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Propose adding to "at the time of the person's death"

"or, when death is imminent"

Reasoning: If the person's death has been expected for a long time, he/she may have death fans. The intent is that the person have significance when alive. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:32, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong oppose someone's about to die and we just got a way of detecting it. Nonsense. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  This comment no sense makes. I was actually thinking of Terri Schiavo, where her death might be an internationally notable event, but her death clearly doesn't belong on the "deaths" section. This year's example of the North Korean prisoner is the current example; it was known that he required medical treatment he was not receiving; the trigger event for timing should have been his capture, rather than his death. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:32, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  You sunk your own battleship. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:34, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  After careful consideration, I see no actual content. Could you explain? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  You are proposing a prediction machine. Your example was about something that might be notable. Things that might be notable don't have a place in an encyclopedia, I thought that was obvious. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, no need to complicate the guideline. Such cases are covered by "Persons whose notability is due to circumstance rather than actual achievement do not meet the basic requirement for inclusion" and can be excluded by consensus. There's only a handful of cases each year, at any rate. — Yerpo ^Eh? 19:50, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Oh dear. Oppose. 1.129.96.224 (talk) 01:48, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Allright, time to take some initiative and start working towards an actual solution. I put together an overview of the options that have been mentioned in the past few months or earlier, in my sandbox. You're all welcome to add content, either new options or clarifications to existing ones (I reserve the right to reject non-constructive edits in my user space, or edit them myself). The idea is to polish the overview for a week or two, then make an RfC where we present the options to the community to decide. Thanks for participating. — Yerpo ^Eh? 17:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Added. Thanks Yerpo. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:55, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure whether years like 2002, 2003, etc should be considered to be "recent years" any more. The "2002 to present" rule has been in place since 2012, and there's no process by which this 2002 start point will be changed in the future. I would suggest that a new policy should be that WP:RY applies from [ten years ago] to [the current year]. So, as the current year is 2017, WP:RY would apply to the years between 2007 and 2017, inclusive. Next year, in 2018, WP:RY will apply from the years between 2008 and 2018 inclusive. And so on. What do you think? Good idea or bad idea? Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 12:38, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree. The reason for 2002 to be the year it that the stricter criteria start is that it was the first full year of Wikipedia's existence. Also, if the start year of RY were moved forwards, those years no longer in its scope would be flooded with domestic and insufficiently significant events. Jim Michael (talk) 16:12, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I don't think it matters that much. WP:RY is just an essay, so it's ok if it's a little bit fuzzy what years it applies to. Regardless of what the essay says, a discussion of what's important to include in 2002 will necessarily be different than 2016 because of the types of sources that will be available. We should not based any content decisions on on when Wikipedia started (completely irrelevant) or the hypothetical possiblity that the articles will be flooded (FUD). agtx 19:43, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why would we want to do this? That is, what is there to be gained by making this change? As Jim alluded to, RY was created in response to a need: because of the nature of the Internet and the nature of Wikipedia, articles covering years after the creation of Wikipedia need to be treated differently than those for years prior. You're correct that 2002 isn't so "recent" anymore, but if that's really a problem, the solution shouldn't be to change the scope of RY but rather to rename RY to better describe its scope. -- irn (talk) 02:45, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It could be renamed, but I can't think of a better name. Years 2002 onwards? Years 2002 - present? Jim Michael (talk) 19:28, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Right, thanks for the responses all. So, WP:RY isn't really about recent years at all, but it's actually about years in the internet era when there's more available information. In which case, I would suggest renaming "Recent years" to "21st century years". It's the most concise name. (That name would also include the year 2001, though; I don't know whether that would be an issue). Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 07:01, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The articles were flooded before WP:RY was implemented, and some are becoming flooded again.

