User talk:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs

Month-day links
I disagree with the assessment that they should only be linked "rarely". Of those supporting links to be made "sometimes" those expressing the opinion they should be made rarely only represents 23% of the "sometimes" view (23% of the 52.5% who supported "sometimes"). I'm not against mentioning that opinion, but it doesn't represent the overall view at all. Also worth mentioning is that a portion of those supporting "sometimes" also expressed an opinion that biography articles should link birth/death dates. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I looked at the actual comments, and most of them seemed to say something along the lines of "rarely" or "only in articles about annual events"; I will revisit that statement though. I added a bit about some people wanting birth and death dates. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * How about "on a limited basis and only when relevant"? Dabomb87 (talk) 22:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems more reasonable. Another possibility: "sometimes, but only when relevant". —Locke Cole • t • c 22:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. I'll wait for more editors' input. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I was amazed that such a small proportion seemed to be 'rarely' as that was the impression I got. So I extracted the frequency (as best I could) from the 61 (as I counted) comments. I found 18 'rarely' but that's 30%, In addition there was an 'almost never' and a 'With the exception of articles about chronological items, never'; also 'several cases, none of which is overwhelmingly common'; then there were 'pretty rare' and 'extremely rare'; 'sparingly'; 'not very many instances'; 'once in a while'; 'Generally, don't link'; 'not linking should be the general rule'. I would suggest that's more like 28/61 = 46%. However, you may interpret those comments differently - or may wish to exclude things like 'With the exception of articles about chronological items' on the basis they are not rare (they are are rare only when compared to the total number of articles). But then that raises the question of what commentators meant by rare.
 * It is interesting that of the 33 comments that were not within those mentioned above, 'treat dates just like other words'/'relevant'/'in context' was the theme in 11 of those.
 * Only other 1 commentator directly supported Locke's position by stating 'do not need to be directly relevant to the article'. However, to try to be even-handed, there was a 'plenty of cases' and a 'a good liberal sprinkling in most articles' comments as well.
 * Of course, if I wanted to squeeze a consensus out of this section of the RfC, I could suggest that a lumping of "never/rarely/only per WP:Context" would yield a !vote of 52+28+11 = 91 out of 120 (76%). I don't expect anyone to take that seriously though. --RexxS (talk) 02:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I noticed at least one instance of "rarely" being used in a sentence where it's use was actually the opposite of the other people using "rarely". I'm not sure if you manually scanned each !vote (which is what I did) or if you did a "Find" in your browser and counted the unique hits, but if you did it's possible you hit upon "rarely" being used in a manner inconsistent with other uses. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't count !votes, but my impression is much as in Dabomb's, although (as I noted below) it's unclear whether "year-in-field" articles were intended as "chronological".  (Sorry, Locke, that's the way I see it.) — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out, Locke. I actually read through each one and copied a phrase that I thought characterised it into a separate line on a text-editor. I can post it here if you like? I did spot Shakescene's use of 'rarely' and discounted it - I had him down as a 'Sometimes'. Hope that helps --RexxS (talk) 18:18, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

