Wikipedia talk:Days of the year/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Proposal: Breaking Out Pages

In going over all the discussions over the last few days and indeed all the discussions on this page, rather than Sandbox an entire page, might I propose right under "Events":

For events in arts, entertainment, sports and media, including fictional events, see October 11 in popular culture.

For births and deaths of notable people, see October 11 births and deaths.

Then all that would be left on the DOY pages are "Events," "Holidays and Observances" and whatever other information is on the page (e.g.: February 29).

And yes, I would say move all births and deaths to those other pages. All of them. (Obviously, political assassinations and such could still be listed in "Events," as they are now.) Two or three admins working together could easily have the new pages set up by this time tomorrow. The more broadly you define the new pages, the more information they're likely to contain. You can then loosen the restrictions on what is and is not notable while still having some standards. Yes, it means there will now be 1,098 pages to watch instead of 366, but realistically, the original 366 DOY pages aren't going to be edited as much. It's very rare that a new holiday or observance is invented, and only once a year might there be a new event. It would give admins less work to do, as they'd be reverting far fewer edits on the 366 main DOY pages, and with broader definitions, fewer edits on the 732 new pages. You don't have to set as many guidelines for restricting information, and none of the pages will be as long as they are now. -- JCaesar (talk) 23:09, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

For this suggestion to gain consensus I think a full set of sandbox articles would be necessary to help identify any pitfalls along the way and layout the format. I'd suggest creating all of these with full content (minus cats): Wikipedia talk:Days of the year/sandbox/October 11 births and deaths, Wikipedia talk:Days of the year/sandbox/October 11 in popular culture, Wikipedia talk:Days of the year/sandbox/October 11. As this would be a major overhaul I think a complete roadmap is appropriate. I would wait to do any of this until others chime in. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 23:57, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I will definitely wait, but one thing that would save a lot of time is if someone better at creating templates than me could help whip up a template or two. (That is, the double-bracketed templates. Page templates I can handle.) If it's agreed this is a good idea, templates can be created relatively quickly. -- JCaesar (talk) 00:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

And really, it shouldn't be that major an overhaul. It will be a little tedious for one or two or four people, but the beauty of DOY in general is there are only 366 of them, there are only ever going to be 366 of them, and we know what all of them are. There's a logical progression: I've updated January 1, now I move on to January 2, and then January 3, etc. So again, if consensus is reached, once the complete roadmap is done, it will take a few diligent people a few hours at most to implement it, and once it's done, it's done forever. -- JCaesar (talk) 00:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Would it perhaps help if I propose some basic guidelines, too? -- JCaesar (talk) 02:19, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

As there seems to be no objection, I'm running with this proposal. -- JCaesar (talk) 03:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

There needs to be wider discussion on this. Just because the discussion slipped off my watchlist doesn't indicate consensus. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 12:54, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I support this. The whole business of having a separate standard of notability just for DOY pages is obnoxious, and this is IMO a much better solution. -- Visviva (talk) 01:36, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Ongoing RfC

There is an ongoing RfC here that will impact this project and how events are listed on the DOY pages. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 15:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

More leniency for Antiquity and Early Middle Ages events

The further you go in history, especially Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, the less exact dates and events are available. Adding events from those periods even though the notability is "on the edge" might enhance the reader's experience and let her know that "something" happened even in those "dark ages". Certainly, starting with 1600s up, one should filter more and more the events of importance since we have exponentially more information. Maybe being a history buff and with a passion for Antiquity and Middle Ages periods I am biased here. Most "day articles" have a plethora of events starting with 1700s but some almost nothing before, like nothing must have happened in the past on that date. This can be misleading and unfair to past cultures or to parts of the world which lost their importance today. Sometimes I like to fill in those "earlier", maybe more obscure events, but of importance, in such articles. Hopefully some of these events from long time ago will make it to the WP main page/On this day since it is quite interesting trivia. Maybe WP:DOY could include this idea of being more (exponentially) lenient with events from long time ago, as a suggestion, if it is agreeable.--Codrin.B (talk) 14:41, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Linking Style

It's probably already handled in WP:MOS but I think there should be a guideline here limiting stupid over-linking to irrelevant generic topics. GoldenRing (talk) 11:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Example? -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 13:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, from today's DOY:

• 1520 – Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as Strait of Magellan.

Why is strait linked? It adds nothing to the entry.

• 1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara, which marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate that in effect rules Japan until the mid-nineteenth century.

Why is Japan linked?

• 1774 – First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.

flag adds nothing here. Debatable whether British adds much, either.

• 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signals almost the end of French maritime power and leaves Britain's navy unchallenged until the 20th century.

Pretty sure that France and Spain don't add much information about this specific event.

• 1945 – Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.

Again, I don't think France adds much here.

