Can the image of Ceres at least use one of the modern close-ups from Dawn? Using a blurry Hubble picture is not a good representation of any extraterrestrial object, especially if we have better imagery available. SounderBruce04:58, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Proposal: Addition to OTD
Currently, ITN carries a small section for those who have recently died. OTD does not have a similar section for those who died on this day in history.
Therefore I propose that a small section is added to the botttom of OTD entitled "Died on this day" or similar. It is to feature a maximum of three links to articles of people (or animals) that died on the day in question. Such article to be assessed at B class at minimum. Mjroots (talk) 16:20, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
It seems we would need a "Born on this day" as well. If we do these both, we would have to go down to four blurbs as the standard (space permitting). Not sure I like that. —howcheng {chat}16:51, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
If we do everything on one line, that would probably work, so maybe we can fit two each per day (quality permitting). We might be able to make up the space by shortening the existing blurbs as well. I would suggest also that we have to be some sort of notability threshold, but I can see how that might become too subjective. Perhaps saying the B-quality minimum would be enough, as it would probably be difficult to write one about an obscure politician or musician. —howcheng {chat}17:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Would it be possible to write a script that would display a random birth date and death date article from a list of approved articles? We've done such things before that randomly displayed links from a menu of links, so I'm pretty sure it can be done. That way, valid articles get highlighted on the appropriate day, but we could keep the whole thing on one line. Just a thought. --Jayron3217:50, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see birthdays rather than deaths, with priority to milestone birthdays (if the subject is still living). There's enough death on the main page as it is. Optimist on the run (talk) 18:39, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Birthdays looks like a grand idea to me. Each year article (e.g. 2000) has a suitable that could be cherry-picked from, and while it may be a bit of work in the early stages, it'd be a good addition. I'd happily help out with this. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:02, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Taking into account the above discussion, it would seem that the is a general consensus forming in favour of the proposal. Time for some firm details-
OTD to have a "born" and "died" section, each containing a maximum of two links to people/animals that were born/died on the day in question. Eligible articles to be of B class and above. No article is to be listed again once it has appeared in either section (i.e. if appearing as a birth, cannot appear as a death on a different date). Those whose date of death is unknown are treated on a case by case basis (e.g. date last known to be alive, date officially declared dead, etc). Notability is demonstrated by having an article. Mjroots (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Support I think I'll use my own judgement and common sense rather than try to stick to a rigid and incomplete set of criteria (e.g. I'd add no maintenance tags, no massive BLP violations etc but that's just something we should always do) but otherwise this is good to go. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Support, great idea for births and deaths. There's a couple of tweaks we can do to lessen the column length impact: Lose the 'current date/ Reload the page' at the bottom of OTD, perhaps moving the date into the OTD header, and make the mainpage columns 50/50% rather than 55/45%. The names should probably have the year in brackets after, such as Born: Joe Blogs (1878). Died: John Smith (1982). But these are all details we can work out in due course. Stephen23:29, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
You know, I've been doing OTD for 5 years now and I swear, I've never noticed the date and "reload this page" link. —howcheng {chat}03:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
Support, with one tweak for greater flexibility: set a maximum of four total links, comprising two "born" and two "died" links whenever feasible, but with the option of varying the ratio on dates with a shortage in one category and surplus in the other (if and when such a situation arises). —David Levy02:10, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Support - I think this is a great idea that'll provide extra utility to the Main Page. Instead of sticking with the 'Born:' / 'Died:' leaders and almost requiring that there is one of each, maybe an annotation can be made with the date, thereby allowing for four births if no one of note deceased that day. I'd also like to see the entries in ascending date order, so this idea would facilitate that without requiring the rigid structure of "two and two". Joe Blogs (B:1878), John Smith (D:1982), Jeremy Johns (B:1988). -- NsTaGaTr (talk) 13:33, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the mockup, Whizz40. As it's a mockup, we'll ignore that three of the items would be ineligible. I think we need an extra blank line above the section, which would make it a bit clearer. Not sure we need to state what these people are known for. Not stating this might just arouse some curiosity in the reader and lead to a higher viewing figure (and thus more improvements to the article). Mjroots (talk) 09:07, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't think "born/died" is necessary, I think the text is self-explanatory, otherwise I'm okay with it. I have a vague concern that we'll have small issues over how to describe each individual in a few words without sometimes creating more heat than light, but that's a minor issue. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:29, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I've sized it to a more realistic 45% width, and concur that we should lose 'born/died' and their description. Stephen
I agree that the 'born/died' text is unnecessary. I don't think the description is really needed either, as pointed out above. I'd go down the rabbit hole much quicker if I had to seek out the information myself than having it fed to me. Finally, do we want to stick with births first, then deaths, or list them all chronologically? - NsTaGaTr(Talk)22:35, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
From feedback so far I've removed born/died, removed the descriptions, no-wrapped the dates, and reordered by date (which for the examples is deaths then births). Looks tighter. Stephen01:23, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I like that, it looks really good. Do 'we' maybe want to limit it to one line to try and avoid the wrap? That would probably limit it to three entries per day, which is a downside. - NsTaGaTr(Talk)15:33, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Comment should we reduce the number of regular OTD items to four if we implement this? Frequently the OTD section outweighs the DYK section and leads to main page imbalance, and that's without the line or two of births/deaths... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:18, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Why not leave it as a flexible filler, with a usual maximum of four, but scope to increase should the circumstances demand it. If there's only three, at least one should be a birth or death. Mjroots (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't like the idea of removing one blurb to make room for the births/deaths. Ideally we should try to shorten the wording (that first item in the mockup is way long). —howcheng {chat}19:05, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
It was never my intention to reduce OTD to accommodate these. So, minimum of two, normal maximum of four but with scope to expand should it prove necessary on the odd occasion. How soon can we get this up and running? Mjroots (talk) 19:18, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I was simply commenting on the practical "whole mainpage" issues I see almost daily with regard to balance. Right now it's almost always the right side of the main page that's considerably longer, and adding the births/deaths will exacerbate that. I'm just try to head that problem off early. There is no "normal maximum of four", it's almost always five, unless you're talking about post-implementation? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The Rambling Man I think we're at cross-purposes. I meant between two and four born/died OTDs as the norm. No need to reduce OTD to four blurbs, something that Howcheng has already stated opposition to. This proposal was always about adding to OTD, not removing from it. Mjroots (talk) 20:29, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Ok, so we will have a daily problem, particularly now DYK is down to seven hooks per set, rather than eight. The main page will seldom be balanced. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:31, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The other option, if DYK is now going to be perennially shorter, is to balance the two main page columns to 50/50 rather than 55/45. Balance will then be less sensitive to ITN/OTD length. Stephen22:34, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
I think that we should add the one birth and death to OTD, then start a discussion at T:MP re rebalancing the page, including running an extra hook at DYK. Maybe 52/48 would work? Mjroots (talk) 18:33, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
The arcane machinations of DYK will mean it depends on their throughput. DYK seldom fails any nomination, and when their backlog decreases then you'd get one eight-set per day, but when they are heavy, it increase to two seven-sets per day. Too variable to make assumptions. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
Just a quick note to say that the single B and single D added to the main page is going well. I've noted pageviews in excess of 3,000 for these individuals which is often better than a DYK hook, even pro rata. So that's a really nice result. We may like to think about moving to three or four items per day in due course. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Query
Hi all, just a query on this initiative - where are the admins selecting the b/d bios from? From the year pages? So that requires editors to manually add bios to the year page of the year that person was born/died? (I ask because I write a lot of biographical articles and I'd like to be sure that these articles get considered for this slot). Thanks. MurielMary (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
As long as they're picked more than a day in advance, anyone can add them, not just admins. I've been doing it a bit, trying to mix up young and old, American and non-American, man and woman... I use the day articles, e.g. February 23 to select them, and review each one to ensure it is of sufficient quality for the main page. And yes, births and deaths need to be added manually to those pages for every bio you write preferably. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:08, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks TRM. So who is picking the ones to go on the main page and where can I make some suggestions for that? e.g. (and these are all B class or higher articles): February 27 Ellen Terry (born 1847) or Elizabeth Taylor (born 1932). February 28 Stephanie Beacham (born 1947) or Bernadette Peters (born 1948). Can someone direct me to the right page for making suggestions such as these? Thanks! MurielMary (talk) 09:20, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
Stephanie Beacham lacks complete referencing. As TRM said, you can add to any OTD that's not protected, so those that are more than a day out. Perhaps ping User:Howcheng to let him know. Stephen10:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
The criteria for articles which can be included in this slot need to be clarified. The guidelines state "articles must be B class or higher" but I see User:The Rambling Man has removed some of my suggestions of B class articles on the grounds of insufficient referencing. If a certain level of referencing is required in addition to B class status, then that needs to be mentioned in the guidelines - otherwise they are misleading. MurielMary (talk) 21:51, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
