Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

50th year anniversary of the LEGO brick

Today, January 28, is the 50th year anniversary of the LEGO brick and thus Google have changed its front page. I don't know if we should mention it? Snailwalker | talk 10:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Better late than never but I'd favour adding it in. It's pretty significant. ++Lar: t/c 21:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Earth Hour

Hi. How about for March 29, it says something like: "Earth Hour (8-9 PM local time, various cities around the world)"? I think it's rather significant, as many cities in many countries around the world are taking part in it. Is it noteworthy enough, or is there something in the rules that prevents this? Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 20:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

April 1: Nunavut

What the hell is this: "Jean Chrétien forced the Northwest Territories to carve all of its inhabitants into two pieces". The territory Northwest Territories were divided into Nunavut in the east and the Northwest Territories in the west. None of the inhabitants were 'carved' in two pieces. Also, Chretien didn't force the issue. A large majority of the Nunavut population voted in favour of the issue, then Parliament passed the act. Can someone fix this to be more accurate? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The references to Chrétien have been removed since the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was signed prior to his term. However, please suggest another word to replace "carve" so that it still complies with WT:AFMP. Happy April Fools' Day. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I caught on to the April Fools soon after I posted this. The other ones like Gmail being used for "1000 megabytes of storage for spam" didn't even register. Ha ha! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Operation Defensive Shield

2002 – Operation Defensive Shield: Approximately 200 Palestinians fled advancing Israeli forces into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, starting a month-long standoff.

Does this really need to be in the selected anniversaries section? The sentence itself is EXTREMELY biased IMO towards the al qaeda palestinians. If it must be there, then I demand it be cleaned up thouroughly, something like this;

2002 – Operation Defensive Shield: Due to mounting unprovoked attacks against Israel, Israeli armed forces, advancing into Bethlehem, are ordered to arrest the Al-Qaeda operatives, resulting in a month long standoff at the Church of the Nativity.

The part where the palestians are supposedly fleeing our advance makes Israel sound like the perpetrator when infact we were simply defending our homeland.Hebrewpridehebrewpower (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

No, your edit is far more POV. The original simply says what's happening, yours active takes the side of the Israelis. J Milburn (talk) 13:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Probably too late but . .

The Battle of Manners Street is an interesting and little known chapter in the annals of New Zealand's history. 69.137.246.61 (talk) 06:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, it happened today, 65 years ago.69.137.246.61 (talk) 06:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Annual list

I can't load Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/All. Neither can User:The Duke of Waltham. Can anyone? Perhaps the list can be repaired. If the reason we can't load the file is because the file is too big, then the instructions should be changed, because demanding an impossible task can't help people to improve Wikipedia. Art LaPella (talk) 19:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

We may have to open an issue on Bugzilla. The page itself has not changed since 2006[1], but MediaWiki may have changed as such that it cannot handle the tranclusion of all 366 of the templates, and all the other templates it uses. I tried to purge it, but is still does not work.

What alternatives can be used? There are only two I can think of: One is to check all 12 archive pages (Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January, etc.). The other is too check the What links here of the suggested bolded article, filtering the namespace to just "Wikipedia", and checking out each "Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries" subpage listed (example) Which alternative should it be? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I've never studied this file before, but if the page is unchanged since 2006, then does that mean obedience to the instruction has been impossible since 2006, and nobody noticed because nobody really reads all that blah blah blah anyway? If so, then perhaps choosing one of two more complicated procedures would only further ensure that nobody reads all the blah blah blah in the future, and perhaps we should just remove that instruction unless it can be fixed. Art LaPella (talk) 04:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

November 9

Doesn't anybody think the Beer Hall Putsch or the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War are more important on this day than a battle in the 14th century or the destruction of the Mostar Bridge (beautiful though it was and again is)? 87.152.43.46 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 17:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC).

Overlinking

The Manual of style for links states that ideally, no more than 10% of words are linked, without adjacent links. And yet this does not seem to apply to the entries for selected anniversaries. Today (Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 4) we have the extreme example:

• 1976 – Israel Defense Forces raided Uganda's Entebbe International Airport to free hostages taken by hijackers.

I'd like to propose a method that works well on disambiguation pages - namely that only the relevant article is linked (and possibly the year as well). At any rate, the number of links needs to be drastically curtailed. Any thoughts? — Pek, on behalf of Tivedshambo (talk) 07:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it would suffice to follow the extant guidelines on overlinking, eschewing links to concepts and places which are familiar to more or less everyone. We could also try dealing with the section as a whole rather than as a number of independent entries; in other words, link to something only on first instance and not repeat a link in later anniversaries. I am not sure how this would work, though... I suppose many only read an anniversary or two and skip the rest. Waltham, The Duke of 11:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Beside the embolded selected article, I would favour linking proper nouns and any link that does require a disambiguation. Other links like hostage and Aircraft hijacking are not necessary.

