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Splitting births and deaths from year articles

There is now a community consensus in favor of carrying out WP:SIZESPLITs for birth sections and death sections in year articles per the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RFC: split births & deaths from year articles. This consensus appears to be conditional on the length of the article and on the placement of a link from each given year article to the new lists. To carry this out, I think the following should happen:

  • Birth sections in the articles 1901–2000 should be split to their own articles.
  • For articles 1901–1989, "Deaths in YEAR" articles are redirects and should be overwritten by splitting the deaths lists from the year articles.
  • For articles 1990–2023, deaths articles already exist. As such, the "deaths" section in each of these articles should be deleted outright. If applicable, any citations and images in these articles can be moved to the monthly death articles.

For the time being, I think we should limit any splits to the 20th century (for births) or the 20th and 21st centuries (for deaths), as we're unlikely to find a lot of sizesplits necessary outside of that. There are probably a few, but we can handle those if they come up. As the relevant titles and formatting are all standardized, I suspect that most of this can be done automatically, but someone more well-versed in semi-automated edits would need to weigh in on this. I'm posting this here for feedback and other thoughts, as this is the project that would be most directly affected by this change. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:20, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 06:22, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Year articles currently use these sidebar templates:

These templates need some workshopping. They're currently far too long (especially on mobile), and their organization is a bit haphazard. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:07, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that there is significant room for improvement here. The by topic section feels like it should be a horizontal navbox at the bottom, above templates like Template:2020s (which itself could use some work). This bug might be an argument against.
The calendrical information has better justification, but the Discordian calendar should be removed. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
The different calendars are interesting and relevant, but the way it's currently formatted drags the sidebar way down into the articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Year in religion

I've created 2022 in religion as an example of what might go in a "year in religion" article. I think there's potential for these to be made for each year of the 21st century, and it's certainly a more critical topic than many of the other "year in topic" articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I would mostly agree. I would recommend documenting not only religion itself but the decline of it in western society, which has started to become widely documented. Consider taking a look at the Pew Research Center. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 01:41, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
That's definitely notable, and any events specifically about atheism/secularism should be included, but I'm not sure how much demographic trends can be captured in a single year. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:15, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
If the year in religion articles have lists of notable deaths, what would the standard be? Would it exclusively be clergy and the like, or would it be anyone heavily involved in religion and popularly associated with their religious beliefs? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Notablity of Years In motoring

First off, here are the articles in question. List of years in motoring.

Anyways, I don't think these articles are notable. I propose we split them into something along the lines of "Timeline of motoring by Germany", with articles for the US and whatnot. What do you guys think? Daveman115 (talk) 17:34, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I agree that these smaller subjects probably don't need an individual article for each year. For comparison, there are related articles at Timeline of transportation technology, Timeline of aviation and List of years in rail transport. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:27, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Splitting deaths at sub-articles

Size splits have been carried out at some of the main year articles and the year in the United States articles. Are there any other subtopic year articles where they're too long? I notice there are lots of U.S. articles that still have a really long list (with the hundreds of citations that follow), and then there's the United Kingdom articles; ‎2022 in the United Kingdom is currently the 34th largest article on Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:30, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 22:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Month articles

Why there are two different systems for month articles, and between 1980-2001 there are no month articles? Should we bring back month articles from 1980-2001 and 2002-present periods? I know there are some problems with Portal:Current events and consensus earlier, but the Portal:Current events pages between 1980 and 2005 was deleted by MfD five months ago. Also, there are some missing articles (redirects in the 1960s, 1970s). Moreover, there are some articles about November 1993 and December 1993. Thingofme (talk) 06:04, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Should the months from January 2002 to present be convertible into an article or using the Portal:Current events subpages? Thingofme (talk) 10:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Duplication of Topics

Not sure if this is the correct way to do this. There needs to be an overall edit of these timeline pages for duplications. While doing research it was not uncommon to find the same event listed in several places. An example of this was the discovery/isolation of Plutonium. It is listed for multiple years/multiple dates. While a discovery may not be able to be noted for an exact date the language should be clearer. Again, as an example. Was Plutonium discovered or isolated or created on a given date. Was a plane announced/first flown/ tested at a certain date. By having multiple dates for a subject it becomes unclear which is the correct date. Just in the years 1930-1947 I've seen this duplication/lack of clarity quite frequently. Perhaps a general edit is needed with someone with more attention to detail than I have? Mikecataldo (talk) 01:06, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Births in X articles

I notice that an RfC came to the conclusion of splitting births and deaths into their own articles, but year articles, e.g. 1990, just link to Category: 1990 births rather than Births in 1990. Is there any reason why the content previously in the Births section of year articles hasn't been split into separate articles yet? If not, I'll go about making such articles. Chessrat (talk, contributions) 21:21, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Like most things on Wikipedia, it's just that no one has gotten around to it. If you're going to create them, I suggest looking at the corresponding deaths articles to see how those were done. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:37, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Do you have a link to the RfC please? I worked on some templates which are widely used to transclude births and deaths from year pages and will probably no longer work. Certes (talk) 23:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
It can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 199#RFC: split births & deaths from year articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:25, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. The main template affected would be {{Births and deaths by year for decade}}, which is used for years up to 1789. I see that the RfC found consensus to change only long articles but (very reasonably) didn't define "long". If splitting any year earlier than 1790, please enhance Module:Births and deaths by year for decade (and check for similar templates), or avoid its use, or ping me for assistance. Certes (talk) 11:21, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Year leads