• 1967 – Vietnam War: More than 100,000 war protesters gather in Washington, D.C.. A peaceful rally at the Lincoln Memorial is followed by a march to The Pentagon and clashes with soldiers and United States Marshals protecting the facility. Similar demonstrations occurred simultaneously in Japan and Western Europe.

This is a particularly nasty example, in that none of the wiki-linked pages describes the event itself. At the very least it should have a link to Protests against the Vietnam War.

• 1986 – In Lebanon, pro-Iranian kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).

Again, all links are to generic articles that don't mention the event. Iran-Contra Affair seems to be the only page that mentions the event itself.

• 1987 – Jaffna hospital massacre is carried out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.

What do patients, doctors and nurses add here?

These are only the worst offenders from today's entries. The only way most of these links could possibly be useful would be if you were so unfamiliar with the English language that you don't know what a doctor is. Or what a flag is. Of course we will get people whose first language is not English reading, but we shouldn't be writing specifically for them; this is an encyclopaedia, not a phrasebook. GoldenRing (talk) 09:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Note that I've now added links for those without any relevant links. GoldenRing (talk) 10:11, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Much of these would be covered under WP:OVERLINK. Nothing about them makes it specific to WP:DOY. For the ones that don't have the links they need, those need to be fixed or removed. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 12:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

RFC regarding the established template

An RFC has been started here to discuss the continued use of the horizontal line separating External links and the Months template in the days of the year pages. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 14:38, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Non-human births and deaths

I added a line to the births/deaths section saying "Non-human living beings with their own article can be listed as well." This is the policy on the various "deaths in" pages and would seem reasonable to include here. Since the edit was bold, I figured it best to start a discussion of it. This edit was prompted by a comment on Talk:April_4#Grumpy_Cat. To be honest, I can see where people might be concerned that the DOTY lists will be overrun with non-human births and deaths, but given that we already don't have relatively many humans listed, i don't foresee anyone rushing to add tons of non-humans. Let me know what you think. Cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvergreenFir (talk • contribs)

This has been discussed before. It has been generally accepted that notable animals can be listed. I don't believe there is a need to specify it in the guideline because that isn't an intended focus - especially as "living-beings". "Animals" would be sufficient. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 21:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

@Mufka: I think "living beings" is used the the "deaths in" pages because it can include plants and fungi if they are notable enough to have their own article. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:12, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This isn't the Deaths in pages. They can have whatever rules they want. "Being" infers consciousness. Plants and fungi are misclassified if they are called beings. Regardless of their classification, plants and such will never be appropriate to include here. We're left only with animals in that case. BTW, I've always been opposed to animals being included, but it's not worth a dispute over it. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 14:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The use of the phrase "Non-human living beings" is not appropriate for this page. Please accept a change to "animals" if the mention of non-humans must be included. That is the proper and appropriate term to use. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 22:56, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

@Mufka: "Being" refers to any living thing. It does not imply consciousness. The issue is that notable plants and fungi die as well and are listed. You mentioned this is not the "Deaths in" pages, but we need some modicum of consistency. There is a lot of overlap between these pages (both are lists, both are about notable deaths). Those pages list any living being so long as they are notable enough to have their own page. EvergreenFir (talk) 02:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll compromise and just let it say animals. Like you said before, not worth a dispute. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:09, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Aircraft crashes and minor terrorist attacks

I see that airplane crashes have been discussed in the past. I noticed a lot of listings of minor crashes and even larger ones, but they don't see to be notable enough to include (e.g., June 2 and June 1. Figured I'd see if others agree before doing much more. Also been some small scale shootings that don't seem to pass muster either. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Commonwealth games

Regarding this edit: the start of the Olympics or Commonwealth Games or FIFA does not seem notable enough to list on DOY pages. Wikipedia:Days_of_the_year#The_rise_and_fall_of_countries.2Fglobal_movements only mentions listing the first occurrences. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Transportation disasters?

The word "transportation" (and "transport") do not appear in the archives. Please point to a discussion resulting in consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:21, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

@Arthur Rubin: See #Aircraft crashes and minor terrorist attacks above. Aircraft crashes are mentioned. I expanded it to other forms of travel as they were listed in a similar manner (ferries, trains, buses, etc.) EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:01, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I don't think they should be there, but I can see your point that the status quo should be inclusion, per WP:SILENCE. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:24, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

June 11 and removal of entries by Deb

Deb - Why are you removing entries from June 11? Per WP:BIRTHDOY, if the person has an article, they are notable enough for inclusion. WP:RECENTISM does not apply here as this is a list of all notable births, deaths, and events on a given day. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:50, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, we've had this discussion lots of times before, and as yet there is no consensus as to what to do about recentism. If you go by the statement that "if the person has an article, they are notable enough for inclusion", that would mean literally thousands of links on each of these pages, which is obviously unworkable. In the past we've gone by a rule of thumb that says a maximum of fifty entries per births and deaths section, but this has grown out of all proportion because people keep adding current "celebs" and recently-deceased US politicians. I'm trying to counter systemic bias at the same time as making articles readable and reducing them to a manageable size. I haven't given up hope that we will get there one day. Of course, I can't stop you reverting my improvements, but I will continue to make them. Deb (talk) 08:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

