Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years/Archive 2

Expanding birth and death listings
For those who want to expand the listings on year pages, People by year offers a report on how many people listed in the year categories are also listed on the year pages (1800-2004).

On 2004 October 13, the percentages range:
 * for births: from 0% (e.g. none of the 3 births in Category:1993 births is listed on 1993) to 100% (2004)
 * for deaths: from 2% (1858) to 36% (1962).

As the report just checks if the article in the category is directly linked from the year page, articles linked through redirects or listed in the events section get miscounted.

BTW the report is at People by year/Reports/Stats.

-- User:Docu

Headings for Ancient History
The template, while reasonable for the modern age, is unwieldy for those years which find themselves relatively empty of events (or perhaps I should say modern knowledge of events). The unintentional result is that the header is larger then the list of events, and thus, looks strange and ridiculous. There are also four seperate edit boxes for three to seven lines of text sometimes, straining reality even more. I have edited and looked at hundreds of these years, most of my work done primarily in the 800s, 900s, 1100s and 1200s and in those backwaters this template has been replaced most of the time with a bolding of Events, Births and Deaths instead of the larger versions. While this is holding up for most of it, User:Docu has recently brought it to my attention that this template is being violated and I am violating it on many edits, trying to eliminate the spare large headings in the midst of forests of smaller ones. I submit that this smaller template be used for those years with few events and births known to us, and the larger template be left to years of fuller knowledge. --The Grza 01:29, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

(I set 908 to the template to show the insanity of the template for these years.)--The Grza 01:35, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)


 * The template you favor is in fact the older version of this template. Many pages that haven't been edited since still have it. Personally, I tend to agree that three section headers aren't optimal in pages with little content, but I still favor consistency and would keep them. A better sample for using bolded letter might be 900, as 908 doesn't have any content at all anyways (at least when you set it to the template). If 908 wasn't a year page, it would already have been deleted.
 * BTW depending on the skin the three headers look more or less imposing and an easy way to add at least something to 908 is Category:908 deaths (there is no subcategory for Category:Births by year for 908. -- User:Docu

Ancient years, decades, and centuries
I have been toiling in obscurity in the mid-12th century, and was hoping someone would stop by and have a look. Currently I've completed year articles 1249 through 1267, and the decade article 1250s. I'm particularly interested in what people think of the 1250s article, in which I've taken the following (unusual) steps:
 * Added a couple paragraphs discussing the decade's major events in an easy-to-read prose form;
 * Categorized the most (but not all) of the decade's events into themes so they are more easily parsed (I tried to leave out really inconsequential events that made year articles just because we don't know anything else that happened that year); and
 * Picked out only the most important / noteworthy births and deaths, rather than list all of the known births / deaths in the decade.

(Also, I've tried to add relevant pictures to the year articles to make them more visually interesting. What do you think?)

My goal is to create a system where people can "zoom out" from year to decade to century to get a good sense of a particular time in history. For example, if a reader reads only 1257, he would have no idea that one of the dominating trends in that decade was the Mongol expansion; by using the "for broader historical context" links at the top of the page, he is directed to see 1250s which summarizes in prose the two main themes in the decade as (basically) "Mongol expansion in Asia; cultural changes in Europe". Eventually, he could zoom out to 13th century and see the time he is interested in in the context of historical eras and ages, and very broad political and cultural changes.

Since this is somewhat different than existing usage of decade and century pages, I was hoping to get some feedback from this group. Thanks! - Bryan is Bantman 21:30, May 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * Another question I have -- for early years such as these, dates of birth and death are often unknown. What is the appropriate way to order births and deaths within a given year?  I have either been putting more significant people first, or ignoring the problem and putting them in in the order I find them.  I suppose alphabetically is NPOV, but it's hard to put minor barons high on the list and bury popes, kings, and emperors in the middle.