Previous discussion: WT:WikiProject Years/Archive 14#Year leads

Boilerplate additions to year leads are back, courtesy of 2600:4040:9B13:2E00:9C72:7F22:496B:2B2C. Please can someone confirm whether these are wanted, and roll back if not? Thanks, Certes (talk) 17:22, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Based on that previous discussion, it seems that there's a vague consensus against these edits, and I haven't seen anything to change that since then. With that said, there's very little agreement about what should be put in these articles, and attempts to discuss it typically provide minimal feedback. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:39, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
The same /64 continues to work through the years, now on 2600:4040:9B13:2E00:EDD5:94FB:F96B:DF04. I've taken no action. Certes (talk) 12:54, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
I don't like these boilerplate leads. I understand the temptation to make the years articles systematic, and I do generally value consistency, but I think the lack of agreement about what should be put in these articles ultimately arises from us failing to treat these articles as normal articles, starting with notability. A lack of notability leads to a lack of good sources, preventing us from making verifiable judgements on what content should be included or excluded. The lead should summarise the article, but if the article is haphazard, there's not much beyond boilerplate to go in it.
I am starting to wonder if a wholesale cull of non-notable ancient years might be warranted. Take 763 for example. I'm not sure it would pass WP:GNG. How many truly notable years are there in, say, the 700s? What would be the impact of merging / redirecting a hundred articles into 8th century, much like we do for numbers in 700 (number)? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:44, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I would support at least some merges in that sense. Since there's not much in these articles in the first place, it wouldn't be too huge of a burden. Year to decade is also an option if year to century is impractical. And I assume you're aware of my attempts to get these articles in compliance with the usual standards of articles (like at 2001 and 2002), though this is stalled by a general lack of feedback, and I'm hoping that 2001's GA review will help determine what works and what doesn't so the best aspects can be incorporated into the other year articles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I think it would be justified to rollback and to ask the IP to stop. If they've already been warned, then they might need a short block if they continue afterward. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:58, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Editor(s) making very similar changes have been asked politely to refrain in the past, most recently a year ago, and seem to have stopped. It's hard to tell whether it was the same person, as we have visitors making other unwanted systematic changes to year articles. As for notability, Wikipedia used to regard years as sacred – to the extent that AD 1 was the primary topic for "1" as recently as 2016 – but views are changing. Certes (talk) 18:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for change in how we term decades

"The first millennium of the anno Domini or Common Era was a millennium spanning the years 1 to 1000 (1st to 10th centuries; in astronomy: JD 1721425.5 – 2086667.5[1])." "The 1st century was the century spanning AD 1 (I) through AD 100 (C) according to the Julian calendar." If this is the consensus. Then the decades should also start at 1 and end at 0. For example:

1931-1940 (1930s) (Thirties)
1941-1950 (1940s) (Forties)
1951-1960 (1950s) (Fifties)
1961-1970 (1960s) (Sixties)
1971-1980 (1970s) (Seventies)
1981-1990 (1980s) (Eighties)
1991-2000 (1990s) (Nineties)
2001-2010 (2000s) (Two-Thousands)
2011-2020 (2010s) (Two-Thousand Tens)
2021-2030 (2020s) (Two-Thousand Twenties)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Thumsupfan (talk • contribs) 20:12, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

The AD epoch starts in the year 1 by definition. There’s no equivalent epoch for terms like “sixties”. That word arises from the tens-digit of the year being 6.
Now, one could make a case for whether “the first millennium” should always be with reference to the AD epoch, given that we now live in an ISO8601-mediated world, where the proleptic Gregorian calendar is king, and that does have a year zero… Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 20:39, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia follows reliable sources and they generally say the 1930s are 1930–1939 which makes sense. Decades are not numbered so we don't have to worry about whether the "194th decade" would logically start in 1931 if the "1st decade" started in year 1. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:34, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
Previous discussion is at User talk:Thumsupfan#Decades, after I reverted several edits such as this and this. Certes (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
There is also a related discussion at WT:WikiProject Years/Archive 12#Decade moves from 2020, when a sock mass-moved many of our decade pages and unilaterally revised their start and end years. Certes (talk) 21:52, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
No. Decades are named cardinally (1930s). The names indicate what years are in them. The 1930s contain all years of the form 193X and only those years. Centuries (and millennia) are named ordinally. The 1st century is the first 100 years (AD or CE) following the start of the era. Thus, the 1st century includes the years 1-100 inclusive. The two simply don't line up neatly. That may be "messy", but it is a fact. Saying that "the 1930s" is the years 1931-1940 (and similarly for all other decades) just so that decades line up with centuries is worse than "messy", it is at odds with the meanings of words and process of counting. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:10, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
If we were here to reinvent the calendar, we'd probably accept Thumsupfan's suggestion. It's logical and consistent. However, our job is to reflect real-world common usage, rather than to right great wrongs, and the world we're documenting uses 1930–1939, etc. Certes (talk) 14:39, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
If you mean the groupings of years is more consistent, yes. But, nothing that uses the term "the 1930s" to mean "1931-1940" can be considered logical in its phrasing.
--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:59, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
I agree. We'd have phrases such as "194th decade", which is difficult to understand and rarely if ever used. It's important to stick to terms readers understand, such as 1930s, which unambiguously means 1930–1939. Certes (talk) 16:08, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Incumbents at "Year in Country" articles

Have we ever agreed on a standard for the incumbents section of Year in Country articles? When looking at 2022 in China, 2022 in India, 2022 in the United States, and 2022 in France, for example, I notice a few things. There's no agreement on which types of incumbents should be included, there's no agreed upon formatting, and not one of them has any sort of sourcing. The United States article split elections into its own section, which I think was a good call, but then the list of governors violates MOS:COLLAPSE. Obviously with different forms of government, there's no one size fits all. But should we have subnational leaders and cabinet/ministry leaders? And more importantly, what sourcing should we use for these lists? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Pages getting too big to expand templates

2012 in science has just been pushed over the limit into Category:Pages where post-expand include size is exceeded - actually by citation.bot doing its job and adding IDs to many of the references. I see on Talk:2012 in science#Broken references due to template limits that this happened a couple of weeks ago, and somebody managed to put sticking plaster on it. I don't know what the answer is - has this problem arisen in a "Year in XXX" article before? (I have no particular interest in this article by the way - I'm just responding to a question on the help desk.) ColinFine (talk) 20:36, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Probably one for WP:VPT. The word count is high but not overly so; the symptom I see is the References section displaying as Template:Reflist rather than expanding the template. The usual answer is a split but I don't see a sensible division, as the Events section rightly takes up 90% of the page. Certes (talk) 21:54, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
Generally these are split by topic, but there's really not much of a logical structure in how these years articles are organized, and any efforts to clean this area up have been met with limited enthusiasm. The currently existing ones are 2012 in spaceflight, 2012 in the environment, Weather of 2012, 2012 in archaeology, 2012 in birding and ornithology, 2012 in paleontology, 2012 in paleobotany, 2012 in arthropod paleontology, 2012 in paleomammalogy, 2012 in fish paleontology, 2012 in molluscan paleontology, and 2012 in archosaur paleontology. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
Moving the less important items from 2012 in science to the appropriate 2012 in topic article may be the most pragmatic solution, despite the unfortunate side-effect of punishing the subject areas which curate their own lists by reducing their presence in the main list. Certes (talk) 10:55, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
My suggestion would be to create articles like 2012 in biology, 2012 in physics, 2012 in health, etc so that all of the major areas are covered. The question then would be what to do with 2012 in science. If there's a way to decide the most "important" items to be duplicated there, that would be an option. Otherwise it could just be turned into a disambig, with the possibility of being expanded with prose summaries of each field that year. Whatever route we take, it should be done to all of the science lists from 2011 to 2023. I'll do it myself if one of these solutions seems optimal. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:31, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
After taking a closer look, I think what this needs is just a massive trim. A lot of them are just instances of a study making some sort of claim or a "scientists say" type claim. I think that the standard for inclusion should be slightly higher to only include actual tangible discoveries and inventions or at least claims from major scientific bodies. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Updating the WP:YEARS page

