Wikipedia talk:Notability (years)

WHY?

Why in the world do we need another guideline? Is there a meaning problem this seeks to address? Does this represent a practice at WP, or is this just a precriptive whim? --Kevin Murray 18:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it represents a practice here at WP, one in fact which has so far been dictated by commonsense. The reason for this prescription is that when it comes to numbers some people think they're the only ones who know numbers are infinite and they cite that Wikipedia doesn't have articles for every single year. So the presence of this guideline shows anti-number sneerers that when it comes to years, everyone has expected people to act with commonsense and people have lived up to this expectation even in the absence of a writing down of the guideline. PrimeFan 22:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Why do we have pages for years at all?

We have pages for years (e.g. 2007), for months of specific years (e.g. August_2007), for months of the year (e.g. August), for days of the year (e.g. August 27), days of the week (e.g. Monday). Tell me if I've missed anything in this list. We don't have pages for times of the day (e.g. 11:00am), or days of the month (e.g. the 27th), independent of month.

You missed articles about years in specific fields, like 2007 in sports. I think most of us agree we need 2007. Not all of us might agree we also need 2007 in sports. Knodeltheory 21:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks for pointing that out. I guess what I would say about that is that those articles are very similar in nature and purpose to the specific year articles, except obviously more specific. I.e. they're useful for making comparisons about what kind of events were happening at similar times in those respective fields. I guess if we want that content (remember, notability doesn't regulate content), it's best to put it in another page, simply because otherwise the main year page will get bloated and biased towards the sub-topic. -- BenBildstein 00:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. 2007 in sports is far more encyclopedic because it addresses an actual topic. Somebody doing research on sports, for example, would find a page like that to be useful -- though probably more useful if further subdivided into Baseball, Football, etc. Getting a list of "everything that happened in 2007" is far less useful and is simply trivia as there is no logical connection between all of the events. Ham Pastrami 14:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's worth taking a moment to consider what is special about the ones we do have pages for.

First, I guess Monday and August are real encyclopedic articles. They talk about history, astrology, standards, etc. This is quite different from pages on specific years, months of specific years, and days of the year, where the content is far less rich and much more like lists of interesting things that happened then - mostly births, deaths and notable events.

So what is the point of these lists? As a random example, the page on 1876 tells us that the telephone was invented, and that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published. This tells the reader something interesting that they wouldn't find on either page - that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was written around the same time the telephone was invented. Similarly, if a reader, say, new that his great grandfather was born in 1876, he could look at the page on 1876 to see what other kinds of things were happening at the time. The same reasoning holds to some extent for specific months (e.g. August_2006).

These reasons make these kinds of pages valuable. This is different from the other types, e.g. August, August_27, or Monday.

The only value I can see in pages on specific days of the year (e.g. August_27) is that readers can use such pages to find trivia of the form "on this day..." (e.g. "... in 1906, Ed Gein was born").

So here's my take on this: August and Monday are valuable because of the richness of their heritage; 2007 and August_2007 are valuable because they give an overview of different events that happened around the same time; August_27 is only useful as a source of trivia.

Okay, that was a bit of a rant, but here's my point. Pages on specific years are notable when multiple notable things happen in that same year. If a single notable thing happens in that year, there's no point having a page on it. This is clearly departing from WP:N more generally, because we can't expect any reliable sources to be covering the year, as a specific concept (as opposed to in passing, noting that certain events occurred).

Lastly, I have a very serious question about this process: are we trying to decide what makes a year notable or which years we want to be notable? Would such a guideline say "a year is notable when..." (e.g. a year is notable when the digits sum to a multiple of 3), or "we know a year is notable because" (e.g. coverage of the year doesn't count as independent of the subject unless the coverage comes from a different year). These examples are both ridiculous, but my point is to differentiate between, essentially, creating a new guideline for years, and creating a guideline on how to apply the general guideline to years.