I've removed items that I will simply bring to ERRORS as being poorly referenced. I'm not sure I ever agree with any criteria that relates to our own internal classification mark, I recently added one which was apparently a C-class article yet should probably have been a Good Article. While we're here, we need to also address the issue of internationalism vs gender. While it's a noble prospect to get around 50% of the b/d to be female, that's not actually representative of the articles we have on Wikipedia, and not only that, it will be prejudicing against non-white-Western individuals as we have very few decent articles on minority/non-white-Westerners, and most of them that are decent are about men. Not saying that it's right but before we strive headlong for the male/female 50/50, we need to be a touch more circumspect given the catalogue of articles we have to work with. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
The B-class issue thing is minor, it's a "should" and so it should be. Who cares what arbitrary classification an article is given unless it's a GA or an FA? In all other cases it's simply a guess. What's more pertinent is the rush to make the b/d a 50/50 m/f thing to the exclusion of the minorities. Just be watchful. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification on the internal classification system, good to know that TRM successfully added a C class article. As I was reading articles and looking at their class rating, there certainly were inconsistencies in quality in each class. BTW my recent adds weren't part of any "rush to make b/d 50/50 male/female", just looking for a wider range of articles in this slot than has appeared thus far - range including gender as well as ethnicity, reason for notability, historical era etc. I appreciate that there is a smaller pool of articles for any group who isn't a white male, however there is still a reasonable pool to pull from. MurielMary (talk) 01:38, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
All of your additions thus far have been Western white women from the 19th and 20th centuries. That's hardly a wide range. Stephen02:31, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
What I'd added so far included men, women, ancient, modern, sports, literature, politics, non-American, non-English. I think the range I provided was perfectly reasonable. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:31, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
As I mentioned over on Women in Red, of the 26 biographies profiled in the first 13 days of this initiative, 19 were of white men, 3 of white women, 3 of non-white men and 1 of a non-white woman. To me that's not a reasonable range for gender and ethnicity, hence my edits to add white and non-white women as I come across them. Definitions of "reasonable range" and "wide range" clearly differ between editors. It's interesting that featuring 19/26 biographies on white men isn't considered problematic but adding some white women is considered a huge problem. MurielMary (talk) 07:18, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
C class articles
When I set the original criteria, I set it at B class and above for the specific reason of avoiding poorly referenced articles being linked from the Main Page. However, some C class articles have been listed. Should we relax things to allow C class and above, or stick to B class, which allows for articles that are C class to be reassessed against the B class criteria and promoted should they meet it. Mjroots (talk) 11:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
It's the classifications of the articles that's the problem. Please re-visit what "C-class" actually means and see if that matches what you believe the quality of those three articles you've objected to featuring here. I very much believe not, and it's almost invariably down to the fact that the assessmentas either haven't been updated on the talk page or are simply incorrect. Classifications are probably not a suitable way of judging the quality of an article, it's been dropped by ITN for this very reason. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:12, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Classifications are a way of judging the quality of an article, particularly for GA and above. Many B class articles are probably capable of reaching GA without too much work. Agree that referencing standards need to be taken into account, whatever the rating of an article. Mjroots (talk) 11:18, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Classifications are a way of judging the quality of an article, but are seldom reliable when judging start -> C -> B. That's why ITN dropped it altogether. And that's why your objection to those three articles based on classification alone is without real foundation. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Per TRM, the issue is not whether the article has been assessed as "B" class, but whether the article should be assessed as B-class. For articles that have not gone through the proper assessment for whatever reason, there's no need to hold them up for some silly bureaucracy. It should be "would it be B-class if anyone had yet bothered to so assess it" and not "has anyone formally assessed it yet". Just as we don't post badly under-referenced articles on the main page even if someone hasn't tag-bombed them yet, we also should be assessing quality ourselves, and not just trusting some arbitrary tag or talk page note. --Jayron3218:56, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Criteria for inclusion
TRM and I seem to differ on the criteria for including biographies in the birth/death slot. I think it's anyone who has a WP article and hence added Bobbi Brown for March 4, however TRM has removed this twice on the grounds that she hasn't achieved anything, isn't encyclopedic and doesn't do anything for women. Can we have a discussion about this as this sets a precedent for other biographies to be excluded on similar grounds. Or do the guidelines need to be adapted to include TRM's criteria, in which case every nomination is going to be up for subjective discussion. Why can't we include all 3 biographies nominated for this day? MurielMary (talk) 07:13, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
You've already got your way with three bios, two women that day, 2/2 women the next day, 2/2 women the next day. I'd say you've managed to redress the balance. Overcompensating probably. Positive discrimination possibly. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:16, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
9 of the first 13 days of this initiative featured 2/2 men. So you think that 3 or 4 days with 2/2 women is redressing or even overcompensating? Interesting. Also, really, the tone of your comment that "you've got your way" is very odd. This isn't about one editor "getting their way", it's about creating a main page which features content which reflects WP and the world. It's not anyone's personal "way". That's why there are guidelines to follow. MurielMary (talk) 08:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
What proportion of FA bios are about women? GAs? Since there are so few quality articles to choose from, and you're picking 2/2 women every day, it'll mean next year will be particularly bereft of such bios. You have got your way, hope you enjoy it! The Rambling Man (talk) 08:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps, or perhaps by next year there'll be more quality women's bios to feature, newly written by the editors who see the women's bios on the main page and are inspired to write something of similar quality. One of the reasons representation is important is for showing people what can be achieved. Yes, ever the optimist, me. MurielMary (talk) 08:30, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't think we agreed that articles only get one appearance in births/deaths and no more after that. However, I would like it so that they don't repeat year after year either. Diversity in gender, historical era, reason for notability, and geography is desired as well. —howcheng {chat}06:46, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
Just noticed that two of the entries in the birth/death section today are already represented on the main page with the FA and the Featured Picture. (Van Gogh and Juan). We might need to cast an eye over the remainder of the main page layout prior to confirming the birth/death section to avoid this happening? What do people think? It does make the main page appear a little repetitive and lacking in range. MurielMary (talk) 03:20, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Range of entries
I notice that the guidelines for OTD in general state "7.As much as possible, the array of topics should include a variety of years (e.g., not just limited to the 20th/21st centuries), geographical areas (e.g., more than just the English-speaking world), and subjects (e.g., not too many articles on war or technology)." I'd like to suggest that a statement such as this is also added to part 6 of the guidelines to recommend editors include a broad range of subjects in the birth/death section. I note that currently the staging areas for upcoming dates are extremely heavy on white European men of around 1700s-1900s with intellectual/musical achievements, which doesn't reflect a range of topics, years, geographical areas or subjects. A guideline to this effect might assist? Pinging howcheng and Sollemne for their input here. Thanks MurielMary (talk) 23:58, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
What are you referring to? April 1 features a woman, an African American and European from the 16th-century. April 2's two inclusions are a monarch from in the 1600s and a pope who died this century. April 3 includes a Hindu religious leader. April 4 features a monarch who predates the period. April 5? That's all it consists of. None of April 6 fits your description. Two of April 7 predate the period. April 8 actually has two 20th-century women. April 9 has another 20th-century woman. None of April 10 or April 11 fits your description... --Sollemne (talk) 00:23, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Of course, please also include a detailed breakdown of the "available choices" too, i.e. those which are applicable to the main page as a result of their significant quality. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
I looked thought that page to see if there was any guidance for reporting errors, and saw none.
I thought perhaps the guidance would be on each days page, so I came to Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries/today (which is updated, but was 6 Feb when I visted it.
Again, no hint on how to report an error, so I followed the general convention of commenting on the talk page.
If you have any involvement in this initiative, I hope you will find a way to add information about reporting errors either on the general page, or on the specific page.
Makes sense, the Selected Anniversaries pages can be a bit of a maze to navigate. I copied the discussion to here and added guidance about reporting errors on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries. The change to the Regan article on Feb 6 I will leave to others. Whizz40 (talk) 20:35, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
The Rambling Man I naively assumed OTD was something like DYK and would relate to a Wikipedia article, as did the person who wrote to Wikimedia, noting the disconnect between the claim and the article. One or the other should be corrected. I've had a tiny bit of involvement with DYK, where the process includes (after some embarrassing shortcomings) a verification that the "hook" is supported by a reliable source. Is that not the case with OTD? If so, perhaps the feature should be shut down. --S Philbrick(Talk)23:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, one would hope that blurbs are cited within each article at OTD and DYK, there may be the odd issue at OTD (far fewer than at DYK) but as I noted, a trivial Google search plus the addition of one line to the article (which anyone could have done) would have solved that, in this case. We also have WP:ERRORS, so perhaps you could direct the OTRS complainant that way next time, for a more expedient (sometimes) result. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Judith Kaplan Eisenstein - March 18
Hi, haven't nominated for On this Day or Did You Know before and was going to nominate Judith Kaplan Eisenstein's page as: Did you know Judith Kaplan was the first woman to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah publicly which she did on March 18, 1922 aged 12.