@Deb: Please follow WP:BRD. Currently the guidelines are that anyone with an article can be listed. It is counter to them to remove people from the lists. Can you please undo your edits while this is being discussed and until consensus is reached? (Also a can you point to those "in the past" discussions?) EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 23:11, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, no. The guidelines say that having an article is the minimum qualification - quite a different thing from what you are suggesting. Deb (talk) 23:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

PS. Just look back at Archive 3. Deb (talk) 23:21, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Go for it, Deb. I'm afraid that, with my present Internet connectivity problem, and my family visiting from Indiana, I don't have time to assist you. I'm having enough problem with recent years, which have many fewer articles to monitor. I'm trying to maintain 1996 on, but I think I've lost 1996 and 1997. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:04, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

@Arthur Rubin and Deb: How about we change the guidelines instead, perhaps to mirror WP:RY more? My suggestion would be that for births and deaths, the individual would need to have at least 3 non-English articles. This would cut down on the rather non-notable people, cut down on recentism, and provide the global balance Deb is seeking. What do you think? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 23:19, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

It sounds like a possibility. At least it's an idea for a way forward. And I don't think it's only me that would like a better balance. Deb (talk) 23:30, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Okay. I had a go at this and it did help, to a limited extent, but I see a few problems with it. One is that many minor celebrities have articles in numerous foreign-language wikipedias because of the ongoing translation effort. The other is that, one it is known that this has become a criterion, those with an interest in a particular individual are likely to ramp up their efforts so that it becomes meaningless. Deb (talk) 09:59, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

@Deb: We could raise the bar higher to 5 articles and specify "substantive" articles (i.e., non-stub articles). We can also specify the need for balance in the guidelines (currently absent) so that if people are pushing for a class of articles to be included (e.g., Dr. Who minor characters or something) we can point to that as well. Just spitballing here. Want to find a constructive way to move forward. :) PS - not trying to single you out, just that you're the most active on it right now. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Good ideas. It's a pity no one else seems to have an opinion. Deb (talk) 13:03, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to say, I saw @Deb:'s edits on July 20 and, like @EvergreenFir:, assumed this was disruptive, but after reading the discussion above it seems the right approach. I would agree that making clear and concrete guidelines on which people merit inclusion in the Births/Deaths lists isn't easy (in contrast to WP:NOTABILITY which I'd assumed was the standard; if necessary we could create "complete" sub-lists for births and deaths of "notable" people on each day), but it seems to be crucial to avoid purely rule-of-thumb pruning of the lists on the one hand, and tooth-and-nail attempts to get minor celebs etc. into the lists on the other.

As for guidelines, what would the potential problems of saying that a person must be mid- importance or above for at least one of the wiki projects that cover it in order to make it onto the lists? It would be as clear cut as number of articles in other languages, but would also allow appeal (and would have the wiki project's members at hand to help assess the actual importance) if someone tried to doctor it to get someone onto the lists, as well as covering important people in a wide range of fields. I guess people could maybe invent random wiki projects just to award their pet project a high-importance... unless there are rules to prevent this... Any thoughts? ‑‑xensyria^T 23:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

That does sound like a good idea. Deb (talk) 08:39, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

its a terrible idea first of all you are removing way to may people. editors are just going to put those entry's back. it was never a problem before I don't see why it is now. we can't say one person is notable and say someone else isnt that would be a bias and we are not to be bias Redsky89 (talk) 05:01, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

