Talk:World Calendar

Disadvantages
I propose the section about the religious objections be expanded into a more general criticism section. A general objection can be more generally based around weekly work and study patterns with respect to celebrations of anniversaries. Most people around the world celebrate anniversaries for many occasions, e.g. birthdays, weddings, memorials for a deceased one, fixed-date religious festivals, national celebrations. And, obviously, such anniversaries can occur on any possible date. With such a calendar, if someone was born on a date which corresponds to a Sunday (with respect to this calendar), he will always have his birthday on a Sunday, and the celebration will always occur on a day of rest (assuming Sunday will still be the day of rest). However, someone born on a Tuesday would always either have to celebrate his birthday on a work day (or celebrate it on another day). Having a year which can start on any day of the week (as in most if not all calendars used worldwide) actually has advantages compared to the proposed alternative.NabilStendardo (talk) 20:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Shire Calendar
Didn't JRR Tolkien publish this very calender earlier? He included it one of his books (which i don't remember). The only difference between it and the world calendar is that tolkien stuch his extra day in the very middle of the year. Wikipedia has an artical about this... --T-rex 20:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The Shire calendar seems more like a Leap Week calendar like the Symmetry454 calendar proposal than the World Calendar, although the Shire includes "other" intercalary days into the calendar to make it "right" and fails to start on January 1, as the World and Gregorian calendars do. Nhprman 01:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Decimal time
Why do we have 24 hours in a day? No, we have 2 sets of 12 hours. No-one says thirteen o’clock. If you say 13 hundred hours, that’s about 52 days. Why don’t we go metric and have 10 months in a year, 36 or 37 days in a month, 10 hours in one day? Then there would be 100 minutes in an hour, and 100 seconds in a metric minute. Then there’s the millis, micros and picos, etc. Time is 2000 years old and needs an upgrade. -- 03:10, 29 December 2005 MichaelJordan


 * Actually base-60 and base-12 in time measurements is a lot older than "200 years". See article decimal time for failed attempts at change. AnonMoos


 * I'm glad the anonymous comment above now suddenly has attribution. I'm also glad that Michael Jordan Wikis! Note that my edit of "Mike's" post recently was simply to "unbold" the text, which was annoying. I do have to say I find a conversion to decimal time, though interesting, highly unlikely, Nhprman 01:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


 * First, your decimal time was tried in early years of the French Revolution. It was scrapped by Napoleon himself.  Second, the military of the US and most European countries do use a 24 hour clock.  One second after 23:59 is 00:00 which means there is no confusion about what is noon and what is midnight.  12:00 is noon and 00:00 is midnight with a 24 hour clock.  See the next comment by Valhalla.  Oh, my watch shows 12:08 but in two more hours it will show 14:08 and I live in the USA.  That is local time without DST.  My computer shows 19:08 because it uses UTC time (no DST).  Third, the seagesimal (base 60) number system is far older than base 10.  In fact most people are shocked to learn just how new the base 10 system is.  The first numerals for it were invented in India.  The Arab mathematician al-Khowarizmi wrote about the decimal numbers in 825 AD but they didn't have a positional system (decimals) at the time.  Florence was passing laws against the Arabic decimal numbers as late as the thirteenth century A.D.  Al-Kashi, the 15th century director of the Samarkand observatory expanded things by showing that negative powers of 10 can denote fractions in base 10 just the same as in base 60.  But for the western world didn't get its final form until 1617 in a book written by Scotsman John Napier.  The source of this information is in the Life Science Library book Mathematics.  Library of Congress Catalog car number 63-18983. hhhobbit (talk)


 * Various western countries use 24 actual hours in a day, so there is someone saying (a direct translation of) thirteen o'clock. Also, timetables are often written with 24 hours (possibly to save the space for the AM/PM characters?). Valhalla 14:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Benefits and problems
"The World Council of Churches later laid out requirements any reformed calendar had to fulfill to be accepted by the Christian churches, which include the uninterrupted seven-day week. [citation needed]"


 * I do wish the person who originated that quote could find a citation, even if it's offline. The person may have been thinking about the Roman Catholic Church (not a WCC member) which DEFINITELY said (at Vatican II in 1963) that any reform must "retain and safeguard a seven-day week with Sunday, without the introduction of any days outside the week, so that the succession of weeks may be left intact."