But am I right in thinking the article is not new enough (i.e. created in last 7 days) for Did You Know or 5-fold expanded in last seven days? And is not B-class quality or higher so cannot be considered for On this Day either? Stinglehammer (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
I want to start this discussion to get more input. I've seen for the past couple of days where a holiday is listed as "holiday begins at sundown" and then the next day the holiday is not listed at all. I suggest that the day of the holiday should be listed, and maybe if needed, the day before display, "holiday begins at sundown." The primary should be the actual day, not the few hours of the evening. Sir Joseph(talk)16:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
For holidays that span a period of multiple days, don't we generally list the day it begins? There doesn't seem to be a functional difference between a Jewish holiday that spans a 24-hour period over two days, and something like Lent which spans a period of 40 days. The WordsmithTalk to me16:24, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
So there could be a difference between Passover (which is a multi-day holiday), which you can say Passover begins at sunset, and Purim or other one-day holidays. Today for example is Shushan Purim (which is only celebrated in a few cities) and yesterday was "regular" Purim, celebrated the rest of the world. So for these holidays, the day itself should be listed, especially since the celebrations of the holiday is mostly by day, and not the few hours of the evening.(That is how it's usually shown on calendars, not that it means much.) Sir Joseph(talk)16:28, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
This should really be discussed at WT:OTD rather than here, as it only relates to a single aspect of that section. They have for many years listed sunset-to-sunset holidays on the (UTC) date they begin, though I don't know how well reasoned that policy is. Either way it's an issue for the WP:OTD project to resolve, rather than T:MP. Modest Geniustalk16:43, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I can't see anywhere where it was decided to list when it begins and not the day when the main events/holiday is. I think it certainly makes sense for a one day holiday to be on the day itself, not the night before. Sir Joseph(talk)16:54, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I think we're pretty consistent about listing on the night before. Actually I prefer that. I could really see someone Jewish, but not very knowledgeable about Judaism, seeing "Today begins Passover" and saying, "Oh, yeah. I guess I should make a seder tonight." Better list it on the eve—it's unambiguous, because we say "at sundown"—than on the day, when it would be too late. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Then I think it should be both. People are going to look up and see that no holiday is listed during the day and wonder. For example, yesterday was Purim but Wikipedia didn't say that. The majority of the day and the majority of the people are celebrating during the day and that should be reflected in what is highlighted. Sir Joseph(talk)17:24, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
For an outside perspective, I found it confusing, multiple times. If a holiday starts at sunset on a given day, it should, in my mind, be listed on the day of the sunset, not the following day. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:05, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
OTD has a general policy of not listing the same article on multiple days when possible. Obviously something like Mother's Day, which is observed on different days in different countries will be an exception, but it didn't seem right for these types of holidays to get more than one "bite of the apple". They are mostly Jewish holidays, but I think there are some Islamic ones that fit this category as well. Regardless, I don't particularly care if they are listed on the primary day or the day when they actually start, but they should only appear once. —howcheng {chat}16:54, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that forcing them into the template that works for most Western holidays doesn't treat them fairly. Other holidays only appear on one day whether you look at them as a 24 hour period (from midnight to midnight) or as a calendar day (Monday, Tuesday, etc). These two points of view align for those days. Jewish and Islamic holidays fall on two calendar days but are basically only one 24 hour period each, said period simply not matching the calendar days. If they are only posted on their start date they are on the "wrong" day for most of that time based on the sundown to sundown definition of the holidays. If they are only posted on their main day they are still showing on the wrong day for a significant number of hours. No one would accept Independence Day being listed on July 3rd or Bastille Day on July 13th, but that is effectively what we do to these holidays. We could post them for the time period running from one (approximately) sundown UTC to the next, but it would be more work to keep up. --Khajidha (talk) 19:12, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
With respect, I don't think it's that the template "doesn't treat them fairly". They are still run for 24 hours, and all they have, in excess of other such anniversaries, is a caveat, such as "starting at sunset". I don't think there's a problem here at all, other than aligning the start of such anniversaries with the standard calendar that our readers would mainly understand. And if further explanation is needed, then it should really be in the target article, and therein lies a different issue. The examples of Independence Day or Bastille Day being listed on the incorrect day are not equivalent at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:48, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
My opinion is that if only one day is to be listed, then it should be the main day, not the evening before, and in all the holiday articles I'm familiar with, it does mention that it starts the evening before. Sir Joseph(talk)20:51, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Then it should be caveated with "from sunset the previous day" because the articles will say that the day is celebrated on the day of the sunset. This isn't about our personal preferences, this is about not confusing readers who may not be conversant with Jewish or Arabic or other such traditions. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I am fine with that, similar to how it's now worded (...begins sunset). I do think it would be better for the readers as well, since in many cases they might be looking based on seeing the holiday on their calendar or seeing some celebration. Sir Joseph(talk)20:57, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Are you saying you'd prefer it to be the day itself ("begins sunset") or the day after ("began sunset the day before")? Logic dictates the former (and that's the status quo). The Rambling Man (talk) 21:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I would prefer Today is Purim (began sunset the day before), since the majority of the holiday and the bulk of the celebrations are during the day. Sir Joseph(talk)22:15, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I would prefer status quo, perhaps with "starting at sundown, through sundown tomorrow" for one-day events, for reasons I stated above. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:04, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I would also prefer the status quo. Such holidays do begin at sunset (or more technically in Jewish custom shortly after, when at least 3 stars can or could be seen in an unclouded sky) and the actions of those observing them are dictated by that: contrary to Sir Joseph above, the evening and night-time portions are significant and may feature important rituals or behaviour. If we only list them from the beginning (00:00:01?) of the following day, the announcement is late by several hours.
Now, it's doubtful that many who actually want to observe the holiday need Wikipedia to alert them to it, but others who may need an explanation of what's going on deserve it promptly, not the following day when it's half over. One can imagine, for example, a Gentile (like myself) planning to visit a Jewish friend in the evening and then realising they'd better not.
I agree with Khajidha above and suggest that if, for example, such a holiday begins on the 21st, to put up on the 21st "Xxxx begins at sunset 21st, ending sunset 22nd", or similar, and leave it up over the 22nd. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.20.195} 90.202.209.145 (talk) 02:40, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
A date on the Jewish calendar is generally associated, on calendars with Western dates, to be on the same day as its daytime falls, not that of its nighttime. As such, if only one day is chosen for it, it should match the daytime, not the nighttime. עוד מישהוOd Mishehu15:08, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree it should be the day time. The complaint about people missing a few hours is just weird. OTD follows UTC as does the rest of wikipedia. This means when Chinese New Year is listed on OTD on the main page, it's already been 13 hours here in NZ. And of course the reunion dinner happens on the evening anyway. Even where the bulk of people who celebrate the day live, it's already been 8 hours. Heck since this obvious applies to all things from the NZ POV, when Anzac Day appears, this is nearly after the half day specific by Anzac Day Act (New Zealand) is over. (Then you get those complaints about how it isn't Thanksgiving day for a few hours more.) Of course you could look at OTD for the current day in NZ, but you could also do that with other stuff with the recognition of such complexities. What matters is what is the day in the Gregorian calendar which is most strongly associated with the day. I know in Malaysia at least for the Eids and other events, this is the day after the sunset. So far I haven't see anyone really disputing this applies to other cultures and religions as well. I'd note that for most such Muslim festivals, the actual day of celebration can vary from place to place and even from tradition to tradition within a place anyway which makes the "we need to tell people before otherwise they miss part of the day" further flawed. Nil Einne (talk) 11:02, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Looking at Nil Einne's comment above that "this is nearly after the half day specific by Anzac Day Act (New Zealand) is over", what surprises me is that the article Anzac Day Act (New Zealand) doesn't actually specify the date of ANZAC Day! (It's today, for anyone wondering... and like all sensible people, I use egocentric time with definitions relative to my location, and so those living in the past (ie. America) just need to accept that they are wrong about today because otherwise it'll be yesterday most of their tomorrow and there'll be no today in which case the observance will be missed, disrespecting our veterans.) EdChem (talk) 04:40, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Vera Lynn
Vera Lynn is 100 on 20 March. I've added her to the OTD entry for that day, but there is a section with a refimprove tag. I'm hoping that this can be addressed over the weekend and that the article will be in a good enough condition to post. Failing which, I can see complaints being raised at T:MP. Mjroots (talk) 18:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Inclusion in born / died OTD - where to add suggestions
After seeing a discussion on TRM's talk page, I have added a bunch of biographies to the individual day articles. I'm now wondering where I should make suggestions for potential OTD appearances. For example:
Any comments on improvements for these specifically are welcome, but I'm also wondering where I should make suggestions in general when I see suitable articles or have improved articles. Thanks, EdChem (talk) 04:28, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Just add them to the relevant day, following the prescribed format. There have been a couple of users adding births and deaths, but there are still many gaps. If the articles are well referenced, and there's a good mix of gender, ethnicity and history on each day, in line with the coverage of articles we have, your additions will be very much appreciated. Stephen05:00, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Is there a restriction on using articles which have appeared elsewhere as bold links on the main page, like DYK or ITN? EdChem (talk) 05:26, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
No, as they're one off appearances. However, the article can only appear once in OTD in the year. So birth or death but not both, and not if they appear in an OTD blurb on another date. The article talk should list prior MP appearances. Howcheng keeps excellent records. Stephen06:17, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
I can't take credit for that. It's AnomieBOT that does that piece. @EdChem: If the day already has its quota of birth/death articles, feel free to add your suggestions into the staging area. That way next year, we'll have them ready to go. Thanks. —howcheng {chat}07:27, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
I've had a related question in mind recently - where to put suggestions for born/died this day entries for days which have already occurred this year (i.e. the January to April pages now show the articles used in the 2017 version of OTD - where to put suggestions for 2018?) howcheng are you suggesting we add these to the staging area in the "eligible" section? MurielMary (talk) 08:42, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
@MurielMary: Yes, I think that would be the most logical place. Just put them under the eligible blurbs in the same format as we use for it normally. —howcheng {chat}16:10, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, howcheng. I did some editing of those pages (Jan-April for 2018 suggestions) last night so I hope it's all looking ok. Let me know if you'd rather things were done differently. MurielMary (talk) 19:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Balance issues
Greetings folks. After being drawn into OTD through ERRORS, I've been looking through the OTD pages, and the problem of an anglospheric bias is quite severe. Now of course Wikipedia as a whole has this problem, and its rather unsurprising: but it seems to me that of all the main page slots, OTD has the largest potential domain to choose from, and so we could address this issue at OTD relatively easily. Aside from "let's just try to do better", which is good but not enough, does anybody have any practical suggestions as to how to address this problem? Is it technically feasible to have a bot search for articles with certain birth/death dates? Should we ask members of Wikiprojects on underrepresented areas to make sure to add their creations to the lists for each day? I'm just tossing out ideas: any others, and any constructive suggestions, would be welcome. Vanamonde (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Are you referring to balance issues with the OTD achievements/notable events/occasions list, or with the newly added "born/died this day" section or both? TIA MurielMary (talk) 10:00, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Right. Firstly, I agree with you that there are bias issues with OTD (not only anglospheric, but often of historical period or type of achievement or gender). Sometimes these issues are a result of a lack of quality articles on under-represented areas, but often there isn't a lack of quality articles, it's a case of a lack of inclusion of those quality articles. Maybe because they are not nominated by editors for inclusion, or they are nominated and not selected. I agree that more can be done and I did think a while ago that posting on relevant project boards (African or Asian projects for example) and drawing editors' attention to the OTD lists would be a good idea as I think there is a lack of awareness of the OTD list pages. Just haven't got around to it yet! MurielMary (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree that there's always going to be someone disagreeing with the content of the births/death section, if someone is prepared to do so, record these individuals by ethnicity, gender, genre, achievement, etc etc, otherwise this will become WP:PERENNIAL. Please don't fall into the temptation of "over-compensating" by flooding OTD with certain ethnicity, gender, genre, achievement etc. The primary requirement is that the article is of sufficient quality. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Vanamonde, if you are looking to add quality articles from more diverse demographics etc then looking at the lists of Good Articles can be a helpful starting point. Or searching the categories for B class articles (B class being the minimum standard for inclusion in OTD - or an article which isn't currently classed as B class but which meets the standard of a B class article). MurielMary (talk) 23:25, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
@TRM: I don't want to flood OTD with poor quality articles; this would not address the more fundamental problem, which is the skew in what Wikipedia covers. The point I am trying to make is that given that only feature about ten articles a day, finding quality articles that are representative of the scope of the encyclopedia (rather than of the interests of its prolific editors) should be possible. MurielMary: that's not a bad idea, I'll look into that. Vanamonde (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
It made me wonder whether such days are featured in the On this day... section of the frontpage - and apparently they aren't yet featured!