-- BenBildstein 01:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I question the value of knowing that Tom Sawyer and the telephone to have been produced around the same time. If neither article references the other, because neither has any impact on the other, then on what basis is it anything more than trivia to know that they were both produced around the same time? Basically, this is like saying that the Challenger disaster and Super Bowl XX are inherently related because they both occurred in January 1986. That fact is trivia, IMO. What really bothers me about the year articles, however, is that it encourages people to wikilink *every* month, day, or year being mentioned in an article, which to me is a clear case of overlinking. If anything, this guideline should serve to instruct people not to do this kind of thing. Ham Pastrami 14:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with you about overlinking. I've noticed it too - it's just not useful! My only guess at it's purpose is to collect backlinks so you can later find out what happened in, say, January 1986. But it's obviously an incomplete way to do it because not everyone conforms (nor should they have to). But to your main point, I'd have to agree that these two examples of connections (and this kind of connection more generally) are trivia. But thinking about that, what's not trivia? I guess everything presented in any year article is trivia, in that it's taken out of context and put into a bullet list. But no one is suggesting that's a bad thing, are they? I mean sure, you could argue for removing all year pages from Wikipedia, but you'd have a snowball's chance. WP:TRIVIA doesn't say "don't include trivia", it just says "avoid creating lists of [trivia]". Are you suggesting rewriting such pages in paragraph style? A lot of encyclopedic content is trivial, but I'm unaware of any opinion (let alone consensus) that the trivial should not be allowed in Wikipedia. Imagine if we had to justify the value, to potential readers, of every bit of information on Wikipedia! -- BenBildstein 07:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should just add that, with respect to my question, I'm assuming the first answer: that we are trying to decide on what basis we should decide which years to have pages on. If we're just trying to decide how to apply Wikipedia:Notability to years, what I've said here is irrelevant.

-- BenBildstein 01:45, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think that consistency is important. If we have pages on most years, then we should probably be consistent and have pages on all years. If nothing at all happened of note in an entire year, that in itself seems to be notable, though unlikely. --Kevin Murray 00:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• I don't see the problem, but I think there is a better solution. I don't see the problem, because if nothing interesting happened that year why does anyone want to look at a page on that year, and if they did, what could we show them? Even if we thought the year was interesting because nothing interesting happened that year, we couldn't say that; we'd need to find a reliable source to quote, otherwise it would be original synthesis. But as I said, I think there's another solution, to achieve consistency and not to leave gaps in our coverage. In fact, it's already being done. I looked at the year 857, and kept going back by 100 years to see what happened when Wikipedia didn't have a page. When I got to 557 BC, I found it was a redirect to a page on 550s BC, because yes, in fact Wikipedia doesn't yet have anything interesting to say about 557 BC. I think this is a very workable solution. And when particular decades are not interesting, we can group them into centuries, etc. -- BenBildstein 02:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• I did the same thing in a more random selection and didn't find any omitted years in the common era. Hypothetically, I'd say that you are right, but in practice there is something significant in each year and the infrastructure lends itself to allowing a page per year. The current system is not perfect, but it seems to be fairly sensible and workable. Why fuss with prescribing something other than what has already evolved in a very organized manner? --Kevin Murray 11:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• I agree. I wouldn't prescribe that we shouldn't have pages when there is nothing interesting to report, I would simply advise against it. Then again, it probably makes more sense for the notability guideline to say "such years are not notable" and then if an AfD comes up, for us (as Wikipedians) to say "yes, it's not notable, but let's keep it for consistency's sake". -- BenBildstein 12:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

why this page is needed

quite simply, it is needed because some people think such pages are unencyclopedic, and having this page accepted as a guideline is the best way to show that the consensus is otherwise. DGG (talk) 02:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

as for the details above, I think that a single notable event is enough. the requirement for two sources is simply a detail of WP:V. In fact, one strongly reliable source is accepted for N, as any number of AfD discussions shows. When there is a series of homologous pages, there is an advantage in having them created at the first item of content. There are, after all, few after the early middle ages where a second item will not be found. DGG (talk) 02:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

So to clarify, we're talking about a new guideline that allows some years to be included even though they don't qualify under the basic notability guideline?