 * A related question is for people whose year of birth or death is uncertain. For "born c. xxxx", I put them in that year only; I think that's relatively straightforward.  The question is for those with "born xxxx or xxxx+1" dates; should they be included in both year articles, the earliest or latest year by convention, or excluded altogether? - Bryan is Bantman 21:36, May 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * In my opinion if year of birth or death is uncertain, leave the person out of the list in the year. The article is about the year, after all.  However, adding it in the proper decade may be feasible.  Sholtar 23:00, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Is vs. Was
I noticed that almost all of the years say "(year) is a common year..." as opposed to "(year) was a common year..." A couple that I've noticed say was but the consensus goes with is. I think this is incorrect. As the year has already occurred, it should be was. The current year at any given time could say is, or even better in my opinion could have something special saying "(year) is the current year, and is..." or something to that effect. Future years could say will be. I think that this would be more grammatically correct and would probably read better as well. Any opinions? If nobody's against it for a couple weeks I'll go through and change them all. Sholtar 23:17, May 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that for events in a given year, it is standard to use the present tense. In that sense, it is consistent to use the present tense in describing the year itself. Grammatically, we're in for a semantically confusing discussion; but my opinion is that past years continue to exist as descriptors of historical periods, and therefore present tense is appropriate.  As an example, I'll use another period and another verb -- it is clear that "The Stone Age describes the period of prehistory when stone tools were prevalent" is better than "The Stone Age described...", because the phrase "stone age" is still a good descriptor of that (past} period.  There is no reason we can't replace "Stone Age" in the above example with "1953", or "describes" with "is"; the grammar is preserved. Just one man's opinion. - Bryan is Bantman 23:41, May 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah I was thinking of it from that perspective as well. However, while you can replace "Stone Age" with "1953," I'm not so sure about replacing "describes" with "is."  I don't know for sure from a grammatical standpoint, but it would seem to me that "describes" is kind of like the phrase venir de, meaning "just," in French.  It takes the present tense but can describe the past tense.  Again, I'm not sure if this is true from a grammatical standpoint but that's how it seems to me.  In addition... "was" just seems to sound better to me. Sholtar 02:34, May 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * In addition, another thing I just realized... "describes" refers to the definition as a term, whereas "is" refers to the object itself. Sholtar 02:35, May 19, 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps we can all vote at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years/Survey. I certainly find "is" confusing, it seems as though the year is still ongoing. --Commander Keane 06:56, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Calendar links
All of the years link to a calendar of that year in the heading, where they say this year is a common/leap year starting on (day of the week). Some of them have a little parenthetical remark saying (link takes you to calendar). Others don't. I recommend standardizing this by having none of them link to it or have the parenthetical remark, and instead have on the line below or in some other convenient location a note saying "(year) calendar," or, "A calendar for (year)," or something else to that effect. They would retain the phrase saying that it is a common/leap year, etc. but would link to the article about common/leap year and the article about that day of the week. What do you think? Sholtar 03:56, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Any opinions on this? I also think the calendars in the article itself really, really need to go. They make the articles look horrible and they're quite pointless. Sholtar | talk 03:29, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * Unless there are any opinions on this soon I'm going to remove the calendars from the articles themselves, probably tomorrow. Sholtar | talk 19:14, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Unnecessary duplication
I recently noticed that the 'year in topic' sections contain a lot of the events that are already in the respective cutoff pages (xxxx in television/film/music, etc). Not only that, but while the events in the other pages are regularly updated, the events in the main year page haven't, meaning they've been left like that for about two years now. For example, compare this event from 1939 in television:


 * September 1 - The anticipated outbreak of World War II brings television broadcasting at the BBC to an abrupt end at 12:10 p.m. at the conclusion of the Mickey Mouse cartoon, Mickey’s Gala Première. The last words broadcast are of a Garbo caricature saying "Ah tink ah kiss you now". It was feared that the VHF waves of television would act as a perfect homing signal for guiding enemy bombers to central London: in any case, the engineers of the television service would be needed for the war effort, particularly for RADAR. The BBC would resume its broadcasting, with the same Mickey Mouse cartoon, after the war in 1946.

...to the same event in the 'Year in topic' section of 1939:


 * September 1 - As World War II began, BBC television abruptly stopped its broadcasting in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon (The BBC would resume its broadcasting at that same point after the war in 1945)

Not only is the 1939 version much shorter, but it's also inaccurate (1945 instead of 1946, interrupted in the 'middle' instead of at the conclusion, etc). Therefore, I suggest we remove all the events listed in the Year in Topic sections, and just have a list directing visitors to the respective cutoff pages. There's no point in updating the events, as that would just cause even more needless duplication. Agreed? BillyH 8 July 2005 11:54 (UTC)


 * I think the way to go here is to eliminate the "Year in topic" section from the page entirely, and leave it up to the reader to go to the more specific pages through the box at the top of the page. If anything is very notable from these pages it will be in the events section anyways.Trevor MacInnis 23:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, that sounds good. I'll start removing the sections now. BillyH 01:38, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

new standards
Since most of the layouts of millennia, centuries, decades, and years pages in the history timeline do not look like the standard proposed here. I will be taking it upon myself to rewrite the standards (and even suggest a few new ones. Nav boxes seem to be accepted, so I'll start with those (example at right).Trevor MacInnis 19:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

My proposals
Since many pages now have Nav boxes (see: 1920s, 1924, 20th century, 2nd millennium), i propose that these are the new standard. In the past these boxes were each written out by hand, but I propose an Infobox template for each type which could be edited to keep them all the same. You can see these Infoboxes at my page here and their practical use at 3rd millennium, 21st century, 2005, and 1990s.

