Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:Timeline standards page.
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Archive: 1

Contents

[edit] New standards

Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s
Years: 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929

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 19:35, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 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. Trevor MacInnis 19:35, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Shorter boxes

Millennia: 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium - 4th millennium

millennia


Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century
Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s

centuries



Years: 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s
Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

year

[edit] Comments

  1. Please don't top-post on talk pages :-) this and the next discussion should be at the end.
  2. Years can list decades and centuries, for fun. Decades should list both centuries and component years. Centuries should list both millennia and component decades. Millennia can just list component centuries.
  3. I would use one template per decade -- a "decades-1920" template for every year in 1920, as well as for the decade itself.

+sj + 23:25, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] 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:

Years: 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 20072008 2009
Decades: 1970s 1980s 1990s - 2000s - 2010s 2020s 2030s
Centuries: 20th century - 21st century - 22nd century
News by month: Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr - May - Jun
Jul - Aug - Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec
Timeline standards in topic:
Arts Architecture - Art - Literature - Music - Film - Television - Home video
Politics Elections - Int. org. leaders - Politics - State leaders
Science and tech Aviation - Rail transport - Science
By country Canada - India - Iraq - Ireland - South Africa
Other topics Deaths - Video gaming - Religious leaders - Sport

Trevor MacInnis 01:24, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Archive

I've archived the old discussions. A summary of the still relavant(sp?) ideas/facts so far:

Articles for the year 500 BC and earlier should be redirected to the relevant decade. Articles for the year 1700 BC and earlier should be redirected to the relevant century. Articles for the year 4000 BC and earlier should be redirected to the relevant millennium.
Although some didn't like it, this seems to be the current standard., until as the last post on this subject shows:
I agree with your suggestion that centuries are moved back in order, we wouldnt want to have holes in the centuries, as that would just cause more confusion. But beyond that, it sounds like we have a pretty good standard for moving back the individual year mark. 100 events a century, and 8 decades with at least 10 events per decade. So as soon as the 6th century BC has 100 entries, we can roll it back, unless anyone else has any objections? Theon 05:20, Mar 11, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 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 02:06, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

More questions are being added and refined. If you've already visited, come back often.Trevor MacInnis 18:56, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What the heck am i doing removing sources ?

I was recently blasted for removing sources from April 2005. Here's what happened on my talk page:

[edit] What the heck are you doing?

What the heck are you doing to April 2005 Trevor? Month pages always have links to stop people adding in phoney unsourced stories. FearÉIREANNImage:Ireland coa.png\(caint) 02:31, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

You certainly shouldn't start doing something like that without putting something up on the talk page first to see if anyone has any objections. Average Earthman 12:11, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, ok, I guess I touched a nerve here. I thought I was doing right by paring down an oversized, bloated page. I suppose sources are good for verifying facts on a page but this is certainly not the standard. If you look to previous months, the further back you go the less individual items are sourced. Does that mean that everything on April 2003 should be removed as unproven hearsay? I don't think so. Does that mean that we need to go back and find external web pages that show that everything on April, 2005, 2000s, and 21st century is proven fact. No. The way wikipedia works is: people post whatever they want and the edits either stays or is changed/removed if someone finds a problem. I think the reason these month pages look the way they do is because they were original the Current events page, and people treat that page as a "Breaking news" repository. Thats what Wikinews is for!

Take these sourced events for example:

April 29

April 28

April 27

April 26

April 25

Five sourced items for the same event! And if you look at the souce it's 26 lines long (on my screen). I can barely read it if I want to edit it. I didn't even look into May 2005 but I bet there are more there.

Or how about this:

April 28

A lot of leader visit a lot of countries, why is this noteworthy?. Does the source say?

Or:

April 26

Is this the first time this has happened? The last? Did the outside world even notice?

April 22

Rumors abound? This is a fact is it. Well, rumors abound that this page is way too big and it needs a reduction.

My proposal:

1. Remove sources from the page (after it is no longer the current events page, I'll leave you news junkies that much).

2. Remove multiple enteries from the page. The event is notable. The slow increase in casualty counts is not. Put the final count at the originating entry when its final, or update it accordingly.

Start with this and the page may get down to a reasonable size (135 KBs! Come on!).

I think a new standard for these type of pages is needed.