Hence here I'm suggesting to add the current United Nation day (if existent) into that section.
Where else would be a better place to inform about the current international United Nation day than Wikipedia?
These are of international relevance, are typically about a nontrivial issue, value or event of high significance in the world and are also often issued in the news and cultural events.
I find the rest of that section to be mostly often trivial, mostly of no interest to most people and rather serendipitous. Why should we waste space there - it would fit well at the top or bottom of the page right next to the date.
And in lastly it would be an incentive for people to regularly check the Wikipedia frontpage.
If articles of such nature are of sufficient quality, there's probably nothing stopping them being featured. The World Press Freedom Day article was in a terrible state so it was removed from the OTD section. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:45, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Technical change to criteria
Anniversary criteria already say that Holidays/Observances are excluded from the "once a year" rule because they are observed on different dates in different countries, etc. So maybe that is sufficient to this query. Nevertheless ...
Should we include a technical point that events occurring annually on a non-Gregorian calendar can be included on their proper dates (all other issues in order), even if that ends up being twice in a single Gregorian calendar year? The main culprit on the Jewish calendar is the fast of the Tenth of Tevet, whose "2016 date" fell out in 2017 this year. By Gregorian calendar years, it appeared once in 2015, no times in 2016, twice in 2017 (in January and then in December), and once again in 2018. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Seems fine to me. To my knowledge, Tenth of Tevet and similar observances have never been excluded on their second appearance in a calendar year anyway (happens for Islamic holidays occasionally as well). —howcheng {chat}16:46, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I, too, doubt anything has ever been excluded on those grounds. But as I read the criteria, I noticed that someone might choose to misconstrue the rule. I figure it's not a bad practice to make rules about the Main Page crystal-clear. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:03, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Added "Certain non-Gregorian holidays may appear more than once per calendar year due the differences between calendars (most notably Jewish or Islamic holidays)." —howcheng {chat}18:33, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Why is there a photo of Tanaka Giichi for OTD June 27? There's nothing about him in the OTD this day, not even something about Japan. What is the connection and why isn't it more obvious? PumpkinSkytalk19:37, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
(US) Thanksgiving 2017
Whilst I genuinely appreciate having learned about Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan, it is a remarkably poor choice to not also note that today is Thanksgiving Day in the US. It is OK to avoid a US bias, but to wilfully ignore the existence of a (very) major holiday like Thanksgiving is fundamentally flawed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.234.214.64 (talk) 12:15, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree. In general dates should be recorded according to the calendar then in use. Although we did have a bit of an issue with the date for the death of Queen Elizabeth I whose date of death fell on what was then the last day of the year, but by today's reckoning she died in the year after. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Mud March - On this day... February 7, 2010, February 7, 2011... 2018
According to the relevant talk page, the article on Mud March (Suffragists) has appeared on the OTD section of the main page on 7 Feb seven times in eight years. The only problem is that it didn't take place on 7 February, it took place on 9 February (see this ref as confirmation. I'm looking over the old newspapers at the moment, and they all show it on the 9th - a Saturday, which was a more logical time for a march anyway. Too late to do much about it now (and I've moved the entry on the relevant day page to the right one), but is that the best way to avoid repeating the error in future years? Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a good spot. Even simply Googling it comes up with significant favour for 9 Feb. I guess that's what sometimes happens when you assume good faith that p. 64 of the offline reference says what is claimed. It'll all be fine once every book every written is freely available on line and searchable! The Rambling Man (talk) 09:25, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Formation of the Scottish Society for the History of Medicine.
@Stinglehammer: The article quality looks fine, but I'm not sure this society is notable enough for inclusion in OTD. It looks like you have been accepted for DYK, at least. —howcheng {chat}20:34, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
Prominent Movable Holidays
There is a persistent problem with high-profile movable holidays not being listed on On This Day. Yom Kippur, Holi, and Easter all recently faced problems.
I would like to propose:
that a list of these high-profile dates be compiled,
that all serious article-quality issues be resolved by editors,
and that, once a consensus is reached that serious quality issues are resolved, those articles be exempt from any further article quality concerns for appearing on WP:OTD.
Is there interest in this? Before any formal proposal can happen, the list of holidays needs to be created somewhere, and I'm not entirely sure where. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:14, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Very content with the first two points. I need more on the third point. We've suffered at the hands of people even getting into accusations of anti-Semitism because a particular Jewish holiday wasn't listed, despite the fact it was maintenance tagged. I'm not sure what difference the third point adds beyond the current inclusion criteria for the Selected anniversaries, would you expand on that and detail what's currently not being listed and why it should be listed? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:17, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Basically, I want some way of forcing discussions of article quality to occur *before* the holiday. If there's a better way to do that, I'm fine with that. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:22, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
Selected anniversaries (the "eligible" ones) are usually just here, hanging around. It would need some effort automate it, it could be advertised more. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
I agree that certain days should be exempt from the abnormally tough scrutiny we give to article candidates. IMO, an article doesn't need to be FA or even close to it for a mention on the front page. Certain holidays are important enough, as you said Yom Kippur and Easter for example, that barring major issues should automatically be placed on the front page. Sir Joseph(talk)19:45, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't think anyone said any article should be exempt from scrutiny before it goes on the main page, so I'm not clear with whom you're in agreement. WP:V is a WP:5P, it applies to everything here. If articles contain unverifiable claims (for instance) then we shouldn't be placing them on the main page. Absolutely not one single soul has suggested that articles need to be "FA or even close". There's a really simple solution, and that's to fix issues with so-called "important" observances. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:50, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I am agreeing with this statement, "and that, once a consensus is reached that serious quality issues are resolved, those articles be exempt from any further article quality concerns for appearing on WP:OTD" There is an obvious difference between a FA and a B or C class article. Taking the prior Easter or Yom Kippur issue, the Yom Kippur article was skipped from the main page this year due to concerns. However, were the concerns so great that it warranted exclusion for this specific day? Again, some days are so important on the calendar, like Easter, that even if there are some concerns, it is outweighed by a "need" for inclusion on OTD. Sir Joseph(talk)19:54, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Ah, well once an article is good enough to be posted, then as I noted, it's not an issue at all, as it'll be posted. The exemption then fails if issues subsequently arise that renders the article not good enough to be posted. That's the status quo. I'm not sure why you needed to tell me that there's an obvious diference between an FA and a B or C class article? I know that very well, but it has no relevance here. Articles which fail WP:V (for instance) should not be featured on this Wikipedia's main page (I think the German Wikipedia is happy to post unreferenced, unverifiable stuff to its main page, including BLP violations in RD, certainly not an example we should follow). Yes, concerns were so great that Yom Kippur should have been dropped, which is why it was dropped. And no, nothing outweighs the need to ensure articles comply with WP:V, whether they're about Easter, Yom Kippur or Talk Like a Pirate Day. None of these are "so important". They all need to meet the same standards. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:04, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, another week in, nothing more spoken here. I'd suggest this proposal is a dead duck, having been originally noted in April, and resurrected in late-September. Time to move on I think. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:37, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't often check my watchlist. But note that I am in agreement with TRM. There is always the possibility that an eligible article can become ineligible due to editing or a dispute, so each article (observance or regular blurb) must be re-evaluated every year. —howcheng {chat}17:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
Why was Shavuot excluded?
