Talk:Public holidays in Chile

Chile Holidays
If you have a project on Chile or holidays, you can trust this site! It has all the information in the world.

Leon Hu 12/7/04

Sept.18th is not Independence Day in Chile ?
User:200.42.177.195 left the following message on Talk:Independence Day:
 * ''You made a BIG mistake about Chile. Chile's independence is on february 12, 1814(although we don't celebrate it due to particular reasons with O'higgins, so we celebrate our first "junta" day (september 18, 1810)). Too bad that this was featured on the home page of wikipedia...

I wonder if National Day would be more appropriate vocabulary on this list of holidays in Chile. -- PFHLai 13:51, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Sex and Pornography Day on January 18
Is this real ? --64.229.207.142 21:11, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course no. Whats happens with the people?!? --Lady Kya (talk) 13:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

CieloEstrellado: your version of this article has several mistakes that you insist on writing in.
CieloEstrellado, as I've told you several times, please stop writing in wrong data in this article.

Your most notorious mistakes are:

1) You keep stating that May 1 is a holiday since 2003 (On January 16, 2003, May 1 is established as a holiday in the Labor Code.), not even erasing the preexisting information (On 1931-04-30, President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo promulgated the "Decree Enforceable as Law" ("Decreto con Fuerza de Ley") 130, marking May 1 (May Day) as holiday.).

2) You keep stating that censuses are holidays since 1970 (On December 10, 1970 Law 17,374 established as holiday the day when the official census is held.), which isn't true: 1970 census WASN'T a holiday; censuses in 1982 and 1992 were holidays due to ad-hoc laws (18,116 and 19,116); law 19,790 (published in february 1992) modified law 17,374 to mark any further censuses as holidays (1992's was the first one due to this law). I cleared up that confusion in a revision, CITING sources, but you erased the entire paragraph.

3) You state that law 18,700 establishes holidays for elections (On May 6, 1988, Law 18,700 established that days coinciding with elections and plebiscites are to be legal holidays.), but this isn't the whole story: presidential (not parliamentary) elections have been holidays since the early XX century. Again, you erased the entire paragraph.

4) You keep erasing the link to the main "Días Feriados en Chile" source, but -oddly- not to a secondary link within the same source.

It would seem that each time you edit this page, you simply paste in a copy of your previous version of the contents, without bothering to read the new revision's differences. IMHO, that's not the proper way to edit wikipedia content.

I wrote this a few days ago in your talk page, but you don't even acknowledge it, so now I'm forced to call your attention in the article's discussion page.

Perhaps you don't want to believe me, and that's fine... but DO believe the sources I extracted the information from. Every piece of data I've written in this article can be traced back to the scanned copies of the Diario Oficial, available at http://www.diariooficial.cl/.

So, please take the time to actually read the article as it stands now, admit that you've made some mistakes and stop replacing correct information with wrong data.

Mfarah (talk) 15:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm requesting page protection.
You keep reverting the properly cited, properly sourced, information that I wrote in. Considering your behaviour in the Honduras articles, it seems you simply can not discuss or edit content following the Wikipedia guidelines. Enough is enough: I'm requesting a page protection to end this edit war.

190.196.70.195 (talk) 14:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

OOPS: logged out without realizing it. Anyway, that comment's mine. Mfarah (talk) 14:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

POV statement
The phrase:


 * In the past it was a religious holiday (Feast of the Circumcision of Christ), but its original meaning has been lost.

is not backed by an authoritative source, but by a self-published source added by the author himself (see below). It is also not neutral. I recommend that it be deleted if not properly sourced according to WP:V and WP:RS. ☆ CieloEstrellado 19:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Fine, then. Let's write in some more detail. I hope you don't complain about this paragraph:


 * In the past it was a religious holiday (Feast of the Circumcision of Christ), but its original meaning has been lost. Shortly after Chile's independence, an 1824 government decree enumerated and regulated the religious holidays, including the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ. Law 2,977 (passed in 1915) doesn't refer to this holiday by name, but treats it as religious one . However, nowadays (as of 2009) it's widely celebrated as the New Year holiday, even being mentioned that way in numerous municipal decrees   .  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfarah (talk • contribs) 17:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It's been several days and no one has complained about this proposed paragraph. CieloEstrellado MUST have seen it (as he DID complain four days ago about a formatting error in the next section in this talk page), so I'm going to assume he doesn't object either. I'm going to add this paragraph tonight - I hope CieloEstrellado doesn't begin war-editing again. Mfarah (talk) 20:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Added, with even more sources. POV removed, as there's no more reason for its presence. Mfarah (talk) 01:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Use of http://www.farah.cl/Feriados/ as source
User:mfarah has used his own personal self-published site http://www.farah.cl/Feriados/ as a source for this article. The user has admitted the site is his at the article's talk page in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.

I removed the source because it seemingly violates WP:SPS, WP:ELNO #11 and possibly also WP:ELNO #4. It may be permissible under WP:ELMAYBE #4, but this needs to be assessed by a third-party, normally a Wikipedia administrator.

I advice User:mfarah against reinstating the link until the situation has been evaluated externally. ☆ CieloEstrellado 19:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Short-lived retirement, I see. Tan   &#124;   39  00:27, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I had some unfinished business to take care of ;) ☆ CieloEstrellado 00:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * CieloEstrellado, your behaviour is disturbing, but I won't comment further on it - I'll stick to the facts, some of which you omit.


 * For starters, you should discuss the issue in the discussion page BEFORE removing the sentences you don't like, but you still don't seem keen to talk about things before acting in a disruptive manner.


 * As mentioned on the spanish version of this page, yes, I linked to my own investigation, but that's because there aren't many other detailed investigations on the history of chilean holidays. ALSO, I only link as a secondary source: all the facts both in this page and my own are sourced back to the official primary source, the Diario Oficial (something I also mentioned in this very talk page and your in own, but you ignored that). Also, the one opinion that slipped through in my edits is a rather minor one. It's not proper, IMHO, to dispute the neutrality of the entire article IN THE SAME EDIT where you remove the potentially offensive sentence.


 * As it stands, this article (and the spanish version of it) is nothing but a list of facts, without any "inconvenient" omission, and the sources are all traced back to the official primary source. How could it possibly contain a "non neutral point of view"?


 * Let's see your accusations, one by one:


 * - You accused me on my talk page of a "Possible violation of Wikipedia:Verifiability (and more)". Yet, except for the one sentence that Cantus removed in the spanish version of the page (and where I DID acknowledge my mistake), you offer no specific claim whatosever of non-verifiability. WHAT exactly is the non-verifiable information that the article still contains? I think that you simply don't have such a claim, as your latest edits simply remove that one sentence and links to my source.


 * - You accuse me of violating WP:SPS. While this is true, it's not the entire history. According to Wikipedia policy, at No_original_research, "This policy [citing oneself] does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia, but it does prohibit them from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing their sources. If an editor has published the results of his or her research in a reliable publication, the editor may cite that source while writing in the third person and complying with our neutrality policy. See also Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest."


 * The entire article is written in a neutral point of view, and numerous primary sources (the laws themselves) are cited. My own page lists several opinions and "fringe facts", but I NEVER included them in this article: I stuck to the generally accepted facts, using a neutral point of view, and sourced to the existing laws in the official site, where available (www.leychile.cl contains online versions of chilean laws, but not all older documents are online yet; www.diariooficial.cl contains scanned copies of the Diario Oficial, the official newspaper where laws are first published).


 * - You accuse me of violating WP:ELNO #11 and possibly also WP:ELNO #4.


 * The first of the "links normally to be avoided" (#11) says "Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority (this exception is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for biographies)." (emphasis mine).


 * The second one, #4, says "Links mainly intended to promote a website. See External link spamming.". Promotion? Really? It's linked as a source. Spamming? You'll note the absence of Google Ads (or ads of any other kind) in that page (or the entire site, for that matter).