Trevor MacInnis 14:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

It does seem odd to have sources on a date page, which IMHO are nothing more than helps to the reader to find specific articles where the sources should be found. But once these pages fall off Current events, should we expect these pages to continue to evolve -- or is their importance merely archival, a paper trail for future researchers? If their primary importance is to serve as an archive, then should we prune links on those pages, despite their size? -- llywrch 21:27, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
If anything, the sources should be moved to Wikipedia or Wikinews articles. They certainly shouldn't be deleted entirely, even if it does make the wikicode uncomfortably long. The sources are very important pieces of information. -- Beland 07:59, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Ok. If we move the sources to the articles, should we move them all if an item has more than one source? For example:
April 27 2005
Are all three sources needed to ensure people know it's real? And which article do we move them to? There is currently no mention of grain or maize at Zimbabwe, Economy of Zimbabwe mentions problems in 2001 but nothing else, I don't think this item warrents its own article, so...should the whole item be removed and added to an article somewhere?
My main concern here is the size of the article (currently 135 kbs and growing) and I'm not sure how we are going to reduce it. *sigh* - Trevor MacInnis 12:43, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
Llywrch's comment is interesting. "...is their importance merely archival, a paper trail for future researchers?" Make me wonder. Most pages like this, be it year/decade/century/other, are a record of notable events that happen. But these pages seem to be a record of events as they happen, with several enteries of slight variations as the event unfolds. It doesn't seem like these pages fall into the same category as Timeline pages, this doesn't seem right.Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information and I think that policy alone requires us to change the format of these pages. Trevor MacInnis 21:27, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
I hope that my comment only provokes thought, & doesn't surprise you. I wrote it in mind of the dual functions of a good encyclopedia: that not only should it explain the topic well, but it should also furnish a starting-point for further research. And by providing these external links to contemporary documents -- the "paper trail for future researchers" -- it addresses this second function.
But don't use my musings as an argument to do nothing, & leave the purpose of these articles unaddressed. I seem to have touched on several possible ways to treat these pages:
  • As archives. If this is the case, then after a suitable amount of time (6 or 12 months), an Admin should protect the pages, & we treat them as primary sources of history.
  • As live documents, recording that specific date in history. This conforms to the default Wikipedia practice of treating all pages as changeable, unless vandalism or conflict forces us to protect them. We can add or remove not only external links, but other details of specific events -- & even all events of that particular day. I think we can all thik of examples where the most significant event on a particular day was overlooked by its contemporaries not only at the time, but for many years.
  • As live documents, to be merged into other pages. If I had to make a choice, this would likely be it. There is a systemic bias towards recent events, & by acknowledging that we humans focus too much on recent events, requiring pages detailing recent events to be merged into timeline pages forces us to take a wider view of history.
But to adopt any one of these choices -- or another I haven't thought about -- requires that we discuss them & form a consensus. -- llywrch 22:47, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

My thoughts on llywrch's 3 suggested ways to treat the page:

  • As archives...Admin should protect the pages...treat them as primary sources:
    • Is this done anywhere else on Wikipedia? It sounds like a good source for article material, but when all the articles are written/updated with this material, then what's it good for?
  • As live documents, recording that specific date in history...default Wikipedia practice of treating all pages as changeable...We can add or remove not only external links, but other details of specific events -- & even all events of that particular day':
    • My personal choice. I appreciate and understand that these pages were created as a running commentary on "today's" events, but when "today" is over you have to look back and re-evaluate what is/was really important. People get up in arms when the topic is sources. I think that sources are very important in writing articles and backing up statements/changes, but the sheer number of sources per item and per page are overwhelming. Many of the sources could be repeated on the related article page, which is (hopefully) where a person would look to if they wanted to see more information on an event. Take the above mentioned Amagasaki rail crash for example. A page exists on this event, and dated news sources are listed there. I think that if April 2005 were updated and all sources and multiple enteries on calusalty increases were removed, nobody would lose out on any information. The event is confirmed and the numbers are final on the event page but on April 2005 it reads like a page where all the old edits remain; you can't update the page, you can only add to it.
  • As live documents, to be merged into other pages...systemic bias towards recent events...forces us to take a wider view of history:
    • This is the way I think the page should go. Now, this sounds like I want two things, but I don't. What I want is an evolution of the page. The first thing to do is cut out the excess information (see above item), then take what's left (the "real" information) and merge it over to articles and Year pages. This page will never grow beyond what it is today; the events have happened and what was missed, when discovered, will not be added here but into the more broadly historical Year pages. This page will, as years pass, become less and less relevant and less and less useful to the reader. And when that happens then Wikipedia will no longer be what we want it to be: Useful , relavant, evolving, and growing. - Trevor MacInnis 00:46, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Updating the standards

