Talk:World Toilet Day

Planned improvements
@User:RobynWaite13: I have put your suggestions on the talk page here, just to show you how the talk page can be used: "I think the background section could be filled out a little more. I am also not sure about the section on environmental aspects in its current form. Perhaps I can go ahead and add info on the 2015 theme and key messages that might get some of what I think this section is getting at better. One key message will be on the use of innovation and toilets for better nutrition and sanitation - so this will cover some of the technology pieces I think the section on environmental aspects is attempting to get at." - Your ideas sound good to me, please go ahead. The important thing is always to add good references (sources) to statements that you are adding, if possible. EvM-Susana (talk) 09:26, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed! When I looked at this page, it didn't read as well as the MHD or GWD pages. The reason for the day is important, too. And don't worry about references being perfectly formatted. I and other editors go back to pages we watch and clean up bare urls and incomplete references. A link is better than nothing. @User:RobynWaite13 @EvM-Susana Megalibrarygirl (talk) 13:37, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Background is important but it shouldn't be too detailed as that background is found on the page about sanitation and WASH and open defecation. - How do you like the page on World Water Day as a comparison (it also needs more work).EvM-Susana (talk) 13:59, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok great! I will add the 2015 theme :) Thanks for your help. RobynWaite13 (talk) 14:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Everyone - just a note to say that I am going to be working on the background section of this page over the next week. I also think it would be good to create a heading for "Annual Themes" where we can describe the relevance of themes in a bit more detail for each year. This will keep a good historical log of what happens each WTD from now on. I will start filling in. I am not sure about the current "examples of activities" section - just because it is currently quite limited and something we can add later perhaps - also the WTD website has/ will have loads of examples so directing people to that might be ok for now. Are you happy for me to delete that? Cheers RobynWaite13 (talk) 10:36, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, good to see you back! :-) Are you part of the group that was mentioned here, working on communications for World Toilet day? I agree with you that that particular Malaysia example looks odd on its own - go ahead and delete it. However, it would be useful to have a more general list of activity examples there - what are the kinds of activities and which kinds of organizations organise those and with which participants? Then perhaps 1-2 examples for each (if we have secondary references to back it up, e.g. newspaper articles would be fine). The full list of activities can then be found on the official website which is linked to under "External links".EvM-Susana (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Elizabeth :) Thanks - good to be back. Yes I am supporting on WTD again this year where I can. I have made edits to the background section. Let me know your thoughts (I think my referencing is a bit off but I will keep practicing). I will add to annual themes next week. Yes I think having examples would be great (just having one is a little strange). I'll plan to add a good starting list at a later date as well (maybe after the WTD website launch where examples will be listed as well - we can draw from this). RobynWaite13 (talk) 08:45, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Robyn (RobynWaite13) Thanks for making the edits! (as a tip: please make larger edits in step-wise manner and leave an edit summary each time to explain why you have changed something - e.g. I wasn't sure why you had replaced large chunks of text?). Other points: yes, there is a problem with three references, see in red in the reference list. Can you please fix that? I didn't know which references you wanted there otherwise I could have done it for you (please e-mail me if you don't now how to "reuse" references). Make sure you add hyperlinks to existing Wikipedia pages where they first appear in the text (but not each time, e.g. it is not necessary to hyperlink the word "sanitation" each time it appears in the text. I think it's important to provide a link to handwashing - I have done that now, it could perhaps be strengthened. - Please always remember you are not writing an advocacy piece here, a sentence like "much remains to be done" is not suitable. You are meant to write objective, encyclopaedic content where most of what you write can be traced to a cited source.- Can you also leave a note on the SuSanA discussion forum here to invite others to get involved here (and to explain your role in the process)? Thanks! EvM-Susana (talk) 10:59, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I will fix the references ASAP. I was entering them manually so must have missed something in the code. I will play around to make sure I am doing it right. I have also removed some repeat links throughout the text. Sorry for the slightly advocacy bit at the end - Glad you removed it and I like the bits of additions you have made throughout - the section is looking good. On replacing large chunks of text I really tried to use what was already there. All the concepts have remained, but I did re-gig things so that the section read well still with the additions. Can you link me to a good example of using a step wise approach for edits. I will use that moving forward. And sure - Let's add to Susanna and get more contributors! RobynWaite13 (talk) 13:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * These are great ideas, Robyn and Elisabeth. We have someone in the WorkRoom right now who is taking a look at the page. That "C-class" ranking is pretty motivating.PlanetCare (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Child deaths from diarrhea
''(Copied from above to keep it together) EvM-Susana said: I am surprised about the figure of "only" 1000 child deaths per year. I was familiar with the figure of 1.5 mio child deaths per year from diarrhea (about 4000 per day). Has this figure been corrected downwards? It was in a publication from PATH and Unicef from a few years ago ("why children are still dying from diarrhea and what can be done about that"). -