To your second point, I wasn't saying we should need two sources. I was saying there's no point having a year page unless it says more than one thing. It's probably not necessary to make that explicit though - if only one notable event happened that year, probably only one other page will link to it, and so it's probably deletable as an orphan. -- BenBildstein 06:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy?

Doesn't this fall under WP:NUMBER? >Radiant< 11:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• I would support a merge to numbers as a logical place for this guideline. --Kevin Murray 14:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. There's some overlap between the year and number articles (specifically that they ought to be cross-referenced where applicable) but other than that we're talking about two different animals. We are striving to make the number articles encyclopedic articles which are first and foremost about the mathematical properties of specific numbers (and besides WP:NUMBER also covers articles about kinds of numbers, like primes and squares, so piling on years would be an overextension. The year articles are almanacic rather than encyclopedic (though they are tremendous help in organizing the encyclopedic content and a vital cross-reference for biography articles). Knodeltheory 21:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. WP:NUMBER feels overextended as it is. Anton Mravcek 21:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Either way, we need to figure out what we want the guideline to be before we try to merge it. -- BenBildstein 00:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The guideline needs to be something that builds on commonsense for the cases that are not as easily justified by commonsense. Anton Mravcek 21:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Even if the ultimate consensus is that commonsense is sufficient, I'd like to see something, somewhere, saying something to the effect of "when it comes to the notability of years, use commonsense." Somewhere! -- BenBildstein 23:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be shrill and condescending. Anton Mravcek 02:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Things this policy needs to address

• Year in field (like 2005 in music)
• Fictional references to future years (like 2015 and 2285

I'd like this policy to address split off topics, to give hard and fast rules about when it is and when it isn't a good idea to split off a year by topics. 1892 in music might be necessary, but I doubt we could say the same thing about 1102 in music. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

What I'd like to see this policy address is fictional references to future years. I think both Wikipedia and Memory Alpha ought to have articles about individual episodes of Star Trek, but only Memory Alpha needs to have articles about years for which the only thing we can say is that such and such Trek episodes are set in that year. Either way the concensus decides this matter, I will support adoption of this policy. ShutterBugTrekker 21:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that we all agree (correct me if I'm wrong) that fictional references to future years are not enough to justify Wikipedia having articles on those years, even if they are enough to justify dedicated wikis (like Memory Alpha) to have articles on those years. So if you agree on this, ShutterBug, can we count on your support for adopting this policy? Anton Mravcek 02:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I support adoption of this policy provided it has what you tried to add yesterday about fictional references to future years. With something similar to your version of yesterday, this policy says everything it needs to say (in my opinion), and relieves overcrowding at policies which are only vaguely similar. ShutterBugTrekker 13:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I also support adoption of this policy. I think it adequately addresses the two issues that have been brought up in here. Cromulent Kwyjibo 19:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Count me in on supporting this policy. There's pressure to make it super-brief, but as long as it addresses the two issues raised here, I'm OK with it. CompositeFan 20:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a good policy. I support adopting this policy. I can't think of anything else that needs to be addressed, but such things probably wouldn't crop up until after adoption. Del arte 23:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I also support adopting this either as it's written as of today or as of the first draft. Cholerashot 14:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

To the point

I tightened up the text of the guideline and provided references to other pertinent polices, rather than trying to restate these here. For example, there is no reason to try to recreate a definition of verifiability here, just cite and link to the verifiability page. We don't need exotic rules defining or about the current year, since it is just like any other year. Speculation about future years is already covered by WP:CRYSTAL, and not encouraged. The use of the word "important" should be avoided since it is not consisent with other notability criteria. --Kevin Murray 11:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that both the initial and revised version essentially state: we should have an article on a year if something notable verifiably happened in that year. Do we really need a separate guideline for what should be relatively common sense and amounts to one sentence? — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with BlackFalcon - it is silly to create a one sentence guideline that restates common sense, upon which everyone agrees (can someone point me to an AfD where this issue has come up - WP:CORP, by comparison, is a synthesis of nuance from thousands of AfDs.). I think we should close this as rejected. UnitedStatesian 20:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes (though not always) the obvious needs to be stated before going on to state something less obvious in a way that makes sense.