Well, the recent survey at Wikipedia:WikiProject Years has closed and a lot of good ideas have come out of it. Very soon a new standard should be ready for implementation on this page. If you have any comments then check out the related discussions at the project, the survey and its talk page. I believe before the end on the month we will have new standards here. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 01:02, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Numerals?

A user (81.104.61.217 (talk · contribs)) has added bold roman numerals to all of the year articles, but that doesn't seem to be part of the format suggested here. Was that approved somewhere? What is the appropriate way to put roman numerals into year articles? Should it be in the infobox? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 22:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about Roman numerals. Not only are they irrelevant to the articles, but they introduce a needless POV argument: there are many equally valid way of writing with them (e.g., IV vs. IIII), so which one shall we use? -- llywrch 01:32, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Century trends

The current standard for century pages specifies a section labelled "Events and Trends", but it appears that most of the actual articles simply have a section titled "Events". Would it be possible to update the standard to reflect the articles? --Brunnock 16:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Both the decade and century standards on this page are way out of date. They should both be quickly updated to show the current use of infoboxes and standard layouts. I'd do it now but I'm busy on a wikibreak. Well, kind of. ;) - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 17:51, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Recently, folks have been adding images to the century articles. Currently, the 19th century article has 17 and are heavily Eurocentric. Can we discuss guidelines for images in century articles? Max # of images, placement, NPOV, etc? --Brunnock 13:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Subheadings should not be linked

I noticed that the standard says that subheadings should be linked, like so:

===[[January 2005|January]]===
...
===[[February 2005|February]]===
...

This is explicitly not how things are supposed to be done according to WP:STYLE. I will wait a little while for comments and then effect the relevant changes to the page. --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 18:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The Style guide states Avoid links within headings, it doesn't say anything about using the entire header. Furthermore, if you visit Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Linking, it goes on to state that you should put the link in the first sentence for that section instead. If you're dealing with a timeline that is composed of lists, that may not be practical. --Brunnock 18:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
You're nitpicking to the point of losing the purpose. Avoid links within headings simply means "don't put links in headings". It doesn't mean it's okay to have the entire heading be a link. And many, many month/year combinations aren't going to exist anyway, such January 1571 or July 1825 (I just picked them at random). It doesn't make sense to have the standards include recommendations that will create thousands of links, the majority of them red. Why exactly should these be linked anyway? I can't think of a good reason. Each year already has its own page; what exactly could you put into, say, March 1953 that wouldn't be included in just 1953?
And all of the subheading links I've deleted thus far weren't even links in the format of, say, August 1871. They were simply links to January, February, etc., in the headers. I think we can all agree that that is unnecessary. --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 18:23, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
In the beginning the links in the headers were to specific months that would hold events that were notable enough for the month page but not notable enough for the year. These month pages generally exist only from 2000-present and so the links should only have been on those pages. Now that links to those months are a part of {{C21YearInTopic}} I think we can lose the links in the headers. I'll be bold and change the standards. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 15:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Past/present tense?

Are we to use the past or the present tense? I'm seeing year pages that are basically using it at random. Some are saying, "1953 (MCMLIII) is a common year starting on Thursday." while others are saying, "1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar)." There's also years that were common years and years that are leap years. Plus, the use of Roman numerals for the year is not standardized either.

As for the tense, my vote is to use past tense. It's no longer any year but 2005 (and even that won't last much longer). Hence past tense seems appropriate. I just wanted to come here for consensus before I started modifying all years to be the same.

Also, might I suggest the use of some sort of comment at the top of the years showing this standardized decision. Otherwise you'll just get lots of people rolling on through and, thinking they're doing a favor, changing it to whatever they feel is right. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

<!--Note:Do not change the wording of this.  See "Wikipedia:Timeline standards" for details.-->
1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar.

And one more thing ... should Gregorian calendar be linked or not? It seems pretty much random whether or not any given year says "was a common year starting on Monday" or "was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar".