As for 2002, it was selected, in part, because of the 9-Wikipedia rule. Before that, (in 2007-2009), the coverage start changed between 10 years back, 1990, and 2000. With no 9-Wikipedia rule, there's no reason not to go back to 2001. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:04, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would keep the "recent years" name but extend its scope to the last 20 years. This would mitigate the "fear of flooding" with less-relevant events if we only go 10 years back. After a generation (20 years), news become history, and significance is much easier to assess. — JFG ^talk 03:54, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment this raises an important point, why should we have so-called "recent years" at all? Just because Wikipedia came into existence 15 years ago, why should that mark the beginning of some new "recent years" epoch? The world very much doesn't revolve around Wikipedia, far from it, so there seems like a reasonable argument to get rid of "Recent years" altogether and just stick with WP:YEARS. After all, in 2037 time, who would actually consider 2003 to be a "recent year"? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:36, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned above, RY was created in response to a need: because of the nature of the Internet and the nature of Wikipedia, articles covering years after the creation of Wikipedia need to be treated differently than those for years prior. -- irn (talk) 18:35, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, I think that misses points on two counts. Firstly recent years aren't recent if they're decades ago. Secondly, there is no reason to treat 2002 as some kind of watershed year. We have tons of reliable sources that could be used and applied to decades and decades of year articles. This is an artificial construct which does not serve our readers at all. What makes you think articles about things that happened aftern2002 "need to be treated differently"? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:39, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the foundation of Wikipedia has no bearing on whether we should consider a year "recent". To me, the "recentism" of a year is a slow continuum between "news" and "history", hence my proposal to include the last 20 years, after which everything is history. The Rambling Man, would you support that range? — JFG ^talk 20:51, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this has fundamentally highlighted that we don't actually need a concept of "Recent years" because it's meaningless to our readers, and certainly muddies the water when it comes to applying different inclusion criteria to recent and non-recent years. Why should our readers be subjected to that absurdity? The Rambling Man (talk) 08:59, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Recent years" criteria may not be needed if there were criteria for inclusion in year articles in WP:YEARS. The criteria could become more strict as years go forward, representing the fact that more information is available about more recent years than less recent years, and 150K lists are generally unreadable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:59, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point is being missed. Why would our readers expect there to be some mysterious cut-off point beyond which different inclusion criteria apply? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The idiot that I am, could someone explain to me in plain English why years 2002+ need to be treated differently? I'm missing something here. I get that's when Wikipedia was born but what actual difference does that make again? 62.255.118.6 (talk) 09:27, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Because 2002 was the first year article that was compiled at the time, rather than retrospectively. Jim Michael (talk) 08:40, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No reason at all 62.255, the claim that the "birth of Wikipedia" should somehow define an epoch-marking moment in history is patently absurd and an insult to our readers. They couldn't and shouldn't care less when Wikipedia's first "year" article was created, that's pure navel-gazing at its worst, and perpetuated by this odd "mini-project". The Rambling Man (talk) 21:04, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• 20 years seems like a good range, as JFG suggested.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The criteria for establishing international notability was fraudulently promoted to a guideline rather cynically by a group of editors who wanted to protect their ownership of the article. Overwhelming consensus has resulted in this hooky guideline being downgraded to an essay and that it should never have been anything more.

Following this, the criteria itself was scrutinised and the community was asked whether international notability could be established by the weird 9 Wikipedia rule. By overwhelming consensus, the RFC resulted in finding that:

international notability ≠ existence of nine or more non-English Wikipedia articles.

So in effect, this essay has lost all credibility and can no longer be wielded in these articles. Arthur Rubin, champion of the essay, even agrees in the sense that consensus can override it - in which case we are just voting on inclusions anyway, and there is no need to even refer to this disgraced rule. We are just deciding by consensus, the rule is obsolete.

There are three key ways forward:

• 1. Include deaths by consensus (as we are currently doing, in the absence of any enforceable criteria)
• 2. Include deaths that are included in other Annual Review Reliable Sources (let Reliable Sources cherry-pick deaths for us)
• 3. Include a link to all deaths that year (avoid the pitfall of cherry-picking deaths entirely)

Option 2 feels the strongest to me. It's the easiest to enforce, requires little admin, is fair, avoids POV/bias and sidesteps the difficulty in coming up with a way to establish international notability on our own.

The main objection seems to be that the current year article would not be populated ad-hoc, and would be held until the Annual Review reliable sources published their articles at the year end. This to me just sounds like OWNERSHIP issues again rather than an objection for the sake of Wikipedia - I don't see why this is a problem.

