This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
It has been suggested that, since the Wikicalendar articles are not year specific, the calendar (in the top right corner) should be yearless. This means that the box would be simply a list of links to the articles for the given month. Basically, it would look like a calendar minus the days across the top. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 21:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
The page January 1 and 365 other pages display a calendar. The calendar header shows the year 2008, but if you click on a date, it links to, for example January 5 not to January 5, 2008. Is it desired that a year is displayed in the header?
See these pictures and click the digits to see the difference. Top: which do not belong to a particular year. Bottom: dates have a weekday and link to a date in a year. HandigeHarry (talk) 12:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Keep it as an actual calendar. I think having a calendar that isn't really a calendar would just be annoying. If you make it a list of days in the month then it is just a duplicate of the list at the bottom of the pages. The calendar allows people to quickly see where today falls within the current month. If people are looking for an overview of the month then they can click on the header, they can also go to the previous and next months. The digits allow people to go to a perticular day in the month. Personally I think most people, when looking at 'on this day' type pages want to be able to see where 'this day' fits within the current month. Grouf(talk • contribs) 13:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I certainly agree with your first remark (a duplicate of the list at the bottom). Frankly, I had not noticed that list at the bottom, so perhaps the duplicate is not a bad idea. I shall not judge about your other remarks, I do not know what most people think. HandigeHarry (talk) 15:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Please comment on my other remarks, that why I put them there. We need discussion to reach concensus. Grouf(talk • contribs) 15:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I won't, I have no opinion about everything. Others will have a stronger opinion than I and they will take care of consensus. But there is something wrong when a calendar displays "March 2008" (with a year) in its header while it contains links to March 1 etc. without a year. HandigeHarry (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The calendar that is on the date pages links to the other date pages (not specific dates). That is how it is meant to work. By changing the links in the calendar, you're sending people to a different set of pages. Neither of the examples that you've made above are accurate representations of what is currently on the date pages. As far as the year in the header, it is a label so everyone knows that the calendar is for the current year. It links to what it says. If there is a consensus that this is confusing, then we could change the link to January while leaving the label January 2008, but I don't think it is a problem. Additionally, if you link to the actual date (as it is in the example), the pages are not there until the date draws near. Then your linking to nothing, where is the value in that? (See December 5, 2008) -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 17:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Just a project page
I have moved all of the guideline info from this page so now this page is just a project page, as it should be. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 20:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
User warning
It seems to me the existing user warning templates may not be sufficiently precise for addressing users who add redlinks to the date in history pages. Would a new standard level 1 user warning template be helpful and, if so, what would you think of the following language:
Welcome to Wikipedia. Please do not add events or people who do not have Wikipedia articles to Wikipedia's date in history pages, as you did at [[:Month Day]]. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you for your understanding. ~~~~
Any thoughts? Regards, Accurizer (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
But it is important to note that until the guideline at WP:DOY is approved, widespread use might be frowned upon. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 19:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Interesting discussion
There a discussion underway about the fate of individual date articles (January 1, 2003, etc.) here that might interest members of this project. Changes on this front could affect the use of {{ThisDateInRecentYears}}. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 21:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Wikilinks to 2nd, 3rd, etc., entries? Or just wikilink the 1st?