It's always been a problem and has been discussed many times. The pages should be regularly patrolled so that people like you can't keep adding current American celebrities. Deb (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's assume good faith on all sides here, shall we? There's a tension between editors who want these lists to be complete (i.e. anyone with a wikipedia article) and editors who want these lists to reflect some kind of selection criteria so that they're small enough to not overwhelm the rest of the content on these pages. There was a discussion about this quite a while ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Days_of_the_year/Archive_1#Births_and_deaths) where I proposed creating an automated way to maintain complete lists. Is it time to discuss this again and perhaps actually implement it? I thought then, and still think now, that the tension between "complete lists" vs. "selected entries" cannot be resolved unless separate complete lists are created first. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:17, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't specifically have any objection to creating complete lists in some other place, but I don't actually think that is what people are looking for. What's happening is that, every day, one or two contributors are adding people who have died on the previous day - although not usually everyone, only their particular selection. As someone said in the discussion you refer to (for which I thank you), "just because they can". For example, by looking at Deaths in January 2015 I see that 20 people with wikipedia articles died on January 1. Six of these have been added to the Date article (3 of these are from the USA, as opposed to 7 out of the total of 20). Still on the Date page, there are 5 deaths shown for 2014, of which 2 are American (out of 22 deaths for that date with only 8 Americans). For 2013, we have 5 entries, 3 of which are Americans (again, the total deaths for that date was 22, although this time there are 12 Americans in the total). But go back beyond 2005 and most years have no notable people apparently having died on that date. It's just recentism and a bit of parochialism, and you can't stop people doing it - and I accept that the contributors who are adding these entries may not recognise that they are not improving the article. However, I think that regular weeding of the entries is a positive way of handling a long-term problem. Deb (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Rather than view it as a problem, if we create a place where the all-inclusive lists belong, and link to it from the DOY pages, and then (ideally) automate it - doesn't everyone end up happy? This doesn't exactly address the question of what DOES belong on the DOY pages, but if we can point editors who seem to want a complete list over there then we can discuss what the more selective criteria should be for direct inclusion on the DOY pages without getting mired in the "complete" vs. "selective" argument. Maybe we should just turn this into a proposal. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

So because a handful of editors decide that Wikipedia's WP:NOTABILITY guidelines are not sufficient, they are gutting articles where otherwise notable individuals are removed. The result will be arbitrary lists of births and deaths. Those who some see as "internationally recognized" may not be seen as such by others. at August 2 that very thing happened. One editor removed some and I restored. Another editor reverted my revert and removed even more. If the the list was obvious and not arbitrary, why didn't the first and second editor agree on the list of those "internationally recognized" individuals. Stop removing until a criteria is made because it's simply capricious otherwise. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:05, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Several criteria have already been suggested, Walter. Let's move on. Deb (talk) 12:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see that criteria discussed here. Please point me to that criteria. We'll revisit it after it's published to the town pump. The decision of two or three editors cannot override long-standing, albeit silent, consensus. I'm glad that the criteria will be discussed, but it can't be a few editors who decide the criteria, but they can certainly inform it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:19, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Here are three criteria suggested and discussed just above:

1. (From EvergreenFir): "My suggestion would be that for births and deaths, the individual would need to have at least 3 non-English articles."
2. (from the same user): "We could raise the bar higher to 5 articles and specify "substantive" articles (i.e., non-stub articles)."
3. (from xensyria: "what would the potential problems of saying that a person must be mid- importance or above for at least one of the wiki projects that cover it in order to make it onto the lists?"

To my mind, these are all constructive suggestions and worth pursuing. Deb (talk) 12:56, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Oppose WP:N is sufficient. Also, that's vague. A musician who has two (or four) album articles qualifies, while some politicians would not. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: have you read the discussion above (also, the section below, which provides a solution that supports full WP:N lists without clogging up DOY pages – not a proposed guideline)? Your example doesn't work in either of the ideas we've just come up with (Evergreen's proposal is based on articles about the person themself in other languages, not other articles on en.Wikipedia; my proposal would only allow either if they were considered mid-level important or above in their respective fields), and the problem of increasingly long lists of "notable" births and deaths that most people will be utterly uninterested in will only get worse if WP:N is the only criterion; surely better to start coming up with good guidelines now than just keep putting it off. That said, a Village Pump or RFC would probably be good to get more thoughts on the matter, build a strong consensus and move forward with this. ‑‑xensyria^T 14:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Considering that the discussion is to split into births and deaths articles, we wouldn't be cluttering them up, right?

Also, the criteria is still not explained. What does multiple articles mean? Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:19, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh! I think we all agree that if we split off the births/deaths articles then those lists should be complete. What we're proposing is which few very important people we still list on the DOY page itself, and how we choose them: I agree with you that subjective assessment almost borders on censorship. As far as Evergreenfir's proposal goes, multiple articles means if there's an article in the German Wikipedia, or and article in Italian Wikipedia, Chinese or whatever: the proposal is that you need at least 3, or 5 articles in any other language, in addition to having an article here on the English Wikipedia, to be considered internationally important (for example Isaac Newton has an article in 196 languages, while Johnny Gosch has an article only in 1: English). Does that help? ‑‑xensyria^T 14:28, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Some examples I've noted recently are lots of tennis players who've been added but who are not even in the world's top 100 players and have never won a major tournament. I would think that many sports will likewise have official rankings that can be used to exclude inappropriate entries. For example, track & field athletes should have won a medal in a major competition to qualify for a placement in the list. I firmly believe most people would agree with this and I'm quite willing to put it to the test. Deb (talk) 14:59, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to split births/deaths lists to their own pages