--Cyde Weys talkcontribs 18:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Good question. Lets get an answer here. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 16:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Birth year links in death section

I also have a problem with the following standard:

The deaths section begins with a see also statement, and follows the same format as the births section: Month section, day link, name, and birth year link if known.

This goes against Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context, which says that only full dates should be linked. Years in isolation should not be. Go look at 1945 Deaths; it is absolutely chock full of unnecessary links to solitary years. Any commentary on this? I was just going to go through and delete the unnecessary links and change the policy, but it's probably better to get consensus first on a change this large. Your comments? --Cyde Weys talkcontribs 19:06, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

One reason why I could see these links being useful is, for example, if you see [Emily Carr]]'s death in 1945 a reader may want to know what also happened in the year of her birth. (1871). I beleve this is the same reason dates are linked to in the first line of the persons page (Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer.) - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)

[edit] New navbox is ambiguous

Okay, I'm coming to the discussion a little late, but I spotted the change on 2005 in rail transport (I monitor all of the changes to the "XXXX in rail transport" pages, and I've made the most updates to all of them). The first line of the new navbox doesn't say anything to the user that it will go to the associated "XXXX in rail transport" page. The navbox that was there at least told the user what it actually linked to.

Further, I read elsewhere in the archives about removing references. I think that is an exceptionally bad thing to do as it is counter to what we have beneath every edit box on the site: "Content ... must be verifiable." A lack of references is the most used objection in WP:FAC and WP:FLC. Any article that doesn't cite sources is summarily rejected. Slambo (Speak) 03:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, {{Year in rail transport}} automatically links in the proper decade in year transport and year categories based on the navbox parameters. The new navbox doesn't include any categories. I just readded Cat:2000s in rail transport and Cat:2005 to 2005 in rail transport. Slambo (Speak) 03:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry. I was kind of worried when I did that edit. I'm big on standardizing year articles, as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Years and these standards. I was putting {{yearbox}} on each page listed on {{C21YearInTopic}} as I hope to standardize all year pages and "in Topic" pages. Most of the other "in Topic" pages benefit greatly from the addition of a navbox, but the rail transport pages seem to have a specific box of their own. I'm glad the pages work, but this throws a wrench into my plans. Is there a way to create an {{InTopicYearbox}} that would work for all topics, include related Categories, etc? - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 16:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, consistency is generally a Good Thing, and that's the main reason that I didn't revert it yet; the new box even looks decent in lynx (see [1]). Perhaps, just changing the first line to "Years in foo:" where the presence of the "in?" parameter determines if the text is there or not using Wikipedia:HiddenStructure? I'm trying a couple tests with hiddenStructure at User:Slambo/Template test2 (and its usage at User:Slambo/Template usage test). I've got the heading showing correctly, but the <span> tags are introducing an extra space in the link url. I haven't tried adding the category within hiddenStructures yet mostly because I don't want to clutter up existing categories with my tests, but we should be able to do the same thing with those. Slambo (Speak) 16:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC) (comment was actually made in January, but the signature wasn't transcluded due to a misplaced nowiki tag)


Years in : 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Years: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Decades: 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s
Centuries: 20th century · 21st century · 22nd century
Years in rail transport: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Years: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Decades: 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s
Centuries: 20th century · 21st century · 22nd century


Okay, take a look at these now. They are both using the same template (currently at User:Slambo/Template test2), hiding the first row depending on the presence of the in? parameter. If it's not set, you get the first box; if it's set, you get the second box. This keeps all of the year pages using the same navbox template, links to all of the plain year pages, links to all of the year in topic pages and the links are labeled so the user can see what it will link to. Thoughts? Slambo (Speak) 16:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Looks great! Be bold and update at will. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 17:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

This update is in place now. I've edited Template talk:Yearbox to note the updated functionality, and I've spot checked a couple pages that use it to ensure that it's working correctly both with and without values for in?. Now to go back through all of the other rail transport year pages as listed on Years in rail transport (and to add a link to the summary as a "See also"). Slambo (Speak) 18:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

(follwing two comments copied from User talk:Slambo):