As for future years, I think WP:CRYSTAL does not apply to "foreseeable future" or, better yet, the "scheduled future." The 2008 Olympics will take place in Beijing unless some big catastrophe occurs. We can't say the same for the 2048 Olympics. The precedent of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 backs me up on this. Anton Mravcek 21:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Having an article on the 2008 Olympics is different than trying to foretell the occurrences of an entire year.

I agree with US and the Falcon that we probably don't need this, but if we are to have a guideline it should be succinct and to the point. --Kevin Murray 22:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is ready to be rejected yet. I think the discussion is still making progress.

It might be that we can distil the consensus on the coverage of years to one sentence. It hasn't quite happened yet, because I'm not sure everyone is in agreement about future years. And I'm still not convinced about years where only one notable thing happened (what's the point of having a year page with only one dot-point in it?). But if we can reach consensus, and the resulting guideline is very short, that's not a reason to reject it. We should just merge it into some other guideline if it fits. If it doesn't, then maybe it's still best to have it in it's own page. Personally, I think a really short guideline is a good thing.

Lastly, I will argue that common sense is not sufficient. I do believe there will be people out there who will want to delete year pages as non notable, because they don't qualify under any notability criterion. And they really don't qualify! I think it's worth keeping this guideline, possibly as a full notability guideline, possible merged elsewhere, and as a last resort as a (short) essay, at least so that everyone can see that there is consensus on the issue whenever it comes up. -- BenBildstein 00:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem seeing a succinct addition to the Numbers guideline. --Kevin Murray 01:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I do. The numbers guideline is all about mathematics. This guideline for years (which reflects current practice) really doesn't. I was going to say "me too, as long as we can change the name to 'numbers and years'", which prima facie makes sense, but that's got a snowballs chance of happening, IMO. The maths guys just wouldn't dig it (IMO). -- BenBildstein 05:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You assume correctly, us "math guys" don't dig this. WP:NUMBER needs to concentrate more on numbers. PrimeFan 21:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Ben, then we have to weigh the advantage of this guidance against the potential confusion of additional rule-sets. One more never seems to be overwhelming, but collectively we are developing a very complex set of rules to rival the US Tax Code. --Kevin Murray 05:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they should simply the US Tax Code by replacing some sections with "use common sense" :) But seriously, I do agree it's an issue. There's no great option here:

• If we have a new guideline, even very simple, some people won't know about it.
  • Counter-argument: there's no way to know when to make year pages now.
• If we merge it into another page, it will be short and easily missed.
  • Counter-argument: we can still create a shortcut and/or redirect to the specific section.
• If we have no guideline, we are relying on people's common sense, which isn't ubiquitous.
  • Counter-argument: we have enough momentum in our coverage of years that the precedent (at least for past years) is a sufficient guideline.

(Perhaps we should put such a summary of the arguments somewhere more visible.) -- BenBildstein 23:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• Please bear in mind that guidelines like WP:NUMBER are written for the project as a whole, and not just for the "math guys". Note that WP:NUMBER has covered "years" for, well, years, until this was removed last week. If there is insufficient scope here for a new and independent guideline, it should simply be merged back. >Radiant< 13:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • There is more than plenty of scope for a years guideline, and almost all of that scope falls outside of WP:NUMBER. 2007 talks about what happened in the year 2007. 2007 (number) (if we had such article, not that we need it) would have as its primary concern the mathematical properties of the integer 2007. It would of course have some kind of disambiguation link to the year 2007, but that would be it. PrimeFan 23:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• (I'm not convinced that there has ever been coverage of the years domain at WP:NUMBER that was actually backed by consensus and stayed for any time. But I haven't looked through the whole history, so please correct me.) I know WP:NUMBER doesn't belong to the math guys. I was making a WP:SNOWBALL argument, which I still think is valid. Then again, feel free to garner consensus at Wikipedia_talk:Notability (numbers). But lastly, to clarify, I'm not opposed to a merge, if we can find the right place for it. -- BenBildstein 00:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Such a merge would make sense only if we agreed to merge each article for an integer with the article for the corresponding year. Otherwise such a merge makes about as much sense as merging the notability guideline for porn stars with that for music. ShutterBugTrekker 23:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