Firstly, if it's good enough for Reliable Sources to publish their year review at year end, why isn't it good enough for us? Secondly, if we really had to give Jim and Arthur something to do (though we don't OWE them a hobby), we could simply provide a link to Deaths In 20XX, until the time is upon us to produce our final, narrowed down selection of deaths that, according to RS, are significant enough to be honoured in an annual summary.

This could also work for events in exactly the same way. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 10:46, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The community was not asked "whether international notability could be established by the weird 9 Wikipedia rule". The RFC only established that "international notability ≠ existence of nine or more non-English Wikipedia articles". No one ever made the opposite claim, namely that “international notability = existence of nine or more non-English Wikipedia articles”. As Arthur Rubin explained: "The criterion is "international notability". The 9-Wikipedia criterion was intended as an objective proxy for the subjective term "international notability"". The 9-Wikipedia criterion is a tool. If we want to debate the usefulness of that tool or see if we can come up with a better tool or process, let's do that. But to point to the RFC as proof that “there is no need to even refer to this disgraced rule.” is simply mistaken. -- irn (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That may be Arthur Rubin's understanding of the "9 wiki" rule, but I don't see evidence which supports that as being the actual intent. From what I can tell, this essay was started in January of 2009 by the apparently-departed editor Wrad. This first draft contained both the 9 wiki rule and the three-continent rule and had no explanaiton of how those rules were chosen. Actually, Wrad started with a 10 wiki rule but neither at that time nor when it was reduced to nine did anyone say "this is an objective proxy". At most, it seems that, as soon as Wrad started it, it was used because the only alternative suggested was a 25-person quota. The RFC did establish that the 9 wiki rule is problematic and no longer as widely accepted. The IP editor is right to suggest that we need to establish a rule that has better support. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:35, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's not easy to find specific diffs, but it seemed obvious to me at the time that the criteria was international notability, with a modification for deaths that the person's life was notable during xer lifetime, and later modified per discussion at WT:RY and at WT:YEARS that, for deaths, xe must be notable for something xe did, not for something that happened to xer. I'm not sure it would be constructive to look for diffs, as this criteria would require an objective proxy, which would be difficult to find.

I agree we need to establish an objective set of criteria, but the RfC was written badly, and there is little agreement as to the meaning of the close. Certainly, WP:RY is the only set of criteria which ever had even a limited agreement. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The intention doesn't matter. You can just mentally strike that part out of my comment so that it reads "The criterion is "international notability". The 9-Wikipedia criterion is an objective proxy for the subjective term "international notability"", and the point still stands. -- irn (talk) 18:43, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Irn:My goodness, that's pedantic. There is literally nothing different between what you and I said the RFC established. Out trots the usual "oooh, I agree we should discuss a way forward!" followed by a digressive bawl defending the 9 Wiki rule without actually saying anything of value. You and Arthur need to let it go. Everyone thinks its ubershit. It was utterly annihilated in two (soundly and clearly written) RFC's which saw it downgraded and then completely dismissed as a useful method of assessment. Why are we still talking about it? And Christ Arthur is now actually going to argue that 'there is no consensus as to what the consensus means'? Oh dear. Move on guys, it's just sounding sour and a little embarrassing now. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:30, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to think I’m splitting hairs, but as far as I can tell, no one thinks the 9-wiki rule adequately defines international notability; some people, however, support it as the best option at the moment (that is, it works as a proxy in lieu of a better solution). By asking only if "Is the definition of "international notability" the existence of nine or more non-English Wikpedia articles about a subject at the time of death?", the RFC missed the mark completely because that's not the issue.