Another suggestion. Instead of the see also section I've linked the "years in" page in the yearbox itself. Should cut down on extra work. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 19:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Hm, maybe not. That only works if every page is "years in", but many seem to be different, "List of years in archaeology", "Timeline of aviation". I rv my template edit for now but I wonder if we should try to standardize the list pages. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 19:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Years in rail transport: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Years: 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Decades: 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s
Centuries: 20th century · 21st century · 22nd century
See also: Years in rail transport

Ah, I see what you were trying to do. In the short term, this could still work if we add redirects for the pages that use different names. I think a better option would be to make the link a variable assignable as another new parameter, perhaps named summarypage. From building {{Infobox Locomotive}} and making the change here, it's pretty easy to make a table row that hides itself automatically if a parameter is not present. In this case, we may want to add something at the end of the box to include See also links like the sample at right. The advantage is that you don't have to move all of the other pages to the same naming format; but it does add yet another line to the box. I wonder if we can make an optional parameter that would turn the first row's title into the appropriate link.... Hmmm.... something else to experiment....

The other thing to look into is the categories; the XXXX in rail transport pages are all sorted into the appropriate DECADE in rail transport and YEAR categories by {{Year in rail transport}}. I haven't looked at the other topic year pages to see about the categories they use yet, but it's something else to think about. For now, I think the current template update (which produces the optional topic row) works reasonably well and I can manually add the categories to the pages as I go through them (I've done about 15 of them so far). Slambo (Speak) 21:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tests using m:ParserFunctions

I've been playing around a little further with {{yearbox}} calls in relation to using them on the YEAR in rail transport pages. Take a look at my specialized test template and its test usage. The upshot is that my test template which piggybacks on {{yearbox}} requires only one parameter. Using this knowledge, we can reduce the number of parameters yearbox needs to just two (one required, one optional). I still need to determine how best to add the two categories and the overview page specific to the rail transport series before I can finish deprecating {{year in rail transport}} and {{future year in rail transport}}, but this will definitely make using the template easier. Slambo (Speak) 18:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I've been playing around with the parser functions a little more today and got a working version of {{yearbox}} in my test space that takes exactly two parameters, one of which is optional. Look at the code behind User:Slambo/Template test 3, and see it in use on User:Slambo/Template usage test. Using the updated template, assuming there are no objections to installing it live, will be as follows:
  • {{yearbox|year=2000}} for the yearbox on 2000
  • {{yearbox|year=2000|in?=in rail transport}} for the yearbox on 2000 in rail transport
The parameters that are no longer used by the template will be ignored on the pages that declare them, so we don't need to "fix" the inclusions. I'm still trying to find a way to fit in the links to index pages like Years in rail transport and the thematic category links like I've mentioned before, but this update could slide in place without modifying the pages that use yearbox and it will simplify new page additions that use yearbox. Slambo (Speak) 18:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Four days later and no objections? Just want to make sure before being bold... Slambo (Speak) 13:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Timelines

I have just reformatted the moribund Wikipedia:WikiProject Timelines so that people who are interested can add themselves to the membership section and co-operate on developing these guidelines and specific time line articles. --Philip Baird Shearer 15:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where was this hiding?

How come I only bump into this after having the Timeline of South African history put up for deletion by User:Aplomado? See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of South African history. Although it was not successful it made me seek out other timelines to see how they where structured and how I can improve the South African one. It also showed me how one user can easily discourage another by putting their hard work up for deletion. I am going study these standards as see where I can improve the South African timeline and would glady consider your comments. Anything to try cheer me up after last two weeks. --Jcw69 18:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Events by Year for Decade template

I'm working on a template (Template: Events by Year for Decade) which makes an aggregate event list for the years of a decade. Would this be a violation of timeline standards? (Obviously, it would only be appropriate for decades with a handful of events per year.) Examples: 400s, 410s, 420s. Abou 22:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Limit significant people

I find that editors keep adding entries to the "Significant people" section on the century articles. 20th century, for example, is dominated by the list of significant people. I'd like to propose to limit the list of significant people to 100 entries. --Sean Brunnock 12:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I spoke too soon. Someone removed the list of significant people from the 20th century article. --Sean Brunnock 12:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] suggestions for the standard layout for centuries