My only concern with the idea of not repeating a link is that an entry might be removed for one reason or another, and the person who made that edit may forget or not even notice to add a wikilink to the remaining instance of that word or concept. I have noticed that this frequently happen on various articles in the mainspace. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Footer

In the footer template ({{SelAnnivFooter}}), is it really necessary to have the UTC and purge option. I mean, the date is currently mentioned three times and I fail to see the need to purge. --88wolfmaster (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

As per my edit summary when adding this feature, there were two reasons:[2] The first was to help pad main page to reduce the amount of old ITN items when it need to be balanced. The second reason was a temporary solution to the concerns now archived Talk:Main Page/Archive 123#UTC vs. change for local time??. With the feature, this is the only place now on the current main page that shows specifically the current time (not just date, but the 24-hour clock time in UTC), so users – especially new or anonymous ones – are not confused and think the date is "wrong" in their part of the world. Of course, the purge feature provides new or anonymous users an easy way to update the clock and the main page. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

20th Century

May I ask why the 'anniversaries' always tend emphasise the events of the twentieth century, and seldom pay heed to the (arguably, more notable) events of the ancient world? Is this due to a lack of interest, or, perhaps, a lack of knowledge on behalf of the administrator(s)? Today, for example, I was pleased to see an event from Late Antiquity; the victory of Belisarius. However, all that remains was, unfortunately, gleaned from the 20th century. I do understand that the annals of the 20th century were certainly more thorough than bygone epochs; however, we (or, you, rather) should simply insert more events from the ancient world, the Middle Ages, etc. This, in my opinion, would improve the quality of the Main Page. ¶ Despite all of this, I can appreciate why all IT-based dates are of importance. The reason is plain. -- Ambrosiaster (talk) 03:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The short, basic reason is the Systemic bias of Wikipedia. There are not enough good, well-written articles on 19th century and earlier events for all 365 days in the year. Unfortunately, it seems that a majority of users are generally more interested in writing articles about recent events. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:48, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, Zzyzx. I can certainly appreciate this matter as well. However, I believe that placing more ancient events in the 'anniversaries' section would bring more attention to the articles in question; to the personages thereof, and consequently, would result in the amelioration the said articles -- articles in dire need of improvement. Take the advice as you will. Yet, I cannot possibly see anything negative resulting from more attention being paid to articles on antiquity. (This being an agreeable conduit whereby users can delve into topics on antiquity) -- Ambrosiaster (talk) 07:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC) -- [Edit: Thank you for the article on 'Recentism'. It was certainly an interesting read, and something which I have long since noticed about Wikipedia.]

There is also the fact that in many cases an exact date is not known or disputed for ancient events. The further one goes back, the worse the situation. Not to mention the Gregorian vs Julian calendar issues. --mav (talk) 01:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

On This Day redesign

Hi there. You're all probably aware of the Main Page redesign proposal currently under discussion and development. We'd really appreciate some of your thoughts and comments in particular, because most of the current designs involve significant changes to the On This Day section. Many thanks -- Pretzels^Talk! 16:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Days of the year up for deletion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/March 1. -- Jao (talk) 07:58, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding Good Articles to the main page

There is a relevant discussion involving the redesign of the main page that may affect the size and presentation of the Selected Anniversaries section going on here Wikipedia_talk:2008_main_page_redesign_proposal#Introducing_GA_to_main_page. Some of the ideas proposed include creating a separate WP:FA-like box to feature the GA, incorporating GA into DYK or not including GA on the main page at all. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

dash

Is the en dash deliberate? I am no authority myself, but isn't the em dash more appropriate for this kind of thing? You're stating the year first, then describing something else. 118.90.45.84 (talk) 08:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

It is roughly following rule #2 of Wikipedia:Manual of Style#En dashes: "In lists, to separate distinct information within points". What rule on Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes were you thinking of? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 12:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Now that I know about the MOS, I don't have a problem... I was thinking along the lines of en-dash: ranges and em-dash: disjoint ideas. I wan't really addressing the MOS in particular in my first comment. Thanks, 118.90.45.84 (talk) 04:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Great White Fleet

Should this article be included in the Selected Anniversaries template? This year is the centennial of its return to the U.S., and it was rather important... :/ (or should/is the departure date on the SA template?) Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