The WP:YEARS page is really disorganized and a lot of the content there is out of date. There was some disagreement in the past about whether any changes should be made to the page, but I think some major reorganization is needed. As a few examples, the "templates" section could be cleaned up, the "old surveys" section serves no purpose, and the "example year" is unfinished and not based on any sort of standard. A bunch of other little issues like this exist throughout the page. I think it could be a lot more useful if we redid a lot of the content. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:23, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Attacks by year

The year and decade categories in Category:Attacks by year and Category:Attacks by decade use the form Category:Attacks in 2023, rather than the usual pattern of the parent Category:2023 crimes. If someone has the time and inclination to nominate the hierarchy for renaming, I think this would be approved. – Fayenatic London 06:51, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Village pump discussion

There's a discussion relating to year articles at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Years articles and timelines: Combined or split?. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:29, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

[year] by [U.S. state] articles?

I notice there are no year articles for U.S. states, like 2023 in Texas. Is this because of a consensus decision, or just because no one has had the time to make them? I was thinking about starting writing year articles for Texas. Michael7604 (talk) 22:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

If enough relevant information exists in reliable sources, then I don't see any reason why you couldn't (that's really the rule for creating any article or list). If anything, U.S. state by year articles might help offload some of the bloat in the United States articles. Just make sure that it's more than just a collection of random news stories. They should be about things that have some level of notability in their own right, like places and events that have their own articles. And keep in mind that there are a lot of year in location articles, and most of them get virtually no attention. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:08, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Thebiguglyalien, this is a great idea, this would fix a lot of problems with in year in the United States articles. 4me689 (talk) 21:06, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Notable Deaths in xxxx articles (concept pitch)

I have an idea for Notable Deaths in xxxx articles, it'll just be like the death sections that were formerly on the year articles, but it's on its own separate page and has looser notability rules, the initial consensus of RFC: split births & deaths from year articles only said to remove the death sections of the articles but never said where they should go, currently it just goes to the normal deaths in xxxx articles, where every single person who died who had Wikipedia articles are listed, not just the notable people. my idea is to make a separate article for the notable people death list, example: have deaths in 2023 for every person that have died & have that be unchanged and then have Notable Deaths in 2023 for notable people. someone already made a draft for the notable deaths of 2023 which I updated adding more sources and fixing the pictures. I know some people are going to oppose this based on the bludgeoning by Jim Michael and the scrubby and for years the section was stonewalled by a select few people, but since then Jim Michael has gone inactive and has been t-banned on year articles and the scrubby has semi-retired, and the after mention pitch for loosening the nobility of who's going to be on the article will make it so less conflicts happen, I'm just going to pitch this idea and see what feedback it gets and if it's positive we can go forward with this idea I'll wait for any feedback for it, and if there was any sort of consensus against this thing before, I love to be given the link to it. 4me689 (talk) 22:05, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Deaths in 2023 is already meant to be limited to notable people. About 90% of the entries have articles, and nearly all have at least an {{ill}}. Certes (talk) 22:18, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
@Certes I'm talking about limit it to heads of government/state, Nobel Peace Prize winners, Academy Award winners, Grammy Award winners, and solo Olympic champions etc. so people like Bill Richardson and James L. Buckley wouldn't be included because they were only notable in the United States. people like Yevgeny Prigozhin, Tony Bennett, John Devitt, John B. Goodenough, Rachid Sfar, William Friedkin, and many more who had achievements like them would be included on notable deaths, alternatively we can have pictures on the Deaths in 2023 and all other Deaths in xxxx articles instead, also I do see a couple of them on the list that don't have articles and are just red links. 4me689 (talk) 22:26, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
4me689, before trying to suggest changes, I suggest familiarizing yourself with the main content policies: verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and what Wikipedia is not. Your suggestion violates all of them to some extent. You should also read the notability guideline to see the requirements for notability on Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:37, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

pictures on deaths in 2023

I added some pictures at deaths in 2023, any thoughts???? 4me689 (talk) 23:41, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Prior consensus was no photos would be included. Rusted AutoParts 23:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
@Rusted AutoParts where???? 4me689 (talk) 23:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Consensus was forged here. Rusted AutoParts 23:47, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
this is from May of 2011 (12 years ago), and this wasn't an RFC, and alot has changed about the year Pages since, it should be a good idea to do an RFC on this. 4me689 (talk) 23:53, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
The core points opposing it still stand though. It's in your hands to launch an RFC if you really feel that passionate about pictures on the pages, but I still am not for it. Rusted AutoParts 23:56, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
With so many entries every month, it is important to keep the page load time to a minimum. That is why we only use simple cites. Including photos will slow the load time and frustrate the reader. WWGB (talk) 00:08, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
in my opinion it's a great idea because it makes the page look better 4me689 (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
4me689, for the last year and a half you've essentially been a WP:Single-purpose account for modifying the pictures in articles about years. A good number of editors have challenged your attempts to insert these images, and it got to the point where WP:ANI discussions were started about your actions. It's fine to have an area of Wikipedia you're interested in, but you need to be able to work with others. And right now, the others are saying that we don't need these images, whether they be portraits on death articles or collages on the main years. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
The over-riding problem (apart from even slower page-loading times!) would be: who gets a photo and who doesn't? Because if you include a photograph of each and every subject entry, the page will never load and will be ten miles deep in length. Including images was never practical for this list, and still isn't. Ref (chew)(do) 07:50, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
I solemnly oppose it. Adding photos of one person or another would be a source of unbreathable discussions (like those that existed in the "Deaths" section in Year in Topic). It would be aesthetically prettier, but unfeasible. _-_Alsor (talk) 12:21, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Guideline page

Hi, I created this guideline page for WikiProject Years (Wikipedia:WikiProject Years/Guidelines), because this section is too long. This will guide to an essay similar to Wikipedia:Manual of Style and other WikiProjects. MirrorPlanet (talk) 10:54, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

How should year timelines be sourced?

