Talk:Julian year (calendar)

redirected

I've redirected this to Julian calendar because it only contained a subset of the information there. --Alynna 00:05, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

and I have recreated it. At the moment it is a stub, but it will expand to be a full blooded article. What is needed is a table of which countries used what start date for the Julian year, and when they changed so that people can easily check the years on primary sources. For example the date of the high treason of Oliver Cromwell was set to 1st of January 1648 by the House of Commons in 1660 (Journal of the House of Commons: volume 8: 1660-1667 (1802), pp. 26-7). That date was the 1st of January 1649 using the Julian calendar with a start of year January 1st. Philip Baird Shearer 09:09, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Granted that is a useful and interesting table to have, how would it differ from the table currently in the Gregorian calendar article, and why couldn't it be done in that article or in the Julian calendar article? Alternately, you could create a separate article giving the table you want that could be referenced from one or both of those articles. But what you've done is to add a pointer in that article which calls this the "main article" about Julian Years. That's just a tad bit hyperbolic, considering the article barely exists, and what is there right now is cut-and-pasted from the "Julian calendar" article. --Chris Bennett 21:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It will be different from the Gregorian calendar table because it is not about when the change took place between Julian and Gregorian. It just happens that in England (I want to put UK but not sure about Scotland), the change took place at the same time. That is part of the confusion. There is also the question of when a specific start of the year was introduced. Finally there is the question of when an epoch started. Although later Christian calendars used the same year not everyone using the Julian calendar did so. Philip Baird Shearer 10:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The table in the Gregorian calendar article I was referring to was the one that lists the dates that the different countries adopted 1 January at the beginning of the year. This already gives you the second half of a "table of which countries used what start date for the Julian year, and when they changed", and the first half is simply an extra column, not a whole new article. That table could go in either article, but, if you can also identify when those start dates were introduced, that would be an appropriate table to add to the Julian calendar article. As for epochs of the Julian calendar, that is firmly in the scope of the year numbering section of the Julian calendar article. It's all good stuff but I've yet to see a justification for a separate article. Based on current content and planned direction, I'd say Alynna made the right call, it should be a redirect. --Chris Bennett 16:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree because one ends up not being able to see the wood for the trees. If redirects allowed one to redirect to a section in an article then there would be some merit in you argument. But the system does not. An example of what I mean can be seem with this: Varangian Guard --Philip Baird Shearer 23:29, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Seeing the wood for the trees is precisely the difference between an encyclopedia article and an FAQ. An article is meant to be an exposition of a topic (the wood), not the answer to a specific question (a tree), which seems to be your rationale for this. Cobbling together bits and pieces lifted from different articles, as you are currently doing, does not justify creating a new article. As for not burying information, that's exactly what article contents are for. In this case, the appropriate section for epochs is Julian calendar#Year numbering. A new section for start dates of the Julian year in different places and at different times seems to me to be entirely reasonable. But not a new article just to deal with that. --Chris Bennett 00:34, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

You and I will have to agree to differ on this, because the nice thing about web pages is one can drill down to the depth of information one is interested in. As for "Cobbling together bits and pieces lifted from different articles" that is often the quickest and easiest way to get an article started. It will then grow as more information and editors contribute to it. The content will also get better as it is re-arranged and copy-edited to suit the subject. BTW are you the same Chris Bennett as the copyright holder of this page? Philip Baird Shearer 00:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather we reached agreement. I still don't understand why you think a discussion of New Years and epochs for the Julian calendar doesn't belong in the article Julian calendar, which already discusses these issues, even if not currently to the depth you would like. I suspect you will shortly find that "other editors" will have a similar view.

Yes, I am the same Chris Bennett, you can read my general stance on copyright in the FAQ on that site. --Chris Bennett 01:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I see your point of view and if it were not that I see it as a specific subtopic of the Julian calendar, I would agree with you. My point of view is that if the change from Julian to Gregorian calendar had never taken place then the alteration of the start of year and the start of the calendar would still be a valid topic for discussion. As in Britain most Julian dates are mapped, for events which happened in Britain, onto a continual calendar as if the changeover from one calendar to the other had not happened, if the beginning of the year had not altered, then for all intense and purposes one could ignore the change in calendar (there would be a just a few missing days). But because the change in the year did take place (more than once) one has to keep that in mind when reading original sources. For this reason I think that it is a topic worthy of a page in its own right, because one may wish to highlight that point in another article by linking to a page which specifically discusses this issue. Philip Baird Shearer 09:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

It's precisely because I see this as a specific subtopic of the Julian calendar that I think that is the right place to deal with it. Whatever. Let's see what you come up with and whether there is a wider consensus of opinion on the point. --Chris Bennett 19:58, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

So, Philip, its been about 6 weeks now and nothing has changed. This article is still just a cut and paste of bits from the existing Julian calendar and Gregorian Calendar articles. Do you actually have any content to add here that might justify its continued existence, or should we make it the redirect that its current state fully justifies? --Chris Bennett 03:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It is a topic that I think justifies a page, because the issue is relevant in its own right. Please do not alter it to a redirect. Although a the moment it consists of information from several pages, it is not possible to see all that information in one place, which in its self makes this page worth having. However as you know this information does not cover the topic and more work is needed. When I have time I shall research the topic more thoroughly and add information. But to do that I shall have to go to a central library as my local library has no information on the subject. Of course I do no have ownership of the page and you are free to add any additional information that you think is warranted. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, just because you can ask a question, it doesn't mean that the answer deserves its own article. By that logic you could justify a separate article about the date of the start of the year in Padua during the 14th century. The only information in this article that does not already exist in the Julian calendar article is the table of the various dates of the start of the year under the Julian calendar in medieval time. Although that information is currently on the Gregorian calendar page (and you only lifted it from there after I pointed it out to you) it seems pretty obvious that it should be placed on the Julian calendar page. Since I am not seeing any advance in this article, I will copy it there in the next few days. I appreciate that you caused me to find its existence.

As to this article, you obviously have an attachment to it, and I don't want to get into a fight. But I still don't see any reason to think it should be anything but a redirect. --Chris Bennett 16:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

If one could use a redirect to go to a subsection of an article then I would agree with the merger. But as one can not it is annnoying to have to read throught lots of text to extract the specific information: See Varangian Guard as an example of what I mean. --Philip Baird Shearer

I haven't tried the experiment, but are you sure that #REDIRECT Julian calendar#Year numbering won't work? --Chris Bennett 21:02, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

The link in a page works but it does not work in a redirect. It is probably from the same stable as the double redirect problem, but I have not checked the system specifications to find out why, althought I have read on other talk pages that it is not a trivial programming problem, and it would be a resource hog if done. Philip Baird Shearer 23:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

That's too bad. Still, there is the other solution: the Contents box in the Julian calendar article. While the redirect may only get you to the whole article, the reader who wants to address this particular issue would see the section on year numbering in the Contents box and go straight there. Or you could create a new section on "New Years Day" or similar, and take the text currently in the "Year numbering" section that relates to New Years Day and move it into the new section, combining it with the table. --Chris Bennett 20:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

OK its been nearly a year and there is no sign of this article turning into anything that justifies separating it from the Julian calendar article. I've added to that article the small amount of information that was not already given in both places, with some additional material. I'm turning this into the redidirect that it always should have been. --Chris Bennett 00:14, 30 September 2006 (UTC)