You can see some flexibility built into the boxes. For example the yearbox infobox can be placed at 2005 and also at 2005 in music.

I have made this edit at Timeline standards as well. Trevor MacInnis 19:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Shorter boxes
millennia

centuries

year

year in topic box
Since it links to the least articles so far, I've updated the 21st Century year in topic box to align with the new yearbox. Example below, which you can see in action at 2005:

Trevor MacInnis 01:21, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Survey
In order to focus everyones thinking, I think a survey is in order. Check it out here, and ask anybody you think might be interested to check it out. The more people respond the better we can respond to the answers. And add any questions you think needing answers.Trevor MacInnis 02:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Project template
Should a project template in talk page of each year article (like from Talk:1997 etc) direct people to this project? --Commander Keane 07:05, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I've made one YearsProject and have started putting it out there, but the are soooo many years to go. - Trevor MacInnis 16:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Timeline Infoboxs in cell form
In order to connect the different boxes and make things look better (and easier to put on new pages) I've tried out a new form where the boxes are individual cells within and overall infobox. This is based upon the form used on Mountain pages such as Matterhorn.

The format would be as follows


 * this template "opens" the box
 * millenniabox test, yearbox test, decadebox test, centurybox test, C21YearInTopic these templates fill the box in. Any combination can be used. (Note: At the moment the YearInTopic template has to come last, and if it does the infobox finish does not need to be used, but I would change this if put into use so that the YearInTopic box could be placed anywhere and the next box is required.)
 * This template closes the box.

Some examples are:

or:

or:

- Trevor MacInnis 01:09, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * This proposed form never recieved any support and I will be deleting the templates shortly. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 22:31, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Years
This is a serious issue that I think should be addressed. Why are the year pages referenced in BC and AD, and searching for BCE gives you a redirect, when really, searching for "4 BC" should redirect you to "4 BCE"? And if I'm looking for the year 4 CE, 4 AD will redirect me to 4, but 4 CE won't get me anywhere. The pages of specific years should really be using the universally accepted neutral form of BCE and CE, as the use of BC and AD in any article is usually considered offensive by anyone who doesn't feel the need to organize history around the supposed birth of a Jew named Joshua (also known as Jesus). I don't know if it's possible to do a massive rehaul of pages and just change every single date to neutral form, but any input is appreciated. Sputnikcccp 11:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * BCE/CE are not well known amongst the general public worldwide (certainly I have never ever seen the terms used here). Nor are they neutral - where there have been attempts to introduce them to a wider audience they have met with derision (in the case of the Royal Ontario Museum), confusion and anger (when only the teaching of what BCE/CE meant (and nothing else) was introduced into the English national curriculum) and offence leading to questions in both chambers of the New South Wales parliament (when one question in one exam swapped BC to BCE). So unless we wish to cause widespread confusion, anger and offence, we'll keep the pages where they are. There's nothing stopping you adding redirects though, if you think they may be useful, jguk 15:25, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * While I do see how using BC/AD my cause offence to some, using BCE/CE may cause offence to others. A balance must be struck. Currently AD is not included in the title or text of the current year pages. In fact the first statement is "2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar" (the De facto standard calander system). Changing the pages to 2004 CE would (in my opinion) do more harm than good. As for BC vs BCE, well, there are a lot of BCs in the navbar, but no mention of BC in the text. If you move the page then you have to move the decade, century, millennia, categories etc.... For the time being I think creating redirects from BCE/CE to BC/AD is enough. Trevor MacInnis 15:42, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, you both have made excellent points. I guess we'll have to leave things where they are, and I appreciate your civility in a topic where it easily could have disintegrated into hostility. Sputnikcccp 21:16, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Content Rules
I've had the recent years pages on my watchlist for a while and I regularly delete non-notable and trivial events. I think it'd be good to have some general guidelines on the content, not just the format, of year pages. Things like annual sporting events, anniversaries of certain dates, movements of royal families, transport accidents, weather events, release of pop culture events - we need some general rules for these things I think, they're always cropping up Psychobabble 02:26, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Definitely. I addressed a couple things in Talk:2005, please comment/add. DDerby(talk) 07:21, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Standards needed quickly
Hi, folks. A fellow just asked about a date in 1965 on the Help Desk. I was going to refer him to 1965, but then I saw there is no calendar there. Looking around at the years ... wow, what a mess. 1965 has no infobox, no on-page calendar, and no calendar link. 1966 has a calendar link and an infobox, but no on-page calendar. 1967 and 1968 have them all, but their first lines are written differently. 2000 has a differently formatted infobox. Etc.