Unless something significant changes, consensus shows that WP:DUE does in fact apply to year articles. But there's a related question that needs discussion. What should the sourcing look like? Right now, most items in year timelines are cited to a news article. The problem is that this often entails handpicking events and then finding sources for them. This is dangerously close to original research and basically lets editors decide for themselves what the defining moments of a year were. Individual news article sources just prove that the thing happened, but they don't help with context or weight the same way retrospective summary sources do.

The ideal solution that's been discussed is to use "year in review" sources or similar, and I've had some success using them. The problem is that they don't work well with timelines, because many of them don't provide the exact dates for events. So how do we reconcile this? Do we just say anything with a newspaper article has a case for inclusion? Do we cite everything to both an overview source and a specific news source? I bring this up because I'm encountering the problem at 2001, where the article portion is mostly cited to overview sources which provide for general coverage, but the timeline portion is just a random collection of events with minimal regard for how much weight these events are given by sources. I'd love to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:05, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

InvadingInvader, Barnards.tar.gz, Levivich: pinging the editors who have been the most involved in similar issues in case you guys wanted to weigh in. This is really the only major thing left to address at 2001. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:31, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
Is it possible that a main year article doesn’t need a timeline section if the rest of the article is well developed prose? Alternatively, the timeline could just include the events that are mentioned in the rest of the article. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 15:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
Removing the timeline was my first choice as well, but there seems to be slight consensus in favor of leaving it in. It's been discussed:
  • On this page in February – I favored splitting, InvadingInvader supported splitting as a compromise
  • At Talk:2001 in February – Levivich was neutral, I favored splitting.
  • At Talk:2002 in March – Levivich leaned slightly toward removal.
  • At the village pump in March – InvadingInvader and L'Mainerque favored inclusion. JeffUK and Chupmunkdavis were neutral leaning some level of inclusion. WhatamIdoing favored splitting.
  • At the village pump in September – Vaticidalprophet and Folly Mox favored inclusion, 4me689 favored splitting.
And generally, Village Pump discussions should be given more weight than WikiProject or Talk discussions. Only things mentioned in the article is another thought I had, but that would have its own issues. Namely, the RfC directly above this one is overwhelmingly supporting that decisions to add things should be made on a case-by-case basis, so an overarching rule might not work. There's also the issue of how citations would work. Should WP:LEADCITE apply as it's a summary of another part of the article? Or should each citation be duplicated in the timeline? The editors maintaining years articles didn't follow along over the last two decades as best practices developed, so now we're playing catch up on these things. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm not ready to give my opinion on everything, but there are some opinions I have formed. 1: We should be following WP:LEADCITE once prose is in. 2; WP Policies and guidelines can be interpreted as our overarching rules if needed. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 03:05, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
As I think about this, it seems likely to me that the status quo, or something similar to it, will remain the standard. We can always work on secondary sourcing for a given article, but overall, it's not that different than how other timelines are made. The ongoing RfC seems to confirm a willingness to do these things on a case by case basis. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:15, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Making things official with regard to inclusion on main year pages

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of the RfC was WP:AVALANCHE consensus for option A, specifically noting this option is in line with WP:PAG (non-admin closure)—siroχo 03:01, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey guys; I still personally interpret the current years inclusion guidelines as a bit in a state of limbo. I think that we should make something official at least, whether that be continuing giving priority to the Due Weight guideline, going back to the old International Notability standards, whatever. I want to avoid a situation where it seems like I'm enforcing a consensus that never existed, so I would prefer to get one here we can solidify. As such, I have proposed a few options below, which I've also opened up as an RFC so that a wider consensus can be developed. I'll be pinging some of the most recent editors from years articles as well:


Which of the following ideas should be the guiding one for inclusion in "Main Year articles", like 2023 and 1992?

  • Option A – Each event has its own consensus, as guided by WP:DUE and coverage
  • Option B – Only events that significantly affect multiple countries. International Notability, exclude all "domestic" events.
  • Option C – Option B plus notable domestic events.
  • Option D – Use the inclusion criteria as described in the essay WP:Recent years.

InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:21, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