 * When push comes to shove, we need to remember what this is about: chilean holidays. I did some heavy research into their history, because there wasn't any to be found. I published it and afterwards decided to share the information I found with Wikipedia, for everyone's benefit, linking to the primary sources and the secondary one (mine) where needed. It's not a opinion-based subject, and ALL of the information I wrote in this article can be traced back to the primary source. Links to my own webpage (which is even more heavily sourced to the laws that create/modify/remove holidays) adds some further information, and comes off as a useful secondary source, which is all it's intended to be.


 * Note for Tan: if you want, I'll translate to english the counterargument I made in the spanish version of this page, so you can get the full picture.


 * Mfarah (talk) 02:26, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you respond to this part of our policy of "no original research (WP:NOR), which is one of three Wikipedia core policies - non-negotiable: "Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions." It seems that your statement, "I did some heavy research into their history, because there wasn't any to be found. I published it and afterwards decided to share the information I found with Wikipedia, for everyone's benefit" would directly mean you are violating WP:NOR by linking to your own website. Tan   &#124;   39  02:38, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * As you well quote: "opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions". If you read my edits to this article, you'll note there are none of those (EXCEPT, of course, the conclusion about Jan/1 having lost its religious meaning, which I've acknowledged it was a mistake). As a matter of fact, I don't even quote directly from my source: I actually wrote everything again, basing myself only on public domain data (the laws themselves), and using a different style and tone.


 * CieloEstrellado's complaint mixes two distinct issues into one, and (IMHO) must be trated separately:


 * 1) Is the "neutrality disputed" tag reasonable? I think not, as the entire article is just a collection of facts with no inconvenient omissions or bias. IMHO, this tag should be removed at once.


 * 2) Is it proper to keep the link to my resource? Perhaps I shouldn't be the one to add it, but would it be kept had a third person added it? Is it good enough by its own merits or not?


 * Actually... turns out it wasn't me who added it in the first place! I've checked the revision history, and my source was added, along with other sources, in the 2008-10-19T21:36:12 revision, by an anonymous editor with the 190.8.122.32 IP address. I DID, however, reinstate the source several times, after CieloEstrellado erased it repeatedly in the war-editing process. My memory failed me when I stated I had added the source (the first time around)... but the revision history shows what actually happened.


 * Mfarah (talk) 03:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Both 190.8.122.32 (the IP you say added your page to the article first) and 190.196.70.195 (your own IP, as seen under "I'm requesting page protection.") belong to the same niche Chilean ISP. Coincidence? ☆ CieloEstrellado 04:03, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Both IP addresses, indeed, belong to GTD Manquehue, which isn't a "niche" ISP, but rather a medium-sized one. So, yes, it's a coincidence. Please stop spreading FUD. Mfarah (talk) 04:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * And the fact that both the IP and you provide similar edit summaries? Another coincidence? ☆ CieloEstrellado 04:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Not too dissimilar from yours, either. Seriously, STOP IT, CieloEstrellado. It seems you're attacking me because you blame me for the blocking you suffered this week. And you still haven't stated WHAT exactly in the article qualifies as "non neutral". Mfarah (talk) 04:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I marked the section "Dates for the year 2009" as non-neutral because it contains the POV phrase: In the past it was a religious holiday (Feast of the Circumcision of Christ), but its original meaning has been lost. ☆ CieloEstrellado 07:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