Is there anyone opposed to splitting the current lists into individual articles "People born on ..." and "People who died on ...", with the criteria for inclusion on those pages being "wikipedia page exists"? Pending a consensus for a selective criteria for direct inclusion on the DOY pages, what would be left is simply a link to the complete list. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:46, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd be ready to give that a try.Deb (talk) 12:23, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd support as better than the status quo, but would actually by far favour a category system [[Category:People born on February 16]]. Could be hidden categories. Would make it much easier than curating lists, and dealing with all the vanity edits. Pseudomonas_(talk) 17:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd support it. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 17:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Count me in for separate articles (the strengths of categories is, in my opinion, outweighed by the readability and extra details possible in lists, and as Rick suggests, could probably be replicated by bots). ‑‑xensyria^T 17:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. I support separate articles, preferably automatically generated, but retaining these with some sensible criteria for inclusion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:49, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

So, you'd support copying the existing content to new pages, but leaving the current content in place while we work out the sensible criteria for inclusion (as opposed to deleting the current content while we work out the inclusion criteria)? Is this significantly different? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I consider it different. It is a question of whether the sections here start from nil (adding) or from the present status (generally subtracting). I don't think anyone is proposing starting from the complete list to determine what belongs here. Perhaps {{main}} would be the appropriate pointer from here to there. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Oppose I'd rather see the category system instead. Dman41689 (talk) 06:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment Right now, the Italian Wikipedia has an interesting approach to births/dates. Essentially, what they do is the one that's being proposed here: separate pages for births and deaths (see it:Nati il 13 febbraio for an example). Basically, each page is updated using bots, so that any person with a known birthday or date of death is automatically added to the relevant pages. One thing with the pages is that, inherently, the Italian Wikipedia has an Italian systemic bias so the most numerous nationality listed in said articles are Italians. However, the balance there is better than in English Wikipedia articles: whereas probably about half of people listed on date articles on the English Wikipedia are from English-speaking countries, the majority of people listed on Italian Wikipedia date articles are from non-Italian speaking nations, notably Americans, Germans, and other Europeans. The only ones that are lacking are Asians in general. A category could be fine too, when bots are used.

Perhaps we could do compromise of some sort? We modify the current status quo in which date articles have a listing of births and deaths, but with a rather strict inclusion criteria to counter systemic bias (I'm in favor of what was mentioned above, biographies with at least five interwiki links. We could also add another criteria: at least three of those interwiki links must be substantial), then have a "See also" link to either a bot-updated page or a bot-updated category (whatever consensus decides is the right approach) which lists all the relevant people. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, slightly off-topic to this discussion, but would it be alright to also include in date articles people whose years of birth or death are unknown? They could be listed at the end of sections, after the most recent year (too see what I mean, refer to it:Nati il 13 febbraio or ja:2月13日). Keeping ages secret is surprisingly common among lesser known celebrities in the United States, as well as, and notably, among celebrities in Japan. If my proposal is accepted, then said people can be included in year articles despite not having confirmed years of birth. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, all those sound good ideas. Trust the Italians to come up with something so sensible :-) Deb (talk) 09:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Further to the above, would I be correct in saying that most people agree that an entry like the one added here by User:Redsky89 is inappropriate? ie. adding an American actress with a three-line biography and no interwiki links. Deb (talk) 12:34, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

@Redsky89:, the consensus above seems strongly against listing every person on DoY pages. Would you support separate complete articles (or categories) for births and deaths to allow everyone with an article to be listed? ‑‑xensyria^T 13:50, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I honestly am ok with which ever you guys decide both ideas are good I will support both separate complete articles or categories so its up to you guys to decide it. Redsky89 (talk) 05:13, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

If this is the criteria that's being discussed, then I'm in favour of a bot-generated list, but to be all-inclusive. No censoriship. WP:N is the criteria used for articles and many lists. It can also apply to lists of deaths and births. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:19, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

So how do you interpret this section of the existing Project guidelines? "...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. Deb (talk) 12:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I interpret it as on the table and never open for discussion to all of Wikipedia. Apparently, you interpret it differently than other group members as is evidenced at the August 2 article where you yourself made different edits on two different occasions. If the criteria for inclusion was clear, it should be easy to follow. It clearly isn't. So we can strike that sentence from the project without harm. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:52, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Support Narutolovehinata5's more limited suggestion based on the Italian method. These sorts of categories become entirely useless if every single person who meets the notability standards could be added. And then let us set very strict standards for which people may go on the main page. How about ten people from the last decade, ten from the twenty years before that, ten from the fifty before that, and so on? These particular numbers are obviously only loosely suggested.  Mr.choppers | ✎  03:27, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to see us start experimenting with some form of separate list as soon as possible, just to see how it goes in practice. Deb (talk) 12:00, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Me too. The one generated by a bot including all WP:N subjects. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:27, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I admit I don't know how to create a bot but I'm sure someone here does. Deb (talk) 16:24, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