• I found this: "Years. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and doesn't require an article about any future year with speculation as to what may or may not occur in that year." That is commonsense, if you know about WP:CRYSTAL, which is about verifiability anyway. Not that I object - it just doesn't seem complete. -- BenBildstein 00:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

That is commonsense even if you don't know about WP:CRYSTAL, which some of us would rather not know about because it is often brought up in the stupidest ways imaginable. One time I saw the statement "Star Trek is set in the future" prompt some idiot to shout "WP:CRYSTAL." What an idiot!

Anyway, where I'm coming from, is that in many Wikipedia articles about Star Trek episodes, I've removed links to future years. Sometimes I get reverted on this, sometimes not. I don't want to get into a revert war over this kind of thing. I guess I'd actually like one of those annoying "WP:x" things to justify my actions in those cases. ShutterBugTrekker 23:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Are future years notable?

I believe that setting a notability guideline stating that articles regarding future years are notable is in direct conflict with the exisiting policy at WP:CRYSTAL. --Kevin Murray 21:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

To have scheduled an event for the future is something that was done in the past. Most normal people don't look at a crystal ball to tell what was done in the past. Cromulent Kwyjibo 23:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I've reworded the bits about future years. I've removed the reference to WP:CRYSTAL, as it wasn't based on consensus.

WP:CRYSTAL starts by saying "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation". Clearly, this must be true for years, but the proposed guideline as currently worded makes that clear anyway: "notable events occurring within the year [that] can be accurately dated to that year and are verifiable." (emphasis added)

Another quote from WP:CRYSTAL: "Individual scheduled or expected future events should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." (emphasis added). Note that the event has to be notable before the event can be included in Wikipedia. And if the event isn't notable then, under this guideline, it doesn't make the year notable. (If the year is otherwise notable, whether or not to include a reference to the non-notable event is a matter of content, not notability. See WP:NNC.)

Still, I'm leaving WP:CRYSTAL as a "see also" link, because it is important reading for those writing about the future, which this guideline does cover. -- BenBildstein 00:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• An issue we've had in the past is people making articles for years in which major events occur in fictional stories, such as Star Trek. >Radiant< 13:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, exactly. That's the kind of thing we need to be talking about. For example, did you know that Memory Alpha's coverage of this is actually not that good? Anton Mravcek 20:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    • That's funny. It could actually have happened that Wikipedia's coverage of this could have exceeded Memory Alpha's in breadth or depth. But now years like 2369 redirect to the 24th Century, which provides an external link to Memory Alpha. ShutterBugTrekker 22:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Technically, events occurring in fictional stories aren't events. Like the universe ceasing to exist in a fictional story isn't actually the universe ceasing to exist. To put it another way, someone writing about or portraying something happening in 2369 is not something that will happen in that year, but rather a current reference to that year. Another way of looking at it is that when that year comes, there will be no evidence that this fiction mentioned it, whereas a real event will actually happen. -- BenBildstein 00:26, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I hope you're not saying that you can distinguish between reality and fiction but others can't... Knodeltheory 22:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Future years

Here's the bit on future years:

"A year which has not yet begun is notable if major national or international events have been scheduled for that year and it is highly likely that they will still occur in that year even if a major catastrophe occurs. For international events that take place in a different venue each year, the venue needs to have already been chosen before listing in an article for a year to come (e.g., the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad)."