It is not on there today because the USS Connecticut article is already today's feature article. The TFA caption on the main page does say, "After the Great White Fleet returned to the U.S. on 22 February 1909". It is a standard guideline to do this to maintain some variety of topics on the main page. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Tagging talk pages of SA articles

How do you feel about tagging the talk pages of the various articles that appeared on SA, a bit like ITN tags them with {{ITNtalk}}?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

If you or someone else volunteers to resolve the problem described on Template talk:OnThisDay#Inactivity, be my guest. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I've check the template, and I can't find any articles that used it. Was it removed from the various article's talk pages or what?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 05:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:OnThisDay lists a few articles, so I don't quite understand your first sentence. The entire template page is currently visibly hidden via <noinclude> tags.

As for your question, as stated on Template talk:OnThisDay, I did in fact remove the tag on most of the talk pages it was being used on. If you check my user contributions,[3], I removed them between 04:36, 24 November 2007 and 18:46, 24 November 2007 UTC before I realized it was easier to just use the <noinclude> tags – could have saved me lots of time. You should also notice that some of those talk pages are actually archive pages, so the template was used as a normal message instead of as the normal talk header template. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so are there still talk pages with the (disabled) template on them? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

According to Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:OnThisDay, Talk:Flag of the United States and at least ten other talk pages still have the template (and yes {{Selected anniversary}} is a redirect/alias). Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright thanks. I mainly wanted to see what the inputs were and compare them to how the archives are set up. As far as WP:AAlerts is set up, I think there's could be work around that doesn't require template to be used. However, if you want to set up the archive in a more "permanent way", you could simply create archives for each year/month at pages like Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 2009 for example. Then I could rewrite the template to handle such an archiving system, and since there's only about 10 pages left that have the old version, it wouldn't be that much of a problem to remove the rest of them. From them on, you'd simply tagging them with (for example) something like {{OnThisDay|22|February|2009}}, either manually or bot assisted.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, the current system could be kept, and a template like {{OnThisDay|22|February|2009}} could still be used. The only "problem" would be that 22 February entry might (in a few years) not contain the same entries as it did on 22 February 2009. So basically the link given wouldn't be an "archive link", it'd just be a link to that day's current SA.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 06:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As I said on Template talk:OnThisDay, I am against the current system for that reason. As for creating archives, I myself think that is too much work and I would rather have a bot generate a list of "oldid's" similar to what {{ArticleHistory}} uses. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

So basically a template like {{OnThisDay|22|February|2009|oldid=272411746}} producing a message such as:

On 22 February 2009, a fact from this article was selected for the main page's On this day... section.

would be fine, no?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 07:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, something like that. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 08:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent). Okay well that's trivial to code. I have things to do today, but I can probably do it tonight. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I've made the changes. See the newest version of {{OnThisDay}}. Now would be a good idea to remove the remainder of the templates from old SAs, as these will not display correctly. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Feedback/comments?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

So if an article gets posted for two or more non-consecutive years, is there going to be multiple {{OnThisDay}}-tags? I could see how a bot would do that, if it is coded a certain way. How is that going to work? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 16:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

For now, it'd get two tags yeah. If this is a problem, I'd rather leave it to the bot coders to modify the template to handle multiple years, so they don't have to go make their bot through hoops to do its job.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

BTW, here's the bot request page if you aren't feeling like tagging them yourself.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I've made the request for a bot do tag SAs. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm the one working on the bot; it's in testing now. As part of the preparation, I made a list of all the past pages (up to 2009-05-14) and extracted the bolded links.[4] Then I resolved / merged the redirects[5] and fixed links to pages that are now disambiguations.[6] Hopefully I did that all right. My intention is to first run the bot over that list (so e.g. Teachers' Day isn't edited 31 times), and then to run the bot daily just after 00:00 UTC to tag the linked pages for the previous day. Any comments before I file the BRFA? Anomie⚔ 01:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. This is a rather complex task, so the trial run will most likely pick up things we didn't think of. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

BRFA filed BTW, when the _target page looks like something that needs human attention (i.e. double redirect, dab page, page with redirected talk page) the bot will post somewhere for human assistance. Would you like that here, somewhere else, or just on the bot's talk page? Anomie⚔ 21:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright, the BOT did the heavy work as part of its trial (heck of a trial, over 4,300 edits!). Everything can be found in Category:Selected anniversaries. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Only the first 50 of those were the trial, then it was approved to clean up the other 4250 pages in the backlog. Now it's doing a 7-day trial of the keep-it-up-to-date part of the task.