And me; very busy at the moment, but I could probably create one month's sub-pages! I also love the criterion suggestion of ~10 per time period (number of foreign language articles and project importance could then be used informally to assess which people make the top 10 or whatnot). As for bots, I wonder if @Narutolovehinata5 would mind messaging @Gac, the creator of it:User:Biobot about the possibility of repurposing it for en.wp use? ‑‑xensyria^T 18:56, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to use (possibly hidden) categories instead of having a bot maintain a list article? Gigs (talk) 20:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

We've talked about categories vs. lists (above and in the archives). Although certainly not unanimous, I think there's a fairly strong consensus for lists (preserving the by-year sort order and one-line comment). -- Rick Block (talk) 01:12, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Xensyria: I'm afraid I don't know any Italian. As for Mr.choppers's suggestion above about standards for people being listed on the main date page, rather than what was suggested above (10 people per decade), I'd rather rely more on interwiki links instead. Probably at the minimum, only people with five or more interwiki links, at least three of which are sizable (meaning not stubs), should be included. There should be no limit to how many people will be listed in the main article as long as they meet these specific requirements. Lots of our articles on people from English-speaking countries don't even have one interwiki link, so that already disqualifies a lot of them. I fear that if we do 10 people per decade (or 20 people per decade, for that matter), the people who will slip in may still come from English-speaking nations (remember that having interwiki links doesn't necessarily mean that "Western" people will be excluded; for all we know, such people are likely to have several interwiki links, as much as 10+). What I want our date articles to be is to have more geographically balanced articles and prevent systemic bias. Coming from a non-Western country myself (albeit the Philippines is heavily Westernized), I can feel that systemic bias is a major problem, and over-glorifying people from "Western" countries at the expense of people from, say Africa or South America, won't help things at all. I'm a bit biased since I'm quite an anime fan, but personally I would want to see better representation of Asians in said articles. As for project importance, that's also a good idea. My only concern though: what if the article is listed as Mid or High-importance by a Project, but the article as few or no interwiki links? Finally, I propose exceptions to this proposed guideline: if an article about a person is a Good or Featured Article (especially Featured), even if the article has no interwiki links, they should still be considered for inclusion in a strictly defined list (although of course, the more interwiki links, the better). Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:50, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, although this is somewhat off-topic to the main discussion here, what do you people think of my proposal mentioned above of including people with unknown years of birth or death? The Japanese, Chinese, and Italian Wikipedias do these. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:50, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a missing birth year being a problem.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mr.choppers: So good to go? It will now be fine if we add people with unknown years of birth/death in date articles, as is done on the Japanese, Chinese, and Italian Wikis? Only problem would be how to list them, whether at the top or bottom of articles. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:10, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I think we'd need one or two more opinions, although I guess one ought to be bold. I suggest a section at the bottom of the page, in alphabetical order. Being down there is the price of vanity.  Mr.choppers | ✎  02:15, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Five inter-wiki links is a poor standard. Sports personalities even of the lowest calibre and least notability will have entries on multiple projects. WP:N should the the standard. It's more work for a bot to list them all than to check inter-wiki links as well. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

So complete WP:N sub-lists then @Walter Görlitz; once there's a place for them in the WP:N complete sub-lists (curated by a bot), but before we finalise DOY page guidelines (which would be curated manually), we could just continue to get rid of just the really obvious offenders from the DOY pages (i.e. no interwiki linked articles that seem very Western-biased) which I think is almost unanimous at this point. Any ensuing rage-filled discussions about breaking the lists off would be a good opportunity for us to discuss precise guidelines for the DOY pages at the Village Pump with a wider range of editors' opinions. Also I agree that people with unknown year should be included, and the end of the list makes sense for them. (And sorry, I just sort of assumed you were Italian from you knowledge of it.wp, @Narutolovehinata5!). ‑‑xensyria^T 15:13, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Nonsensical, and contrary to core wikipedia principles. That's nonsensical IMHO. There has been discussion of this, and editors have not reached consensus.

Deb-You are relying on the acts of one or more editors. Not RSs -- in fact many of these non-English wikis lack RS sourcing, and many more lack RS sourcing other than sourcing in English. Not views by viewers reading the English wikipedia (which in articles you delete can run into the thousands or tens of thousands per month). Instead -- just a lone editor, writing one or more wikis, without any refs, or without any non-English refs ... for you determine whether an article is notable enough to be reflected. Is this opposite day?

Worse--You are relying on one or more editors writing one or more (no more than nine) wikis. Wikipedia does not rely on wikis.

And the action of one editor writing a wiki certainly does not make a person notable by long-established wikipedia principles.