 * As for the World Council of Churches, in an article noting various attempts of the group to seek a common date for Easter, noted that it opposed breaking up the 7-day week, which the World Calendar does. Here's the link, and the full quote, with a few sentences before and after, for context): Around the same time, discussion was beginning in secular circles especially in Western Europe concerning the possibility of establishing a fixed day for Easter, such as the Sunday following the second Saturday in April, so as to facilitate commercial planning and public activities. In addition, proposals for introducing a new fixed calendar were being advanced, for similar utilitarian reasons. After World War II the context for discussion of such issues changed in several ways. International secular initiatives received little support. The churches were especially opposed to any calendar reform which would break the cycle of the seven-day week. On the other hand, many churches continued to express interest in the idea of a common day, whether movable or fixed, for the celebration of Easter/Pascha." I think this merits mention in the article, and this serves as evidence of the WCC's opposition to blank days, even if it doesn't lay out the guidelines stated in the original notation. - Nhprman List  02:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

While we're at it, can we find a source for the World Calendar official site statement: "The Holy See (Vatican City) itself had endorsed The World Calendar." 

No one thought that inside an decaday, Sabbath may behave like the movable holiday. So succession of 7-day intervals is still preserved, and we have decimal millidays, centidays, decidays, days, decadays, hectodays, kilodays, etc... at once.

Realistic
Concerning this edit : It is not planned to introduce this calender anywhere. Useful as it might be, wile there are no actual intentions to introduce it in a wide scale, calling the end of 2006 a "preview" is rather misleading. In light of that I cannot see how my edit can be considered non-NOPV. Also, doesn't the term "preview" imply some kind of intention? — Mütze 19:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
This really reads like an advertisement. Superm401 - Talk 08:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The World Calendar article is ABOUT The World Calendar, an idea. The history section documents misconceptions and incorrect details that have come and gone during the article’s composition.  If TWC is a good idea and facts that remain are accurate, its unfinished past potentially has a future.  If that tends to sound like promotion (advertising), please specify which portions need review.  User:TWCAdirector – 11:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

World Calendar capitalization
Shouldn't the word "Calendar" be capitalized here, even in the article title? This isn't the "World calendar" which implies that the world possesses it already, but the World Calendar, a copyrighted name of a specific calendar. Ive seen it changed a couple of times to a lower case "c" and I believe that is not warranted. Nhprman List  18:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


 * "The World Calendar" is a proper noun. Elisabeth Achelis was very specific about this.  The page title should be changed to "The World Calendar", but I have not yet sufficiently studied 'Moving a Page'.  The page history should be preserved.  Thank you!  User:TWCAdirector – 19:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Moving a page is pretty straightforward. I'll do it if there are no objections (the page history will be preserved). Jaksmata 21:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This documents The World Calendar copyright thus explaining why the 29 December 2015 title change should be UNDONE. NOTE: Elisabeth Achelis emphasized in her autobiography BE NOT SILENT(Page 87), Copyright 1941:

“In writing the first pamphlet on The World Calendar, Elisabeth insisted on retaining the article “The” in the name NOTE: The World Calendar is copyrighted as whenever it is written. There is only one world calendar –The World Calendar—and there is to be no ambiguity about it. The plan was copyrighted with the article, in fact, it belongs to The World Calendar plan. The article “The” cannot and must not be separated from the name.”

````Ali Lazure — Preceding unsigned comment added by ALI LAZURE (talk • contribs) 16:28, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I already explained on my Talk page that I don’t see why we should violate WP:TITLEFORMAT here. Also, if that’s supposed to be a direct quote from Elizabeth Achelis’ autobiography, I find it strange that she would speak of herself in the third person. — Christoph Päper 21:55, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Reopening this discussion given the last round of edits. As per WP:NCTHE if the article is part of the proper name it should be included in the page title, and this is confirmed by writing on the subject by both Achelis and the association using The World Calendar with a capitalised The, as well as the quote given above. I'll wait a few days to see if there are any objections but this looks to be fairly straightforward. Arcorann (talk) 06:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Regarding the examples in WP:NCTHE, the World Calendar is used much like the United States, therefore lowercase the in prose and not definite article in the lemma. — Christoph Päper 06:54, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The quote supplied above explicitly states otherwise: "The" is part of the title, as in The Old Man and the Sea. Checking the books she wrote (,, - Google Books has her autobiography on snippet view) all consistently capitalise the article in running text. Arcorann (talk) 09:15, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In a proper title, the article would remain and was title-cased, but this only applies to Achelis' work "The World Calendar" published in 1937, not to the calendar design known as the World Calendar. Achelis and her coauthors consistently drop the "The" as soon as they are putting an attribute, most often "perpetual", in front of it, which is evidence that it is not actually part of the name since that would require phrases like "the perpetual The World Calendar". — Christoph Päper 11:13, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out. While there is precedent for keeping the article in this case (e.g. The Beatles) the guideline isn't specific enough to determine what to do in this case, and I haven't made a survey of secondary sources (as an aside, one of the documents in the Journal of Calendar Reform quoted from a Congressional Record about the calendar -- on checking the record itself, I found that it referred to the calendar consistently in lowercase), so I'm willing to accept that as a justification. Arcorann (talk) 09:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

More problems in Benefits and problems
The Benefits and problems section has several problems. Rather than enumerating opposing viewpoints on the calendar, it only advertises the benefits of the calendar. (Maybe the section should be renamed?) It only mentions "problems" in the context of refuting them, in an essay or debate style.

The "proponents" and "supporters" of The World Calendar are obviously those associated with The World Calendar Association, but the "opponents" mentioned are not referenced anywhere. These opponents are supposedly "religious-based" – from other comments on this talk page it would appear to be the WCC – references to relevant information from that organization should be included in the article.

These "facts" are missing references:
 * Opponents point out that intercalary days that are counted outside the usual seven-day week disrupt the traditional weekly cycle.
 * The role of leaders of religions' influence on the U.S. government's decision at the U.N. in 1955 not to recommend further study.
 * The existence/non existence of a scripture stating "Thou shall not worship two consecutive days in a row" and other pseudo-scriptures (This sounds like original research – unless you're quoting somebody notable, these types of arguments have no place in Wikipedia). In any case, the debate writing style used here is inappropriate.
 * Religious-based opponents to The World Calendar object to Sabbath day "drift" that The World Calendar imposes.
 * Who are the people with the "religious-based objection" that Sabbath days have to be exactly 7 days apart? (If the answer is the WCC, do they "lack authority," and if so, reference it.)
 * Notable arguments in favor of or against The Word Calendar that address the day the earth was created, the inviolability of the seven-day week, and the existence/non existence of a solar system equivalent that defines the man-made week. Again, this looks like original research.  Again, the debate writing style used here is inappropriate.

Please keep in mind: Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought, and Wikipedia is not a soapbox. If you are a proponent of The World Calendar, I wish you luck, but keep your personal opinions on your own web site and out of Wikipedia articles.

I don't like the idea of deleting large amounts of information from articles, but this section looks like it needs severe pruning. If this is, as I suspect, just somebody on a soapbox, and nobody supplies references for this section, I'll delete the non-encyclopedic content within a few days. Jaksmata 21:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you, 203.17.70.161, for helping with this before I got back around to it! I'm leaving on the unreferenced tag for now, but at least it doesn't sound like someone's scolding us for not using their calendar any more. Jaksmata 18:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Spelling of intercalary day names
The correct spelling of the intercalary days of the Worlds Calendar are "Worldsday" and "Leapyear Day" not "Worlds Day" and "Leap Year Day" – see the World Calendar Association web site. I don’t know why they spelled them that way, but that’s how it is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jaksmata (talk • contribs) 18:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

Calendar images
A few months ago, I replaced what I thought was a confusing calendar image with a simplified one. The image uploaded by Janezdrilc is unarguably "more concise," but rather than more simple as he suggests, I believe it is more confusing. The image has been added to the article again as an alternate representation of the World Calendar. I'm not going to remove the image twice and spark an edit war, but I am requesting comments from other editors.

I think that the image showing a separate table for each month is easier for an average person to understand, since it resembles traditional calendars as much as possible. On the other hand, the "concise" calendar image breaks tradition by showing days of the week vertically, overlapping months, and using confusing, color-coded footnotes to represent days that the reader has to mentally place into the calendar.