• What is a 'major' national event? Does it have to be notable?

Yes. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• Are all international events valid? Or do they have to be 'major', too? (The sentence is ambiguous)

When did it ever say "major"? Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• Can't we just say that the events have to be individually notable enough to have Wikipedia pages? Isn't that a common-sense, easily understood, and useful guideline? After all, it would be inconsistent to have reference to the events unless the encyclopedia has more to say about them.

I agree, so I'm rewording accordingly. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• Why does it matter if if the event wouldn't occur in the case of major catastrophe? The next Olympic games could be cancelled, if there was a major catastrophe. But it's still noteworthy.

Reworded as hinted at. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• Why does the venue have to be fixed? If, say, Peru is hosting the APEC summit next year, and we already have a page on the 2008 APEC Summit, isn't that the kind of thing that would justify a page? How fixed does the location have to be? City? Specific building? State? Country?

It goes to show verifiability. The 2048 Olympics aren't currently verifiable. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's not second-guess WP:V. It's WP:V's job to say what is and isn't verifiable, and content that isn't shouldn't be included. The 2048 Olympics aren't currently verifiable, but they could conceivably be. Seriously. What if the IOC took the unprecedented step of deciding that the 2048 Olympics were going to be held in 2049? There'd be lots of coverage. It could be verifiable. Why shouldn't we include it? -- BenBildstein 00:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

• Why are we specifying what's in the content of the page? ("the venue needs to have already been chosen before listing in an article"). This is not what notability is about - it directly contradicts WP:NNC.

Is there really a consensus about this? -- BenBildstein 00:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

• I am not, as yet, convinced that there is need for this, aside from the single line that used to be in WP:NUMBER. Certainly it does not appear to be a problem all that often. >Radiant< 13:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
  • • Are you the same person who worried that Wikipedia's finite server storage space could be exhausted by someone who, unaware that numbers are infinite, tries to make an article for every number there is? That is more likely to occur than that a few people could make pages for almost every year in this millennium? Anton Mravcek 20:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
      • No, and how is that relevant? My point is that having multiple semi-overlapping guidelines is impractical. We have too many such pages as it is. >Radiant< 07:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
        • It will be overlapping if you make sure it overlaps. Anton Mravcek 02:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a need to address the "sub"-topics that have been identified ("things this policy needs to address" section above), but we seem to have gotten bogged down on what, as PrimeFan so eloquently put it, "commonsense has already dictated." Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 20:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Years to come section

The "Years to come section" attempts to narrowly define notability for the future. To say that the events are to be notable and verifiable for all years past, present and future is sufficient. Why do people think that more is better when it comes to rules? Effectiveness is not measured by the pound; a short actionable guidline which reflects actual practice at WP is what we seek. --Kevin Murray 16:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

But it's possible to go to the other extreme and make things so brief it doesn't address the nuance someone might be wondering about. ShutterBugTrekker wants some guidance regarding fictional references to future years. If we just have one short umbrella sentence, ShutterBug might've wondered if it means that it's not allowed at all or if we just didn't think about it at all. Anton Mravcek 19:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Justification etc. belongs on the talk page. Perhaps we need a bit more clarity, but closer to the shorter version. --Kevin Murray 19:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. But let the record also show that merging this guideline anywhere else would work against clarity, even if the proposed merge-into is marginally related (e.g., the articles about integers that have disambiguation links to years). CompositeFan 20:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

My first goal is clarity of guidelines to avoid confusion. I see brevity of text and fewer pages which require preambles etc, as a step toward the goal of clarity. Clearly there are situations where having separate guidelines induces clarity; however, having too many guidlines inherently adds to confusion. --Kevin Murray 20:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Instruction creep

That's what this page seems like. Things like WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC and WP:SPORTS seem like acceptable guidelines for notability, but this just seems too much. Perhaps merge with WP:NUMBER?--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That "instruction creep" comment would've made more sense for the first draft of this proposed policy. But after merciless editing that removed all the inessentials (and sometimes even the essentials), instruction creep is not likely to happen. Anton Mravcek 22:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

