrapped entirely. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 19:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In other words, only a few people raised objections so you're ready to move forward without addressing our complaints? I still have huge reservations about the systemic bias inherent in the proposal and cannot support. — Dulcem (talk) 22:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

No, what I'm really looking for is some constructive suggestions on how the objections can be resolved. I'm a little concerned that I have never heard any complaints about systemic bias in the past. That has never been a topic for discussion in relation to these articles. I am further concerned that it might be unwarranted hypersensitivity. I don't think that systemic bias exists within this project - but if it did, small changes to the proposal should be able to alleviate it. I feel that you're looking at this project with a jaundiced eye and that you wish to impose an unnatural order. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 01:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a request for comment would be useful. There only seems to be a small number of editors commenting on this proposal, perhaps more people would help move things forward. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I had posted a notice at WP:VPP but this additional post can't hurt. Done. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 20:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Births and Deaths

Can we go beyond having a wikipedia entry as being the minimum requirement? There are hundreds of thousands of biographical articles and in theory each one could be added to a wikicalendar entry. We need to apply (and probably define) concepts like "major notability" and "historical significance". --NeilN ^{talk ♦ contribs} 15:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

How about this:

• People who are associated with Events. (If the event is notable then the person directly associated with it should be notable. This is probably the easiest and best way to determine who should be included. If someone's notability is tied to an event that is deemed not notable enough to be included in the Events then they should not be listed in the Births and/or Deaths.)

More specifically:

• Heads of National governments (Kings, Queens, Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc) If they are not the head of the entire country they won't have much (if any) global impact, and therefore are not notable.
• People whose discoveries/inventions are mentioned in the Events section. If the discovery/invention isn't notable, neither is the person.
• Firsts. (First woman politician, first black to play baseball, etc)
• Military commanders directly responsible for victory/defeat of major (notable) battles.
• People who changed national and/or international laws or policies.
  • Ryan White is a good example of notability due to laws and policies being enacted. The others that come to mind are actors/musicians/sports figures/business people/politicians and could cause confusions as to how they are notable. (notable because they are an actor, or because they changed laws?)

This is my first thought, it will have to be clarified, and possibly expanded. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it would be great to create a higher standard for inclusion. But I think it would be very difficult to enforce. If the current guideline doesn't gain consensus, there will be no way to enforce any of these ideas, especially this one because it is new. Also, have a look here and here for previous discussion on births and deaths. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 15:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps holding off this discussion until after this guideline becomes official would be a good idea. Grouf ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Calendar?

When specifying dates prior to 15 October 1582, what is the standard as far as adding them to the Days of the year? Are people expected to use the Proleptic Gregorian Calendar? Or is this specified in a FAQ somewhere that I missed (which is entirely possible)?

New style dates should be used, according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

discussion about criteria (moved from User talk:Kingturtle)

I don't understand your agenda at WT:DOY. You seem to be arguing against any exclusionary criteria in favor of a strictly inclusionary criteria. Do you really think there's a problem with too many interesting facts being ruthlessly deleted from these pages? Just curious. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I am arguing for a more generous criteria that would allow for events that are interesting, educational and notable, but not internationally significant. I definitely don't want a fully inclusionary criteria for events.

With the current exclusionary criteria on the table, for each day we're going to be left with a dozen events that are mostly about world leaders and international relations. Events that are socially and artistically interesting (and the like) will disappear, and DOY will become (has become) dry and boring.

Three years ago I was reading DOYs allowed to my high school history classes. I don't do that as much anymore, because there are fewer interesting events to discuss. Kingturtle (talk) 11:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

How about a strict size limit, perhaps something like "no more than 50 events, 50 births, and 50 deaths per day" (and if 50 isn't the right number, then 100, or 200)? I really think without some kind of counter-balancing force an inclusion-oriented guideline will tend to make these pages grow uncontrollably. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's look at June 2 as an example. These items are of interest and valuable to history - but are not internationally significant.

• 1692 - Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, is found guilty, and would go on to be hanged on June 10.
• 1835 - P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.
• 1855 - The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
• 1886 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.
• 1997 - In Denver, Colorado, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

