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Archive 15Archive 19Archive 20Archive 21

Year in country pages

Would appreciate input at this discussion, concerning when to use/not use 'start/end' dates in "Year in country" pages. Note - the same discussion occurred 12 months ago, with minimal input. It's a topic, that effects all Year in country pages. GoodDay (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm considering opening an RFC 'here' on this matter concerning all "Year in Great Britain" & "Year in the United Kingdom" pages. GoodDay (talk) 19:37, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Year/Decade in England, Great Britain & United Kingdom pages, concerning the "Incumbents" section

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus for C. Unanimous support for this option, and while some editors preferred other options those didn't receive enough support to get a consensus. BilledMammal (talk) 22:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)


How should the parliament & members be shown in the "Year in" & "Decade in" pages for England, Great Britain & the United Kingdom's Incumbents' section? Let's use 2024 in the United Kingdom for an example. GoodDay (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

  • A) Parliament58th
  • B) Parliamentelected 2019
  • C) Exclude mention of legislature & members. As is done in the "Year in Scotland", "Year in Wales" & "Year in Northern Ireland" pages.

Survey II

Discussion II

The A option is my first choice, as we've been using it for years on these pages. As for the C option? One need only look at Year/Decade pages like 1450s in England, where it's quite cumbersome. GoodDay (talk) 21:23, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Keep in mind that even if a consensus is reached here, the editors of any individual year and country can decide that an exception should be made for that particular article—WikiProjects serve as hubs for a certain topic, but they don't dictate content beyond an advisory role. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Opening up hundreds of RFCs for each page, would've been chaotic. GoodDay (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
The ordinal number is not generally known or used in the UK, so should not be used in the article. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:21, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Folks, we could use more input here. Don't leave it up to just two editors. GoodDay (talk) 16:43, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

The option to exclude them does not seam to be a good one as it could be something that you are seeking. I would suggest a combination of A & B. Keith D (talk) 01:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Regarding A: What's "58th" supposed to mean?? 58th what? I've no clue how that's counted but I've never seen Parliaments in the UK given ordinal numbers. It looks like someone has, using WP:OR, imported the US system of giving Congresses ordinal numbers. This is the article to which "58th" is pipelinked: List of MPs elected in the 2019 United Kingdom general election. There's no reference to 58th of anything in that article. It's pure WP:EGG. DeCausa (talk) 22:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
I've just googled 58th Parliament and from the results only Wikipedia calls the current UK Parliament the 58th. DeCausa (talk) 22:42, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
@DeCausa: Which option do you recommend? GoodDay (talk) 22:52, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Well B is recognisable. But to be honest, I'm not that bothered: a more important issue is getting rid of this weird OR numbering of parliaments generally. DeCausa (talk) 22:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
We have the C option - delete. The legislature isn't shown in the Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland Year pages. GoodDay (talk) 23:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
As I say, I don't really care between B and C. A much bigger concern is how this weird ordinal numbering is peppered around, as I now find, quite a few articles usually in Infoboxes eg Second May ministry which is just WP:EGG, as well as being WP:OR. DeCausa (talk) 23:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
It would help, if you chose an option within the scope of this RFC. GoodDay (talk) 21:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

@DeFacto:, I requested closure. GoodDay (talk) 22:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is any page with a year in its title within the scope of this WP?

I've noticed sometimes articles I create get tagged with WikiProject Years, for example in Special:Diff/1211004689 for 2024 Maurie Plant Meet. But when I've tried to tag some of the articles/categories I create with the WP Years template, it often gets removed. So my question is, are pages for annual (or bi-annual, etc) events/leagues that have the year in the title within the scope of WikiProject Years? Or would that only really apply to pages of the form "[year] in ...", like 2024 in athletics but not 2024 Diamond League or 2024 World Athletics Continental Tour or 2024 Maurie Plant Meet? --Habst (talk) 23:18, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

The latter. The difference is that 2024 in athletics is specifically about the year 2024, or at least one aspect of it. With 2024 World Athletics Continental Tour, the year is just there to disambiguate the article or serve as part of the event's name. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