No, merge to WP:NUMBER is an awful idea. For that idea to even begin to make sense, you first have to suggest merging the number and year articles together. Otherwise it makes as much sense as merging WP:BIO and WP:SPORTS together. CompositeFan 16:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That's hardly a solid argument. We could easily have a single page explaining both the year articles and the number articles - just like we have different articles on sportsmen and sport teams. Obviously one guideline can cover multiple articles. >Radiant< 16:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but at least sports teams and individual athletes are more closely related than years and numbers. We are talking about two very different animals here: the year articles are almanac-like content listing events that happened in those years, while the number articles are encyclopedic articles focused primarily on discussing the interactions of the mathematical properties of the number in question. Anton Mravcek 22:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• That is true, but while we appear to say a lot about numbers, we have so far been unable to state much more than a single line about years. There doesn't seem to be enough for them to "stand on their own". >Radiant< 08:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oh ho ho ho, my spidey sense is tingling on this one! Anton's reply to HisSpace led me to look at the history on this one. PrimeFan's first draft was a lot longer. Was the pruning out of a genuine drive to boil down to essentials, or merely a calculated ploy designed to enable the "it's too short to stand on its own" argument? Cholerashot 14:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not the one pruning it down. Note, however, that PrimeFan's draft was substantially longer than the original version (which was a single sentence on WP:NUM). Was the enlarging a genuine drive to increase its scope, or merely a calculated ploy designed to remove a perceived eyesore from an allegedly-mathematical page? >Radiant< 14:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Who wrote WP:NUMBER? Not PrimeFan, nor any member of WP:NUM. The whole raison d'être of WP:NUMBER was exclusively to condescend to number theory aficionadi. I think I speak for the members of WP:NUM when I say that we'd be quite alright with the deletion of WP:NUMBER and the maintaining of a single, non-condescending sentence at WP:NUM. Anton Mravcek 22:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• No, the whole raison d'être of WP:NUMBER was exclusively to explain to people who thought it'd be fun to make articles on 5473895734895 and triquadnilium that we really don't want such articles. If you believe there are many people who want it deleted, I'd suggest WP:MFD. >Radiant< 12:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• Why would a longer rambling guideline be more defensible? Are people packing fluff into guidelines only to justify stand alone status? If a guideline can be distilled down to a sentence, then it is all the more clear and thus useful. --Kevin Murray 14:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Rejected?

Quoted from Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines:

A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus for acceptance is not present after a reasonable time period, for which consensus is unclear after a reasonable time period for discussion regardless of whether there is active discussion or not, or where discussion has substantially died out without reaching consensus. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected.

There has been no discussion regarding this proposal for two weeks and the main proposal page has not been edited for nearly four weeks. Should this be tagged as {{rejected}}? Its long form was critised for containing too much non-essential content and its short form seems little more than a restatement of existing policies and guidelines, particularly Wikipedia:Fiction, Wikipedia:Notability, Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and WP:CRYSTAL. Any thoughts? Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I do like the current form better, but just don't see a compelling need for this to be a guideline. --Kevin Murray 22:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's hope no one notices how many users have expressed their support of this proposed policy, earlier on in this very talk page. Anton Mravcek 22:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not think that the number is significantly more than the # of people who've voiced objections. Besides, a "support, great idea" without further participation in the discussion or an attempt to edit the guideline to address standing concerns is not especially useful. Also, please note the part of the above quote that starts with "consensus need not be fully opposed...". Nonetheless, I genuinely fail to see what need this proposed guideline fill? It consists of 5-6 sentences which only repeat what is explicitly stated or implied by the five policies and guidelines listed above. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:28, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• After reading BF's last, and reading through the long discussion, there are only a couple contributing supporters and many opponents. It seems proper to go ahead and post the tag. --Kevin Murray 00:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)