You think I'm being pedantic, but the difference between our interpretations of the RFC has really important consequences: my interpretation renders it essentially meaningless and yours would throw out the 9-wiki rule entirely, replacing it with nothing. Neither you nor I can speak for how every single !vote in that RFC interpreted the question – whether they would agree with you and Eggishorn or with me and Arthur. That right there is the problem. -- irn (talk) 19:39, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear. You have to try pretty hard to interpret the RFC in any other way than a complete dismissal of the current selection criteria. It doesn't matter if it's "better than nothing". It's not good enough. It's not good at all. People think its awful. And that's a meaningful result (for those willing to accept meaning). And you are being disingenuous by making out the fall back is nothing. The fall back, as it is currently, is debate. You mistakenly think the wishy-washy, non-binding, deregulated and now disgraced essay still has a role to play in selection. It quite clearly doesn't. Even Arthur Rubin has said so in the last discussion where he admitted in absence of any consensus otherwise, a person would not be included according to the essay. Which means if a few people wanted the person included regardless of what the disfavoured essay says, they would be included. So with little confidence in the essay, this renders it completely redundant. So rather than continue this futile argument over a dead essay, or pretending an RFC result that was not in your favour is for some reason "meaningless" (uh huh), lets spend our time productively discussing a new essay that can guide future discussion on individual inclusion. Because as it stands, the current essay is NOT guiding anything. I just don't understand why you, Arthur and Jim want to spend all your time looping the same argument - let go, mate. It's nothing personal, its just a stupid essay. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:44, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how any rational person can interpret the RfC as meaning anything other than what it says — the 9-Wikipedia rule is not the definition of international importance. Many (but not all) comments indicate the 9-Wikipedia rule is absurd, or should not be used (but not necessarily both). There are few comments on the rest of WP:RY. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:27, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever Arthur, the RFC has drawn a line through your awful rule, which shouldn't have been a rule and now isn't one. Talk about something else, this is a waste of time. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 15:53, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Since this is just an essay now, we should not bother trying to come up with a "process" of "rules" that cannot be enforced. Rewrite the entire page as generalized advices, and suggestions about what will increase/decrease likelihood of an event entry meeting with consensus at a year article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:12, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Following some debate over the scope of the "Recent years" mini-project, it's become apparent that there seems no real clear reason, especially from our reader's perspective, why we have WP:YEARS and WP:RY. The arbitrary decision to select 2002 as the crossover point also appears to relate to the invention of Wikipedia. But why would our readers be interested in that? Why do year articles from 2002 onwards need to be treated any differently to year articles from 2001 back? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:57, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the foundation of Wikipedia has no bearing on whether we should consider a year "recent". To me, the "recentism" of a year is a slow continuum between "news" and "history", hence my proposal to include the last 20 years, after which everything is history. See above at #Should the year range for WP:RY (2002–2017) be changed?. — JFG ^talk 20:51, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've started a formal RFC on this below. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:02, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed a trend by which editors add a hidden comment to recent years articles when they believe that an event or a death shouldn't be on this list, like this and this. This happens without any discussion on the talk page. In the case of the second comment re the Las Vegas shooting, the consensus on the talk page (after a real discussion) was to include the event. I'm not opposed to hidden comments where there's been a discussion that's come to a consensus, but simply putting it there because one editor thinks an event/death shouldn't be on the page violates WP:HIDDEN and prevents the discussion from happening in the first place. I'm going to start removing such comments on sight, unless there's actual consensus on the talk page to keep the event/death off the page. agtx 14:02, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree, but an invisible comment that something should not be added unless consensus is obtained seems appropriate. There being no standard for inclusion, WP:BRD and WP:BURDEN suggests that disputed material, or even material with disputed significance, be excluded until there is consensus for inclusion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:51, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hidden notes that claim some kind of authority on what should and what should not be included should be discouraged. Authority on what to include comes from consensus, not individual opinion, even if apparently backed by some hidden consensus or an essay. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:11, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My God, this whole thing just gets worse and worse. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, that violates WP:HIDDEN. That guideline says "When it is a mere local consensus that a certain edit should not be performed, the hidden text should be worded more softly to suggest to the editor to consult the talk page (or archive page if appropriate) for the current consensus prior to making the edit. Since consensus can change, it is inappropriate to use hidden text to try to prohibit making a certain edit merely because it would conflict with an existing consensus." If the recent RFCs have made anything clear, it's that WP:RY is exactly the definition of mere local consensus. Citing WP:BRD also doesn't make sense because it literally ignores the first step by telling people not to make the bold edit. If something is being re-added frequently enough that there's a need for a hidden comment telling people not to do it, what that really shows is that there's a need for a discussion. Not having one is unacceptable. agtx 18:23, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Remove hidden comments per agtx's rationale. Then we'll see what editors try to add, and we can debate appropriately without being strictly bound to the WP:RY straightjacket. — JFG ^talk 07:23, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove only in cases where not backed up by a talk page discussion or an article history of multiple editors reverting the addition of something trivial; leave alone otherwise. It's routine to add HTML comments to articles about what to add or not add based on history at the article, whether subject to a separate discussion or just a rev-talk history of editorial consensus among the stewards of a page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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.[3] — JFG ^talk 12:13, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This no longer being a guideline (and questionably ever really being one, per the RfC above), is wording needs to be rewritten in an advisory not commanding tone. I've started at the top (series of tweaks, plus a fix by TRM, compressed into a single diff: [4]), and hope this will inspire some others to reshape it into a properly advisory essay.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:32, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some edits to this end as well. agtx 16:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might have been better to just mark it as historic and start again. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:41, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aye. It doesn't need a rewrite, it needs deleting. There isn't any part of the essay that is relevant or worth keeping. Better to start again clean, with honest language and concise guidance, rather than mock-authority, cloaked language set up as a trump card for the tiny RY clique. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 11:15, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you think you can write a better RY essay/guideline, you're welcome do so in your sandbox - and see if many other people agree with you. Jim Michael (talk) 13:00, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like we should wait for the RFC to close, since the way it's going now, it's not at all clear there's consensus to have an RY standard at all. agtx 18:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Might I make a suggestion or two? Jim Michael's position is obviously fixed and not likely not change, as is his right. It is equally obviously a very minority position and has been thoroughly disputed. No passing neutral reader is going to slog through the kilobytes that have been spilled (including by me) defending or disputing it at this point so we may as well get back to the RfC. The RFC is itself overlong and I've placed it at WP:ANRFC. Once that's over, there seems to be a developing sentiment that this should be put out of everyone's misery so it should probably just be taken out behind the sheds at MfD. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:32, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have N denied the request and would like to see the RFC run for it's entire course.Echo your first two lines, except the fact that a behaviour (I percieve as intentional disruption) is Jim's right. And, obviously, the best way to avoid these boring long threads is linked with a good understanding of the first law at WP:CGTW.Regards:)Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 06:14, 29 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you could say that holding a position strongly is a right, intentional disruption is not, and we have admins who get to decide when the former becomes the latter. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:13, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We should always favour the most simple, clear and logical way to present our information.