BTW, there were two pages that I didn't know what to disambiguate them to:

• National holiday: 2004-07-21, 2005-07-21, 2006-07-21, 2007-07-21
• Victory Day: 2006-08-30, 2007-08-30, 2008-08-30

Someone should probably handle those. Anomie⚔ 23:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you really tagging all the holidays too??? Isn't it a little excessive and repetitive to tag the talk pages of New Year's Day, Christmas, Easter, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, etc. repeatedly every year. And you do realise you have other holidays like Mother's Day and Father's Day where different countries observe them on different days of the year? Or are you content to have the tags on Talk:Mother's Day, Talk:Father's Daym etc. to grow like they were separate articles. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:48, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe Talk:Teachers' Day is currently the worst offender. If there is consensus to ignore certain links, I can easily enough have the bot do that. Or {{OnThisDay}} could be edited to do a show/hide button if there are more than a certain number of dates linked.

BTW, has {{OnThisDay}} reached "high-risk template" status yet? Anomie⚔ 00:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say it is one, if only because there will always links to article tagged by that template on the front page. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

AnomieBOT ran into its first error today: Since Victory Day is a disambiguation page, AnomieBOT refused to add the template to the talk page. If you want to, add it manually using oldid 298049076. Anomie⚔ 01:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

picture indicator

not enough acitivty on Talk:Main_Page (ridiculous, I know) about this so posting it here

as to Talk:Main_Page/Archive_132#More_ITN_picture_silliness
are we implementing an indicator for ITN and OTD ? if so which one ? i think (P) or something similar ☭   мдснєтє тдлк^ЅТЦФФ 16:26, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, this page even gets less attention than Talk:Main Page or ITN because only one (me) or two people tend to it on a regular basis. But rest assured, whatever ITN does, OTD will follow. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it results back to the frequent "no consensus" outcome again. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:00, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for replying - >sigh< I thought I might get some ITN and OTD regulars by doing those posts - didn't expect the same guy on both but I suppose it makes sense given how similar they are. Where can we put stuff like this so it actually gets seen, and therefore discussed ? ☭  

мдснєтє тдлк^ЅТЦФФ 02:13, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The most visible page to discuss it is on Talk:Main Page. But since you have tried that already, let me perfectly honest with you: Ever since I have been contributing here on Wikipedia since 2005, every now and again, someone like you suggests we change the picture indicator on OTD and ITN, whether they first make their suggestion on Talk:Main Page, Template talk:In the news, WP:VPR, or some other page. The discussion gets some responses – but ultimately they die down with "no consensus". I could give you tons of examples in archived discussions like this one from 2006. In fact, the only successful discussion regarding changing the main page I have seen was three years ago on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page, but everyone was primary motivated by web usability issues. Even last year's proposal to change the main page never gained consensus too.

I mean if you are persistent and determined, you could raise up your issue again. But IMO, it is a lost cause, and I do not see it changing anytime soon. I mean it might have been easier if only one person was doing ITN to gain some sort of consensus, but unfortunately that section is maintained by many people. And of course, the people doing DYK need to agree to your changes too; even though the picture on there always relates to the first hook listed, they still use the (pictured) caption too. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:06, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't want to get rid of the (pictured) or move the pictures or anything - my idea was to just add a (P) at the start of the text of the item currently pictured to make it easier to zone in on it. DYK wouldn't need it. ☭  

мдснєтє тдлк^ЅТЦФФ 23:06, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Alternate version of the selected anniversaries subpage?

Hi— I have a Twitter infobot that tweets about some of the daily featured content, and points followers at the appropriate subpage, e.g.,

• featured article
• picture of the day
• selected anniversaries

The last one is slightly less reader-friendly than the first two, what with the admin stuff at the top. Does anyone have a suggestion for an alternate _target for the anniversary tweets? Thanks. —johndburger 01:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

No, unless you want to link to the RSS feed or constantly point to Template:SelectedAnniversary. The reason why "the admin stuff at the top" is there is because these templates are recycled every year, unlike the TFA and POTD templates which list a specific year. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that feed is what I process to choose what to tweet. Pointing to that is a good suggestion. I'd rather not point to the template, though—that actually changes every day (effectively), yes? I'd like old tweets to still point to the corresponding day. I see your point about the "admin stuff"—I didn't realize these pages are being edited all through the year. All good to know, thanks. —johndburger 00:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Movable events?