We need a policy that can include events such as these. Kingturtle (talk) 14:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should move this to WT:DOY, but would a guideline along the lines of "consider including the following types of items, but limit the number of entries to no more than 50" be acceptable? -- Rick Block (talk) 14:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not opposed to a limit. I just don't want a policy that excludes valuable non-internationally significant items. Kingturtle (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I share Kingturtle's concerns, but more from a standpoint of countering systemic bias. No one has commented on my idea that we keep the current proposal mostly intact and add subpages for regions or continents. In the example above, we'd move those events to 2 June in North America or 2 June in the United States. Provided these subpages are linked from the main 2 June page and that the items on them are fair game for the front page DOY feature, it would keep the page sizes down while keeping interesting, non-international items available. Thoughts? — Dulcem (talk) 23:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If we separate by continent I think we end up with 5 times as many pages to maintain (which doesn't seem like a good thing to me). Also, we'd then need to have some criteria for what goes on the main page for each day (only the globally notable events? but this is what Kingturtle is objecting to). I'd be OK with a slightly broader than "globally notable" criteria for each page, but only with a strongly recommended limit on the total number of entries (perhaps 50 like I suggest above). From Kingturtle's list above I'd certainly buy the Salem trial, first PT Barnum tour, and Grover Cleveland's marriage as items worth considering (under a general criteria of "historically notable firsts"). Portland Rum Riot and McVeigh's conviction not so much. Portland Rum Riot is similar to hundreds if not thousands of other events where lethal force was used against mostly unarmed mobs - I could see this being a DYK mention, but not a permanent entry on a DOY article. I'd imagine the Oklahoma City bombing would be mentioned on April 19 (and it is), but I don't see the rationale for mentioning the date of McVeigh's conviction. On the other hand I think both of these are basically quibbles and adhering to a mildly restrictive limit on the total number of entries would tend to force editors to decide what to keep and what to pitch (which is all I really care about). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Kingturtle is objecting to the allowing only globally notable events, but that's according to the current system, where there's nowhere for non-global events to be kept. That's why I proposed the subpages. I am opposed to a hard numerical limit (50, 100, even 200 events per day). That will only lead to more fighting over what events to include and which to remove, and if non-global events are allowed, it will inevitably lead to nationalistic fights and edit wars. Subpages are perfectly in keeping with current practices of summary style in articles. More pages to watchlist is simply what happens when wiki grows, in my opinion! — Dulcem (talk) 02:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Is the following summary roughly right?

• Mufka/Grouf/Arthur Rubin/Arthur Smart/Gwernol/Psyche825/Bazzargh/Dan Beale-Cocks: Many (most?) folks who maintain these pages generally use "global notability" as currently described.
• Kingturtle: "Global notability" is too strict - it eliminates many interesting, locally flavorful events. We should encourage addition of locally notable events to make these pages more interesting. Suggesting a limited number of events per page would be OK.
• Dulcem: "Global notability" is inherently Western-biased. We should have a page per day per continent with no limits on numbers of events so locally important events have a home.
• Rick Block: We need some way to prune these pages of the drek they tend to attract. Either a global notability criteria or a strongly recommended size limit would be fine.

I don't see any way to resolve these viewpoints - in particular Dulcem and I seem to be at opposite extremes. I'm perfectly willing to go with any majority opinion. Others? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Rick Block has summarized the issue well and his views are pretty well aligned with my own. A fixed quantity of entries seems reasonable (like WP:Selected anniversaries) but still cause a management problem. It is worth noting that there are no criteria for inclusion on the month articles (June 2005). All of the non-global events could go there. I don't feel that the systemic bias is really an issue. Something that needs to be taken into account is marketing. The English Wikipedia is viewed and edited by speakers of English. English is a western language. The only way to keep these articles useful to the widest possible audience is to include events that are relevant to the widest possible audience. The total utility of the pages will begin to decrease with the addition of entries whose marginal utility is negative for the majority of readers.

I don't think subpages are all that bad of an idea - but I would propose June in South America which would create 12 pages per region rather than 366. I think what would happen is there would be a group of editors who will watch the globally notable (main) date pages (those that currently do so). An interested group will be watching the events in South America date pages, etc. The more purist editors of the globally notable date pages would kick events out to the sub pages as necessary. The requirements for the subpages would be pretty lax. The subpages would all be members of Category:Regional date pages or something. This category would be linked from the main date pages. That way if you want to see more events on a given date, you can very easily seek them out. The WP:DOY as currently written would apply to the main date pages. The editors who watch the main date pages don't have to care what happens in the regional date pages unless they really want to. Watching those pages is better left to those editors who are both interested in the region and knowledgeable of the events. I would think that those looking for local flavor would like to be able to drill down into a specific region. A problem I see with subpages is populating them initially - but that would be easier with 12 month pages rather than 366 day pages. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 16:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion has died down again - is everyone on vacation, or does no one care, or something else? Would anyone object to the following:

• slightly expanding these criteria to address Kingturtle's concerns (perhaps Kingturtle could suggest something)
• including a strongly suggested limit on the number of events to be included per date (50? 100?) to address my concern
• starting regional monthly articles (by continent?) to address Dulcem's concerns

Would this make everyone happy enough to call it consensus? -- Rick Block (talk) 00:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any objections. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 17:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)