The WP:RY "sub-project" (of WP:YEARS) mandates a unique set of inclusion criteria for years 2002 onwards. These criteria are not applied to years prior to 2002. Do we need to apply different inclusion criteria to year articles? Does our readership understand the reason for such differences in articles between 2001 and 2002? Or should our readers expect consistent formats across all year articles? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:24, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Is there an actual problem to address? I get the feeling that we don't bother with stricter inclusion criteria on older year articles due to reduced tendency to add trivia to them. I'm not sure why 2002 in particular was picked. Is it just a 15-year boundary that migrates as time goes on, or set permanently at 2002? (Never mind; discussions above answer this.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC), rev'd. 05:47, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I support the notion in a thread above to set the mark at 20 years (approx. 1 generation), which as JFG says is generally time enough for something to have transitioned from news to history and thus for its lasting importance to be more certain. However, this page is not a guideline, so anything it says should be framed as general advice, about the kind of list addition that is likely or not likely to be accepted. We can't actually impose any rule here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:16, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, as noted, why should our readers inherently understand that articles from 2001 backward have different inclusion criteria from 2002 onward? How does this approach help our readers? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:33, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Discussion above indicates this date was chosen based on when WP started, and has a connection to the apparently now-rejected "seven Wikipedias rule" (which would no longer actually be a rule even if it hadn't been rejected, since this is no longer a guideline). The 2002 date is based on a string of assumptions that don't hold. It makes more sense to set this at 20 years or so, and have the boundary auto-update. Some might prefer 10 years. Regardless, this can be done with simple parser functions right in the page itself, so it auto-updates on its own. If the ultimate question is "should there be any difference between the 2017 and 1980 articles", I would say yes, for reasons JFG already outlined in two threads above, and which boil down the difference between well-analyzed history versus reactionarily-covered news. The closer in time to an event that seemingly secondary-source material about the event is, the more primary-source in nature that material really is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:42, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not sure you're answering the question, why should a reader expect to see a difference between 2001 and 2002 articles? And when this "recent" window expires on an article, as the inclusion criteria no longer applies, we would expect to see a load of edits... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the ambiguity appears to be rooted in an underlying assumption that has not been demonstrated. The original author and some other prominent editors appear to have believed that a RY guideline, and its admittedly arbitrary time cut-offs, are necessary to prevent the mass additions of spurious and frivolous entries into the 2002+ articles. This "assumes facts not in evidence," to use the legal phrase. The hypothesis that this essay guideline essay reduced the number of entries that had to be reverted after 2010 should be testable. I haven't seen that evidence brought forward in recent discussions here, or in the original discussions surrounding the creation of this piece. In the absence of evidence of those problems, having any time cut-off seems needlessly arbitrary. The lede could just as easily say: "Recent year articles are among the most heavily edited..." and be done with it. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:38, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"most edited" is actually factually inaccurate... The Rambling Man (talk) 16:40, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Would "...among the most-viewed..." be accurate? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:46, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:50, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, then there's no reason for the sentence to exist at all. There may not even be a reason for the essay to exist if there's no evidence of large-scale disruption and if the pages are not among the most edited or most viewed. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:06, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:09, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No. We do not need a differentiation. It's an attempted 'fix' for a problem that doesn't exist, and just convolutes our records and confuses our readers. Bin it. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 11:18, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• No. We should use the same inclusion criteria for all years, regardless of recency. Events/births/deaths of international importance as supported by reliable sources should be included. WP:YEARS is an appropriate place to centralize that effort, not this essay. The arguments I've seen to the contrary largely involve concerns about the growth of Wikipedia and of the internet, but I fail to see how that problem is unique to a handful of year pages. All this recent years business has gotten us is WP:OWN behavior and poor guidelines. agtx 05:37, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, we would need a guideline for what is eligible for inclusion in any year article, whether it be in the distant past, the recent past, the present or the future. Jim Michael (talk) 13:26, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought we already had such guidelines for the entire project. What's so special about any year article, recent, ancient, or otherwise? That said, such standards are already in place. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 14:55, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have guidelines for what should or should not be in Year articles, but we need them. Jim Michael (talk) 18:38, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"...but we need them," um, why? Please provide some concrete evidence that year articles, especially recent ones, have created an actual (as opposed to perceived) problem to support this necessity. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:46, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The evidence is that, prior to the implementation of the RY guideline, the articles in question were flooded with insufficiently notable events and deaths. Jim Michael (talk) 15:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's extremely unconvincing to me. The attempts to curate these pages have largely failed. The recent years articles are not particularly useful right now. agtx 02:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes - The growth of Wikipedia and the internet are relevant because we now have far more information compiled across Wikipedia with each passing year. I think everyone is aware of WP:RECENTISM, but I don't think everyone quite sees how that affects these articles. To try to break it down, for the year 1517, we can easily list every single person we have an article for who died in that year in the 1517 article itself. For 2017, we simply can't – the article would just get too long. The same applies to events. Consequently, we need to have a different standard for the events, births, and deaths of 2017 than we do for 1517. 2002 is an arbitrarily chosen year where this line has been drawn. If we look at the amount of information available and the number of biographical articles and articles on events, it makes sense to go with somewhere near 2001 or 2002 because that coincides with the birth of Wikipedia and the explosion of the internet, because as things happen, they are added to the encyclopedia. -- irn (talk) 15:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflictThis argument still pre-supposes that there is a problem with these articles being made "too long" and does not show any evidence of such a problem. To pick some examples at a random set of ten-year intervals, 1978 is 87,993bytes and has been viewed 7,954 times in the last 30 days, 1988 is 97,555bytes and has been viewed 12,943 times in the last 30 days, 1998 is 65,047bytes and has been viewed 15,152 times in the last 30 days while 2008 is 42,027bytes and has been viewed 13,267 times in the last 30 days. That sample, at least, shows that post-2002 articles are shorter and there is no relationship between length of the page and whether readers are likely to use the page. There is no evidence that the essay provides any necessary selectivity. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:51, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I understand your point. You ask for proof that the pages have gotten too long, but RY has effectively prevented that, so it's impossible to prove. 2008 is shorter because of RY. The problem with page length isn't about how many visits a particular article may receive, but rather about readability and technical issues like load times. I readily concede that 2002 is arbitrary. Perhaps a better date would be 1990 (the invention of the World Wide Web) or 1950 (roughly the onset of the digital revolution) or even something like 1920 (to cover the lifespans of most people affected by the changes noted in my previous comment). (Regarding post-2002 articles being shorter than other year articles, I see that as a problem with the implementation/interpretation of RY and reason to change either the way it's written or interpreted, but I don't think that's reason to discard RY entirely.) -- irn (talk) 16:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