Is there any way that movable events (such as today being Holy Tuesday in the Western church calendar, but obviously not in most other years) could be added to this template? I don't know how in the world it could be done; I simply ask if it would be possible. Nyttend (talk) 05:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Six of the ten Holy Week days are already posted on the templates. Do I take it you would like all of them as well? I believe the original reason why the Monday to Wednesday holidays were not added before was because those respective articles were stubs when the OTD templates were created and nobody asked before. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 16:07, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Addition to "On this Day"

It would be great if someone could add that today, 7th Oct 2009 is observed as Guru Purnima or Teachers Day in Hinduism. This is as per Hindu calendar and the date would change every year.Bmayuresh (talk) 09:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Surely worth front page today, 14 December 2011: First visit to the South Pole — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eddie Dealtry (talk • contribs) 08:54, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

It's on the Main Page as today's featured article, and we try not to repeat content between the different sections. howcheng {chat} 10:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. This is embarrasing, I didn't notice the 'Main article' until later in the day. Apologies for wasting your time.Eddie | Talk 08:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Every year on March 18th is the anniversary commemoriating the martyrs of Turkish War of Independence. So, it would be great if you could add this event to "On this Day" section. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.175.82.218 (talk) 11:16, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

This is not listed on Public holidays in Turkey, nor is it mentioned in Turkish War of Independence. Furthermore, the latter has an orange-level maintenance tag on it, so we wouldn't include it anyway. —howcheng {chat} 15:37, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion for November 3

Pakistani state of emergency, 2007 falls on novermber 3rd.Suggested blurb "President Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule across Pakistan, suspended the Constitution, imposed a State of Emergency, and fired the chief justice of the Supreme Court". Or simply "President Pervez Musharraf declared State of Emergency Pakistan suspending the Constitution."--yousaf465 05:14, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Guru Nanak Jayanti: 2 Nov, On this day...

Today is Guru Nanak Jayanti in the Sikhism (one of the biggest Sikh festivals, Indian national holiday) , Shouldn't it be included in On this day...- ReferenceReference--Redtigerxyz ^Talk 06:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It is also being celebrated in Pakistan. I think this should have been included.--yousaf465 07:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Why the delay? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.10.117 (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems no one is interested. It went without any notice.--yousaf465 15:15, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed on Talk:Main Page specifically Talk:Main Page/Archive 146#Guru Nanak Jayanti: 2 Nov : On this day.... The short answer is, it's not going to be included as long as the article is in such a poor state. Specifically at a minimum the issues in the two tags need to be fixed. To some extent, you're right that no one is interested in the sense that although we've got several people asking for it to be included, no one has bothered to fix the article which is the only way it can be included. Note that at the time it was proposed on Talk:Main Page, it didn't even have the date for 2009 in the article, so we have got some improvements, but not enough. I did ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sikhism if it could be gotten up to scratch in time for next year but the project isn't that active so I'm not holding my breath. Of course if anyone here wants to get it up to scratch I would welcome and encourage that, then there's a good shot at it being put up for next year. Nil Einne (talk) 02:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Which article gets the picture?

Should the priority for the pictured article go to the best article? Espiecially as some of the articles pictured are not great and will get a lot of hits. eg Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 21, Xa Loi Pagoda raids is a recent FA, while the pictured article has citation tags and about 85% of teh article is not cited, and has weasel words. There are other possibilities as well YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Like WP:ITN#Images, there is no exact specific guideline as to what specific image gets chosen – as long as it is a free content image, and it looks decent on the Main Page. However, in my observations over the years, admins (including me) tend to post images referring to the event appearing on top whenever someone complains, "Why are the images on 'In the news' and 'On this day' not aligned next to each relevant entry?". Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:23, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, then that would create a bias towards older history, whereas DYK hooks can be put wherever one wants, and the ITN probably could if peple wanted to, as the date isn't explicitly there YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 04:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does, and that is really not my first preference. For me, it is only "a short term option" to curtail a serious dispute or heated debate – until the discussion dies down a few days later, it does not produce a definite conclusion, it gets archived off talk:Main Page, the original complainer moves on to something else, and then we can again start to put images for other events. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The presence or absence of an image doesn't seem to have any effect of the popularity of a hook, be it on ITN, DYK or OTD. If there is any "image component" that makes people click on a link, it is swamped by the general difference in click rates between various hooks (and that over all three sectors of the Main Page, even though their click-through rates are vastly different). Physchim62 (talk) 00:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Criterion update?

I have just noticed this:

Criterion #6: "the selected article needs to be updated to clearly state the event or day of the celebration/observance and the exact day it occurred/occurs with the day and year linked (non-Gregorian-based holidays and observances need not state or link the exact day since this will differ each year)."