RfC - Criteria for Tornadoes of XXXX articles

There is an ongoing RfC to set the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia's Tornadoes of XXXX (ex. Tornadoes of 2024) articles. If you wish to participate in the Request for Comment discussion, you can do so here! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:31, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I have gradually been populating the xxx in Russia articles. Are there guidelines for who to include as "Russian"? This could apply to any "xxx in some country" article, but it is particularly difficult for a country which has at various times included so many ethnicities. For now, I am including persons whose careers are substantially in modern Russia or in the Russian government of the time - for example, Georgians or Ukrainians or Poles who were in the Russian government or military or whose careers were in modern day Russia. I am excluding those whose careers were largely in their own languages and homelands, even if they occurred within Russian borders at the time. For instance, in the 1804 births section, I decided to include Mykola Markevych because he had been educated in Russia and served in the Russian army. OTOH, I excluded Peter Kharischirashvili because his career was either in Georgia or abroad, even though Georgia was under Russian rule at the time. Comments? Brianyoumans (talk) 18:31, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

This is a tricky one, and it probably depends on the context. The surest bet of course would be if the sources specify a nationality for the person or event, but it's not always going to be that easy. The scope of these articles is generally the sovereign state, so I would include anything within the state, even if this includes minority ethnic groups or indigenous people of a given region. If the 1804 in Russia article were so heavily developed that it got too big, then 1804 in Georgia wouldn't be unreasonable to split off, but we're pretty far from that point right now. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
There are many instances where ethnicities are mentioned and they are not Russian, but I think they definitely should be included in a list of Russian events. A number of persons are identified as "Baltic Germans", for instance, they came from an area that had been under Russian control for some time and they often had scientific careers in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Many foreigners served in the military, some prominently. However, I think it would be politically insensitive to, essentially, list certain people as "Russian" if their careers had little to do with the central government, they were not ethnically Russian, and they are now identified as belonging to the development of an existing state, such as Poland or Ukraine. It is kind of judgement call, I guess. Brianyoumans (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
"I think it would be politically insensitive to, essentially, list certain people as "Russian" if their careers had little to do with the central government, they were not ethnically Russian, and they are now identified as belonging to the development of an existing state, such as Poland or Ukraine." I don't see the reasoning here. These people were born, lived, worked, etc in Russia. This is about things that happened in Russia. That they were not ethnically Russian would mean that they could also be in other categories, but I cannot see how it could exclude them from any "in Russia" category. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Remove all form of galleries and add images to the sections instead

I found that the galleries in year, decade and centuries articles are often made in poor taste and does not provide any context to the reader. The captions are insanely long, not to mention that this is a nightmare to read for mobile readers. I would suggest that no lead image should be added and instead images should be added at individual sections, i.e. topics and each month for year articles. That would also necessitate changes in {{Year in various calendars}} so that images can be added in january for year articles. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: I am aware of the previous RFC. I do not feel satisfied about the closure because it fails to address that such a collage is very cumbersome to decipher for readers. It may be easy for us editors to edit those collage, but for the reader it is a slog to read. And it inherently violates our guidelines on image galleries in general. What I suggest here is not that controversial, the final product would still be a gallery of signficant pictures but being broken up into images per month/topic. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:59, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
I think you're going to need another RFC to overturn the previous one. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 20:17, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

1989 requested move

I can't see that this has been noted here, so FYI there is a discussion which would involve 1989 to AD 1989 here - Talk:1989_(disambiguation)#Requested_move_6_May_2024. I only noticed this as I have 1989 watchlisted due to vandalism on it. Black Kite (talk) 10:13, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Vandalism at Year in the United States pages

Just a heads up. A mobile editor keeps deleting outgoing presidents & outgoing vice presidents from YEAR in the United States pages. See
1974 in the United States,
1977 in the United States,
1981 in the United States,
1989 in the United States,
1993 in the United States,
2001 in the United States,
2009 in the United States,
2017 in the United States
2021 in the United States
GoodDay (talk) 14:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Both myself & @Kpgjhpjm:, had to revert the vandalism. GoodDay (talk) 19:46, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2023 Perth City Council election#Requested move 9 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari ScribeEdits! Talk! 04:06, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

W-VHS Cassette

This product was put on sale in 1993, but a former user wrote that it was in 1994. I fixed it, but I cannot remove the "Products introduced in 1994" button on the W-VHS topic. I want it to be removed from this list and added to the year 1993.