While trying to stay away from both of your mudslinging, I took another look at the farah.cl site. I have to say that it's hardly the reliable source that is preferred at en.wiki. Perhaps if the material was sourced from the primary material, as seems obvious to do? Cielo, do you have any issue with the material itself, or just the addition of the farah.cl link? Tan  &#124;   39  05:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean by "material". If the site farah.cl is determined to be unfit for Wikipedia, other sources should be found to replace it. Laws and decrees published on official sites are reliable sources for this purpose. ☆ CieloEstrellado 07:53, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't understand you. You erased links to exactly that kind of sources several times during your war-editing. Perhaps this time around you won't erase any edits I make where I link to www.leychile.cl, www.bcn.cl or www.diariooficial.cl? Those are as official as they can get... Mfarah (talk) 15:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Tan, you say we should source from the primary material... yet that's exactly what I did. I added links to the official source (online laws at www.leychile.cl) in several revisions, but they were erased several times by CieloEstrellado's war-editing (odd behaviour for someone who insists on authoritative sources):
 * - Revision 2009-04-07T14:54:58 adds a link to law 20,148. It was first erased by CieloEstrellado's revision 2009-04-10T05:10:12.
 * - Revision 2009-06-13T22:17:17 adds a link to law 20,354.
 * - Revision 2009-06-14T21:37:46 adds links to laws 18,700, 18,116, 19,116 and 19,790. It was first erased by CieloEstrellado's revision 2009-06-16T21:17:45.


 * I've wanted to add more information that doesn't need to link to my own (secondary) source, but rather directly on the primary one, but there are two problems:
 * 1) CieloEstrellado's war-editing has forced me to focus on correcting the factually wrong data that he's insisted on writing in (you can see my message to him in this very page, two sections above this one).
 * 2) Not all older laws are (yet) online at said site( for example, laws 18,018, 18,026, DFL 130, and others). You have to go to the www.diariooficial.cl website to read the scanned copies ("raw material", if you will) of the old editions of the Diario Oficial. I didn't add direct links to that site because I was told not to (when I published my investigation), and I assumed that site's policy would be the same towards Wikipedia. A solution is to simply add something like "Diario Oficial #34902, published 31/12/2005" as a reference, but I haven't had the time to do it (see problem #1).


 * By the way, Tan, you're the very first person in more than a year to have a negative opinion about my page. Please tell me (in a private message, if you prefer so) what needs to be done to improve whatever it is that you don't like.


 * Mfarah (talk) 15:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Disputed content
I have appended this source from the article with a  tag because it does not serve to back up the following statement found in the "Meaning of the January 1 holiday" subsection: However, nowadays (as of 2009) it's widely celebrated as the (civic) New Year holiday. The preceding phrase is meant to refer to Chile's case, but the disputed source was referring to New Year celebrations abroad, mainly Europe and other Christian nations, not just Chile.

Following the same criteria, I have also removed the following statement next to the January 1 holiday in the table: In the past it was a religious holiday (Feast of the Circumcision of Christ), but its original meaning has been lost (see What's the January 1 holiday about?). The whole backing and explanation for the preceding phrase was to be found in the "What's the January 1 holiday about?" subsection (now renamed "Meaning of the January 1 holiday"), but as already mentioned in my previous paragraph, that assertion is not properly referenced.

Please keep in mind that I'm not disputing the quality of the source itself, as it is perfectly valid under Wikipedia policy. I'm disputing that the source's content does not serve to back up that specific phrase in the article. Pristino (talk)


 * I reviewed your edits, and I don't fully agree with them (no surprise there ;-) ). You're right about the Velis-Mesa blog entry, but the rest of the paragraph discusses the laws involved, painting a fuller picture (law 2.977 DOES treat the Jan/1 holiday as a religious one: see article 2, where it lists it and several others and states "Estas festividades relijiosas podrán ser modificadas por el Presidente de la República, en virtud de concordato con la Santa Sede." ["These religious festivities can be modified by the President in accord to a concordat with the Holy See."]). All the references can be easily verified to an official source (www.leychile.cl and www.diariooficial.cl).


 * I've looked around for more references, and I found the article "LO SAGRADO COMO RAÍZ DE LA FIESTA", available at http://humanitas.cl/html/biblioteca/articulos/d0182.html, that talks about religious festivities in Chile in the XVII/XVIII century and states: "Por medio de las fiestas fijas, el año quedaba enmarcado y compartimentado por una red sagrada que se iniciaba en enero con la Circuncisión del Señor y concluía en diciembre con las fiestas de Navidad." (emphasis added). There are a LOT of Google hits for "año nuevo en chile", but I'll use this one that seems nice and historical enough: http://www.ligamar.cl/histo.htm states: "En 1952, por iniciativa de uno de sus directores, don Ernesto Dighero Lajaña, organizó y dio vida al espectáculo pirotécnico "Año Nuevo en el Mar" que se realiza desde esa época en la bahía de Valparaíso. En el año 1962 esta actividad es traspasada a la Ilustre Municipalidad de Valparaíso.".