At Wikipedia:Timeline standards#Events (as well as Births and Deaths), they keep showing examples of wikilinking all of the dates, and not just the first. But for Days of the year, we only wikilink the first year and not all subsequent entries for the same year. Wikipedia:Overlink crisis#Aspects of overlinking seems to support our practice, as does the Manual of Style. Does anyone know the status of reaching more consistency with regard to wikilinking items past the first one? Please advise. Thanks. --Art Smart (talk) 22:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the last discussion on this topic took place here. I've been thinking about this recently. We enforce this for the years that the events, births, deaths are listed, but not for entries with year of death of year of birth listed at the end of the entry. In the case of WP:DAYS it is pretty consistently applied. Another example where someone might link something more than once is in the case of World War II for example. I don't feel that linking every instance is necessary. WP:OVERLINK says that "It is not uncommon to repeat a link that had last appeared much earlier in the article, but there is hardly ever a reason to link the same term twice in the same section." In our application we're talking about links in the same section. I think current practice is good. WP:Timeline standards doesn't apply to WP:DAYS. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 22:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW, this came out of a comment I made to Arthur about 1976, not a day page - I'm not sure that was clear from the question. WP:OVERLINK also says (in the date section): Dates when they contain a day, month, and year — [[25 March]] [[2004]] — or day and month — [[February 10]] — should be linked for date preference formatting. - making the 'unlinked' style a problem for year pages. There was a previous discussion on formats quite a while back [1] - the winner wound up as the timeline standard; Option 1, the second choice, looks like what WP:DAYS uses now? BTW, Wikipedia:DAYS#Style says to see the example at December 7#Deaths, which, er, uses two different styles. Bazzargh (talk) 22:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to mix apples and oranges. WP:DAYS doesn't follow WP:YEARS which is where this discussion took place. WP:OVERLINK also says that "Stand alone years do not need to be linked" and the second instance of any date usually isn't linked. The link to December 7#Deaths is an attempt to show an example of how one might add multiple deaths caused by the same event (e.g. Pearl Harbor). WP:DAYS doesn't apply to things like May 2008 where you see a lot of overlinking. So in a nutshell, there are a lot of competing style guides that may appear to apply to more than they do. Perhaps they should be consolidated. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 23:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with all of this. Thanks for explaining December 7, I hadn't read that closely enough. Bazzargh (talk) 23:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Format change
I have a question. I have noticed that it is very difficult to read the deaths, births, and events as they are currently listed. I noticed that on the "year" pages, the listing looks as follows:
May 2
John Doe
Mark Smith
It is a much easier format to overview when scrolling down the page. Otherwise, births, deaths and events blend together. I had started to format each day this way, but my changes were reverted. It was my intention to be helpful, not harmful to the pages. This is my suggested format for the days:
I am not totally opposed to this suggestion. One problem with the change is that it needs to be implemented across the board - to every article, all at the same time. We could get a bot to do it if there is consensus for the change. Another problem is that it would be difficult to maintain. I'm afraid that casual editors are very likely to mess it up. There are very few formatting errors with the current format - just some overlinking. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 15:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess as I look at some of the "year" entries, it is a much more organized looking format. I agree that casual editors COULD mess it up, but we have that problem with ANY page that is on Wikipedia. This formatting is probably one of the easiest to grasp. Why not be bold and set a goal to reformat all 365 days? We have 12 months and as many members who manage the page. --TravelinSista (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
These pages, as a group, get a lot of edits. I see a problem with the years that have only one entry. An editor wanting to add another entry for a year that previously only had one might just add a new entry as they do now. Then we would have some with the new format and some with the old. These pages are pretty high profile so being bold is not a good idea here. This has come up before. See this discussion for some background. Consensus for change on this is not easy to get. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 19:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
April 21 indicates that Catherine II of Russia was born, but reading the article Catherine II of Russia suggests that this is the old style (Julian) date on which she was born, and that her new style (Gregorian) date of birth is actually May 2. Accordingly, May 2 also lists Catherine II of Russia as being born on that date. To list her (or anyone else for that matter) as being born on both dates without clarification is to mislead anyone who doesn't click through to the article for that individual. Is there some sort of policy for this? 199.91.34.33 (talk) 14:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it is suggested that the birth (or death) be listed under only the NS date. The listing on the OS date should be removed. See WP:DAYS. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 14:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
How is the reader supposed to know all the dates are Gregorian? Most readers will be unaware of WP:DAYS. I would further suggest that no event should be mentioned unless the article linked to has a clear statement of what calendar is used within the article. Catherine II would get listed, since the article for her indicates the calendar, but Gregory XIII would not, since his article does not indicate which dates are Gregorian and which are Julian. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
January 1
January 1 is the one date page (and February 29 to a lesser degree) that is not formatted according to the template. I have thought about adjusting it but I am concerned that there will be some backlash. IMO the page is a mess and should be adjusted to the layout of all of the other pages. It has many section headings and it also contains many unsupported entries as well as a references section. The reason that I haven't attacked it yet is that I figured that since it is the first day of the year, and there are a lot of things associated with it, it could be an exception. But I don't like exceptions because they lead to more exceptions. Thoughts? -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 18:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Fictional Events and personages
In case it hasn't been/isn't being addressed elsewhere, I think a section on Fictional events might be entertaining on these pages. There a number of events with set dates in fiction (Judgement day in the Terminator films, Moon ripped from orbit in Space:1999, Felix Unger asked to remove himself from his place of residence, etc), and adding them in a clearly separate category could be a fun addition to the project
Vbartilucci (talk) 20:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)VBartilucci
The topic of fictional events has been discussed before and I still support exclusion of fictional events in the date pages. The pages are lists of historically significant events and fictional events are never historically significant. Separate articles such as November 5th in Fiction might gain support. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 20:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
With the new depreciation of datelinks, we need to specify whether or not we want to override that for these articles for the year tags only, not for dates in the event text. I think we should.