See Talk:Shavuot#Current reference tags. I consider Mhhossein's tagging of the article as lacking references to be entirely incorrect. What's more, though: somehow Shavuot did not make it onto anyone's list at all, even as ineligible. Why? Please see the talk page there; Shavuot should appear. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:39, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Suggest it here, with a suggested hook (the line that would actually appear on the OTD page). Don't forget that the target article would need to be of Main Page quality (i.e. no unsourced statements, good quality English etc.). Black Kite (talk)22:56, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, yes, I don't think that place is particularly functional once more than one or two obvious errors (e.g. typos, en-dashes) are listed. Especially not at the weekends. WP:TRM often gets some very effective admins patrolling who don't seem to visit the other place. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
100th anniversary of Irish parliament and declaration of independence
The 21st of January 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Irish parliament, the Irish Republic's declaration of independence, and the beginning of the Irish War of Independence. Given that this is such a major event in Irish and British history, that still has effects today, I ask that it be included in tomorrow's selected anniversaries. Howcheng excluded the First Dáil from tomorrow's list, understandably, as it didn't have enough references. However, I've now re-written the article, adding much more detail and many more references.
I think the description given here—or something near to it—would be the best to use, as it's short, accurate and covers everything in a way that everyone can understand:
Hello, I just found this new topic Galactic Tick Day. There's been 2 of them now (about 3 years or so) and I don't see it in your archives. It's a doozy. It's not annual, it's about 630 days between. I'm not sure how popular it is yet. Don't know anything about it just liked the sound of it, your project might be interested. ~ R.T.G03:05, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Well it's around March next year, does that mean waiting a few weeks, or is there accommodation for bi-annuals etc on the current listing process? ~ R.T.G11:28, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi OTD people... I (Coffeeandcrumbs), Kees08, Maile66, and few others have been promoting a plan to take over the entire Main Page in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. As you are likely well aware, the lunar module landed on the moon July 20, 1969 at 20:17 (UTC). Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon the next day, July 21 02:56:15 (UTC). Buzz Aldrin(pictured) followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface at 03:15:16 (UTC).
Going from project to project and establishing consensus seemed like the best way to ensure that we have clear support from all interested parties. You can see what we have so far at Wikipedia:WikiProject Space 2019. There is also a demo (link) with the OTD from last year used as a place holder. Changing Wikipedia:WikiProject Space 2019/OTD/July 21 according to this plan would in turn change the demo I created to show how this would all look. (Note that some blurbs in demo still need further copy editing.)
My only issue with this is that it seems odd to have the blurb focus only on Aldrin. In most OTD blurbs where there is more than one main participant, we won't even put it in if any of the target articles aren't of sufficient quality (the only exception I can think of is Paul Revere/William Dawes/Samuel Prescott where only Dawes is ineligible but we only have Revere in bold because he was the most famous of the three). —howcheng {chat}16:25, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
I will be on vacation from June 22 to July 13. By the time I leave, I will have done the 2019 updates for all the relevant OTD subpages. I do plan on logging in during this time, Internet access and time permitting, but I will be unable to respond to most messages in a timely manner and unable to do anything more than the most basic edits, so I'm counting on the community of OTD regulars to cover for me. Thanks in advance. —howcheng {chat}18:23, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
Workshopping a proposal for a new user group
Valereee and I have been working on a proposal to form a new usergroup whose members would be able to edit content on the main page or its fully protected subsidiaries. Since it directly affects this project, and is based in part on the shortage of administrators working here, we would like to invite feedback on the proposal at User talk:Vanamonde93/Main page editor. The proposal itself is at User:Vanamonde93/Main page editor. In particular, we would like to hear it if you are opposed to the whole thing on principle, because in that case we would rather spend our time promoting queues than in organizing a large-scale RfC. Best, Vanamonde (Talk)06:55, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
War
Why do so many of the On This Day entries concern war? Almost every day there is at least one entry relating to a war. Is it because a large proportion of submitted entries relate to war, or is it because the people who choose entries for the day are obsessed with war? B. Fairbairn (talk) 00:35, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
The entries are mostly chosen based on article quality; through no deliberate action of any one person, we have many high quality articles about those topics. WP:MILHIST is a very active Wikiproject with lots of members who improve many articles about military history. Your presumption that people are doing so maliciously is a very odd one to make. I'm not sure why your first assumption is ill-intent. --Jayron3213:25, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Toddst1, can you explain these dramatic edits: 1 and 2? I understand you were cleaning up the November 6 article. Taking Charter of the Forest as an example, would it not have been more prudent to use the source cited in the article or find a source such as this which a simple search on Google Books yielded?
What other dates have you done this with? You seem to have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
As an addendum, I've made an executive decision to remove the requirement for the OTD event to be included in the corresponding DOY page. —howcheng {chat}07:15, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
@Toddst1: Sorry, I am genuinely confused. How is WP:V being exempted here? All I am doing is removing requirement that OTD blurbs have to be listed on the respective DOY pages. Of course WP:V still applies. —howcheng {chat}22:46, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
...and furthermore, that's not how you clean up an OTD page anyway. If you believe a blurb is ineligible, you move it to the "Ineligible" section (noting why you've done it in the reason field) and you replace it with an eligible one. Black Kite (talk)22:48, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Hi! Just a heads up, the "Victoria Day (2020)" is very confusing. I get that the day moves each year, but the average reader will assume that this is a new holiday. I see that's the case for other holidays, too. Does there need to be a year, at all? -- Zanimum (talk) 17:26, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
@Zanimum: Sorry for the late reply. The "(2020)" is so so I can easily figure out which ones need to be moved on a yearly basis. Otherwise I'll never figure it out. Thanks. —howcheng {chat}07:13, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Lot many events like Women's protest March do take place on International Women's Day, amongst them, since 2018 Pakistan women take out Aurat March and is leading to substantial social discourse in Pakistan, with substantial media coverage.
1991 Soviet referendum (copied from Template talk:On this day, because I originally posted it on the wrong page)
It is extremely misleading to say that 70% of voters voted to "preserve the Soviet Union." The referendum was not on whether to preserve the status quo, the text of the question explicitly called for a new structure of government. Carrot official (talk) 03:08, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
1 September
I am pleased to see Messiah (Handel) on today's Main page. I suggest Vespro della Beata Vergine to be considered for 1 September, the day the composer dedicated it to the Pope. We don't know if it was ever performed during his lifetime, nor if he would have wanted that. Still, it became an iconic work in music history. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:55, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Am I doing it right?
I've never interacted with a main page content section where the procedure was just to add your own thing without an approval process. So I am requesting that someone look at my addition to the June 8 queue. I've added Keith Gill (an article which I created and got on DYK), who was born on that day. I don't know what criteria are used in determining who gets to be in the list, so I will leave it to the editors here to decide. Cheers! jp×g21:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
Hey JPxG, as long as the article is up to scratch and that aren't maintenance tags or more than a couple of [citation needed] tags, it's fine. It's also a good idea to just check that we have a reasonably diverse demographic spread in terms of age, sex, nationality etc, not just on the day itself but a few days before and after so the project doesn't get accused of bias. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 06:32, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Protect Main Page images manually! KrinkleBot down
For "Selected anniversaries", I've noticed that even if there's an event name, sometimes it's not actually in the description. It's always bothered me. To give a couple examples:
Administrator note@Fredlesaltique: I moved this from talk:Main Page as it would likely get quickly archived there, here it will have time to further develop (I left a link there to here). — xaosfluxTalk11:12, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
The selected anniversaries are easily editable when they are not currently on the main page, each day as a page - for example Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/June 17. We have an unofficial coordinator for these, User:Howcheng (by virtue of being an admin that works in this area a lot), who can probably give you more insight in to this. — xaosfluxTalk11:16, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Comment - I would tend to agree with Fredlesaltique here. If there's a common name for an event, and our title reflects that, it would seem a good idea to include that name in the blurb. I would in general prefer it to be in running text rather than the Wairau Affray: In the New Zealand Wars... though. — Amakuru (talk) 11:25, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with the OP. My immediate thought was 'which battle was that?' On desktop view the tooltip shows that it's Lake Trasimene, but on mobile view users have to click on the bold link to open the article and see. There might be other ways of rephrasing the blurbs to avoid piping the name, rather than putting it at the front with a colon, but those forms are preferable to what we have at the moment. Modest Geniustalk13:40, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree too, and I remember when it appeared the example of Battle of Lake Trasimene striking me as just a touch condescending, since it was a name I learned at school. Personally I quite like the title-colon-explanation format that Amakuru dislikes, as long as it's not that format for every hook. Jmchutchinson (talk) 14:18, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
You can't use the format for events without a name or with a redundant one (2021 Disaster in Country X). And for sure you could vary the phrasing after the colon. Fredlesaltique (talk) 07:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
OTD is one of the lightest weight processes to get existing articles on to the MP; Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries might look a little complicated to newer editors, but compared to DYK and ITN this section is usually one of the least contentious. We welcome bolder contributions here, though admins will enforce the quality standards (we won't list articles with defect tags on them). Feel free to look forward on to the list and make improvements, if you aren't exactly sure of something - drop a note on that day's talk page - the patrolling admins will usually check there as the date comes up. — xaosfluxTalk14:32, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm a little on the fence on this, as I appreciate the efforts involved in making the OTD blurbs more interesting and less perfunctory, but I'm not going to die on any particular hill here. Do we have any feedback from readers or is this just an editorial preference? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 15:18, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
I for one like to have a bit of variation in the way we do these blurbs, otherwise every battle one starts to sound the same for example, so I don't want a blanket rule. If you think certain items should be directly mentioned by name, then go for it. —howcheng {chat}18:15, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, that. I don't think we've ever had a single complaint from the millions of main page readers. This is possibly a case of fixing something that really isn't broken and maybe a candidate for a trial run: analyse pageviews before and after such a change over a couple of a weeks, just to get a vague idea if that makes any difference to people visiting the main page. Otherwise it's just rearranging deckchairs for the sake of it. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 18:23, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Hello. There was a discussion on Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors about whether the Great Storm of 1703 should appear on its Old Stle or New Style date. My opinion is that it we should use the date in use at the time, which in this case would be the Old Style, as per MOS:OSNS for article content ("Dates of events in countries using the Gregorian calendar at that time are given in the Gregorian calendar"). However Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries states "the event should have occurred on the day in question (according to the Gregorian calendar)" so we should convert to the modern calendar. I can see this being complicated and possibly introducing error. Keen to hear any thoughts on this - Dumelow (talk) 10:24, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
To resurrect this discussion after recent discussions at WP:ERRORs I propose the existing text at WP:OTDRULES (in red below) is replaced with the text in green. This will link the dating of Selected Anniversaries to the MOS - Dumelow (talk) 09:06, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Furthermore, the event should have occurred on the day in question (according to the Gregorian calendar) in local time, or UTC if local time is not applicable (e.g., not on Earth).