During the last year, attitudes and guidance towards linking dates have changed. Links are still allowed where there is sufficient relevance, and I can understand why some holidays/observances might be thus treated (especially when that date is very important for the article's subject), but I do not believe it would be either beneficial or appropriate in most other cases. I therefore believe that the criterion ought to be amended to reflect the new state of things and stop encouraging people to link needlessly. (In any case, the date is linked from the Main Page, where people are expected to find the bolded articles anyway.)

On another note, the phrasing seems a little convoluted; call me stupid, but it took me several minutes to make sure that including the full date of the event in the bolded article is explicitly required (especially in conjunction with criterion #5)—reasonable as it sounds, there are always loopholes, and many events are mentioned in articles only with the year. Waltham, The Duke of 01:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your first issue: If you are referring to the debate and subsequent changes to WP:MOSNUM regarding linking and autoformatting of dates, then no, it hasn't yet been updated here to reflect that. So I'll do that now.

As for your second issue: Yes, there might be some loopholes and exceptions, but the main idea is that there is some sort of verification in those linked articles that, for example, all the events listed on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 26 really did take place on December 26 and not some other day. This relates to what is posted at the top of WP:ERRORS: "Remember that the Main Page usually defers to supporting pages for accuracy or when there is disagreement". I'm not sure how else the phrasing here can be modified. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of this; I see you have simply removed the linking requirement, which is probably the right thing to do in this case.

I have decided to be bold and make a few minor improvements to the phrasing of the criteria. I hope that they look better now (and that I haven't changed their meaning). After doing so, I have another two questions:

1. The first criterion's "on centennials, etc." looks rather vague to me. Does it mean "centennial, bicentennial, tercentennial and so on"? If so, I think it would be better to state this explicitly in one way or another. One might choose to interpret it more loosely and include, say, semicentennials.
2. The second criterion's "other historical events that occurred on or about the same day of the year" confuses me. What does "about" refer to here? If it means "around", then it seems wrong, as it is my impression that one should only care about each individual day and not the ones near it. If it means something else, then... I have no idea what it means. Waltham, The Duke of 16:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Yes, it is a bit vague. In fact, the criterion use to say that they "can only be used when there are not enough qualifying events", but was changed after someone suggested on this now-archived discussion to feature "particularly significant anniversaries, say the 50th, 100th and 200th years since ... preferentially selecting round number anniversaries". But I have seen others also post several semicentennials, like in 2006 when someone added the 250th birthday of Mozart, [7]. So when I do enforce that criterion, I do not revert the addition of such semicentennials. However, I am not sure why 50th anniversaries were not included; the criterion was changed before I became active in OTD. I assume it was in the interest of fairness because, as mentioned in that archived discussion, the 50th anniversary Einstein's death was not posted. But I haven't yet found a definite discussion regarding that.
2. As for the origins regarding the "about" wording, I really have to dig deep into the archives to when the criteria for all the main page sections were originally posted on Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main Page, before they were split into separate pages in February 2004. The wording seems to have been added in 2002 so it was "updated to reflect current practice".[8] Of course, Wikipedia was still in its infancy during that time, with only a fraction of articles and users it has today. So I assume that "about" meant "around" when it was added because many of the first articles that were written back then were about those extremely significant historical events. And so putting a relatively less significant topic on the Main Page back in 2002 really stood out. But today, there is exponentially more of a variety of significant topics to choose from, so the "or about" may be outdated, IMO. I honestly don't really strictly observe that part anyway.

Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

← (Pre-emptive strike to avoid indentation insanity.)

1. To be honest, I've always viewed the 250th and 750th anniversaries as more important than all other semicentennials (or rather multiples?), and it is my impression that others do as well. "Quarter-millennium" is the most likely association of these numbers, even if nobody actually says that. In any case, vagueness may be beneficial in this case, although I shouldn't object to a wording expressing more clearly the rationale for what one might call "anniversarial flexibility". But again, I am usually in favour of wordiness rather than brevity, which is not necessarily a good thing.
2. I had a look at the discussion archives for that period. The style of the page (inconsistent signature usage and the use of lines to separate posts) is almost as fascinating as the mentalities of that ancient era, AD 2003. In any case, it seems to be what you say, plus a lack of resources. I find the following extract particularly revealing (emphasis mine):

How do holidays make it onto Selected Articles? Today is Imbolc (February 1) and tomorrow is Groundhog Day/Candlemas. --Jeff