  • Option A, solidify the Due Weight policy as the main guideline for inclusion. I've written an essay about why the International Notability guidelines as previously proposed are a less than suboptimal set of standards that excluded way too many otherwise notable events (see User:InvadingInvader/Against international notability). I trust that consensus for each event based on coverage will be sufficient, and the inclusion of notable business mergers should also be considered. I would alternatively support Option C as a middle ground if compromise is needed. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:21, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A. My approach to these articles has consistently been that best practices have already been developed a long time ago and codified under content P&G. For one reason or another, these particular articles have been very late in adopting these best practices. In discussion at the village pump and at Talk:2001 and Talk:2002, consensus seems to be that the best practice for determining due weight is to look at year in review sources and similar general sources. I've been applying that principle in the prosification of 2001 and 2002, but I have yet to see a consensus on how due weight should be applied to timelines (something that timelines on Wikipedia in general could benefit from). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:54, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
    Due weight in timelines could be a future RFC InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 22:39, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A, this is obviously the best way to go with, we have due weight policies for a reason, there is a reason International nobility is no longer a thing, because in my opinion it shouldn't be a thing cuz it was an awful idea pressed on by Jim Michael & the scrubby. of course due weight policies does have their limits, year pages are not a timeline for any wars like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nor there are all news sites, there supposed to give highlights of the year to readers, not a timeline by timeline of the year. of course we can always go with the pros option as need be, in fact I would support every year article 2000 present having Pros:4me689 (talk) 22:30, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A. I agree with the reasoning others have given. Consensus via WP:DUE weight + coverage seems like the best way to go about this. XTheBedrockX (talk) 01:07, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A. I agree that Option A is the best choice. It seems to me that the Recent Years essay has inclusion criteria which look very much like international notability. Donner60 (talk) 04:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A is the only one that has a chance of working. "in my opinion it shouldn't be a thing cuz it was an awful idea" is not an argument; it's a statement of opinion by a US contributor. International notability should still be a consideration when debating whether to include something, otherwise Year pages could end up being very US-centric again. Deb (talk) 07:35, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A, remembering that the subject of these articles is the year, meaning the best and most relevant sources are those that discuss the year as their subject. This typically means year-in-review articles, although these are usually in short supply so we might also be able to use any source that demonstrates the weight of a particular event in that year. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A. We should aim to follow established WP:PAG on the WP:YEARS pages. Carter00000 (talk) 13:22, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
  • Option A, and all the good reasons are stated above. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 13:45, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Do we consider Main Year articles to sit as summaries at the top of a hierarchy of articles? E.g. 1973 at the top, with a summary-style Music section that breaks out into 1973 in music. If so, do we think the same inclusion principles as voted on here should also apply to those subsidiary articles? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:59, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
    I don't think we can. As there will be far fewer entries in most Year in Topic articles, there is mostly no real need to weed them out like that. However, some of the Year in Music articles have needed to be separated into music and music charts; that's the only example I can think of where it's an issue. Deb (talk) 15:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
    I personally think we can still have year in topic articles, just not as many articles total. A majority of the year in topic articles do seem to be for smaller countries like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. I proposed condensing some articles into Year in Southeast Asia, though the merger ultimately failed. We could even create newer ones, like XXXX in Politics, for notable domestic political events and debates which garnered international attention like (at least for recent examples) scandals and controversy surrounding Suella Braverman , Canadian-Indian relations, the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, Israeli judicial reforms, the Chinese defense minister Qin Gang and his disappearance shenanigans, etc. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 16:15, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
    I think summary style subtopics are the way to go, especially if the year articles do end up becoming actual summaries of the year like broad topic articles are expected to be. Year in politics is one of the areas I was thinking about focusing on and doing some level of standardization after more work is done on the main year articles.
    I'm on the fence about mergers. On one hand, there's only so much happening in tiny island nations with a few thousand people, and it would make organization and completion so much easier. On the other, small countries can still have reasonably complete lists of events; I made 2021 in Botswana last year to prove this. I also think small country year articles are a possible tool to combat systemic bias. Just look at how many red links cropped up in that one article. Maybe decide mergers on a case by case basis? I'd probably support merging the Caribbean nations or some of the Pacific Island nations into one set of lists and then have things like 2023 in Tuvalu be redirects. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
    I like what Thebiguglyalien has done so far with 2001, providing a prose summary of years' various topics instead of events. I'm presently working on a prosified version of 2022 in the United States in my sandbox; as of writing I'm a bit over halfway done with politics and starting on sports. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 16:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
    @InvadingInvader: As we know, regarding this style guide what I created (WP:YEARS/Style guide) as part of WikiProject's scope. MirrorPlanet (talk) 03:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
    That should be ratified by a consensus. It's a good proposal for a list-based year, but there is a growing movement to make more year articles prosified, mostly led by TheBigUglyAlien. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:12, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Closure

  • This discussion seems to be unanimous for option A, should WP:SNOW be applied on this discussion, because it's looking like it's very unanimous and may need to be closed, of course there may be a chance that someone may put 1 of the other three options, it's been about 3 days since the RFC was opened, should we go ahead and submit this to the closure board or should we keep this discussion going until the 30 days of the RFC has expired. I would say we should close this discussion unless someone puts one of the other three options, I don't know anybody else is agreeing on this any thoughts???. 4me689 (talk) 05:11, 30 September 2023 (UTC) Note: I forgot to add this, @InvadingInvader any thoughts???? 4me689 (talk) 20:42, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
    Yes, please. It's rare to see so many identical !votes from such a range of editors, and (imho) we should celebrate that with a quick close. Last1in (talk) 17:06, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
    I have just gone ahead and submitted a closure request to the closure board. 4me689 (talk) 22:54, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Decade nav topic template

I've just created Template:Decade nav topic so we can have a navigation sidebar on decade articles as well as year articles. It also adds an automatic short description like the year sidebars do. The only real downside is that it doesn't go from decades to years if it changes at a certain point, so a disambig would be necessary for some decades to link to individual year articles. I've tested it out at a few articles such as 1970s in Botswana. If anyone here is template-minded and has any ideas for improvement, please go ahead; this is not my area of expertise. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:00, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I've also collected a few tiny stubs from Bulgaria into 1890s in Bulgaria and the next couple decades after it. Decade navigation seems to work pretty well. Then when it reaches a decade where individual years are used, the decade link can redirect to an index article like List of years in Bulgaria. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Style guide

A now blocked sock created an essay off this page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Years/Style guide. Someone should take a look to see if it is salvageable or nominate for deletion. ☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 16:48, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

B-checklist in project template

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council § Determining the future of B-class checklists. This project is being notified since it is one of the 82 WikiProjects that opted-in to support B-checklists (B1-B6) in your project banner. DFlhb (talk) 11:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

The year article sidebar is too long

Can we do something about the long sidebar on the main year articles? Between the huge navigation sidebar and the calendars list, it stretches way too far down the page. Should we shrink them down by removing items? Turn it into a navbox at the bottom of the page? Just delete the calendars list? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:20, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

If no one has any objections, then I'm inclined to remove the calendars list from the sidebar per WP:SILENCE. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:06, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
I support that. (Sorry, been on holiday.) Deb (talk) 10:39, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Was there ever a clearly-discussed consensus that Main Year Articles are to be international only?

It's a question I've had for a bit, but recently wanted to put here ever since the exclusion of Kevin McCarthy's removal on Talk:2023. I would think that the due weight policies we have here would actually include Kevin McCarthy, but the most common argument is that "Main Year Articles are International Only", or some phrasing which reflects the same idea. Was there EVER a consensus for this, or is it just another example of similar sophistry to the Spring 2023 long-term ownership ANI thread? If I'm missing something, please link the relevant discussion which shows this. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 19:56, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

There was not. The editors in the ANI discussion were asked several times to provide one, and they attempted to handwave the whole issue. And we now have an RfC above that unanimously rejected such a position. Consensus is profoundly against this gatekeeping. If anyone is still trying to enforce "international notability", they should be reminded of these things before they're accused of ownership or tendentious editing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Re-evaluate Consensus Formed on Pages using the Deprecated Criteria

Given the above discussion, recent RFC and ANI, and the other referenced discussions, it seems clear that the guiding principle "internationality notability", "main year articles are international only", or other similar phrased criteria are now deprecated.