a different month-day question
first of all thanks for doing this, Dabomb. my doubts are about the proposed statements that month-day links are appropriate in "Articles about holidays that fall on the same day every year (Ex: Christmas Day, April Fools' Day, Cinco de Mayo)" and "In very limited instances where linking to such an article would provide a global and historical context (Ex: Armistice Day)". i'm aware from the RfCs and from some of the discussions that preceded them that some editors have expressed the view that (for example) the Armistice Day article would benefit from a link to 11 November, the Cinco de Mayo article (for example) would benefit from a link to 5 May, etc - but i've never seen anyone explain what the perceived benefit of such links is. (i have seen a suggestion a couple of times that highlighting important dates in blue looks nice, but is that an accepted/acceptable way to use links?) it would be great if someone could outline what purposes such links are seen to serve in such articles - thanks Sssoul (talk) 06:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * ... it would still be really helpful to hear what the perceived value of month-day links is in articles about holidays that fall on the same day every year. does anyone know? thanks Sssoul (talk) 08:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I myself am not quite sure ... I just wrote that because there seemed to be agreement on that usage of month-day links. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:23, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * thanks - i know some editors are in favour of it, but i didn't realize any "agreement" had been reached about it.
 * if someone could explain what the perceived benefit of such links would be, that would be great - thanks. Sssoul (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really a formal agreement, but the community seemed to espouse this view at Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * thanks. maybe i'm missing something: i see something like 12-14 people saying they support month-day links in articles about annual events like holidays, and no one says why. if it's going to be accepted that "the community espouses" this, it would be good to hear what the rationale is.  sure the date is important in such an article; but what does a link to a list of other events on the same date add?  is it just for highlighting? Sssoul (talk) 16:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Month-day links in "year-in-field"
I didn't see much discussion on month-day links in "year-in-field" articles; a plausible interpretation is that at least some of the people who mentioned "year" articles thought it would apply to "year-in-field" articles, as well. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That was my take also. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I will soon deliver an analysis of the "detailed" RfCs. Tony   (talk)  09:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking forward to it. I don't mean for it to be a detailed analysis, just an feeler survey of consensus. I wish that someone would offer feedback on the proposed date linking guidelines, though. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Year-in-field links
I didn't really see a consensus between the #See also and seealso in sections. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you point to me where this discussion was? Dabomb87 (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The only discussion I can recall is in the WT:MOSNUM archives and in RfC2 Q5 (or was it 6) (parts a-d). I didn't see a clear consensus, but some of the people (such as me) listed in the See Also section thought that the best options was seealso in the appropriate section, rather than a list at the end.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Found the discussion; I put something in along those lines. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It's still unworkable, in my opinion, to require the creation of articles or redirects for 1492 in exploration (for Columbus) or 33 in religion (for Jesus) or 1066 in invasions (for the Normans) or 65,500,000 BCE in biology (for the dinosaurs). It's completely impractical in the vast majority of pre-20th century articles, and almost any topic that's not pop-culture related (i.e. "X in baseball", "X in televsion", etc.). -- Kendrick7talk 19:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you explain this statement? I said nothing of the sort, and this is certainly not Arthur and I were discussing. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:16, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's just that not that many important events occur in any given year in any given field over the course of mankind's history, so I don't believe this is particularly viable as a "whenever possible" solution -- it's possible to create any of those articles I redlined, but it would be braindead. Anyway, I'm not sure what the purpose of this page is, I just thought I'd reiterate this point somewhere. -- Kendrick7talk 22:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Would it be better to say "when it makes sense to link to a year-in-field link"? The purpose of this page is to provide some kind of summary on the consensus on the RfCs, which had not been done at all, and also to draft new chronological linking guidelines. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:29, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be much better. Do we even have a canonical list of "fields" to chose from, though? There's not really anything like the Dewey Decimal system around here.
 * Anyway, I'll watchlist this page, but I don't know how much will get done until ArbCom lays down the law a bit, which could take another month. I wasn't really paying attention to this since throwing up my hands October, but this "chronological" approach is moving in the right direction. -- Kendrick7talk 23:10, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, after the Rfar started, I figured that there was no point in further drafting guidelines when this dispute is still ongoing. Any feedback is welcome. I revised to: "Link to year-in-field links whenever said links' content would be more relevant to the subject than plain year links." Here is the link you requested List of '2000 in' articles. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, right, and Category:Year lists is even a higher-level overview, but it looks like we still only go back to the mid-1990s there (the sub-categories just seem to be a few pet projects: piracy? ornithology? it's kinda LOL). Anyway, it reflects a bit of a WP:RECENTism mindset, which is OK with me per WP:PAPER. I'll certainly pay attention to this when I'm editing more current events. -- Kendrick7talk 23:40, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

RfC-based summary
Dabomb87, to what extent is your Summary of the RfCs truly a “summary of the RfCs” and to what extent—if any—do you think it contains negotiated concessions in an effort to achieve a compromise? How about holidays? Is there a consensus, as evidenced by the past and ongoing RfCs, for linking dates that are holidays? If an event pertaining to Madam Curie happen to occur on February 16th (Presidents Day this year), is February 16th to be linked so that readers can lean the following: (?)

I suppose, if links are supposed to be topical and germane to the subject matter, one could argue that Madam Curie was Polish by birth but had French citizenship. So middle C in France… ;-)

Besides holidays, might there be some departures from a narrowly focused interpretation of what is the current community consensus?

Please leave me a short note (or full answer) on my talk page so I can be cognizant of your reply at the earliest opportunity. Greg L (talk) 03:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * When I mention linking dates that are holidays, I am only referring to linking dates in holiday articles, not ordinary articles. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC). For example, April 1 would be linked in April Fools Day, nothing more. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. I’m don’t know myself if that’s a good idea or not. Naw, I’d say I don’t have a problem with it. Still… The RfCs break down when it comes to details and gray areas; so are you saying that a fair interpretation of the RfCs reveals a consensus for this? Or are you simply doing your best to flesh out detail on an aspect where the RfCs provide no clear guidance? I receive e-mails from editors. I’m just trying to understand. Greg L (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)