W-VHS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W-VHS

Products introduced in 1994: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Products_introduced_in_1994 EFI Shell (talk) 17:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Significant Lifeforms

A new editor (@Legendarycool:) has started making mass changes to per-year articles to include the heading "Significant Lifeforms" rather than "People" (or the existing "Births" and "Deaths") - Special:Diff/1231376669 for example. Is there support for this change? Walsh90210 (talk) 23:53, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I have done it to try and standardise it and I have not removed births and deaths in fact added them to make it easier for future editors. Legendarycool (talk) 23:56, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
There was no intention of malice and if need be I will revert all of them myself if it is decided that it is not the best option. Legendarycool (talk) 23:59, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I think a good solution would be to do away with “significant X/Y” and just use “Births” and Deaths”, doing this would be difficult as these have been mixed together in the “significant X/Y” category or heading but I think this idea that you mentioned of using the more informative “Births” and “Deaths” headings. Legendarycool (talk) 06:54, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Revert I support changing it back to how it was. House1090 (talk) 05:25, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
What about my proposal for just using births and deaths and removing significant people of lifeforms as to standardise. Legendarycool (talk) 07:11, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

importance

Should we remove the "Importance" parameter from Template:WPYEARS? What makes a year low importance or high importance or something like that? 48JCL 15:34, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Chinese dating (WP:BIAS/WP:UNDUE)

This has been briefly and unclearly mentioned before but the current treatment of Chinese dating in our year by year infoboxes is nearly entirely mistaken. Yes, the sexagenary cycle is real and important to mention.

A. No, Yellow Emperor dates aren't really a thing, the way they're being presented.

I mean, sure, they're a thing in the exact same way AUC dates are. They're a fad some people went through in the 19th & 20th century, largely based on the mistaken idea that other important people had used them. The Romans actually almost entirely used eponymous consular dating. The Chinese actually entirely (except for that fad still somewhat upheld on almanac-style Chinese lunisolar calendars) used imperial era names.

It's a more valid notable system than the Discordian calendar we keep as lagniappe from Wiki's fun early days, sure, but it's entirely WP:UNDUE to treat it as the Chinese year now and just a WP:LIE to treat it as the Chinese year in any historical context. It's fine to keep but it absolutely needs to be labeled (YE, AH, AHD, whatever) to clarify what it is, which isn't the "Chinese calendar year".

B. No, we don't need to include two Yellow Emperor dates.

There's a list of different epochs on our Chinese calendar page. No, the other ones aren't as notable (especially in English) as YE dating and don't need to be included in the infobox. However, absolutely none of them involve a computation that even remotely produces an equivalent year 4514/4515 for AD 2024.

The same section of the same page includes what I think the second "Chinese year" in the infobox is trying to do: In 1905, the Jiangsu provincial government used a system that would've made 2024 the year 4514/4515 if anyone still used their system. Per cursory Googling in English, we're the only ones who seem to and we should just stop. Unless the second system is actually still prominently used (which the article should be changed to discuss), no, it isn't important to cover variant YE dates any more than all the variant AUC dates or Marianus Scotus's variant AD computation that was popular for a while in the 12th century.

C. Yes, we absolutely need to include the era dates.

Like the Greek and Romans, actual Chinese dating was based on regnal eras. Years in some periods like the Northern and Southern Dynasties had more than one era name and both should be included. Years were double counted as the last year of a dying emperor's reign and the first year of his successor's; both should be included. Reigns before the Han dynasty without formal era names should just list the regnal names (or conventional regency name) standard in Chinese historiography at least as far back as the Eastern Zhou. We could simply omit less certain regnal years before that or include conventional dates from a single system along the same lines as the calculation of the Yellow Emperor's reign in the first place; we don't seem to include footnotes on questionable eras for the other sections but could for those if people felt strongly about it.

In any case, there's at least 2000-odd years of an established dating system being used by roughly a fourth of humanity that we aren't mentioning or even vaguely hinting at. We should fix that.

D. Eh, the "Minguo calendar" is simply the continuation of the exact same system,

switched over to Gregorian months and years. I get why you might not want to include it in the "Chinese year" section after 1949 and why that means not including it before 1949 either. Fact remains that it's literally the exact same system, using the people's government as the new eternal era name. Similarly, as far as our article on the Republic of China calendar knows, it isn't used for dates before 1912. Our template currently (mis)uses it for ~3000 years before 1912, at least as far back as 719 BC. It's possible some people have used it that way, which should be added to our article. It's certainly uncommon and the infobox shouldn't be using it for any of those earlier years at all, just like we don't have a Juche calendar date for 1900.

E. No, we shouldn't have a separate name for the ROC era.

The Minguo era page might very well be in the wrong place. The discussion for its move from Minguo calendar to Republic of China calendar was very short and apparently based on misreliance on misplacement of the Juche calendar page to "North Korean calendar". Whichever is right, though, our infobox and the page should be using the same name for the same epoch.