Separately, we should determine whether birth years in the "#Deaths" section and death years in the "#Births" section should remain linked. I'm neutral on that, but we need to specify. In my opinion, such a style guideline here would clarify the depreciation in WP:MOSDATE. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 16:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
One of the factors in the deprecation of date links is the problem they can create with making a date falsely appear to be in the Gregorian calendar. All the day-month articles I've looked at are grossly deficient in handling the Gregorian/Julian calendar issue. They all mention Gregorian at the top, but what about all the early dates? Are they all Gregorian. Do they switch from one line to the next, depending on the location of the event? Do they switch between 4 October 1582 and 15 October 1583? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand the problem. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 15:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Let me give an example, the article "[[September 1]". The top of the page only mentions the Gregorian calendar. Does that mean all the dates in the article are Gregorian? What about the Battle of Tippermuir in 1644? The Tippermuir article has no references, so it's hard to be sure. The Julian calendar was in effect where the battle was, but the next article is about the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715. That one is probably in the Gregorian calendar, since that was what was in effect in France. So were switching calendars frome one entry to the next (or are we)? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Edit Conflict: My response still applies, I think.
I can't make heads or tails of the deprecation discussions and I cannot find a consensus within them. Whether a date is Julian or Gregorian seems to be of little consequence. September 11 is September 11 - there is only one article for the date. September 11 in the Gregorian Calendar is the same as September 11 in the Julian Calendar in that it is the date with that name. I'd like to know of some specific deficiency in the date articles other than that they say Gregorian at the top. That could be easily changed, but to what? Is there some true utility in being explicit about whether an event occurred in the Gregorian or Julian calendar? If I were born on September 11 and next week someone decided that all dates would shift 12 days forward, I would still consider my birthday to be September 11. Practice has been to list items in the Gregorian date whenever possible.
Whether or not a MOS policy exists, I would support unlinking "birth years in the "#Deaths" section and death years in the "#Births" section". But I think unlinking all years will disrupt readability. I guess I would say that all years that begin an entry should be linked as they are (first occurrence in section only) while all others are unlinked. Enforcement of this, like many other things, would be cumbersome. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 17:26, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
What are the feelings about Arthur Rubin's point above? Should we remove the links from the years such as (d. 2008)? I'm in favor of removing the links. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 00:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
With no objections, I will put in a bot request to begin unlinking the years as mentioned above. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 20:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I said I was neutral, and I meant it. If the proposal suggesting that linking the years of birth and death in an article about the person fails, I'd lean more in favor of keeping the dates, but I don't consider it a serious problem. Unlike the global "deprecation" of year links, this one could easily be managed either way by a bot; especially since there are only 366 articles to go through, and a bot could mark any instance of a number in the #Births and #Deaths sections which isn't clearly a year of birth or year of death for human consideration. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 20:04, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
RfC now open on linking dates of birth and death
Is it desirable or is it undesirable for dates of birth and death at the top of a biography article to be linked to corresponding "day" and "year" pages?