I think that the standard layout for centuries pages is not the most helpful. What it does is list the decades of the century (what adds little information, since anyone could just type 1880s, for example), list important people and some important events. I think that the century articles should contain a history of the century, a lot longer than the introduction paragraphs, and, at the end of the article, lists such as those that are now the main content.--Ezadarque 13:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been editing the century articles for nearly 2 years. Several people have suggested longer summaries, but no one seems to be able to write one. The attempts so far have devolved into rewriting the list of events into a regional context. Since the century articles are timeline articles, it makes sense to present the events of the century in a timeline format. --Sean Brunnock 14:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anniversaries

I think this is the correct talk page for this. Year, decade, century, and millennium articles seem to collect anniversaries of notable events, such as the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in 2011, the tricentennial of the founding of the United States in 2070s, quadricentennials (which probably should be "tercentennials") in 22nd century, millennials in 28th century, etc. I propose a general standard that states

Anniversaries should not be listed unless there was (for past events) a notable celebration/memorial, or (for future events) a notable celebration/memorial is presently planned.

Any other suggestions? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categorization and sort keys

(I think this goes here, rather than in WikiProject Time or WikiProject Years.)

Proposal: The general rule that articles should not be in both a category and its supercategory should specifically apply to years, decades, centuries, and millennia. In the specific case of a year such as (say) 104, and related decades, centuries, and millennia, the following should be the full categorization:


  • 104
    • [[Category:104|]]
    • [[Category:Years|0104]] (option 1 only)
  • 100s
    • [[Category:100s|]]
    • [[Category:Decades|0100s]] (option 1 only)
  • 2nd century
    • [[Category:2nd century|]]
    • [[Category:Centuries|02]] (option 1 only)
  • 1st millennium
    • [[Category:1st millennium]]
    • [[Category:Millennia|1]] (option 1 only)
  • Category:104
    • [[Category:100s]]
    • and possibly [[Category:Years|0104]] (option 2 only)
  • Category:100s
    • [[Category:2nd century]] (even though it overlaps the first century)
    • and possibly [[Category:Decades|0100s]] (option 2 only)
  • Category:2nd century
    • [[Category:1st millennium|02]] (as the 10th century is in the first millennium, we need to use sort keys)
    • and possibly [[Category:Centuries|02]] (option 2 only)
  • Category:1st millennium
    • possibly [[Category:Millennia|1]] (option 2 only)

etc.

In Category talk:1st millennium#Update needed, Category talk:2nd millennium#Update needed, and Category talk:3rd millennium#Update needed, it's been proposed that the category should contain all year, decade, and century articles and categories within the millennium. I disagree. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I, from WikiProject Time, like your idea but I am a little confused. Zginder (talk) (Contrib) 14:45, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. I'm trying to suggest a standarized structure which could be maintained by a bot once it's set up. Presently, for example, Category:1st millennium category has all the century categories (OK), the millennium article (OK), all the century articles (not OK), and all the year articles (really not OK), in addition to the 1st millennium X categories and articles. I see that, presently, Category:Years has century and millennium categories, and no articles. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, from here I've been asked to check here.
Well, I don't disagree with your new(?) idea, but I don't disagree either with mines:
(cited from here)
Subcategory in MilleniumCategory: All century's (x1st century - x0th century) and maybe All decades (x010s - x990s)
Pages in MilleniumCategory: The millennium page, All century's (x1st century - x0th century), All decades (x010s - x990s), All years (x000 - x999).
ByTheWay: What do you mean with "all the years in the MilleniumCategory, really not OK" ? Why ?
TijhofGraphics -=[ talk / NL / EN / DE ]=- 18:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:SUBCAT....all the years are in their respective year categories, which are in decade categories, which are in century categories, which are in the millennium category, and it's easy to predict which category it would be in. I have no objection to all years being in Category:years (but we need better sort keys), but all thousand years being in the millennium category strikes me as severe overcategorization.
Also note most previous comments are about option 1 above, while I'm now leaning toward option 2.

[edit] Dead project?

Is this page dead, also? My comment two sections above, more than a month ago, hasn't got a response.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been watching, but our categories system horrifies me, so I don't have anything useful to add to that thread. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia to present facts and ideas, not trivia; so random possible future anniversaries (as opposed to expected events i.e. eclipses) are not relevant - perhaps the best place to raise it is on the talk page and then delete said trivia. I would support that. On another note, quadricentennial is awkward but probably correct as consistent in Latin origins; tercentennial is used although stylistically wrong as it is a Greek-Latin hybrid--AssegaiAli (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2008 (UTC)