2008 is (was?, may be?, should have been?) covered by the essay but is a year that pre-dates the creation of the essay. If the hypothesis that this essay is necessary to prevent issues for readers is true, it should either show evidence of such a length so as to cause those problems you mention or show evidence that large post-2010 deletions were necessary and justified by the essay to remove such problems. As shown above, the length is obviously not a problem in comparison to other year articles not covered by the policy and the edit history of the page does not show any such large efforts were undertaken to bring it in line with the essay. In other words, this sample at least does not support the hypothesis that is basal to the need for this essay and I have seen no-one providing any positive evidence for the hypothesis. In the absence of such evidence, we should consider the hypothesis unproven and the essay not needed.

tl;dr version: We don't have any reason to believe that such readability issues exist or that the essay solves any concrete problem. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:23, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So the condition of the 2008 article is what led to the creation of RY. By the end of June 2008, the 2008 article was already over 90,000 bytes. With six more months to go in the year, it was already in "probably should be divided" territory and clearly on a path to exceeding "almost certainly should be divided" territory, and the efforts that went into trimming it back are ultimately what led to the creation of RY (see the section above #Historical education: One editor's history of this project). -- irn (talk) 16:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for being the first to provide some version of the evidence I've been stating has been lacking throughout these multiple discussions, @Irn:. I obviously didn't go back far enough in the edit history. That said, I don't agree that the page history shows good evidence that the article was getting too long and would have created difficulties even if allowed to grow unchecked. There are literally 10,000 pages that are currently longer than 2008 at it greatest extent. Even on my 5-year-old Android phone, I have zero problems loading or reading Raymond Burr (119,842bytes). It didn't even choke on 1944 Birthday Honours (500,083 bytes). Admittedly, List of members of the Lok Sabha 1952-2017 at 1,113,541bytes does crash my phone's app, but that's an order of magnitude bigger than any post-2002 year article I looked at. Unless or until recent year articles start breaking the >500,000byte level, I still don't see that there's an issue justifying the essay. If we look at all the years articles between 2002 (the earliest covered by the policy) and 2009 (the latest covered for a year before the essay was created), none reached anything like that at their greatest extents:

Year article	Greatest extent (bytes)	Peaked in year
2002	52.238	2006
2003	56,349	2007
2004	67,614	2007
2005	75,328	2008
2006	112,995	2009
2007	122,508	2007
2008	108,851	2012
2009	78,038	2016

The more I look for concrete evidence and statistics supporting the hypothesis that this essay is necessary (rather than anecdotes or armchair theorizing), the less I find supporting it and the more I find support for countervailing arguments. Most of them had gotten smaller even before the earliest efforts at a policy on exclusivity of year articles. The other two of those articles got bigger after this essay was created and one reached its greatest length when it had gotten elevated to guideline status. These are exactly the opposite effects we'd expect if the hypothesis was true. That suggests that not only is this essay not creating smaller articles but also that it isn't having even the selectivity effects that its proponents envisioned. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:55, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

First, just some minor nit-picking: Xtools doesn't track article size perfectly. I think it just gives the size at the end of the year. So, for example, the largest that 2007 ever got was actually 128,324 bytes on August 18, 2008. Ultimately, I don't know how much of a difference that makes, and I don't feel like going through and checking all of them; I think your general point still stands.

Your argument that the recommendations of WP:AS should be ignored is an interesting one, and I hadn't thought about that. I had just kind of assumed that the people who created WP:AS created those recommendations for good reason, but that is merely an assumption.

However, accepting that the general recommendations of WP:AS are still valid, your greater argument (that you don't see the need) strikes me as flawed. There was a problem (as seen in 2008); RY was created to address that problem. The fact that there has been no problem since then is as much proof that this has been working as it is that there's no need for it.

You can also compare the growth of year articles over time. Whereas most non-RY but still relatively recent year articles have grown over time as little by little people add births, deaths, and events (especially those from the late 80s into the 90s), RY articles have generally held pretty stable, which I see as evidence that RY is working. -- irn (talk) 22:09, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No this "birth of the internet" or "Birth of Wikipedia" is a red herring, and a really unhelpful one, especially to our readers who are not aware (nor should they be) of the arcane machinations of project selection criteria. Books and encyclopedias were printed before, during and after the internet boom, and no-one is talking about listing everyone who died in any year in the year article, that's already covered elsewhere. The delineation is completely fake and totally unnecessary. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The RY guideline was created to counter the flood of insufficiently notable events and deaths which were being added to recent year articles. In the absence of restriction on entries, the more recent a Year article is, the longer it tends to be. Media coverage has increased massively during the last few decades. Jim Michael (talk) 18:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adequately and evidentially disproven above. Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 08:36, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No per The Rambling Man. Double sharp (talk) 10:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that, during the 2010s, year articles covering the 80s and 90s have been greatly expanded - whilst RY articles haven't - is proof that the RY guideline is necessary and was effective. If anything, it should cover more years. Jim Michael (talk) 15:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Like...... all years!!!!!!! Checkmate. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:59, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No The fact that, even at their largest extents, no year article of any recency shows up anywhere on LongPages proves that the repeated argument that the guideline is "necessary" is either personal preference of a tiny handful of editors or outdated information. The project is more than capable of handling year article pages of unrestrained length. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Year articles which have been most expanded are those which are the most recent not to be covered by RY. If the RY guideline hadn't been implemented, the years covered by RY would be the longest of all the Year articles. Very long articles full of events and deaths that aren't internationally notable would dilute the value of the articles and would reduce the number of people reading the sub-articles such as 2017 in science and 2017 in the United States. Jim Michael (talk) 21:38, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Prove your assertion, and even if you could, that's a problem because.... ? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:04, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, so-called "very long articles full of ... deaths which aren't inernationally notable" such as Deaths in 2017 receive an average of 105,000 views per day, while the curated and heavily managed 2017 gets around 5,500. Why are you working so hard to ensure our readers avoid these cherry-picked pages and head straight for the comprehensive versions? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:11, 21 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No-one is suggesting that Deaths in 2017 and similar articles be deleted or reduced in length. They're so long that they're divided by month. The deaths list for the current year is always one of the most frequently viewed pages because it's where readers who are looking for information about people who died recently. All those deaths can't be and shouldn't be on the relevant year article.