It’s my opinion that there is no logical need to differentiate recent years from non-recent years, as discussed above.

Wikipedia is NOT a media company with a POV tailored to a target demographic. We are an encyclopaedic source of complete information. We should always strive to avoid creating content according to bias. Cultivating discriminate lists IS creating content according to bias. The criteria by which we are trying to cultivate these lists, is controversial in itself, as the notion of notability is subjective and we as editors cannot even agree what it is, or on a way to measure it.

The simplest, clearest and most logical step forward would be to simply stop doing it. There is no coherent argument as to why we should be doing it. “Other media sources do it” – well, we aren’t a media source. “It’s helpful to our readers” – our readers don’t seem to visit these cherry-picked articles at all, and much favour the comprehensive lists RY link to. “It presents information in a clearer way” – well, it doesn’t because the reader is completely in the dark; nowhere in these articles is it explained that the events/deaths listed are incomplete, why they are incomplete, why specific information may be missing or how the process works.

So I propose a completely simple resolution, that avoids POV, conflict, controversy, argument, duplication and confusion. Just YEAR articles, formatted thus:

20XX

--Lede--

Events

By Topic:

• Events by topic links

By Place:

• Events by place Links

Births

Deaths

• Link to Deaths in 20XX

Job done. Minimal admin, minimal conflict, just a clean source of links to complete, comprehensive information and no need for these redundant, meaningless, unused, time sink POV lists. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:45, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is a very reasonable and logical argument. Thank you for proposing it! However, I think it misses a key point: these are articles about years. There's no reason that 2017 as a year can't have an article explaining what happened that year just like 2017 in India exists as an article explaining what happened in India that year. Just because we're having a hard time reaching consensus doesn't mean we should give up entirely. Also, what would go in the lead? And how would we write the lead while avoiding all of the pitfalls you've enumerated?