The March articles have been nominated for deletion. - Richard Cavell (talk) 04:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Introductions
There has been some back and forth on the addition of introductions that begin with statements like "This date is significant because ...". Rather than having discussion on each individual talk page, it would be more productive to centralize the discussion here. Since the Events section is the first section in the page and the first to be read, it seems reasonable that special introductions should be excluded because, depending on the perspective, any one event could be elevated to the intro. What, if any, exceptions should be granted? -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 16:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. The best example of this is the September 11 page (see below).
As can be seen, there is not one "elevated event" but four topics covered here! Most other day articles have no intro. Either we allow intros for all such articles or none. I must admit that with September 11, I normally associated it with the Allende government overthrow, at least before 2001 anyway. The intro seems OK at the moment for this article.
September 11 is the 254th day of the year (255th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 111 days remaining until the end of the year.
It is usually the first day of the Coptic calendar and Ethiopian calendar (in the period AD 1900 to AD 2099).
The terms September 11th, 11th September, 11 September, and 9/11 (pronounced "Nine-eleven") have been widely used in the Western media as a shorthand for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in the United States of America.
In other places of the world the media also use it as shorthand for other events; for example, the September 11, 1973 Coup d'État in Chile is referred to as "El 11 de Septiembre" or "El once" ("September 11" or "The eleventh" in Spanish) as shorthand for the Coup events; September 11 is also Enkutatash or New Year's Day in the Ethiopian calendar.
The problem that I see in general is that choosing which event gets added to the intro would be entirely subjective. In the case of September 11, I don't think anyone will argue that when they hear that date, they think of September 11, 2001. While December 7 is a significant date, and overall it is probably most recognized as the date of the Pearl Harbor attack, a random survey asking individuals what occurred on December 7 would probably reveal that most don't know what happened on that date. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 19:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
So, it seems you are making a special one-off exception for September 11. When you mention "anyone" it is again subjective. To a Chilean, September 11 refers to the Allende overthrow. This is also mentioned in the intro. As for December 7, you are probably right, the younger people might not know, but older people sure would. I personally think this discussion is becoming political. (that would be unfortunate) That is the reason why there are four separate topics convered in the September 11 article. People are making a point that September 11 is not just important for 2001. Wallie (talk) 19:32, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Mufka here. Choosing even a few events (or births, deaths, or holidays) a particular date is most known for to elevate to an introduction seems like an entirely subjective exercise likely to devolve into a POV nightmare. Should May 1 be introduced as May Day (secular, nearly worldwide holiday)? If so, why not introduce December 25 as Christmas (at least quasi-religious, not secular, but clearly what this day is "most known" for in the US, Europe, and probably South America) or April 20 as Hitler's birthday (mostly including this to make the point - there are many fanatical neo-nazi types who would argue excluding this would not be NPOV)? On the other hand, I don't have any problem with calendar-centric notes, for example the equinox note at September 22. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
hmmm. You seem to be agreeing with me more here. Mufka is implying that "special cases" like September 11 should maybe be included as "exceptions". I agree with you that, if we do not want intros on just about every day, we stick to calendar related data, such as an equinox note. The other stuff is, as you mentioned, is very POV indeed. That is why there are so many alternative POVs on the September 11 page. Other day pages have country specific dates in them too, such as national holidays etc. Wallie (talk) 20:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not endorsing the inclusion on September 11, just explaining why I think it might be reasonable. I wouldn't oppose exclusion across the board. But I think if that one is removed, there will be protest - which might help add to this discussion. Could you point out examples of "other day pages [that] have country specific dates" in the intro? -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 20:45, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Sure. July 4 and July 14 for starters. You mention a protest about "that one" being removed. That is at the heart of the matter. It seems that the matter is becoming political, which I always suspected. As I mentioned, different dates are important to different countries and different age groups. I think that either all intros should be removed