Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Days of the year

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year page.
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[edit] The calendar on the date pages

It has been suggested that, since the Wikicalendar articles are not year specific, the calendar (in the top right corner) should be yearless. This means that the box would be simply a list of links to the articles for the given month. Basically, it would look like a calendar minus the days across the top. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 21:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


February
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
February 2008
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 
25 26 27 28 29    
The page January 1 and 365 other pages display a calendar. The calendar header shows the year 2008, but if you click on a date, it links to, for example January 5 not to January 5, 2008. Is it desired that a year is displayed in the header?
See these pictures and click the digits to see the difference. Top: which do not belong to a particular year. Bottom: dates have a weekday and link to a date in a year. HandigeHarry (talk) 12:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Keep it as an actual calendar. I think having a calendar that isn't really a calendar would just be annoying. If you make it a list of days in the month then it is just a duplicate of the list at the bottom of the pages. The calendar allows people to quickly see where today falls within the current month. If people are looking for an overview of the month then they can click on the header, they can also go to the previous and next months. The digits allow people to go to a perticular day in the month. Personally I think most people, when looking at 'on this day' type pages want to be able to see where 'this day' fits within the current month. Grouf(talk • contribs) 13:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I certainly agree with your first remark (a duplicate of the list at the bottom). Frankly, I had not noticed that list at the bottom, so perhaps the duplicate is not a bad idea. I shall not judge about your other remarks, I do not know what most people think. HandigeHarry (talk) 15:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Please comment on my other remarks, that why I put them there. We need discussion to reach concensus. Grouf(talk • contribs) 15:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I won't, I have no opinion about everything. Others will have a stronger opinion than I and they will take care of consensus. But there is something wrong when a calendar displays "March 2008" (with a year) in its header while it contains links to March 1 etc. without a year. HandigeHarry (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
The calendar that is on the date pages links to the other date pages (not specific dates). That is how it is meant to work. By changing the links in the calendar, you're sending people to a different set of pages. Neither of the examples that you've made above are accurate representations of what is currently on the date pages. As far as the year in the header, it is a label so everyone knows that the calendar is for the current year. It links to what it says. If there is a consensus that this is confusing, then we could change the link to January while leaving the label January 2008, but I don't think it is a problem. Additionally, if you link to the actual date (as it is in the example), the pages are not there until the date draws near. Then your linking to nothing, where is the value in that? (See December 5, 2008) -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 17:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Just a project page

I have moved all of the guideline info from this page so now this page is just a project page, as it should be. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 20:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User warning

It seems to me the existing user warning templates may not be sufficiently precise for addressing users who add redlinks to the date in history pages. Would a new standard level 1 user warning template be helpful and, if so, what would you think of the following language:

Welcome to Wikipedia. Please do not add events or people who do not have Wikipedia articles to Wikipedia's date in history pages, as you did at [[:Month Day]]‎. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you for your understanding. ~~~~

Any thoughts? Regards, Accurizer (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at my templates:
User:Mufka/uw-date1
User:Mufka/uw-date2
User:Mufka/uw-days1
User:Mufka/uw-days2
User:Mufka/uw-vdate1
User:Mufka/uw-fd1
User:Mufka/uw-fiction1
But it is important to note that until the guideline at WP:DOY is approved, widespread use might be frowned upon. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting discussion

There a discussion underway about the fate of individual date articles (January 1, 2003, etc.) here that might interest members of this project. Changes on this front could affect the use of {{ThisDateInRecentYears}}. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 21:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks to 2nd, 3rd, etc., entries? Or just wikilink the 1st?