Also, Cultivating discriminate lists IS creating content according to bias. This is a bit more philosophical, but literally every decision that is made by an editor is subjective and is, therefore, affected by bias. Every edit is the result of someone's opinion. We can't get rid of that; we can only try to create systems to minimize its effect (see, for example, WP:SYSTEMICBIAS). But even looking at your solution, 2017 in India is subject to the same bias problems as 2017, only on a smaller scale: instead of asking which events are of international importance, the question becomes which events are of national importance. You can't avoid that sort of subjectivity; it's present in literally everything we do here. It's just that in this situation, it's more obvious than in others. But the solution shouldn't be to gut the article, but rather to come up with a system to handle these differences of opinion. RY was an attempt at that. It wasn't perfect – the 9 wiki rule is arbitrary and the “international significance” requirement is vague and was interpreted by the most active users in a very restrictive sense, both of which seem to have frustrated many users – but it's better than ditching the year articles all together.

And there seems to be this idea that because RY is no longer a guideline, it should be disregarded entirely, but I would like to point to the closing decision, which stated editors are advised to try to follow by the essay as far as possible, while working in the subject area. -- irn (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What happened in India in 2017 is not up for the same level of debate. It happened in 2017. It happened in India. There is very little cherry-picking, as the objective is clearer and events are fewer. As it is sourced at 2017 in India, we would simply just have to link to it from the 2017 year article, under ‘by country’. The data would be recorded, and would be filed correctly and logically.

On the other hand, what happened in ‘the world’ in 2017, is entirely up for debate. We don’t have any idea what constitutes as internationally significant. We have different nationalities, with different POV’s, arguing with different ideas of whether something is important or not. Instead of a national gauge of impact we have a varying degrees of crystal balling and conjecture. Cherry-picking what ‘domestic events’ (every event is domestic) is significant to the world incurs offence, exclusion, accusation and argument – which occurs far less under a shared nationality. If we record everything that happened, we may as well just link to the sub-articles and avoid duplication. If we present an abridged list, it is entirely subject to POV/bias as I outlined above. And we would need a reason to do this, and a way of doing so. We don’t have either.

I’m not arguing that, because RY is no longer a guideline, we should abandon it. I’m arguing that there is actually no logical reason for RY and no sound way of doing it anyway. Pointing out the country sub-articles as a reason for RY is an erroneous argument. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 11:39, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While what is "national" may not be up for the same level of debate, it's still very much up for debate, and I see no reason to believe that any list aggregating national events won't run into the problems with aggregating a list of international events. Just as some events appear "international" to some and merely "national" to others, within a country, you can just as easily have events that appear to be "national" to some and merely "local" to others. (I do agree with you that I would expect there to be less disagreement and less conflict, but, as you've stated, forcing all events off the main year page will draw more attention to the year-in-country articles, which will increase that level of debate.) Essentially, your proposal doesn't solve the problem of a cherry-picked list because the national lists are also inherently cherry-picked. If the cherry-picking is your main concern, the only way I can see around this would be to mandate that the lower-level articles include everything that happens within the borders of a given country – every notable event, every notable birth, and every notable death. If that is your argument, I think that needs to be made explicit. I also think it's untenable.

That said, systemic bias is my main concern here, and I think this proposal does address systemic bias in a constructive way. I'd like to find a better solution because I think that having an article about each year that actually offers an overview of what happened in that year is useful. But if we can't come up with anything that adequately addresses systemic bias, I'd be willing to support this proposal.

tl;dr I disagree with the logic behind your proposal, but I could get behind it if we can't come up with a better way to address systemic bias. -- irn (talk) 14:56, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lolz, it amuses me that you are disagreeing with my proposal because it fails to address the possible bias and conflict that exists on the national articles. I’ve clicked through ten random national articles and found a grand total of two comments!

Even if there were heated debate, conflict and bias being thrown around at national level, its completely illogical to suggest we carry on doing something preposterous, because the same preposterousness is happening on sub-articles. That’s close to the ludicrous stuff Jim and Arthur were coming out with in defence of the RY essay (my favourites: “this is the way it’s always been done” and “its better than nothing”).