You appear to be implying that RY articles would be read more often if they were longer. That's almost certainly true, but it would also almost certainly significantly reduce the number of people who would read the subarticles, such as 2017 in music and 2017 in the United Kingdom. Many people go directly to either one of the subarticles, or to the articles of the people or events which they want to read. I disagree with your assertion that lengthening RY articles is in the interests of our readers. Jim Michael (talk) 13:36, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your continued assertions of what should be testable facts without any evidence to back it up. How do we know that longer year articles would "...almost certainly significantly reduce..." readership of any articles? Did we test that previously? Are there readership trends that can be linked to? Is it anecdotal memory or personal supposition? Where is the evidence to support these conclusions? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:30, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it's tiring to combat the continual reiteration of the "Kim Kardashian" argument or the "unpopular around a watercooler" claims. These are absolutely not what our readers believe, and absolutely not what our community believes. One could conjure up 100 arguments in an attempt to claim some kind of RY boundary exists, but the simple fact of the matter is that it really doesn't. Apply a common approach to all year articles. Some will have more than others. A good comparison is taking a look at the content in The Boat Races 2016 and The Boat Race 1963 for example. Both are comprehensive, for the available material, and that's what our readers expect. They don't suddenly expect a cut-off point at which some items are mysteriously (to them, because they don't and shouldn't need to read the essay at RY) aren't allowed. That's not serving our readers well at all. And honestly, this is 2017, all this talk of "long pages" relating to >100KB, give me strength, I have a <1MB/s connection at home and I can cope with just about every page Wikipedia throws at me. It only actually gets a little worse when rendering pages with tons of transcluded templates, and articles such as 2017 don't have that all. So, time to get with the present people. TL;dr: we may need some criteria, but they should apply to all year articles and we shouldn't be scared of large articles!! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:10, 22 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I think a really important point is being missed here. Irn and Jim - why are we working so hard to create weird, inexplicably cherry-picked annual summaries of incomplete information, based on POV and suffering problems with bias and arguments regarding criteria, when the supposedly more bloated and horrible articles of complete information receive 20 times the daily hits? Sounds like people aren't liking your annual summaries. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 16:15, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, as I noted above, the RY articles seem to get a readership about equivalent to a weak DYK while the main "Deaths in..." articles receive nearly as much interest as the Main Page. So in any language, that would seem to imply that readers prefer the comprehensive list to the cherry-picked list, by about 20 to 1. Ironically, we have some of the regulars here "maintaining" articles like 2010s which (despite it being three years from completion) is already at >370KB. What a terrible mishmash of ideas, doctrine, implementation and enforcement. Pity our readers. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:12, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the big post: This is actually what brought me to this ol’ mess to begin with. I was in the office discussing the spate of deaths to have occurred in the last year and ventured onto Wikipedia for a ballpark figure – I went in via the year and noticed several deaths were missing.

There was no explanation as to why they were not included, no explanation that the year article was a cherry picked summary, how this cherry picking was undertaken, by who and why. It just appeared like an article inexplicably missing information.

I then came across the ‘deaths in’ article and found a comprehensive list. It occurred to me that I would never use the Year article from that point forward, because it would be missing information and perhaps I wouldn’t know what was missing or why - the article would basically be erroneous and redundant.

Realising this would be true of all year articles, I thought I’d see what was going on ‘under the hood’. At first I thought a better criteria for inclusion should be established which helped make it clear to readers (like me) what the situation was. I must say I’ve been pretty shocked by the behaviour of Arthur Rubin, an admin, and a handful of others, most notably Jim Michael, who have been so difficult and averse to change. The regulars here have taken things personally, shown incredible ownership issues, even resorting to lying to discredit another editor, talk page harassment, warnings and general roadblocking to keep the status quo, which considering the mess, seemed utterly irrational and in no way putting the readers and the project first.