Furthermore, the event should have occurred on the day in question in the calendar in use at the time (per MOS:JG). The date of the event should be determined by the local time, or UTC if local time is not applicable (e.g., not on Earth).
Yes, support. There seems little reason to be deviating from the MOS in this matter. The only exception I can think of is if there's a date which is for some reason routinely observed in Gregorian calendar, but which was actually Julian at the time it occurred. But I haven't heard of any such cases, and indeed the opposite is probably mostly true (Guy Fawkes on 5 November, Julius Caesar's death on 15 March etc.) — Amakuru (talk) 11:05, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
I support. Much simpler when supporting a date with contemporary references, obviating the need to check and reference the conversion. Jmchutchinson (talk) 13:47, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Just realised this change was never implemented. I've now changed the guidance to reflect the wording proposed above, which received unanimous support - Dumelow (talk) 06:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
Proposal of interest
Watchers of this talk page may be interested in this proposal about creating a new usergroup for main page edits. This is the same proposal on which opinions were solicited here some months ago. Vanamonde (Talk)20:28, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Just started helping with OTD myself this week. I'd be very interested in learning more about your proposal! In my work we've been extremely focused on how to bring new human resources to existing and understaffed wikiprojects. Ref wikikind.org. Most of my wiki dialogs are now happening on Telegram - you can find me there as @drmelganus. Hope to hear from you soon! DrMel (talk) 23:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
21 august; dehumanising & incorrect terms on main page
Hey, currently theres two entries about the destruction of Fort Selkirk by Tlingit people, and Nat Turner and enslaved peoples’ rebellion, however in both of these descriptions there is either incorrect (referring to the Tlingit people as “indians”, despite them being native american) or dehumanising (referring to black people as just “blacks” for example) terms being used, could an admin change this? thanks a bunch! Asdiapod (talk) 02:41, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Do you mean like this? The main objection I can think of, other than the template design not matching the other three top sections of the main page, is that the image could end up hanging off the bottom. Particuarly if it was a long thing pic and the relevant entry was at the bottom. — Amakuru (talk) 21:31, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the mockups, Amakuru; that's what I had in mind. And thanks for the links, Art LaPella, although I note that they are both pre-2010, so we're probably due for a re-examination.
Regarding the issue with tall vertical images in the last slot, that looks okayish albeit not ideal since there's some buffer room from the births/deaths and yesterday/tomorrow lines. I think it's important to remember that that situation isn't likely to come up super frequently, and that when it does we can generally choose a different image/blurb. The FAQ indicates that the French Wikipedia does it sometimes, so it seems possible. {{u|Sdkb}}talk02:23, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
I like Amakuru's first example (the Apache helicopter), but the tall image associated with the last item does look a bit ungainly overhanging the end. I don't think the ideal resolution is to avoid images for the bottom (and probably penultimate) blurbs, especially since recent events are often the easiest to find illustratons for. As a possible alternative, can someone say how difficult it would be to get the bottom of the image vertical-aligned with the bottom of the associated text? Obviously the code would have to ensure that this alignment worked consistently at different magnifications and on different platforms. Jmchutchinson (talk) 17:26, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
This has been discussed to death over many years. There was even a mock up at some point that placed all the Main Page images next to their relevant items and was seriously discussed, but it looked ugly and broke numerous aspects of the layout so was discarded. Any change would need to be coordinated with all other sections of the MP and thoroughly tested with different browsers, skins, mobile view etc. I don't think it's worth the effort when we already have a caption and (pictured) to indicate which item is being illustrated. The Main Page is not an article so we don't need to follow the same conventions as article pages. Modest Geniustalk12:06, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
Suggest listing Hitler's suicide in the Berlin Bunker on April 30, 1945 – which prefigured the end of the Nazi tyranny and the conclusion of WWII in Europe (on May 7 or 8, depending on pt. of view). – Sca (talk) 16:08, 23 April 2022 (UTC)
June 16 2023 will be the 65th anniversary of the execution of some of the leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising: notable enough for English WP mention OTD/elsewhere on the Main Page? Jackiespeel (talk) 12:15, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
Auckland Sky Tower
The Auckland Sky Tower is having its 25th birthday tomorrow (3 Aug). I see it's not scheduled because of an under-referenced section. I'm going to fix that and once done, I'll add it to the set. Any objections, please reply here and ping me. Schwede6623:16, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Ok, that's done. Article is tidy now. I've also added a photo and before I could manually protect it, Krinklebot had done its thing. As I say, if there are complaints or niggles, please give me a ping. Schwede6601:27, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Regarding the prep area for the date: I propose to replace the current image being featured for this one, featuring Elvis Presley. Kripalu Maharaj seems to be a character relevant enough to be featured, but I'm requesting the change since January 14, 2023 is going to mark the 50th anniversary of Presley's concert broadcasted via satellite. If it was 2027 (the 70th anniversary of Maharaj being promoted to jagadguru), I would see the case for leaving it. But being that it marks the anniversary of a relevant event for television (live concert broadcasts were far from the norm in back 73'), and that it mentions a pretty well known figure to English speakers, the change would be justified. --GDuwenHoller!18:52, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Deaths
Barring unique circumstances to a person's death, shouldn't we be listing a bio by their birthday, and not their death? —Bagumba (talk) 12:41, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
It depends. Maybe it's useful to be a bit sensitive around people who died in recent years (not sure how to define "recent"). For historic figures, I see absolutely no issue with reporting either birth or death dates. Schwede6600:42, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
I wasn't concerned about BLP issues, just from a reader interest perspective. Maybe it's just me seeing random uneventful death dates as trivial and uninteresting (birthdates are trivial too, but they seem oft-mentioned in other circles) —Bagumba (talk) 01:19, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure how I feel about April Fools Day at OTD. It's been five years since the section took part and I don't think people will be expecting jokes - Dumelow (talk) 09:41, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
Mother's Day in Iran
Mother's Day in Iran (Fatima) was removed from Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 24 because it's from 2022 and not the same date in 2023, and it has already passed for this year. I assume it should get moved to the 2024 date's page. However,this calendar says that 20 Jumada al-Thani is on 2 Jan 2024, but the WP page says 3 Jan 2024. So either 1) I'm reading the calendar wrong 2) I'm using an incorrect calendar 3) it's actually observed on 21 Jumada al-Thani 4) the WP page is wrong.
To help co-ordinate checking of upcoming articles against the criteria listed at WP:OTD (particularly verifiability), can editors strike through the date once it has been checked. It is also useful to rotate the items and/or image if possible to keep the section fresh and highlight any significant anniversaries - Dumelow (talk) 15:21, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 14 - Checked/rotated b/d. Checked the observations/holidays: Our article for White Day says (without really citing it) that observation has spread internationally, but the only cited places are in East Asia. Thoughts on the best way to describe this? Eddie891TalkWork12:56, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I think "parts of East Asia" as it currently is is fine. The article only directly names China, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam - Dumelow (talk) 07:48, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
I won't have time to do any replacements but I've checked all items and removed a blurb (for being on the wrong date) and a birth (for no citation) - Dumelow (talk) 08:01, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
Checked all the blurbs, replaced two that I couldn't verify. NB: one of the replacements, Bir Hakeim rescue is an article I wrote (I struggled to find something from Africa or South America to bring a bit of regional balance), so happy for it to be replaced if there is a suitable article - Dumelow (talk) 09:03, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
Hi Lingzhi.Renascence, I replied over on my talk page. I feel the assassination article could use a few extra citations (I've tagged where), but happy to look again next year. If you know of any other events coming up that we might otherwise miss, feel free to post them here on on the individual calendar pages - Dumelow (talk) 06:29, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
Yep, that's the right section for consideration. Good start, would be great to get more articles featured from outside Europe and North America. Just a note that the target article (presumably Bengal famine of 1943?) should be in bold and the article needs to mention the date (at the moment it only states "late August 1943"). Thanks - Dumelow (talk) 08:35, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
No problem, @Muboshgu. What are your thoughts on "in the United States"? The article only says it's celebrated in the MLB which, I guess, would include a Canadian team, but I thought "in North America" was a bit too broad. Eddie891TalkWork16:30, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, not sure if there's any historical precedent for how it's been handled. 29 of the 30 teams are in the U.S., the 30th is in Toronto, so it's only the one city outside of the U.S. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Hi Eddie891, I'm likely to be less active for the next few days so I've worked through the March blurbs, should be back into it mid next week - Dumelow (talk) 16:49, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Wow, the "Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/Articles for improvement" section...