Answer from RobynWaite13: The figure of 4000 per day you mentioned would certainly no longer be accurate (on current estimates just out from the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, and using the 58% of cases of diarrhoea to be linked to WASH stat, it's actually looking more like 800 per day). ''

I am still baffled about the child death data (yes, sorry, I meant to say per day). I double checked on the diarrhea article and there the same figure that I knew of is used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea#Epidemiology "Worldwide in 2004, approximately 2.5 billion cases of diarrhea occurred, which resulted in 1.5 million deaths among children under the age of five" If the new figures suggest that this has been cut down by two thirds by 2015 this would be truly remarkable, are you sure? Or is it perhaps measuring something different, e.g. not the under 5 deathes but the under 1 deaths? If it's true then we'd need to update this figure on a few pages, I think it is mentioned also on the article for open defecation, sanitation, etc. EvM-Susana (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * UNICEF and others are using the "1000" per day figure now (based on 2013 under 5 child deaths see this report for a briefing : http://www.unicef.org/media/files/Levels_and_Trends_in_Child_Mortality_2014.pdf and using 58% to be related to WASH). The sector used to use (and some orgs still do) 88% of all cases of diarrhoea to be related to WASH. This figure is from Safer Water Better Health: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43840/1/9789241596435_eng.pdf but is now seen to be dated. 58% of cases of diarrhoea related to WASH comes from Prüss-Ustün et al (2014) Burden of disease from inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene in low- and middle-income settings: a retrospective analysis of data from 145 countries. Tropical Medicine and International Health. People are starting to use 58 % instead of 88% so that will make a difference as well.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by RobynWaite13 (talk • contribs) 09:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

This article is underrepresented
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? This article needs to have more information from the start of the organization in 2001 to when World Toilet Day Started in 2013. It also needs to show all of the details of the goals and facts about sanitation that is on both of the websites for World Toilet Day and the World Toilet Organizations websites that have many of the facts on it.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Each fact that is on here though is appropriate and has a reliable reference. This is important because this article is underrepresented it would be nice to see more facts about the day and the Organization as a whole on the wiki page. Dlp34 (talk) 17:59, 22 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't think the article needs more facts on sanitation as we already have a separate article on that (sanitation and open defecation). Instead the article should focus a bit more on the World Toilet Day itself: more about the objectives, typical activities and the impact it has, e.g. any information on media attention? Some more links to mainstream media articles that have picked up on it? EMsmile (talk) 22:57, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Let me see what else I can add to it. Many thanks for the suggestions. Kutoid (talk) 04:13, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Photos of Nov 19 events
Photos could tell the story well if we can find "images" that highlight especially interesting or creative WTD activities. That said, the photo of the puppet show leaves a lot to be desired because such a high percentage of the photo is the black sheet.PlanetCare (talk) 02:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes agree. Will include a few for selection. Kutoid (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:38, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The new photos are much better, thanks User:Kutoid. EMsmile (talk) 22:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I like the "Big Squat" photo!  I liked the previous caption better.  I thought the add-on ("the other WTO".) was unnecessary, even confusing.  (I don't get it at all.)  We can't explain that in a caption, so I'm in favor of removing it. The purpose of the caption is to describe the photo, so "the other WTO" isn't relevant at all to the description of the photo.PlanetCare (talk) 19:03, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. Jack Sim likes to talk of his WTO as "the other WTO" - Jack's humor. But I agree, it doesn't need to be in the title. EMsmile (talk) 10:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Further suggested improvements
Can someone please build up the lead a bit? It is meant to be 4 paragraphs long and a summary of the article. It's what people will first see and read when they do Google searches... Also, the new section on activities needs references. EMsmile (talk) 22:08, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Another thing that needs to be improved: There are two sections that could use more references: "Organization at the global level" and "Activities". (see here) We want this article to be on the main page mentioned as "on this day" so need to improve quality before November. EMsmile (talk) 21:02, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

READABILITY: as of 16 November 2017, the lead gets a 50 (which is acceptable) and I do think the lead is now good as a summary of the major points of the whole article. No need to add anything there. I haven't been able to improve readability of the whole article much. It's 40 today, which is an improvement but that still leaves a lot to be desired. Please help if you can.PlanetCare (talk) 14:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

"Great Toilet Battle" on Youtube
This youtube article dated 2022-10-08 is a documentary from Deutsche Welle about the improving sanitation worldwhile. Bill Gates is the presenter and supporter. It would be nice to have a transcript as this would enable listener to search the text for particular words, such as Narendra Modi the prime minister of India. Youtube itself does not appear to have such a search function.

The suggested transcript would be called Draft:Great Toilet Battle MountVic127 (talk) 04:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC) which would be renamed Great Toilet Battle when the transcript is (nearing) completion.