or they should all be allowed. There should be no "sacred cows" or special cases like with September 11. Wallie (talk) 21:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is intentionally political. What if we just allowed the use of {{for}} and excluded any other event specific additions to the intro? -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 22:02, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure {{for}} is particularly different than an intro - what would the suggestion be for what warrants a for link? Perhaps something like "For links can be included for holidays or events globally associated with the date"? Would the existing link on July 4 to the US holiday qualify (seems a little US-centirc to me)? October 31 has an intro mentioning Halloween and Reformation Day. Do we want to limit this to one link, or would we turn this intro into two for links? -- Rick Block (talk) 05:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
This is not addressing my concerns. It seems that certain events are considered important enough to warrant being in the intro and others not. I think it is based on political reasons. This is worse than POV to my mind. We have to make this consistent. Either we have date related events for specific countries or we don't on the intro. If these intros remain, it is fair enough to add others related to other countries to redress the balance. Otherwise they should all be removed. Thank you. Wallie (talk) 16:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I guess Rick Block is right about using {{for}} because it is just a different way of writing an intro. But, I think the {{for}} should be allowed when it is needed for disambiguation. For a random hypothetical example, suppose that there is a song titled September 11. In that case the {{for}} could be placed above the intro. We could just limit the intro on all date pages to the {{Day}} template and leave it at that. There are two cases that I think should be considered for exclusion from this - February 29 and January 1. Thoughts? -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 16:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Mufka. Sounds like the best solution. Is this now the agreed position? Do we now start to remove all the introductions? As Rick said, if the info is purely calendar related, then its OK. I suppose the January 1 and February 29 is limited to explaining that one is the first day of the year and the other only occurs once every four years. Wallie (talk) 17:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
I suggest that we wait a few days to see of there is any more input. There's no hurry. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 18:22, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like you're leaning no exceptions other than calendar related info (e.g. January 1 or September 22). I agree country-specific items should be excluded, but I'm not so sure about globally recognized holidays, e.g. May Day or Halloween. Should these use for or be in an intro or be omitted completely? Are there any examples of events other than September 11 that are problematic? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Best to leave them out. For example, St Patrick's Day is probably celebrated in more places in the world than is Halloween. Certainly Christmas Day is. As far as "events" are concerned, there are many events which would be at least on a par with the WTC bombings. Examples are the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima (August 6), the end of World War 1 (November 11), the start of WW2 (September 3) and Kennedy assassination (November 22). All of these events had a grave effect on the country involved and possibly the world Wallie (talk) 19:51, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
The introduction for date pages should consist only of the {{Day}} template except in cases of days having specific calendar-related significance (e.g. January 1, February 29, or September 22), or days for which other articles need disambiguation (e.g. July 1).
This would take all events, births, deaths, and holidays totally off the table which is simple and requires virtually no judgment. I'd be OK with this, but would also be OK with including {{for}} links for widely recognized holidays (not events) such as May Day, Saint Patrick's Day, and arguably Fourth of July. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:24, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
The only danger is the term "widely recognized". Where do you draw the line? It does become POV. It is also an excuse to bring in items linked to holidays (such as events). I personally think that holidays should be left off the intro too. The holidays are covered later in the article. As you say, it is simpler to leave the intros blank. Wallie (talk) 08:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Regardimng the original statement by Mufka:
"There has been some back and forth on the addition of introductions that begin with statements like "This date is significant because ...". Rather than having discussion on each individual talk page, it would be more productive to centralize the discussion here. Since the Events section is the first section in the page and the first to be read, it seems reasonable that special introductions should be excluded because, depending on the perspective, any one event could be elevated to the intro. What, if any, exceptions should be granted?"