That aside, and having learnt more about the Recent Years differential, I find the whole thing to be an even bigger, convoluted and confusing mess – especially when looking through the eyes of a reader.

We don’t need Recent Years. Nobody outside of Wikipedia understands. It’s only defence seems to be to ensure Year articles don’t become comprehensive accounts of what happened that year. Read that back and tell me you don’t instantly recoil and think WHAT? And WHY? Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. It should be showing comprehensive and complete information. It’s not Heat magazine, providing tasty snippets of favourite deaths and events. We don’t have the means to justify cherry-picking – we aren’t a source that is supposed to operate under a bias, or for a target audience. We are supposed to be an impartial, factual record. We shouldn’t be writing articles with the mentality of “Hey! We are Wikipedia and these are the deaths and events we think are most important!” So Year articles very much should be what the core ‘owners’ are fighting against – a comprehensive record of events and deaths that year.

Or they shouldn’t exist at all and we should stop duplicating information in an unclear, misleading manner that readers have zero clue about. As how would anyone know that the list of deaths they found in 2017 (or any year) was missing important information? If it was Arthur and Jim’s article, in 2017 major earthquakes and shootings would not have happened and famous people like Bruce Forsyth, Sean Hughes and the co-founder of an international seminal rock band would not have died. Is this really what we want to be showcasing?

In my mind, scrap Recent Years entirely. Year articles can provide links to the more comprehensive lists at country-based year articles, and the complete ‘Deaths in’ articles. There is zero need to duplicate information, especially incomplete information, with no explanation to the reader and no clear rationale for doing so. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:55, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sean Hughes and Scott Putesky aren't among the most important people to have died this year - they're not even among the most important in their respective countries.

Information being duplicated is inevitable. Articles such as 2017 in music, 2017 in film and 2017 in science will include some of the info that's on 2017 in the United States, 2017 in the United Kingdom etc. Jim Michael (talk) 19:42, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it would be much easier for our readers, and much more comprehensive, to point at Deaths in 2017. Burying each notable death or omitting it entirely because of a personal preference or arcane selection criterion should be discouraged, the pageviews clearly make a case for the comprehensive WP:GNG list, rather than this rather opaquely selected group of "super notable" individuals. Page length is not an issue by the way, this is 2017 now, not 2002 when most of us dreamed of free dial-up accounts at Compuserve. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:00, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jim Michaels: So why duplicate it further unnecessarily in a clandestine, confusing and incomplete manner? 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

At the end of each year, many mainstream media sources produce lists of people who died during the year; some produce lists much earlier of those who've died during the year so far. Those lists don't usually include people of marginal notability - they're shorter lists of the more important people. We should do likewise - and we do. No-one's claiming that RY articles would be so long that they would take a long time to load or would crash. We're providing a concise review of the events & deaths of each year. Jim Michael (talk) 12:55, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not what's being provided at all, as evidenced by page views. If readers genuinely felt they were getting something positive from these RY articles, they'd received more than an average DYK's worth of hits per day. The current approach may serve the needs and wishes of the established users here, but that is in direct contradiction of all the evidence suggesting that the current approach does not serve the general community of editors well, nor, most importantly, our readers. Take an example. 2005 received an average of 440 page views per day over the past month. Thats only twice as many page views as my own talk page. No-one is interested in these RY articles, they contain (to our readers) a bizarrely selected set of events and a group of "super notable" deaths, the criteria for which is completely undetermined. Little wonder no-one outside the users here are really interested in such articles. Concise (in this situation) is the enemy of the reader. This is not a paper encyclopedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:02, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jim Michael: Mainstream media sources have a target demographic they shape their content for. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedic database of information. We shouldn't be cultivating POV lists, especially when doing so is highly contentious and barely worth doing in terms of readership. Encyclopaedias should strive to provide complete information. Not half the information with no explanation or warning that what we are presenting is missing so much. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:23, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No - There should be the same format and consistency throughout, The whole "before 2002 this applies and after 2002 this applies" makes no sense, Apply one consistent format or whatever throughout all years. –Davey2010^Talk 15:59, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Then we need to establish a set of inclusion criteria for all year articles. Jim Michael (talk) 17:48, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Jim, By all means start another RFC to establish a criteria (I'm only saying you because you're the most knowledgable with all this), Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 17:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not true. The "non-RY" articles, i.e. everything from 2001 backwards, have had no inclusion criteria applied whatsoever. Why do we have literally hundreds of articles about year events without any criteria and yet around 16 with criteria, most of which have been deemed patently unsuitable? We could just rely on our community to decide what is in and what is out, that's a perfectly Wikipedian manner of inclusion, and presumably how every single article from 2001 backwards has operated for some time now. We have GNG and community consensus, that's all we need! The Rambling Man (talk) 22:18, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