It’s a shame you also ignore my point that national impact and national notability is infinitely more measurable than international impact and notability. I shouldn’t really need to spell it out but a great national sportsman doesn’t incite an argument about the popularity of the sport. A national celebrity doesn’t incite a fight between people with drastically different awareness of them. An event that made the news in a country undoubtedly had justifiable notability for inclusion, and doesn’t incite a row about how many countries it was reported in, or how many nations it may directly or indirectly effect, immediately or in the future. People will be working from a shared consciousness and bias, even regional, is far far far less hypersensitive and fervent than national, if it is exists at all in some countries.

So no, what is “national” is not anywhere near the same level of debate and does not suffer from any of the hazards found in the cherry-picking at international level. Your argument doesn't have any weight to it. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 13:12, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve clicked through ten random national articles and found a grand total of two comments! That's because those sub-lists receive almost zero attention. Take India, for example. A country with a billion citizens, yet over 90% of content of 2016 in India was added by four (4) users. The sub-pages for smaller countries border on uselesness. The page 2017 in Sweden, as another example, list half as many notable deaths of Swedes than 2017, and its events section is a joke! How would delegating the responsibility to those benefit our readers, exactly? — Yerpo ^Eh? 14:53, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect example of the ownership issues here at RY. We aren't responsible for 2017, just as India with their billion citizens aren't responsible for India in 2017. We as editors are collectively responsible for all projects. Instead of some Norwegian chap trying to add a recently deceased skier to RY and getting embroiled in a timesink argument born of the subjectivity of notability or international impact or whatever the clandestine criteria buzz-word of the week is, he would add it to Norway. Hey! My idea not only rescues the omnishambles of RY, it also directs content towards and improves the national sub-articles! Thanks for pointing that out, Yerp XXX 62.255.118.6 (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So now you're trying to force editors to start editing pages they're not interested in? What exactly you're hoping to achieve by that? — Yerpo ^Eh? 17:57, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you so rattled by this, Yerpo? I've proposed a helpful solution to a problem, and expressed exactly what I hope to achieve. I've not forced anybody to do anything, and neither would my proposal. If someone is interested enough in an event to add it to a year article, why would they "not be interested in" adding it to the country the event occurred in? Getting all hot and bothered about it is kinda weird. Why aren't you interested in finding a solution? It sometimes feels that RY exists more for the enjoyment of the regulars than for the actual readers we are supposed to be creating content for. Wikipedia isn't a space provider for pet projects. If you want to create a pointless annual review site that nobody visits, strewn with you own personal idea of who and what is important to you, why don't you sign up to a free blogging service or webhost? You could do what you liked then. I don't understand why you insist on doing it here, on an online encyclopaedia. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 11:57, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Because annual reviews are encyclopedically relevant and, like any other page, they will require some sort of editorial selection. The only question is what kind. You may not remember, but I proposed at least one solution before, and explained why I don't think the laziest solution is good (IIRC, others weren't so enthusiastic about it either). If your personal opinion and feeling is that annual reviews are useless, why don't you just leave RY alone? What's here is certainly better than no content which is what you're proposing. Strawman arguments about my motives/emotions and false accusations about me not wanting to find a solution certainly aren't constructive, they only beg the question what is your real game here.