I do not see what has changed. As he said, "introductions should be excluded". The best idea is to have no exceptions. Wallie (talk) 09:29, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I like anything that requires "virtually no judgment". But I do foresee considerable resistance that we will only realize once we remove stuff. The {{for}} option needs to be carefully considered because they will be added. What if they are? And yes, I think that whatever is decided gets added to the style guide. Rick Block's draft bullet is good, but we really need to consider the dab part. It could be very loosely interpreted and July 1 is a good example. Is July 1 a search term for Canada Day? And the half-way point note seems like the kind of calendar related trivia the wouldn't be allowed. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 15:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
It always gets back always to the question "do you allow or not allow". If the intro is left empty, there is no problem. If items are allowed in the intro, then there is no argument whatsoever for blocking other intros of a similar nature. If Canada Day is allowed, why not the national days of every other country in the world? Wallie (talk) 16:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
So what is the final decision after all of this discussion??? Wallie (talk) 09:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Exclude everything from the intro except calendar specific information but we need to allow {{for}} in the case of widely recognized holidays that have a dedicated article on the subject and are commonly referred to by the same name as the date article. If we don't allow for this, we run afoul of WP:DAB. With that said, there should be no effort to go out and find all of the examples where this is true and add them. They will be flushed out over time. Using {{for}} covers the need for disambiguation, is short and sweet, and it prevents editors from adding poorly written intros about their favorite holiday. How's this:
The introduction for date pages should consist only of the {{Day}} template except in cases of days having specific calendar-related significance (e.g. January 1, February 29, or September 22). In cases in which other articles need disambiguation (e.g. September 11) the {{for}} template may be used as the first line of the article.
OK. I guess there will be a lot of {{for}} templates, one for each favorite holiday or event. Currently there are at least four of these for September 11. My personal preference remains to leave the intros clear. Wallie (talk) 18:23, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Disambig doesn't work in this case to my mind. September 11 means the date only. If you include events, then you open up a whole lot of these. May 9 for example means Victory Day for the Russians. Nearly every country has a special date related event, and would be refered to as the date. Also, if you asked people what September 11 means and December 25, you may be suprised at the reponses. Don't get me wrong. I do think that "9/11" was a special event. But then again, so was the Hindenburg disaster, the Hiroshima bombing and the Invasion of Poland. These events also received massive attention when they happened. Wallie (talk) 19:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Unless you plan to mount a campaign to go out and add every possible {{for}} to the pages, it won't be as widespread as you suggest. If they haven't already been added, they are not likely to be added. The purpose if disambiguation is to cover the cases when an editor types in September 11 and reasonably expects to find a different article. I dare say that no one is going to type in May 6 with a reasonable expectation that they will end up at Hindenburg disaster. From WP:DAB"Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article" May 6 would never be the natural title of an article about the Hindenburg disaster. The various events are listed within the article. The whole article is practically a big disambiguation page. I like a clean intro, but we need to provide a provision for the possibility that disambiguation is genuinely required - and it rarely will be. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 20:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not so sure. Where I come from I rarely hear of this being refered to as September 11. It is called nine eleven (written 9/11). More common would be Fourth of July or the Fifth of May in western countries. I think there is far too much "complication" surrounding 9/11, even to the extent of refering to the date November 11th! It seems that some people would be happy to make a single case for 9/11. If that resolves the situation, we could leave every date intro alone, except September 11, which could have two disambiguations, one for the USA and one for Chile. Wallie (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Re: mufka (latest version). OK, lets exclude everything from the intro, but only allow a disambiguation pointer, which is used when a date refers to something else other than a date (which should be very rare). Wallie (talk) 11:49, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
I think using a disambig example other than 9/11 might help. July 1 is a song name. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Wallie: What changes to you propose to the bullet item I proposed above? I think what you are saying is pretty much what the bullet says. And I agree with Rick Block, let's take September 11 off the table for discussion purposes. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 13:40, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
No changes to what you say, Mufka. I have re-read what you said and probably jumped to the wrong conclusions (my fault entirely). I think we all in agreement now. We just have a "vanilla" intro and one disambiguation pointer is OK. The months of the year have this idea, for example September. Wallie (talk) 14:27, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
So. What happens now? Do we go ahead and implement our agreement. Agreed:
1) We clear out all the intros.
2) We include disambiguation pointers (one line) for certain dates where the actual date has two meanings.