...hasn't been edited since 2019. Most of the content dates from a few days in 2017, one of which introduced an error into the website link for Amy Beach, making the visible linkage a redlink and invalid. I am going to delete all of this sections contents sometime within the next week unless someone objects. Just wanted to mention my possibly pending edit. Shearonink (talk) 15:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Feel free. For the past several months (see above for an example) another system to organize and check the OTD section has been undertaken by different editor who has only been involved in the process for a comparatively short amount of time. It seems to be working very well currently. --Jayron3216:02, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm not really sure if that section has any value. Each of the individual days has a long list of non-eligible items for improvement. Would perhaps be better if this could highlight articles that need a little improvement to get over the line ahead of significant anniversaries (50, 100, 200 years etc.) - Dumelow (talk) 08:08, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
We are displaying three sets of births or deaths. I'm asking "why three?" on this talk page; please chip in if you have an interest (or, better still, know how we settled on that number). Schwede6622:54, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
Read the article first?
Found somewhere in your criteria "Identify entries on the project pages that are currently 'ineligible' in the 'staging area' and make improvements so that they become eligible." "... and that the entry is ready to be considered to move to the 'eligible' section."
Does anybody here actually read the articles? See edit summary for this edit to an article linked from OTD, "revert the damage of 09:28, 8 September 2021 edit (that's almost 2 years ago - are we that bad at keeping important articles going? - it's linked from the front page!)".
Were articles actually read by organizers here, that vandalism would have been caught. So the answer is no, OTD passes articles through blindly into the main page. April Fool's was a month ago, so there's no humor here. Should OTD entries be trusted by WP? Shenme (talk) 03:01, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Wow. You've found one mistake on one article, and are condemning the entire process done by unpaid people. If you think that help is needed, provide that help, but if you aren't willing to pitch in and help, take your general condemnations and shove it. --Jayron3213:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Wow, that was unconstructive. But no, if I'm checking an OTD article I absolutely don't read the whole thing, especially an article that big. I ensure it's of sufficient quality in general (i.e. not orange-tagged or missing citations) and that the hook linking to the actual date is reliably sourced. I'm pretty sure most other people do the same thing. Tagging in @Dumelow: since they seem to be most active on checking OTD at the moment. Black Kite (talk)14:11, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm currently away travelling but I've got a little time to chime in. The process as it currently stands is that I'll try to schedule in the OTD's a week or two before they appear which gives others time to check through and correct any errors. My main aim is to make sure the article meets the stated criteria. Primarily this means fact-checking the blurb against the article and its sources, particularly that the date is correct and sourced. I do a quick skim of the article to ensure it meets the quality criteria, these are currently that it must not be a stub, must be relatively complete and well-formatted, free from yellow-level content tags and "a good example of Wikipedia content" (notably in this case the target is a featured article, I generally prioritise these and good articles). I do not have time to read the entire article and would not pick up a change of the type you've linked to. Currently there are very few people involved at OTD and I would welcome your involvement Shenme. I've only been involved the past couple of months as I noticed we were missing basic things with the blurbs being correct and verifiable (while the article content is important, I think that the most important checks are those on the wording we actually put on the main page) - Dumelow (talk) 07:19, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
HotMess, that was a good series of suggestions at Errors. This conversation describes how OTD is currently maintained and who's involved. If you had time on your hand and wanted to take on some tasks, I'm sure that would be hugely appreciated. Schwede6618:48, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
June 13 OTD errata
"On This Day" on the Wikipedia home page currently features article Dodger infield of Garvey, Lopes, Cey and Russell with the blurb: "1973 – The Los Angeles Dodgers started Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Ron Cey, and Bill Russell (pictured) in the infield, beginning a record eight-year run in Major League Baseball for four people designated as starters for those positions."
That is factually incorrect. The game of June 13, 1973, had those four players _play_ together as an infield, but not _start_ together. Steve Garvey entered that game as a substitute in the fourth inning. Box score here. The actual date the four noted players first _started_ together was June 23, 1973, as discussed in various sources such as here and here. Dmoore5556 (talk) 11:05, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks so much for doing this HotMess, we are short of volunteers here. Your edits look good to me, I added (pictured) to the Luna blurb and I made small edit to the Peru massacre article to bring the death numbers into line with the blurb and the cited source. One thing I did notice, John Couch Adams doesn't cite his birth date so you might consider sourcing it or replacing it with an alternative article. I do hope you can keep up the good work, it'd be a real help - Dumelow (talk) 19:52, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
That's some reassuring feedback 😅 (tbf I pretty much just copied the stuff in from the staging area of approved things).
Anywho, I noticed that one of the sources cited in Adams' article mentioned his birth (and death) dates, so I've edited his article to ensure those statements in his infobox are sourced. 🔥HOTm̵̟͆e̷̜̓s̵̼̊s̸̜̃🔥 (talk・edits) 20:05, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
Good stuff. I generally give the article a quick scan to check for excessive missing citations or any maintenance tags and then check the facts in the blurb are mentioned and cited, if it's an online cite I check that it backs it up (for births and deaths you are only checking the date). The "approved" list is not infallible as articles degrade over timeor sub-standard articles are sometimes added - Dumelow (talk) 20:16, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
No worries. Sooner have too many of us looking at it than not enough. Hope you don't mind, I've restored my version as I had marked a couple as ineligible. I've fixed that I forgot to change the image though! I've kept your picks for births and deaths (I tend to focus on the blurbs) - Dumelow (talk) 20:36, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
Added Sette Giugno to the anniversaries bit, even though it's officially labelled as 'ineligible' due to a refimprove section - mainly did this because the current listed anniversary (Journalist's Day in Argentina) linked to an article section which just mentioned it in a single sentence, whilst Sette Giugno has a complete article.
Also removed Homer Plessey from ineligible, adding the thing about him into the OTD, as the stated reason for ineligibility (an unreferenced section) has since been resolved.
I removed Sette Giugno as the tag is against our critera (must be "free from 'yellow'-level or more severe article issue tags"). I've removed Journalist's Day as well as the target article has 10 citation needed tags ("many [citation needed] tags relative to the article's length may disqualify it in lieu of a banner-sized maintenance tag") - Dumelow (talk) 11:25, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Sorry for delay in replying, I have been away for a few days. Thanks for your work on these, it's a great help not having to do a set rotation every day! I think a case could be made either way for Global Running Day, it's probably just about OK on length but needs an update (eg. it still refers to 2021 as the future) - Dumelow (talk) 06:16, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. A yellow-coloured maintenance tag renders an article ineligible so I removed PHP, will replace soon. The birthdate in the Kim Clijsters article wasn't verifiable (despite being an FA) but I have added a ref. Otherwise looks great, keep up the hard work! - Dumelow (talk) 06:45, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
I noticed when I came back that Elisabeth Geleerd, an article I wrote, had become part of the OTD rotation for her birth/death dates without me nominating it. I quite like this -- it gets a niche article some attention and has encouraged me to do a little more work on it -- but I'm curious how the decisions are made to find and list articles that are eligible but haven't been nominated. I've poked around a little and seen e.g. the quarry searches for FA/GAs on a given date. I'm also aware from reading through this page that there's a desire to get more people involved in the OTD process, so it'd be interesting to know a little more about the decisionmaking here and how to get into it yourself (it reminds me more than a little of DYK prepbuilding). Vaticidalprophet01:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi Vaticidalprophet, sorry for late reply I have been a bit busy recently. Thanks for your interest in OTD. I've only been involved for a few months but at the moment essentially each day is assembled by me (I am lucky in that there are 2-3 editors who also check each date page afterward and copyedit or remove various mistakes).
I try to assemble a complete fresh set for each day from entries in the "eligible" section of the OTD page (Eg Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 27), the results from the WikiData queries for GAs and FAS and the encyclopaedia date pages (eg. July 27). It's a bit of a struggle sometimes and always pressure to keep ahead. In a way it is similar to DYK pre-building except without the review and approval process. I try to include a variety of subjects from different regions of the world (particularly non-English-speaking countries), different eras (always hard to find good pre-1800 content), different subjects (there are a lot of good military history, disaster and weather articles but very little in the arts) and, where possible, a balance of men and women. The main checks to make are that the article is decent enough (citations are the main issue) and the blurb fact is mentioned in the article and, where possible to check, is stated in the source cited.