As the consensus process for the inclusion of content in the affected pages were significantly affected by the deprecated criteria, should the inclusion of the affected entries be systematically re-evaluated in some way? Carter00000 (talk) 09:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to be repeating the pings from the previous RFC for those who haven't responded:

InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 20:26, 25 October 2023 (UTC)


  • Deprecate International Notability. Inclusion should be based on the Due Weight criteria, not any arbitrary set of boundaries which override it. If we are to keep articles as international exclusive, as they were encouraged to be, we violate WP:RGW as well as the consensus established. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 20:24, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
    I agree, as while most entries are internationally notable, but some events that could be considered domestic (i.e. general elections, large-scale natural disasters, coups, etc.) do merit entries because they are important enough (due weight). JohnAdams1800 (talk) 03:37, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
    I think that we should be careful not to interpret due weight into another arbitrary criteria. Per the first paragraph of DUE, inclusion should be determined in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in [reliable] sources. I am concerned that your thoughts and comments seem to be an interpretation of DUE which bases due weight off of an international notability criteria, not based on coverage in reliable sources. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:41, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
  • I'd rather all collages deleted from Year pages. But, since that's not likely to happen, any time soon? I'll support any inclusion criteria for the collages, as long as they're consistent across the Year pages. GoodDay (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
    @GoodDay this is not about the collages but rather inclusion criteria for events. I think you accidentally put this in the wrong discussion InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:03, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
    I know what this discussions about. Thus my call for consistency, no matter what inclusion criteria is chosen. GoodDay (talk) 21:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
    I would generally agree with the idea of consistency for practices on main year articles, except for death lists which are too short to be split out as suggested by the previous RFC on splitting deaths. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:08, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
    I don't know if that's going to be enforceable. "Consistency" has never been a standard for articles, and it's quite common for different articles to be written in different ways depending on that specific article's needs, or just the preferences of that article's main writer. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:00, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Maybe. Whatever the case is, I maintain my stance from the RfC: Consensus via WP:DUE weight + coverage seems like the best way to go about this. XTheBedrockX (talk) 20:40, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Hasn't it already been deprecated? The WP:BOLD guideline says we shouldn't start a discussion before every change. We just need to edit the articles so that they comply with content P&G. If someone tries to stonewall any changes based on "international notability", then WP:OWN and WP:IDHT are both enforceable at ANI. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:58, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
    I wish it was, but in cases like this based on past history with the topic I personally prefer a much more clear-cut answer to avoid ambiguity. It doesn't help to be more clear. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 00:21, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Deprecate International Notability I think this has to follow from the unanimous position in the RfC for Option A, the Due Weight standard. Donner60 (talk) 02:20, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
    There are no births section in 2023 article, but some names of persons aren't notable. MirrorPlanet 🪞🪐 10:15, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
  • No. International notability can still be a deciding factor. Don't just ping those who joined the previous discussion; notify everyone in the WikiProject. Deb (talk) 08:50, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
    Should it be even? Due Weight per coverage in reliable outlets alone seems to be the best way for us to include. It's not our job to decide what's internationally notable; it's the job of the rest of the world and we just reflect what the world just generally says. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 06:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

2023 in the United States collage submissions and discussion started

I have begun the submission and basic discussion process for the collage image for 2023 in the United States, which relates to this WikiProject. You can participate in the submissions/discussions here: Talk:2023 in the United States#Collage submissions. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 05:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Why do we want to get rid of collages?

They're good for summarising a year. What's wrong with them? King Bilbo I (talk) 15:04, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

See the current RFC, being held on this WikiProject. GoodDay (talk) 15:12, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

The year of...

User:Ludde23 added lots (and lots) of claims much like these:

  • At the time, it was known as the Year after the Consulship of Belisarius. (536)
  • At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Paetinus and Apronius (AD 123)

These edits number in the hundreds and were made during November 2010 (thirteen years ago!). These claims remain unsourced to this day and I can't find any other pages referring to this, nor any quick Google hits. For example, our article on Belisarius does mention he was made Consul, but certainly nothing about how this event was so impactful it gave name to an entire year. (Our current article only dryly states While east, Belisarius was not only awarded a triumph but also made consul. His consulship never comes up again during the rest of the article).

The smaller issue is that these "labels" are put in bold, suggesting a redirect will point to the pages when none do.

The bigger issue is... are these claims completely made up, or what? Best case scenario; Ludde23 knew he was adding unsubstantiated claims, even adding {{Unreferenced}} tags, but somehow forgot to go back and add his refs. Worst case scenario, we have another case of site-wide vandalism that remained undiscovered for over a decade on our hands.

Or rather, on your hands. I'm no expert here so I'm asking you to look this up. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing, mentioned this over at Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia to get a few more eyeballs on this issue.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 23:14, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Here's a more overtly absurd example:
At the time, it was known as the 36th year of the reign of Emperor Justinian I or, formally, the Twentysecond year after the Consulship of Basilius (563)
This example has thankfully been cleaned away but here's the diff: [1] CapnZapp (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
You may see a list of Roman consuls at List of Roman consuls. In Rome for many centuries the normal way of designating a year was to name the consuls who held office that year. Blackburn and Holford-Strevens, on page 778 and 779, while discussing how the current AD/CE system got started, state

Dionysiys began with 532, thus instituting the era that we use today. However, nowhere in his exposition of his table does Dionysius relate his epoch to ay other dating system, whether consulate, Olympiad, year of the world, or regnal year of Augustus;

In his covering letter Dionysius equates 525 from the Incarnation with the consulate of Probus Junior, which certainly began on 1 January AD 525....