I disagree strongly with your action here, believe it lacks the proper discussion and consensus, and believe it flies in the face of long-established wikipedia principles. Epeefleche (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I don't understand what you are talking about. However, as I have previously explained, I am working within the guidelines, which indicate that "notability" is a minimum requirement for inclusion on the Day pages. As you will see from the discussion above, we are still trying to work out the additional criteria. Deb (talk) 07:59, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand either, but it seems to me that the guideline, not requirement, is flawed and should be re-written. Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:54, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it should be rewritten with clear criteria, but that will require consensus.Deb (talk) 15:15, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Let's start with the vague suggestion that this project should ignore WP:N as the criteria. Can we agree that it should be removed? Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:31, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean that we should allow the possibility of names being included even if they haven't got an article? Or do you just mean change the wording of the guideline? Deb (talk) 19:30, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I do not mean that anyone without an article should be listed. WP:N determines if a subject is notable. We do not need to make the inclusion in a stand-alone list any more restrictive than the rules that govern the remainder of the project. That would make these lists too long. However making the criteria for inclusion clear enough that any editor can understand it and apply it is vital. The current wording is vague and as I have stated before, even members of this project have applied it differently. This implies that it is too vague to use.

By restricting it to WP:N, a bot could maintain birth date and death date lists. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

@Deb. If the pruning taking place is "in accordance with guidelines" and you're "removing entries for celebrities with 0-4 articles in other languages", that criteria must be part of the guideline. If consensus doesn't exist to put it in the guideline, then consensus doesn't exist to continue the activity. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 17:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

At the moment the only thing that is in the guideline is that you shouldn't include every person born on that date in the list within the Date article, even if they have a wikipedia article; that is implicit in the presently-worded guideline. What I'm doing, as I said previously, is to try adopting one of the criteria that was suggested by another contributor and see whether it proves helpful. I don't think it's the only criterion we should use, but we have to put some thought into this, and it might be a mistake to choose the final criteria before we have assessed their likely impact. As for the birth and death date lists, as more than one person has said above, there would be no restriction on numbers in a separate list, which could be maintained by a bot.Deb (talk) 18:04, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

At the moment we all agree that the current guideline is vague and unworkable. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:12, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I'm fine with the stated criteria for inclusion. I think that getting more restrictive cuts out opportunity for user serendipity. If the format is unwieldy, maybe a restructuring of the template is in order.

Having said that, if people feel very strongly that there need to be some more stringent standards, then maybe we could use the Biography Project's Quality Scale. It's still arbitrary, but there's at least a kind of consensus on quality if not necessarily notability.

I took a look at the Italian bot, and it is a thing of beauty. It co-evolved with the biography standards over the better part of a decade. I've looked at the Biography Project here, and the templates, and it may be possible to do something similar here with a template called PersonData.Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 17:12, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Extending the conversation on birth and deaths with regard to adding more women to DOY pages

Hello, all. I've spent the weekend following this conversation and some of the archived ones regarding who should and should not be considered notable enough for inclusion on the DOY pages. There is currently an Inspire Campaign proposal under review to have a project dedicated to adding more women to DOY pages, as they are under-represented with respect to men. Full disclosure, I have applied for funding to be the project manager. If it's funded, I'll spend a lot of time over the next six months dedicated to that. If it's not funded, I'll still work on it, just not as much.

I have yet to edit DOY pages, though two editors have started. I've simply been making up a list of women to be included. I've been following the stated guidelines for inclusion. Going through the list again, some of the articles are stubs, so I can remove them from the list before they get added to DOY pages and avoid that headache.

I want to avoid making trouble for this project with incorrect edits and overloading reviewers. I've updated instructions on the project page to include not putting births and deaths under "Events". I can also add that having a stub article can be considered insufficient for inclusion in DOY pages. Does anyone here have other recommendations?

On a separate but related note, the DOY project itself appeals to me and I'd like to join. Is there something I can help with? Natalie Bueno Vasquez (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Re-writing this guideline to reflect a global, though sometimes local, and historical perspective since the beginning of history

Hi!

I'm sure anyone reading this has some degree of buy-in as to what this policy currently says, and I respect that, a lot. I look forward to your feedback on all the changes I'm about to make in the coming days and, perhaps, weeks. But this guideline, as written, projects a ridiculous Western Civilization bias both in time and space, even to the point of contradicting itself.

For example, the Magna Carta, a treaty made by one king in a backwater European nation (but English speaking!) is suggested as notable; yet the guideline meanwhile professes that, in any other case, such a treaty would require notice around the entirety of the globe, which was barely even possible when the Magna Carta was written back in the year 1215.

Likewise did the early Arabs know about the Incas, or vice versa? We'd have to delete nearly every article from our almanac — and per WP:5P we are supposedly an almanac — on the current basis of events, persons, etc. not being "worldwide" nota ble.

I mean no offence, but having pointed out that the Emperor has no clothes, I would hope you could agree with me that having a naked Emperor rummaging around our project is not a good thing.

Per WP:BOLD when I see a mess such as this, I clean it up. I've been known in the past to be a little overzealous, so I implore y'all to help keep me on track throughout this obviously necessary task.