There simply is no section for them - thus the Historical anniversaries section focuses on actual historical events. So observances like Christmas and Ground-hog Day aren't listed but holidays that mark actual historical events, like Australia Day are listed (Jesus, if he did exist, was not born on December 25th - birthdays aren't listed either BTW). As it is the events listed in the Historical anniversaries section are only there only at most several days. Adding birthdays and holidays would shorten that to about a day. That is way too short to be at all useful since the same items are already all listed on their day page - which is only linked to the Main Page for one day. There is little point in just summarizing the current day page on the Main Page only to replace all the links with new ones the next day. That is too much maintenance for very little benefit. Aside: Is there a list of holidays on Wikipedia? We may decide to just add a new section but to do that we need a list of holidays. See my comment above. ---mav

Considering the progress that has intervened regarding the daily update of the Anniversaries list (who would have thought it?), I strongly suggest removing the "or about" element from criterion #2. Waltham, The Duke of 15:14, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of lopping off the superfluous adverb myself. Waltham, The Duke of 12:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible Jan 29 article

Is Rod Blagojevich corruption charges a viable selection for the anniversary of his ouster on January 29?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Golden W Award

The Golden W, awarded for having content featured in every area of the main page.

The Golden W, with Laurels, awarded for having content thrice featured in every area of the main page.

The Golden W Award goes to editors who succeed in having content featured in every area of the main page: Featured Article, Did You Know, In the News, On This Day, and Featured Picture. It is currently proposed as a WikiProject. Please go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/WikiProject Golden W Award if you are interested in making this WikiProject a reality. Time commitment is minimal, less than an hour a month at this point. ɳoɍɑfʈ ^Talk! 16:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:OnThisDay

It is not clear what exactly ought to be listed in that template. Is it the days on which the article is selected to appear in bold, which can only happen once a year, or any days on which the article is linked? I should assume the first to be true, and that would be the reasonable thing to do, but no specific guidance is given in the template's documentation. Furthermore, there is also the matter of observances, which can lead to cases as extreme as this. Lastly, how much of all this should be incorporated into {{ArticleHistory}}? For those interested, there is a discussion in progress here. Waltham, The Duke of 02:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBOT adds the date after any day when the link was bolded, never when the link is incidental. Teacher's Day just happens to be bolded 13 times a year, thanks to it being observed on different dates in different countries; you can follow the permalinks in the template to verify this. If anything comes of your ArticleHistory discussion, let me know at User talk:AnomieBOT; another option would be to adjust {{OnThisDay}} so it automatically collapses itself if a sufficiently high date# parameter is in use, maybe something like this (example). Anomie⚔ 03:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

bit embarassing

you guys missed the 50th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.22.125.66 (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Sharpeville massacre#Aftermath was tagged with requiring expansion [9], which is most likely why nobody ever suggested adding it per rule # 7 of the criteria: "The selected article (bolded item) must not be a stub and preferably it should be a relatively complete and well-formatted article". Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 16:07, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

April Fools

Just wanted to point out that April Fools Day is coming up, and a few suggestions have been placed at Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page/On This Day. Last years facts were great and i bet this years will be even better!--Found5dollar (talk) 16:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can see, we're running the same entries as we did last year. I just made a suggestion for a new entry on the project page, and there are others as well. Lampman (talk) 00:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Significant enough?

It is very hard to get biological species listed on anniversaries because events related to them are usually associated with specific years or monthly (peer-reviewed) publications. However, I may have one for the Ring-tailed Lemur (an FA article)... but I'm not sure if it's significant enough to supplant one of the other entries. Here's the line I was thinking about:

• 1929 – The Ring-tailed Lemur (pictured) was officially listed at the type species for the genus Lemur by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) when it published Opinion 122, even though the genus originally described lorises.

If this sounds good enough, please let me know how best to proceed. – VisionHolder « talk » 16:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

It might be more notable to also include the fact that it was done "despite the term initially being used to [commonly] describe lorises", a different family of primates. Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, was just trying to focus on the event for the day. I didn't realize it helped to make it sound like a DYK hook. Anyway, I've reworded it to accommodate your recommendation. So how should I proceed? I would "be bold", but I don't really know who to kick out or whether my picture can supplant the existing picture. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:55, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Right now, I added it to the hidden list of backups.[10] It is too early to tell what condition all of those articles listed will be when January 2011 rolls around, at which time it would be far more easier to "kick out" pages with "'orange'- or 'red'-level article tags". Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:58, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I appreciate you showing me how it's done. – VisionHolder « talk » 04:29, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Country links

On This Day wikilinks every mention of every country including the U.S., despite the Wikipedia:Linking#What generally should not be linked guideline. Is this because nobody has fixed it yet, or is there support for it? Art LaPella (talk) 00:04, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't remember where the discussion is exactly archived, but that guideline is not strictly enforced since the Main Page is treated more like a portal than a regular article. And since the Main Page is the page that is most visited by newbies, the wikilinks basically says to them, "Yes, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, does in fact have an article on that subject, and here's the link to it." Now, I myself don't advocate linking every single word, but IMO wikilinking at least every proper noun is reasonable.