  • The Oxford Companion to the Year, Bonnie J. Blackburn, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford University Press, 1999 (reprinted with corrections 2003), ISBN 0-19-214231-3
Jc3s5h (talk) 16:46, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Improve your Google checking skills! [2] Fram (talk) 16:56, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

If you feel these labels are legitimate, how about you add some of those sources of yours, User:Fram? The articles have remained source-less for over a decade. Also, there is zero consistency between year articles: what determines whether to retain these labels or to remove them. All in all, a poor quality assessment if you ask me. CapnZapp (talk) 11:24, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

1101 to 1299

I've noticed that someone has added 'nicknames' in the 1101 to 1299 pages - for example: John (Lackland). Was there a consensus for such additions? GoodDay (talk) 17:43, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

If they don't have a source it's WP:OR. I haven't checked them out yet but at least at first glance this screams OR. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 14:46, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
I'll likely begin removing the "(Nicknames)" from those year pages, over the following days. GoodDay (talk) 14:49, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
I would support such removals. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 17:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Change to the DMY date format

When writing about international subjects, the DMY format is the standard format. I find it baffling that year articles use the MDY format. This is properly because many editors are north american but this is not a proper reason. I've looked in the archives and this is not something that's ever been properly discussed. I would like to suggest chanding articles about dates, years, decades and centuries to the DMY format. This should not apply for some articles about years in specific countries, e.g., 2023 in the United States. DMY = 29 October 2023. MDY = October 29, 2023.--Marginataen (talk) 17:03, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

This does look like something that does need to be looked at. Again, when was there a consensus for this? Did this, like "international notability", just get agreed upon with no citable discussion? I think that given that there are a number of other disputes we need to settle first, we may need to delay this RFC, but it is definitely something that should be addressed. In other words, my sole objection to resolving this here and now is procedural. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien @Deb @Alsoriano97 @Carter00000 @Wjfox2005 @PaulRKil @JohnAdams1800 @4me689 @Donner60 @DementiaGaming @Austria Football 02 @XTheBedrockX @Yeoutie
Thank you InvadingInvader. I'll just elaborate a bit. I've look through the archives. There were a few mentions e.g. "Date formatting in decade article" but those never went anywhere. There has been no discussision first before MDY was just implemented. The precedence for using DMY for anything that isn't specifically North American is extremely strong. DMY is used by most English-speaking countries and most of the world. From a lingustic point of view, MDY is simply illigionally as it goes 2-1-3 instead of 1-2-3 (from smallest to biggest). No consensus about using MDY was ever established. Marginataen (talk) 15:56, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
MOS:DATE describes how we handle dates on Wikipedia. Neither DMY nor MDY has precedence in articles. There is already sitewide consensus that when an article uses a certain date format, there's generally no reason to change it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:10, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
WP:DATEOVER Take a look at any article about a global event or not strictly American/Canadian subject. There is no policy detailing it, but DMY is by all means the standard for everything global. Changing to a much more global date format even used in English by non-Americans (The US Military doesn't even use it because it is illogical) I do find to be a valid reason to change format as described in. Wikipedia should appeal to a global audience and not be American-centred. The year articles (e.g. 2023) are for the whole world. See map below:

Date format by country. Map showing which countries primarily use which endian date format. Colors for base formats CMY, mixing using CMYK color model.

  DMY – Day/Month/Year – Little-endian
  MDY – Month/Day/Year – Middle-endian
  YMD – Year/Month/Day – Big-endian (used internationally as ISO 8601)
  DMY + MDY
  DMY + YMD
  MDY + YMD
  DMY + MDY + YMD

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Marginataen (talk • contribs)

If you think that Wikipedia should make DMY the default or give it precedence, then the correct venue to propose such a change is at WP:Village pump (policy). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I know you're yourself American, but that is not an argument for keeping it. I don't need to propose anything as it already is de facto the case for non-American stuff. Marginataen (talk) 20:06, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm not the person you need to be convincing here. The Manual of Style says that there is not a de facto date format. If you want to propose a change, you know where to go. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:48, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Thebigugly alien. American military historians (and I have many hundreds of books) use month, day, year. Not surprising since the contemporaries and their records use that through recent times. We have already gone through this recently. I could not come up with a single one and no one suggested one that use day month year. Verification is easier than having to convert in one's mind and understanding by those most interested in American military history, at least, is easier. Are we really going to change the date format in hundreds of thousands of military history articles and millions overall? Consider that not only do historians use 12-hour clocks, but 24-hour clock time is anachronistic and confusing, to say the least, in history articles. Will the change help the majority of the readers, especially those who seek further verification? I think not. MOS prevails in any event. See also WP:STYLEVAR. Changes would need to be made to MOS and STYLEVAR. A few participants in an RfC can't change that. @SMcCandlish: @Iseult: @Visviva: Donner60 (talk) 22:21, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't see a good reason to change the style guideline when it's accepted in a continental variety of English and when grammar and meaning won't be affected. Iseult Δx parlez moi 23:13, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
This is only about years. I should have been more clear on that. I am only proposing, here on the Year project page, to change it so that the main article about a year should be written with DMY. I explicitly write that this should not be the case for US articles, e.g. "2023 in the United States". Marginataen (talk) 23:40, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with the idea of a consensus forming at this wikiproject to standardize the "generic" year articles to use DMY, since they have no particular ties to North America. A problem could arise, though. Someone(s) who worked a lot on, or just cares a lot about, one particular instance of such an article might object to the change, indicating a lack of conensus for it at that particular article (and this is an article-by-article, not category-by-category matter, even if some of us don't like that). And someone(s) could more broadly object to the change at all of them, which would necessitate an article-by-article discussion process, and almost certainly result in some of them switching and some of them not, defeating the constitency goal of the idea. A problem would most definitely arise from trying to broaden this idea to something like "every article that's not specifically about a US subject should change to DMY". All that said, "a consensus forming at this wikiproject to standardize the 'generic year articles to use DMY" doesn't seem anywhere near to actually happening.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:39, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I've no objection to DMY format. GoodDay (talk) 04:42, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, SMcCandlish. I you very constructive answer, you write that date formats are "an article-by-article, not category-by-category matter, even if some of us don't like". As far as I am concerned, I see nothing in the way for Wikipedia to establish DMY as the standard for "generic" articles about about years, decades and centuries ect. I am mistaken? Marginataen (talk) 14:31, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
If you look at footnote a in Wikipedia:Manual of Style you will see

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a wikiproject cannot decide that a Wikipedia policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.