At Wikipedia:Timeline standards#Events (as well as Births and Deaths), they keep showing examples of wikilinking all of the dates, and not just the first. But for Days of the year, we only wikilink the first year and not all subsequent entries for the same year. Wikipedia:Overlink crisis#Aspects of overlinking seems to support our practice, as does the Manual of Style. Does anyone know the status of reaching more consistency with regard to wikilinking items past the first one? Please advise. Thanks. --Art Smart (talk) 22:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the last discussion on this topic took place here. I've been thinking about this recently. We enforce this for the years that the events, births, deaths are listed, but not for entries with year of death of year of birth listed at the end of the entry. In the case of WP:DAYS it is pretty consistently applied. Another example where someone might link something more than once is in the case of World War II for example. I don't feel that linking every instance is necessary. WP:OVERLINK says that "It is not uncommon to repeat a link that had last appeared much earlier in the article, but there is hardly ever a reason to link the same term twice in the same section." In our application we're talking about links in the same section. I think current practice is good. WP:Timeline standards doesn't apply to WP:DAYS. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 22:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW, this came out of a comment I made to Arthur about 1976, not a day page - I'm not sure that was clear from the question. WP:OVERLINK also says (in the date section): Dates when they contain a day, month, and year — [[25 March]] [[2004]] — or day and month — [[February 10]] — should be linked for date preference formatting. - making the 'unlinked' style a problem for year pages. There was a previous discussion on formats quite a while back [1] - the winner wound up as the timeline standard; Option 1, the second choice, looks like what WP:DAYS uses now? BTW, Wikipedia:DAYS#Style says to see the example at December 7#Deaths, which, er, uses two different styles. Bazzargh (talk) 22:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to mix apples and oranges. WP:DAYS doesn't follow WP:YEARS which is where this discussion took place. WP:OVERLINK also says that "Stand alone years do not need to be linked" and the second instance of any date usually isn't linked. The link to December 7#Deaths is an attempt to show an example of how one might add multiple deaths caused by the same event (e.g. Pearl Harbor). WP:DAYS doesn't apply to things like May 2008 where you see a lot of overlinking. So in a nutshell, there are a lot of competing style guides that may appear to apply to more than they do. Perhaps they should be consolidated. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 23:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with all of this. Thanks for explaining December 7, I hadn't read that closely enough. Bazzargh (talk) 23:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Format change

    • I have a question. I have noticed that it is very difficult to read the deaths, births, and events as they are currently listed. I noticed that on the "year" pages, the listing looks as follows:
  • May 2
    • John Doe
    • Mark Smith

It is a much easier format to overview when scrolling down the page. Otherwise, births, deaths and events blend together. I had started to format each day this way, but my changes were reverted. It was my intention to be helpful, not harmful to the pages. This is my suggested format for the days:

  • 1903
    • Lady B discovered a new planet
    • Country A invaded Country R
    • New Carriage invented by Mr. J

--TravelinSista (talk) 15:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not totally opposed to this suggestion. One problem with the change is that it needs to be implemented across the board - to every article, all at the same time. We could get a bot to do it if there is consensus for the change. Another problem is that it would be difficult to maintain. I'm afraid that casual editors are very likely to mess it up. There are very few formatting errors with the current format - just some overlinking. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 15:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess as I look at some of the "year" entries, it is a much more organized looking format. I agree that casual editors COULD mess it up, but we have that problem with ANY page that is on Wikipedia. This formatting is probably one of the easiest to grasp. Why not be bold and set a goal to reformat all 365 days? We have 12 months and as many members who manage the page. --TravelinSista (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
These pages, as a group, get a lot of edits. I see a problem with the years that have only one entry. An editor wanting to add another entry for a year that previously only had one might just add a new entry as they do now. Then we would have some with the new format and some with the old. These pages are pretty high profile so being bold is not a good idea here. This has come up before. See this discussion for some background. Consensus for change on this is not easy to get. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Old Style and New Style dates

April 21 indicates that Catherine II of Russia was born, but reading the article Catherine II of Russia suggests that this is the old style (Julian) date on which she was born, and that her new style (Gregorian) date of birth is actually May 2. Accordingly, May 2 also lists Catherine II of Russia as being born on that date. To list her (or anyone else for that matter) as being born on both dates without clarification is to mislead anyone who doesn't click through to the article for that individual. Is there some sort of policy for this? 199.91.34.33 (talk) 14:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is suggested that the birth (or death) be listed under only the NS date. The listing on the OS date should be removed. See WP:DAYS. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 14:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] January 1

January 1 is the one date page (and February 29 to a lesser degree) that is not formatted according to the template. I have thought about adjusting it but I am concerned that there will be some backlash. IMO the page is a mess and should be adjusted to the layout of all of the other pages. It has many section headings and it also contains many unsupported entries as well as a references section. The reason that I haven't attacked it yet is that I figured that since it is the first day of the year, and there are a lot of things associated with it, it could be an exception. But I don't like exceptions because they lead to more exceptions. Thoughts? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 18:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)