Thanks in advance. -- Kendrick7^talk 08:30, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Cheers @Kendrick7: I totally get what you're saying, and will support if I can. The concept of which items to select from among all the WP:N articles is a tricky one (see all the discussion above!), and allows us to open the discussion more broadly, perhaps at the relevant village pump? Once we get the foundational principles right (and, as you suggest, non-WASP oriented), we should be able to do a complete rewrite of the page along those lines. Cheers for what you're doing, and let's all aim for something much better! ‑‑mjgilson^T 13:18, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

This is a little late, but I would suggest not making significant WP:BOLD edits which would likely need to be reverted when a new guideline is agreed to. (For what it's worth, the Magna Carta is now considered a cornerstone of "Western democracy", making it perhaps appropriate for inclusion although it had little recognition outside England at the time. And yes, I am in the US, so my opinion is perhaps biased.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:01, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, I gave it a good wait, but you know me Arthur, I believe policies should reflect practice, not the other way around. If anything, per WP:KISS, WP:CREEP, and WP:BURO this mess really needed a fresh start. So there you have it.[1] -- Kendrick7^talk 03:23, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

In the last 6 months you have edited one DOY article, one time. What do you know about what is actual practice? The reversion you made to the guideline removed valid examples. You made your bold change, it's been reverted. Leave it that way and go back to making your argument for it. This is a lightly trafficked talk page and getting input for change is a slow process. Respect that and in a show of good faith, please revert your change and discuss what you are trying to accomplish here. Your summary above is not sufficient to justify the change. You'll have to bring in WP:VP for real input and even that will not get much input. I know this from experience. As is usually the case with this project, it seems to me that you have only a passing interest in this topic and you will not be around to support the project going forward after you make your drive-by changes. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 12:18, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I know it is a slow process, which is why it took me a month to notice that you had reverted me :) I absolutely agree that some examples should be added here; but can we not agree that the prior language got it wrong? No events before 1492 were globally notable throughout "all of time". And yet events and personages from the Incan Empire, the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Qing Dynasty, etc., all appear on DOY articles the last time I checked (which is a good thing per WP:5P which, after all, says a part of the project is being an almanac). Thus the WP:Guideline as it was written wasn't actually generally accepted. And as such, I can not in good faith self-revert. But by all means, go ahead and move the ball forward by, for example, adding actual logical examples of what should or shouldn't be included. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:01, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Justice Jawwad S Khawaja sworn in as Chief Justice of Pakistan 17th August 2015

President Mamnoon Hussain administered the oath in a rite attended by means of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, 3 services chiefs and federal ministers.

He will determine a number of the leader justices who've served the briefest of tenures. Supreme Court judges retire once they meet the required age prohibit.

Justice Khawaja succeeds outgoing Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Nasirul Mulk who had an illustrious judicial occupation.

On September 10, 2015, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali will likely be sworn in as the chief justice to carry the coveted slot for 15 months.

Justice Jawwad S Khawaja was born on September 10, 1950, in Wazirabad, District Gujranwala. He did his graduation in arts in 1971 from the FC College, Lahore, and LLB from the Punjab University Law College, Lahore in 1973.

He then got a Masters (LLM) level from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. Thereafter, he was enrolled as advocate of the High Court in 1975 and as advocate of the Supreme Court in 1985. He remained in legal practice till his appointment as a judge of the Lahore High Court on April 21, 1999.

Justice Khawaja resigned his constitutional tenure on March 19, 2007 after the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry via army dictator Pervez Musharraf. He then remained Professor of Law on the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and headed the Department of Law and Policy till his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court on June five, 2009. Zemtvs (talk) 23:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)ZemtvsZemtvs (talk) 23:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I would lean against inclusion in August 17, but it should probably appear elsewhere on Wikipedia. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:54, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Births/deaths of fictional characters

At this moment, there's a pending change to July 31 in which the birth of Harry Potter is added. There seems to have been a tiny bit of discussion about adding fictional characters to these birth/death lists back in 2009, but nothing more recent. Is this something that should be kept? Cannolis (talk) 12:50, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I lean against inclusion of birthdays of fictional characters, or deities (e.g., December 25 for the birthday of Jesus). I am not intending to imply that deities are fictional. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:33, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

No thank you.--Rochelimit (talk) 07:51, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence

Can editors weigh in if 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence is notable enough to appear in 16 DOY articles? Pinging Asarelah as a courtesy. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:22, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

• NO, IMHO, one day with a brief explanation should be sufficient. Quis separabit? 03:41, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Agree with this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:53, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support 1 day, not 16. I can totally sympathise with editors trying to WP:PROMOTE good causes, but it's done to the detriment of the project: DOY pages would become over-crowded if we put every multi-day event in. ‑‑Yodin^T 10:42, 4 November 2015 (UTC)