 — LlywelynII 22:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

  • This is a wide-ranging RfC so forgive me if I have not addressed , but on C/D the backdating of the ROC/Minguo calendar does look really strange. That dating system shouldn't be on pre-1912 years, and it would be sensible to treat it as a continuation of dynastic eras prior to that date. CMD (talk) 01:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't have time for a full reply right now (on lunch) but I fully agree with C, B, and A. The periods of disunity will be a bit tricky with regnal periods, but we should do what we can to be inclusive.
I did want to call out that for the period prior to the Eastern Zhou, we don't have many, if any, reliably established dates, except maybe for Zhou Wu Wang and Zhou Mu Wang. Archaeology still hasn't quite caught up, but I am aware that disvoveries in the '00s caused the state-sponsored XSZ chronology project to disband without ever releasing a final report, since some of their main dating theories had been falsified by new evidence. I'm also not sure of the current scholarly consensus of the Nivison–Shaughnessy "double yuan hypothesis", which affects the Western Zhou.
Anyway the early chronology is still not secure. Folly Mox (talk) 17:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
Well no one else seems super interested in this conversation, but I think the way forward probably involves the following:
  • Figure out how to display multiple regnal periods for single monarchs and for multiple claimants that coincide during a single calendar year
  • Change the ROC calendar field to display
    • named regnal periods from Han Wudi through Minguo, which can be treated like any other regnal period, as it is in Chinese texts
    • ruler name and year for Qin Shihuang through Han Jingdi (nine monarchs)
    • Zhou mandate calendar for the period prior
  • Remove the "Yellow Emperor" years entirely, leaving just the ganzhi terms? Or we could leave them in for years before the mandate calendar?
This seems like it best reflects premodern usage in China. What do people think? Folly Mox (talk) 10:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Separating elections into their own sections

This is especially the case for the current year, and given that there are so many elections in many years, I think it's only appropriate that elections are moved into a separate section. I believe that their importance is diluted when they are thrown into the general events timeline, and a separate section would provide generally better organization for readers. We already do this on the US articles to highlight every US election in a single place while hatnoting the relevant general election article for further elaboration (such as 2023 United States elections). While for the globe it doesn't have to carbon copy the exact formatting, the principle itself should at least be implemented. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 18:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Support because we include almost all general elections for heads of state & government, and readers who want to look for updates or quick summaries not found in the electoral calendar articles would benefit. Also, general elections are the main topic that consistently gets mentioned. For most other topics (i.e. natural disasters, armed conflicts, diplomatic and political events) it's harder for those events to merit mention. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 18:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Formal deprecation of arguments to exclude entries based on Americentrism

We have been having this problem for the past two years and after multiple RFC's, and we still see exclusions of events and content due to "Americentrism" in places as recent as this year. Inherently, this contrasts with DUE. Too many times are editors removing or advocating for the removal of entries since they only affect the United States. In effect, this isn't following the DUE weight policy. This is outright anti-Americanism, and an attempt to bring back the old International Notability standard (INS), which has been proven as not in place at least thrice before on 2022, was the center of an ANI discussion which got INS heavily scrutinized and the primary instigator of INS TBanned, became formally deprecated via RFC last year, and was one of the primary areas of concern which led to editors being investigated and eventually confirmed as sockupuppets for the TBanned user.

I think the multiple discussions in the past have proven enough that INS's time is officially up; its attempted implementation is only taking the new form of "Exclude due to Americentrism". I propose that the exclusion of events due to Americentrism be formally deprecated and invalidated as an argument when it comes to "main year articles" such as 2024. If successful, I believe it necessary to link this discussion to the headers of all main year article talk pages. Given the nature of the most frequent contributors, I personally predict this will go to RFC eventually, though procedurally I think it is best to start here.