It is OK to move forward. But don't be surprised if it is challenged. If it is, direct discussion here. Also, and most important, be sure to use a descriptive edit summary when removing the intros. Failing to do so is sure to trigger immediate reversion. An edit summary like "trimming intro per WP:DAYS" is a good start. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 18:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Agreement?
Two people does NOT make an agreement, especially the rather silly implementation of creating a dab pages with single entries for May 1 and July 14, not mention that these are days which are being widely used--like September 11--as shorthand. Bonus silly points for replacing an unambiguous hat note on May 1 for International Workers' Day with an ambiguous dab page (May 1 (disambiguation) with only one (1) entry. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 23:04, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
There is generally low levels of input on this project page. What usually happens is a topic is discussed by those who are interested. If agreement is reached, changes are implemented. If there is conflict, discussion continues. This flowchart really shows how it works. There were three editors discussing this here and that is more than usual. I had hoped that you would have contributed to the conversation earlier since you were one of the involved editors who brought this issue up. Now I hope that you will contribute constructive suggestions for how this should be dealt with. I have removed the bullet from the project page and look forward to further discussion. The separate dab page was not what I had intended, but probably what I inferred. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 00:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree the DAB pages for May 1 and July 14 are perhaps not the best idea. For these I'd much prefer
For "Quatorze Juillet" (Fourteenth of July in French), see Bastille Day.
Why create a DAB page for a single entry? We could take these to WP:MFD (or WP:AFD, which might get more people to comment here), but I think it'd be better if Wallie simply tagged them with {{Db-author}}.
CW - do you agree with the general idea of keeping these pages "intro-free" (except in cases for dates having calendar-specific information, like September 22)? -- Rick Block (talk) 00:35, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
CalendarWatcher. We have been discussing these issues for the past two weeks and those particpating agreed to have disambiguation pages and clear out the rest of the intros. Wallie (talk) 12:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Wallie. Please remember that consensus can change. Arguing with CW over his lack of participation is not productive. We must take his concerns and try to come to a consensus. Starting a sentence with "With people like yourself" borders on incivility and does not help the argument. I am confident that CW will not just do whatever he wants.
Let's allow CW to respond to Rick Block's question and see if we can move forward. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 14:14, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that CW's actions are civil all the time. Wallie (talk) 17:07, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
You might be right. But let's see if we can get a civil discussion to continue. If not, we'll have to go to WP:RFC. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 15:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
OK. I am more than happy to discuss things. Wallie (talk) 17:01, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Given User:Wallie's belligerence, edit-warring, self-serving mis-quotations of policy, immediate and bizarre ('political bias'?!?) assumptions of bad faith, personal attacks, rhetorical and factualfallacies in place of actual arguments, it's rather hard to see the motivation for or value in in engaging with this editor. Certainly his laughably 'pot-calling-the-kettle-black' comment about my 'simply revert[ing] everything [he] put[s] in deserves not to be taken seriously given his reverting and lack of understanding of the meaning of the term, nor can I take someone seriously who doesn't even understand how dates are given outside the United States or edit-wars based on his own factual inaccuracy.
To answer the question asked, calendar-related text seems fairly obvious on point, and while I feel that certain dates which are actually shorthand for globally significant events (like 'September 11th' or 'May 1st') or have some significant global or widespread awareness (such 'April 1st', 'December 25th' or 'December 26th') should have some explanatory text, the hat note--as long as they don't follow that foolish consistency (or consistent foolishness) of May 1 (disambiguation or July 14 (disambiguation)--would be a compromise that would prevent the page being cluttered with subjective nonsense of 'The day is significant because of random-event-which-is-important-to-me-personally on the rationale of 'consistency'. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 16:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Commons link
User:Philly jawn has begun adding the {{commons}} template to the date pages (it was already on some). I don't have a problem with this and if there is no objection, I will add it to the template and follow up to make sure it hits all the date pages. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c) 18:40, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia. Please do not add events or people who do not have Wikipedia articles to Wikipedia's date in history pages, as you did at [[:Month Day]]. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you for your understanding. ~~~~