 * So, I propose to reinstate everything as it was, adding these two references. If need be, we could add two more that talk about traditional new year activities: http://joeskitchen.com/chile/blogcito/2009/12/tradiciones-del-ano-nuevo-en-chile/ and http://www.elamaule.cl/admin/render/noticia/23718 . Pristino, what do you think?


 * Mfarah (talk) 15:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not disputing the New Year holiday may have had a religious meaning originally in Chile and there are enough sources to prove it, as you point out. What I'm disputing is that there are no sources to prove that this religious meaning "has been lost", as you put it. The fact that newer laws don't link the New Year holiday to a religious meaning, does not cut it, in my view. Pristino (talk) 17:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Now I understand you better. That said, we face a problem: how do you prove a negative fact? In our current culture, Jan/1 is about New Year, and no mention is made whatsoever of the older Feast of the Circumcision (heck, I didn't know it until I began my research on chilean holidays); every media report or news segment or whatever broadcast or published talks about new year but not the Circumcision; people just don't go to church on Jan/1. Google "feriado del 1 de enero" and you'll get a lot of "new year" hits but little if anything about the Feast of the Circumcision. And while I'm talking only about Chile, this seems to apply to the rest of the western countries as well.


 * So, should we just include several different references that mention "New Year" and point out how they omit "Circumcision"? (like the ones I already quoted)


 * Mfarah (talk) 20:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You cannot prove something by omission on Wikipedia, or at least you shouldn't. You have to find a reliable source that says very clearly and unambiguously that this original religious meaning "has been lost" in Chile. Pristino (talk) 01:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Banking Holiday: let's NOT erase it.
Pristino: I think it's not a good idea to exclude the year-end banking holiday: it IS a national-wide holiday that is widely considered part of the holidays list for any given year. Also, the List of holidays page lists banking holidays for other countries (Canada, Gibraltar, Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and United Kingdom), and several national holiday pages list them as well (Australia (which also counts regional banking holidays), India, et cetera). I fail to see why only Chile should have its banking holiday cut away.

Please let's discuss this before doing any further modification.

Mfarah (talk) 01:05, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It is not a nation-wide holiday in the sense that most of the working population in the country are given the day off, as in the rest of the holidays in the table. Banks close down, that's it. Remember this is a list of "national holidays" as the introduction says, not holidays for specific sectors of the economy or the population. Pristino (talk) 16:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Still, it DOES have an effect on the general population (banks are closed). This is a list of public holidays in Chile (title says so), not just national. For that matter, if any of the bills that propose to create regional holidays (september 8 in Antofagasta, september 21 in Magallanes, october 30 in O'Higgins, etc.), should become law, will you also oppose to include them? I think erasing the banking holiday from this article would damage the quality of its information.


 * If the "national" word in the introduction bothers you, it will be a simple matter of correcting that phrase. Something like "This is a list of public holidays (national or otherwise) in Chile; most of them are Christian holidays.". What do you think?


 * Mfarah (talk) 13:48, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It's been 10 days since my last message. I'll go forward with my proposal, since it seems you don't oppose it.


 * Mfarah (talk) 13:45, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think if you're going to start adding regional holidays or sector-specific holidays, it would be wise to make a separate table altogether. Pristino (talk) 16:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. Actually, there is ONE such instance: August 20 is a schools-only holiday ("feriado escolar") that's valid only in the communes ("comunas") of Chillán and Chillán Viejo. I've known about it since before my first edit to this page, but I've never included it, as I think it's not important enough.


 * I also think your most-recent edit is a good addition, as it clarifies the concept of "banking holiday". I'm glad this issue has been resolved.


 * Mfarah (talk) 22:14, 29 May 2010 (UTC)