Pinging recent contributors to WPYEARS articles: @Yeoutie @JohnAdams1800 @ElegantEgotist @Alsoriano97 @Wjfox2005 (and I invite you to ping anybody else who you would believe be of particular value to the discussion.) InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 20:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I fully support your efforts. Wjfox2005 (talk) 21:45, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
So you are saying "This thing is too minor to include" is valid, but "This thing only affected the US, so it shouldn't be included" isn't? Hmm. I suspect that a lot of the arguments are more nuanced, along the lines of "This only affected the US and was not major and therefore should not be included." Would you want such arguments excluded? Perhaps you should give us some examples of what you think is valid and invalid? Brianyoumans (talk) 21:53, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
Broadly agree. But it doesn't need to be "deprecated", we just need to enforce existing policy. None of this would be an issue if the people in this topic area (and current events more broadly) put more effort into actually making helpful contributions based on reliable sources. Also, this WikiProject doesn't have any "authority" over any articles, which again goes back to applying sitewide consensus—a consensus that rejects the POV-pushing/OR that you're describing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:06, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Respectfully speaking, I think that there have been way too many RFCs and needs for sitewide attention to come to the years articles. I agree that we do indeed to better enforce site policies, but since I feel like it's almost a semi-annual event to get the entire community involved in these shenanigans and enforce DUE here, I think we do need to put in a more reasonable solution. I'm open to hearing other ideas on how to better enforce existing policy, but I think that at least as of right now, deprecation of a core argument against policy can set things in stone even more than it presently is, and enables for a quick, easy, community approved, and most importantly (referring to the Feb 2023 ANI) a traceable consensus which approves a solution to a persistent problem and policy violation. Unsure if the deprecation of arguments has precedent on WP the same way that legislation in countries' legal systems has invalidated arguments in court (feel free to ping me if something like this has happened before), so this is intended to be proposed as a novel solution, but one which I feel is needed nonetheless, at least until a better way to help enforce core content policies is drafted, proposed, and approved upon. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 02:57, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
I'm totally disagree with InvadingInvader and a few things need to be made clear.
First of all, it should be made clear that my position is not anti-American, but anti-country-centrism. I don't care if it is the USA, Spain, India or Fiji, if I see that there is an abuse of the inclusion of news from a country I will question its notoriety from the first moment.
Secondly, and we must be well positioned. The United States is undoubtedly one of the most powerful countries in the world and historically one of the most influential in the daily life of, at least, the West. But this has not been achieved without a propaganda machine that since WW2 wanted to promote the values of American society in a world that, according to them, was savage. For this reason, the press since then is able to report on any trifle that happens in that country, be it silly or irrelevant: you will have a news item in Cyprus in which they talk about Biden's fall on a bicycle and another in Namibia in which they will talk about the fly that got on Mike Pence's head. And no, not because of that, as you will understand, it implies international notoriety.
That is why it is more important than it seems that, among the active editors, there are jurists, scientists, political scientists or simple experts in certain subjects that help us to evaluate in a more encyclopedic and less journalistic way the events that we want to include in Wikipedia. And that is why it is also important that editors from other countries around the world participate. Because, let's not forget, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a news journal.
The criterion of international notability should never have fallen. _-_Alsor (talk) 09:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia summarizes things as they appear in reliable sources. If you feel that the sources are biased, then that's something you're going to have to work out yourself. Ideally, we'd try to avoid using journalism to determine relevance anywhere on Wikipedia, as I've previously written. But I've long since accepted that we just have to let the "current events" editors scramble and argue for a while. Then after a year or so, more capable editors can go through and fix the mess they made with higher quality sources, removing the cruft when much of what they argued about ended up being irrelevant. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:14, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
It is also true that this is the *English* Wikipedia. While it tries to include relevant information worldwide, I don't think it is necessarily bad if it includes more complete coverage of matters in America, the largest country of native English speakers, and other major English speaking nations. After all, the sources available in English for such matters are quite plentiful.
As far as tone or slant, we should always strive for an encyclopedaic, neutral tone, but we are also limited to what our sources say. Brianyoumans (talk) 00:39, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
Oppose because years should be, like Alsor said, anti-country-centrism. It doesn't matter which country, entries in years must have sufficient due weight, plus coverage in RS and WP:GNG. Ameri-centrism is common because a plurality of Wikipedia editors (20%) come from the United States, even though less than 5% of the world population lives in the United States. JohnAdams1800 (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
I think you are incorrectly using the term "due weight" in a manner which contrasts from Wikipedia policy's definition. "Due Weight" as defined by policy is judged upon by coverage in RS's. You seem to interpret that Due Weight means how much substance a particular event has. That's wrong, and it's closer to International Notability than due weight. If anything, your definition of due weight seems to inherently violate what is actually due weight. Wikipedia doesn't exist for anyone to right great wrongs, and advocacy for less US-centric coverage in a manner noncompliant with the actual Due Weight policy is specifically banned here per WP:NOT. I would suggest that you give WP:DUE a good hard read again. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:31, 1 August 2024 (UTC)