If we really wanted the most concise representation, we could always use something like this oversimplification in C++ format: Weekday = ? Day == Intercalary : Intercalary : ? Month % 3 == 0 : Day % 7 : ? Month % 3 == 1 : Day % 7 + 3 : Day % 7 + 5; But I think it would be inappropriate likewise. ;-) Jaksmata 16:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't contradict removing the lower image of calendar at all. It was my wrong judgement when I replaced the table with picture. I supposed that it is enough understandable, because I know the World Calendar quite well. Now when somebody has setted the new table, I putted the "simplified one" beside, becouse I thought "For those who are not so skilful with calendar is there a "full calendar" table, and for those who are is below "simplified" table. However, I agree the table is easier to be corrected if it's written in C++ than in .png (for example) format. --Janezdrilc 21:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I have made new template, based on Janez's image: Template:World calendar. I think that table is better, because we can add links to other pages. lp, --Mihael Simonic 12:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This was the only article using the template. I've substed it in & I'm deleting it per WP:T3. Jimp 09:41, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

More problems
I see two more problems, which are not mentioned in this article though i can not imagine no one ever brought hem up:
 * 1) Adopting this calender would require a huge investment in existing IT-systems.
 * 2) people have an Infradian rhythm rhythm of 7 days, people would be thrown off twice a year. People in many countries already have their circadian rhythm disturbed by the introduction and ending of summer time

TeunSpaans 20:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, superstitious people may dislike having four Friday the 13ths every year. DanBishop 16:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not much of a problem really. It can be solved by starting the week on Monday instead of Sunday. Even ISO 8601 uses this format. In this way there won't be any unlucky days. However, this calendar does indeed have more problems than mentioned in the section.

Not mentioned under Religious issues is the fact that with the loss of the 7 day cycle by adding spare days... Easter Sunday would move through the days instead of through dates...  Easter Sunday on a Friday??? Good Friday on a Tuesday??? Blimey, this would get confusing. Bat King


 * The note by TeunSpaans about the huge investment in IT systems is enough to settle the whole idea of achieving any benefit by adopting this calendar. This article ignores the reality that such IT costs would never be undertaken by any sensible business. It would be like buying underwater breathing apparatus and flippers so you could dive into the pit below an outhouse and retrieve a dime you saw falling into it. The Y2K problem was about a measly 2-digit extension to a year, and it cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fix. This reform would change all logic and assumptions that are part of today's computer programs that deal with dates. If the thing couldn't be implemented in its first few decades, it sure isn't going anywhere now that the IT cost alone would be in the trillions. The Y2K problem could not be delayed, but the World Calendar can certainly be delayed. It would take a crazed dictator to decree its adoption, but why wouldn't such a lunatic instead implement a 17-month  calendar, with the 21-day months named after his favorite relatives? Lastly, have you ever heard of a company going out of business because it had to buy a new calendar ever year and couldn't afford it? I get 5 or 6 free ones every year from small businesses that feel they profit from the good will. Chris the speller (talk) 16:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The general problem of calendar change-over costs is almost always overstated. The Y2K problem was dealt with over 15 years, once people realized what was going to happen, and by 2000, 95% of consumers and most businesses had upgraded their computers to newer models that took the extra digits into account. Changing computer software to account for a new calendar requires a patch with new coding, and that's not a huge issue (many computers today can be equipped to display any calendar one wants them to display - Gregorian, Jewish, Islamic, etc.) Changing to a new calendar would also theoretically be done over a decade or more, giving more than enough time to convert - just like we in America have a year or more to get new HDTVs or a conversion box. That said, this particular calendar, with its "off-calendar" days, is deeply flawed and may very well cause computer issues, but it's doubtful they would be insurmoutable or cost "trillions" to fix. - Nhprman 14:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary Religious Details
I'm bothered by the unnecessary (and asymmetrical) exposition of religious practices in the "objections" section:

" Jews worship on Saturday, the Sabbath Day, on the basis of the Ten Commandments' injunction to "Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8). Christians worship on Sunday, the Lord's Day, on which they believe Christ rose from the dead. Although for Muslims worshiping Allah (Arabic word for God) 5 times a day is compulsory on all seven days of the week, Friday is marked special because of the Jum'ah (Arabic word for Friday) prayer that cannot be performed individually and must be attended in Masjid (Arabic word for Mosque) or other open places of public gathering. In addition to this, Qur'an also tells that Friday was the day Adam was made."

I think it's sufficient to point out that, by the tenants of the Abrahamic religions, specific weekly religious observances are required. The level of detail given for Islam comes across as religious instruction.

I don't usually edit Wiki articles, and I'm going to leave it to the regular monitors to see if they concur and to change this if they agree. 66.74.34.204 (talk) 08:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)L.M.Toxteth

Two related Articles
Two articles dealing with related subjects - calendar reform, a uniform date for Easter and date notations are at

http://users.bigpond.net.au/renton/301.htm and http://users.bigpond.net.au/renton/302.htm

Nercat (talk) 09:25, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Two articles on one calendar?
The English Wikipedia has two articles, Armelin's calendar (1887, Gustave Armelin) and World Calendar (Elisabeth Achelis, 1930.), which describe the same calendar. Why two articles? Kalendar (talk) 10:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * In this calendar, first month is 31 days. in the other, third month. yoisef yitzchok-talk, 18 Shevat 5781. 07:25, 31 January 2021 (UTC)