It is explained that the statement comes from Wikipedia:Consensus § Level of consensus. So it would be possible to make a rule just for generic year articles, but such a discussion should not be at this page but rather Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style or possibly Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:54, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm actually a little skeptical that the question "Should articles about years, such as 1999 (year), consistently use DMY date format?", is an MoS matter, since it's about a content decision at a certain comparatively small number of pages. If it's up to consensus at the articles, and if nearly everyone working on that narrow set of articles are in this wikiproject, then it's pretty reasonable for the wikiproject to try to establish a standard for them (just as WP:SNOOKER decided what to put in all the snooker player infoboxes and how to organize the sections in those articles, and so forth). A great deal of standardization has been imposed on various types of military-related articles by WP:MILHIST, and it doesn't seem to be a big issue, except in the rare event they try to do something boneheaded (like WP:CLASSICAL trying to ban infoboxes from composer bios). However, as I noted above, someone might ultimately object and necessitate discussion at particular articles' talk pages. When it comes to more specific articles with a national tie like 1999 in the United States then this kind of blanket approach wouldn't apply. When there is no national tie in a more specific article, e.g. 1999 in sports, then the same DMY-by-default argument could apply, but I wouldn'ttry that without first successfully establishing it at 1999 (year), etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:03, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
What's important for me is the change itself and now in which forum the policy should be dictated. Are anyone against implementing DMY consistently on year articles for generic years? I know this practically would take some time, but as long as the use of date format for each individual article is consistent, I don't see a reason why we can't have different articles in different date format while DMY is implemented. Marginataen (talk) 12:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
It's true that the generic years articles are a pretty narrow group, and the content is much more uniform than for some WikiProjects such as the ones for the United States, mathematics, or history. But it being discussed at a WikiProject talk page. And there are thousands of articles involved, which is more than some WikiProjects cover. It will come as s surprise to an editor who reads WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM, cleans up a year page, and then be told she did it wrong because of some WikiProject she never heard of. A bit like what is going on in my neighborhood during hunting season. Someone can hunt on my land unless I put up signs in the specified location, of the required size and wording, with contrasting colors, and record in the town office that I have done so. Likewise here: if the style guideline isn't in WP:MOS or a subsidiary page, it's null and void. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:15, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
  • I don't particularly care if we use DMY or MDY for year articles, but I'd like us to either spend no further effort on it—and stick with the status quo—or go all in and hold a widely publicized RfC. My favorite option is sticking with the status quo, as effort spent on changing the date style is effort better spent elsewhere. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
    No, the DMY format is better. @SMcCandlish and @Jc3s5h: What is the best way to go about changing it? A widely publicised RfC like @Firefangledfeathers is suggesting? Marginataen (talk) 18:28, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
    Probably. Maybe at WP:VPPRO. I tend to agree that time spent normalizing all these to a single format would be better spend on more productive work. But if you're going to do an RfC about it, then a high-profile venue like VPPRO would make sense. I wouldn't do it at VPPOL, since this isn't proposing a guideline/policy change, but is a proposal to set a standard for a very narrow set of articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:43, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
    To be legitimate, WP:MOS or WP:MOSNUM would have to be changed, because otherwise editors would not be able to find the guidance. Anything at the Village Pump is ephemeral. But an RfC could be placed at the Village Pump that suggests a change to WP:MOS or WP:MOSNUM. RfCs are supposed to be neutrally worded, so probably MDY should be offered as an option. Perhaps a decision procedure could be suggested, such as creating a list of 100 random years between 1 and 2023, and seeing how many use each format. The majority wins. And any date format changed since 29 October 2022 (one year before this thread started) would be disqualified. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:54, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
    They all use the MDY format. That's the problem. I've now made a request at the village pump titled "Date format for year articles". Please understand that I'm not really into the procedural stuff about how to go about making this change. Marginataen (talk) 20:45, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
As I already expressed on the talk page for 2023, I am wholly in favour of switching over to DMY for all the main Year pages, as well as pages for individual calendar dates. It’s utterly absurd IMO to persist with an MDY format for these pages when so few countries actually use that dating format. TheScrubby (talk) 21:51, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Readers of this page and participants in the above discussion might be interested in Talk:2023#Change to the DMY format. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:57, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

No doubt, an RFC is soon upon us. Consistency across all 'year' pages, would be preferable. GoodDay (talk) 15:02, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, let's get it on. At the same time, it would be great to change all the calendar date articles. In the same move, we might as well change all the articles about calendar years. I.e. "May 5" to "5 May". I looked in the archives. Using MDY was never seriously discussed and just chosen. Marginataen (talk) 18:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Athletes Includes in "1980s" Page.

Where is Paolo Rossi and Nick Galis? EditingIsMyHobby (talk) 12:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Template talk:C21 year in topic

Hello, as a culmination of two discussions which have been ongoing since March, I have shortened the template above so that it is collapsible, and no longer bleeds deep into 'year' articles. Making the template collapsible was a pretty big change though, and discussion has stalled over on the template's talk page, so @GoodDay: suggested I ask for feedback here. What do you think, do you have any feedback on how else to improve the widely-viewed template? If so, I'd be happy to hear any suggestions 😁 Also, do you think there should be an image on the template to help it stand out a little more? Cheers! Johnson524 02:39, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Having the box collapsed is acceptable. However, including an image would create a distraction & take up space, which would go against the collapsing. GoodDay (talk) 02:45, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Incumbent sections in the Year in country pages.

Lately, particular in the 2024 in sovereign state pages, images have been added to the section on gov't incumbents, include beginning & ending dates of service. IMHO, this is a change adopted without a consensus to do so. To give an example, look at the 'images' added at 2024 in Sri Lanka page (btw there should be no incumbent section at all, until the new year comes in). Also, do we need images in the incumbents sections, like at 2023 in Sri Lanka for example? IMHO, these pages are best served with 'no images' or 'image boxes' in the incumbents section, see 2018 in Sri Lanka & 2023 in Canada for examples. GoodDay (talk) 03:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Custom sidebars in decade articles

In about 400 decade in topic articles there are custom (not from template) sidebars added mostly by 121.101.132.6 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) over the course of a few days in July 2022. It's very likely there are other socks that have done the same, but I haven't looked that deeply into it so I don't know.

I believe that these boxes shouldn't remain. My proposed course of action is wholesale removal of all of them if there's another navigation template on the page (such as {{Popular music}} at 2000s in music or {{Years in Scotland}} at 1210s in Scotland). If there are no navigation templates on the page one would be added or created and then this sidebar would remove.

Since I don't believe this to be particularly controversial I plan on starting removal in a day or two if there are no objections. --Trialpears (talk) 06:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Did some more research and seems like my attribution was incorrect. My new guess is that it's sockmaster Kev519 (talk · contribs) and their proxies that have been adding most of these since 2017 with 121.101.132.6 being one of the more active ones. I'm unsure if they're the first one. There are also a whole bunch added by other users when creating new articles basing them on existing articles with the sidebar. Doesn't really matter though and regardless of the origins I believe these should go. --Trialpears (talk) 06:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
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