They should all have criteria, but writing and establishing them has been neglected. Older years haven't had as much added to them, so the problem of insufficiently notable additions is less severe there. The RY criteria were established to stem the flow to the worst-affected year articles. Jim Michael (talk) 01:28, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the thousands of pre-2001 articles have been fine for time immemorial then there's no logic in trying to apply any kind of RY at all. And we have plenty of consensus here agreeing with that position, so we will simply mark RY as historical and move on. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:51, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not since time immemorial; WP was created in 2001. They aren't fine - they need inclusion criteria because insufficently notable events, births and deaths are frequently added to them.

Another reason for having a higher entry bar for recent years compared to older ones is that recent years have far more subarticles to accommodate the many more entries. Jim Michael (talk) 16:55, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not true. They're just fine. Check this out, it demonstrates that the two years before the RY boundary get 50% more pageviews than the two years after RY! And even extending that search range demonstrates that RY adds nothing at all to the readership of the recent articles. Our readers seem to think that articles outside the remit of the RY criteria are just fine and that's what we're here to do, provide our readers with what they want. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:12, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That supports my assertion to a degree. The articles that weren't under RY are longer, so they receive more views - but there are fewer sub-articles than there are for recent years. The RY criteria had the effect of diverting many readers from the main page to its subarticles for more in-depth coverage devoted to its topic/country. Jim Michael (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it directly contradicts what you've just said. The years prior to RY are more popular than the RY ones, and the years prior to RY have no guidelines. This is all about serving our readers, and the RY articles, per the evidence, clearly do not. Readers are not diverted elsewhere, those articles are seldom viewed. Anyway, we have a clear consensus here to remove RY altogether, so I think we're done for now! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

They're viewed less often because many readers go directly to the sub-article(s) which they are interested in. Jim Michael (talk) 18:04, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

^{[citation needed]}. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:08, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The more recent a year article is, the more sub-articles it has. The total number of views of all sub-articles for a year increase the more recent it is. That proves that more readers are going to the sub-articles for recent years. Jim Michael (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No Jim, that's not true. There are hundreds of articles prior to RY which are sub-articles of years. RY doesn't have exclusive rights over sub-articles. Please don't continue to make false assertions. WP:DISRUPTSIGNS. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't claim that RY has exclusive rights over sub-articles. I said that the older the year, the fewer sub-articles it has. The larger number of sub-articles for recent years means that many readers go to those sub-articles - decreasing the viewership for the main articles for recent years. Jim Michael (talk) 23:40, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really matter what you believe to be the case, we have a clearcut consensus that RY is no longer required. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:52, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No per TRM. If there is going to be a set criteria at all, which might itself be overly bureaucratic as opposed to just the normal BRD cycle, they should be standardized across all years. Looking at recent discussions on this topic, it seems that this guideline is used to artificially relocate items that would've made into pre-RY articles on the basis of arbitrary criteria. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 14:55, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment no comments have been made on this discussion for nearly four weeks so I suggest it is closed according to the consensus. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Kind of? 2002 is very arbitrary, but I can see applying a different set of standards to the current year (and perhaps the previous year) to prevent issues with WP:RECENTISM. On the other hand, I see no reason to distinguish between 2001 and 2008. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:26, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you think our readers expect such an arbitrary delineation? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:27, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment time to close this discussion and end the debate. There's a clear consensus against this arbitrary delineation between the format of so-called "recent year" articles, there's been no substantive addition to this debate for several weeks, so it's time to finally resolve this. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:39, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Neutral – Special guidelines for recent years may not be required at all. If we do keep any, they should be drawn out from wide community input, instead of the walled garden approach that has been prevalent since this guideline was established. — JFG ^talk 12:13, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment – Close requested.[1] — JFG ^talk 12:13, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]