So, sorry for butting into an ongoing discussion, but may I suggest that some tentative standards for year pages be agreed upon very quickly, so we can put the year pages into some semblance of consistency? The standards can certainly be discussed and modified further, but right now things are in a bad state.

Therefore, may I suggest that, for now, we do this for recent years:
 * The first line reads something like "1967 was a common year starting on Sunday (link goes to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar."
 * Any further information about the year ("This was the official International Year of the Slug") goes in the next paragraph.
 * Every year gets an infobox and on-page calendar.
 * The infobox always includes links to (at least!) the next and previous years. Thus, for example, the infobox currently on 2000, although I like the style, is unacceptable, since it contains no link to 1999.
 * As usual, disambiguation info ("This article is about the year 2000. For other uses of 2000, see 2000 (number).") is italic, indented, and above the first line.

Lastly, what infobox should be used?

Again, there is no reason the ongoing discussion on standards should not continue, but I think things need to be prettied up right now. Also, other issues, like AD/CE, which births should be listed, etc. are less urgent, and I don't feel any need to have those settled immediately.

&mdash; Nowhither 18:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Nowhither, I appreciate your interest in this issue, but (notwithstanding your recent help desk request) there is no pressing need to complete this project urgently -- much better that it be done right. A detailed survey has recently closed and is currently being tabulated; that will be a good tool to see what issues have been settled and which still need discussing.  I think the ones you're most concerned about will be resolved by that survey, so hold tight just a few more days. - Bantman 19:01, September 1, 2005 (UTC)


 * Right. And about the survey, sorry about the delay but I'm currently swamped at work (I'm there right now!) but I hope to have it done tonight or tommorow. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 20:23, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the replies. A couple of days (or even a week or three) is certainly reasonable. My concern was that discussion about this has been going on, on this page, for about 4 months. And similar discussions on the main page go back over 2 years. I'm all for high-quality year articles, but if we wait until everyone agrees on what The Perfect Year Article looks like, then we may just wait forever. The year articles are a very prominent, important part of Wikipedia, so I think it is important that they be in at least reasonable shape pretty much all the time. In any case, I look forward to the results. And, those of you who are working on this, your work is appreciated. &mdash; Nowhither 21:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Survey results are in!. Lots of issues seem to have support (and some don't). To start let's implement the following:

1. Infoboxes have support. Let's put Template:Yearbox and Template:C21YearInTopic on each page in the 21st century to start, and see what happens. If there are concerns about what in the templets then they can be changes later, but there's no harm in using them now.

2. The following form for multiple events is supported. Lets changeover pages to it.
 * January 31 - Event 1
 * January 31 - Event 2

Anything else people think we can get started on? - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 19:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)


 * On a related note, if anything needs to be update immediatly its the Timeline standards. I know that everything we're doing right now is just proposed, but the current standards on that page are extremely out of date. Not one mention of infoboxes, which the majority of modern times pages now use. I'd like to get started on updating this. I think everyone should read over the survey, the past discussions here and on the talk pages of the survey and at the Timeline standards, and make the required edits to the "example year" on this projects main page. By the end on September 2005 'at the latest we should have a standard to put forth. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 00:55, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Things to get started on: putting infoboxes, calendar links, and on-page calendars on all the recent years.


 * Concerning the example year, it looks pretty good. I think three things can be improved, however. In order from most to least important, they are:
 * Putting the current year in the middle of the years in the infobox, so that there are always links to the previous year and the next year.
 * Noting that the link to a calendar actually is one. So replace this:"2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar."with this:"2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link goes to calendar) of the Gregorian calendar."
 * Clarifying the Chinese calendar years. For example, the Year of the Monkey is not exactly 2004, but rather January 22, 2004 – February 8, 2005. (See also the comment after the table on the Chinese New Year page.)
 * However, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (anyone remember those?) I think that getting the years in decent shape soon-ish trumps all of these. And the example year is a quite reasonable format to put them all in, IMHO.
 * &mdash; Nowhither 20:06, 5 September 2005 (UTC)