I'm glad I was able to feature your article, it's nice to feature good content from unusual areas. It'd be great to get more people involved in OTD but so far my attempts haven't led to much success. If you want to help out that'd be really useful. Feel free to choose a date I haven't sorted from the list above and have a go. There's really not much that you can get wrong and I'd be happy to check over your selections if you like. All the best - Dumelow (talk) 06:57, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi Vaticidalprophet, thanks so much, that looks good. I generally try to swap all of the articles out but it depends what is available to replace them, I'd say 4 out of 5 is decent. Couple of notes: Electoral system of Australia is ineligible under the OTD criteria as it has an orange article quality tag (for out of date info) and I couldn't find support for 620 million people for the India blackout article, the cited sources said 600 million and 700 million, so perhaps go with "at least 600 million"? Don't feel like you have to do a whole day either, as long as you note what you've done on the date list above feel free to do a couple of blurbs or births/deaths as you get time. A quick note that we have recently expanded to 4 births/deaths now too - Dumelow (talk) 07:40, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback! Those two were both 2022 holdovers, so I'll find swaps for them. I noticed the births/deaths expansion too, so will keep that in mind. Vaticidalprophet07:42, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
I welcome any feedback on my August 11th rotation! Not many were eligible from the early years, so to compensate for that I made births/deaths heavy on earlier years. I keptm Enid Blyton as she was literally the only female thing I could find that was eligible. Also, I noticed that there were not that many deaths to pic from. Pictured DJ Kool Herc to celebrate the 50th anniversary. I made sure to get a mix of topics and nations, and checked that every fact was stated and cited in the article.
Heart(talk)00:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Anachronism
1057 – Pope Stephen IX became the first Belgian to be crowned as pope. Belgium (and Belgian identity) certainly didn't exist in 1057. This claim isn't in the body of the article, only in the name of one solitary source, Un pape belge: histoire du pape Étienne X, unsurprisingly published by the Société belge de librairie in 1892. 〜 Festucalex • talk09:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
I want to start volunteering here, but would love to have a tutorial. Like how to select things, and rotate things? Any advice? Heart(talk)03:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I was away when you posted this but you've done the right thing by getting stuck in and you have done great so far. I think you've got the hang of most things I try to check:
Balance of time periods (I usually try to get at least one pre-1700 entry and one 1700-1900 in the blurbs and births/deaths).
Balance of regions (in the both the blurbs and births/deaths I try not to get more than 2 from a single continent actively seek out those from under-represented Africa, Asia and South America)
Actively seek out prominent anniversaries (particularly multiples of 25, 50, 100 years)
Check the facts in the blurb are stated in the article and cited to a reliable source, if that is online check that the source supports the facts. This is more important that you might think in the birth/death articles, there is a tendancy for these dates to be stated only in the lead or infobox and uncited.
I am hoping to get back into editing here to help make some of the rotations but your work has allowed me to get back into content creation a bit too, so that's great. Don't worry about doing everything yourself and ask for help whenever you need it - Dumelow (talk) 08:41, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Inquiry
Just a question. How come OTD (SA) is not a bigger thing? We have only two consistent editors, that being Dumelow and our copy-editor Ravenpuff. New entries are not looked for, neither is improving our already ineligible ones. When articles are newly created or expanded, editors don't actively look for it to be added here.
POTD is relatively planned until 2024, DYK has a promotion cycle, ITN has a relatively good posting process as well, with TFA having three consistent coordinators. OTD has new selections every day and featured on the main page, but doesn't get much recognition from content creators.
It was basically a one-person show for years (Howcheng), and that person has gotten busier in their off-wiki life, I believe, and that meant that they no longer do it anymore. I was pitching in from time to time to fill the gap when they pulled back, but if you've now got two whole editors working here, you've doubled the effective workforce over what was OTD for almost a decade or more. And before you think that other areas are necessarily run by more people, for an almost equal amount of time, TFA was also a one-person job (User:Raul654), it was only 5-6 years ago that more people came in to help out. ITN is only busier because, by their nature, they attract fresh debate and are dealing with new articles or new topics. OTD isn't "let's get together and shout down people I don't agree with" like ITN is, which by its nature is far more fun. OTD is basically boring grunt work of checking articles and swapping out blurbs that have, for the most part, already been curated. I really appreciate the work you're doing, but OTD being basically a passion project for 1-2 people is kinda how it has always been for all of history. --Jayron3218:14, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi HeartGlow30797, thanks so much for helping out here, it is much appreciated particularly as I haven't been able to edit recently. Looks good, I just had a couple of comments - Dumelow (talk) 09:52, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
I couldn't see a citation for "first papal conclave to be held in the Sistine Chapel" at 1492 papal conclave
This is cited and is accurate according to the source used.
Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic was held on August 11 according to the citation it cites itself, so I have changed the date in the article along with providing another for corroboration.
Looks good to me, though I wonder if the wording of the Whitehead blurb could be improved, per WP:alleged? I try to include some pre-1700 dates but this is not always possible given our coverage is heavily skewed to modern times - Dumelow (talk) 08:56, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
I noticed the strange wording as well, I can think of no great options. Here are some possible options:
I think it might be best to swap this one out for now. It's hard to make a claim to the importance of the event when there is clear doubt about whether it happened - Dumelow (talk) 07:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Looks fine, I made some minor wording changes. Three of the births/deaths are 20th/21st century North American figures, is some variety possible here? - Dumelow (talk) 09:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you everyone for helping with OTD! I am going through all of the FAs and GAs to add more names to the birth/death lists so that you will have a larger, more diverse pool of options when rotating articles. Please remember to check the articles when rotating to ensure that the birth/death date is actually cited in the article (and there are even FAs and GAs that don't have these cited!) Please also remember to put the entries and images back into eligible when rotating entries off the template so they can be used in future years. Thanks everyone, and feel free to ping me if you have any questions! Z1720 (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
User:Z1720, thank you for fixing issues, especially since someone has just been deleting perfectly fine eligible entries. Just a comment that some of the people that you have added do not meet Criteria 5a, not being listed on that day's page. I believe this is there to ensure that the date is actually cited as WP:DOY now require citations to be added along with new entries. Please let me know if this is not a criteria I should not be concerned with. Thanks again! Heart(talk)23:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
@HeartGlow30797: I did not know about criteria 5a, thanks for bringing it to my attention! I have only been adding names to OTD when the birth/deathday is actually cited in the article. I figured that if a bio is an FA or GA, that person must be notable enough in their field to have enough information to include in the article and for a user to spend lots of time compiling the information. As I continue to add articles, I will apply a stricter notability requirement for their inclusion (especially when I get to popular topics like MilHist or sports). As OTD preppers, I think how notable or important the entries are should be a consideration for their inclusion on the template, along with geographic considerations, gender, significant anniversaries (100th birthday, 275th deathdate, etc.) and diversity of careers or things they are notable for. Z1720 (talk) 15:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Input on standards here
Hi guys! With college starting back up again, I am not going to be able to devote my time to Wikipedia as much. Just a few things I have questions on:
Criteria 5a seems to be an issue that reoccurs, but does not get much attention. Criteria 5a states that birth/death dates listed on WP:OTD must also be on its corresponding WP:DOY page. If this does not seem to matter as much, should we remove that section from the criteria?
Does anyone read the notes listed on the talk page of each day. I have been doing them as Howcheng has been doing them for the past 12 years, but if noone uses them/reads them, I think we can remove this step from the procedure on this page. I've talked about maybe having a bot to do this step only as I read the notes when assembling things.
My suspicion was that 5a was put in place to prevent a flood of bios to OTD from sectors of Wikipedia that tend to be more popular like sports, musicians and actors, and to prevent articles from appearing that are not interesting to our readers. I wouldn't mind relaxing this criteria to something like "OTD has a higher notability requirement for inclusion: entries should also be notable for an event or achievement in their topic area. It is suggested that the person would also be eligible for inclusion on their corresponding WP:DOY page."
It would be great if a bot could update the talk page. I like the talk page notes when they list how many appearances an entry has received so that an entry is not overused every year. Z1720 (talk) 13:47, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
I don't think 5a matters at all, especially given the main OTD page also explicitly links to wikidata queries and other ways to find eligible articles.
I would like to participate in the discussion above, but find the unnamed commentary about me very uncomfortable in its tone. I'm happy to talk about my thoughts on eligibility and the talk pages. I don't personally find the talk pages useful, though I check them in case someone is making a nomination there. I mostly don't check the eligibility lists either, but the wikidata query for "event on date" has apparently died recently so I've been doing so more. I find the lists have very low representation of early dates and non-Western locations, which are the main things I'm looking for, and I also find a lot of ineligible stuff has had its problems fixed or vice versa. I also find the existing descriptions often need tweaking, so I write my own when I can, which similarly reduces the use for the eligibility category. (While it doesn't show on the main page, I feel uncomfortable with the fact the existing b/ds add "female" to the b/d comments for women with unisex or non-Anglophone names -- it feels very tokenizing.) Vaticidalprophet14:26, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry if my comments gave the impression that I was talking about you: my comments were a generalisation of my observations (including of my own work) after various editors swapped the entries. I agree that OTD has reflected the bias of English Wikipedia: male, American and UK, recentism, and topics related to pop culture or warfare (amongst many others). What I want to avoid is using wikidata entries every year, causing editors to spend lots of time trying to find entries for OTD. After playing around with Wikidata, the results do not give a description of the person, which means that I have to go into the article to determine the person's notability, as opposed to OTD which has the nationality and occupation listed. Another problem with Wikidata is that it does not exclude someone who was already featured on OTD that year; b/d entries should only appear once a year. If Wikidata is used to pick the articles, editors should check the talk page to see when the article was last used.
After I go through FAs (and GAs) I want to go through the Wikidata to try to find entries that are usable but underrepresented. I also don't like the "female" designation and think we should just remove it: the person swapping the hooks should be checking the article anyways and they can figure out the person's gender then. Z1720 (talk) 04:01, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
Moved from Talk:Main Page
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