If someone is interested enough in an event to add it to a year article, why would they "not be interested in" adding it to the country the event occurred in? I don't know, but the fact is that they aren't. The state of sub-pages speaks for itself, eventhough nothing is preventing editors from adding events to both places (or to a sub-page alone if an event gets rejected here). So the logical conclusion is that your solution would diminish informational value of this encyclopedia - which is something I'm definitely opposed to. If that earns me a "rattled" label from you, well, let's just say that I won't lose any sleep over it. — Yerpo ^Eh? 16:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The state of the sub pages is due to people posting stuff on RY. So that’s a circular argument. If Year articles became a constructive and useful link set to sub-pages, content would obviously be directed there. Meh, I’m just trying to help – you regulars need to stop acting like I’ve walked up and kicked over your sandcastle. In my opinion, annual reviews belong on news sites, not places which are supposed to offer complete information without bias. You are welcome to defend RY articles to the death, but nobody reads them. Which begs the question of whether they are indeed relevant, helpful or worth the time. Clicking on a year, and seeing a list of sub-categories relevant to that year which are home to comprehensive information, is an entirely logical process. You, Jim and Arthur lolling about making your own personal list of favourite celebs and topics you’ve nattered about with your mates isn’t, and doesn’t seem to be what editors or readers want. Sorry, bud. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 11:52, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The state of the sub pages is due to people posting stuff on RY. So that’s a circular argument. Any evidence that this is actually happening? Even if it were, this would, ironically, disprove your fixed idea that RY lists are irrelevant. Also, thousands of daily views is far from "nobody reads them". So in the light of actual facts and logic, I will take the liberty of ignoring your arrogant description of what people you don't agree with are doing. Don't bother to reply if you're not willing to start contributing more constructively to this discussion. — Yerpo ^Eh? 12:54, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's clear I've contributed quite a lot constructively to this. I've presented a solution and I'm merely addressing your frostily delivered criticisms of it, that I don't find logical at all. Cool, I get it - you aren't on board. When the time comes, just !vote no. But nothing you have said here has really discredited the idea. you know I was speaking comparatively re: viewing figures, it's pretty explicit in my posts. And you surely you don't really believe the state of the sub-articles is a sound defence for retaining RY. But yeah, we've gone as far as we can here - until you are less rattled by the whole thing, there isn't much point chatting anything through with you further. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I don't see the value in repackaging the same idea after it hasn't received support on more than one occasion earlier. Which is why I may have sounded annoyed, but my comments should be understood in this wider context. Anyway, yes, I do believe the state of the sub-articles is a sound defence for retaining RY - that approach to organizing content is not functioning and I've already said what I think about diminishing informational value of this encyclopedia. — Yerpo ^Eh? 10:20, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• This idea has been proposed and rejected before. (Even before WP:RY was proposed.) As it's a style guide as well as a content guide, more than two or three editors need to be in favor for it to be reconsidered. And the subarticles get more hits because they are allowed to be linked, while the year articles are not, per WP:YEARLINK. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  So what? This micro-project now has a much wider audience and as such it's clear that "the way it's always been" is actually not in keeping with the community or the readers. So anything, even previously rejected by the tiny microcosm voting here previously, is perfectly allowable for suggestion. Plus, your claim that As it's a style guide as well as a content guide, more than two or three editors need to be in favor for it to be reconsidered. needs verifiable evidence. Please provide links to the relevant policies which say "more than two or three editors" need to ratify this suggestion. If not, I'd suggest you stop claiming some kind of authority over this, and other such discussions. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  As a style guide, it is subject to voting, so it needs more votes in favor now than it had votes against then. There really are no "arguments" to be weighed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:03, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  No, you completely failed to answer my request. Please do so, i.e. cite the policy that is backing your continued claims. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:06, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Arthur Rubin, you didn't respond to this, could you now please provide evidence to back you original claim or redact it, thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:37, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Frankly, this feels like giving up. I understand this debate has been contentious, but I still think it's possible to make these articles—particularly the events sections—work properly. As far as the births/deaths, I have no problem keeping them out of the year articles and moving them to sub articles only. That seems reasonable. But we ought to be able to come up with a listing of events for the year. With births/deaths gone, I don't think there would be a problem with having 15-20 events per month. The page would still be manageable, and it would give readers a pretty good idea of what happened worldwide in a given year. agtx 13:49, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What's logical for deaths is also logical for events. The only arguments against that so far seems to be Yerpo conjuring up weird notions that people will refuse to populate national event pages, and Arthur's whacko "we need a vote to allow this suggestion to be voted on". Both sound quite desperate to me. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, deaths are the easier problem to solve, using a combination of RS after the year has passed, as proposed earlier. Events could also work that way, but my idea was to solve deaths first, then talk about events. By the way, ignoring the facts that support the opposing argument and claiming that the argument "weird" is far more desperate than anything I've said. — Yerpo ^Eh? 13:18, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Must be pretty rattled to resort to "no, you are!" repertoire. 62.255.118.6 (talk) 12:15, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• So, there is clearly not a consensus for this approach. Shall we close it and move on? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:22, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't an RfC, though - it was an open discussion to see if a way forward could be fleshed out. Not many people running in from other rooms high-fiving me for the idea but still, it's rather colourful to describe "Arthur Rubin and Yerpo don't like it" as "clearly not a consensus" and kinda weird to insist it be "closed"62.255.118.6 (talk) 13:46, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]