But are you also talking about, for example on a given day, there are two or more events that are U.S.-centric and all of them have "United States" wikilinked? A problem will occur if an admin hides the blurb that has "United States" wikilinked for the purpose of "Main Page balance" but forgets to wikilink one of the other events that remain listed. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 01:33, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Days of the year has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Days of the year has been recently marked as a guideline. Since one of the long-standing criterion on SA/OTD reads that "The event and the selected article (bolded item) needs to be listed in the Events section of its corresponding day-of-the-year article", this also means that each listing here should also comply with WP:DOY as well. Zzyzx11 (talk) 23:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Vietnamese items in On This Day

What's up with all of the Vietnam-oriented entries? Seems like there's been one every day for the past month. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

You are not the first to notice (see Talk:Main Page/Archive 151#Vietnamese items in On This Day). Basically, another admin went through and added a bunch of Vietnamese events to various OTD pages, primarily ones that are A-Class and above. I'm not sure what his exact motivation was, but I assume this user is interested in Vietnam-related articles and/or thinks there is too much U.S.- and/or UK-bias on the Main Page. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 00:15, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Vietnam is an interesting country with a fascinating history, I'm sure, but perhaps someone should go through and take some of these out? I don't think we need a Vietnamese entry every day. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'm going to currently stay out of this content-related issue. Feel free to address your concerns to the person who added all these Vietnam-related articles in the first place. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 01:26, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

That particular user seems to be a bit of a problem. He/she tried to have me banned from WP:ITN for suggesting American items. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:30, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Ahhh, Mwalcoff is seeing hordes of barbarian articles everywhere...there have been four this month, one every four days, not every day, and in any case, that's just how the events fell in the calendar, there aren't 90 of them for the whole year. Secondly, I'm not out of line with criteria, which says that the article quality is the main point, and those ones were modern A/FAs. If you want more US items go and actually write something useful. Most of your "contributions" to Wikipedia are merely soapboxing and political agitation. Secondly, per your bottom line of what an American is interested in (therefore NCAA sport trumps wars etc) you might also note that Vietnamese history 1954-75 is of great interest to those who share an overwhelming Americo-centric viewpoint, such as you. In any case, OJ Simpson, which is scheduled for tomorrow has unsourced BLP violating content, so if you want it to stay, fix it up. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 04:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Why does today have 6 events?

The guide states a maximum of 5. Lugnuts (talk) 07:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Have you ever encountered the term "balance the main page" on Talk:Main Page or any other discussion pages? It is similar to when newspaper copy editors shorten or expand the text so it fits the length limits on the pages of newspaper columns.

So here on Wikipedia's Main Page, a number of admins like to have the text on both the left Today's featured article/Did you know column and the right In the news/On this day column to be about equal – "balanced" – so there are no large blank spaces at the bottom of either column.

So whenever the text on Today's featured article or Did you know is a little longer than usual, admins who "balance the main page" quickly start to add more events to either In the news or On this day. Of course, quickly finding and adding new events to In the news is really not the preferred first choice when there currently may not be good suggestions on WP:ITN/C, and it looks bad re-adding old events. And therefore, it is always easier to add one of the backup events that are available on each OTD template. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

On a related note, there have been a few discussions about formally changing the length guidelines for all the main page sections, but nothing has gained consensus yet. On the one hand, there is a concern that ITN is normally too long since news events posted there can sometimes stay there for days. But then there is a problem with increasing the general number of events on OTD, because there are not enough existing good articles each day, unless people prefer the section look like it always revolves around 20th Century U.S. and/or UK. And then you have the people maintaining DYK who are concerned about the increasing number of eligible candidates there, and therefore don't want that section so short that it increases more backlog. But of course, you don't want Today's featured article to be generally too short that it doesn't give an adequate summary on the Main Page... Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

A question about the calendars

Which calendar is used for the ancient dates? For example the destruction of the Temple of Artemis on the 21 of July, was it according to the Proleptic Gregorian calendar or the Proleptic Julian calendar or to the then-used roman calendar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.100.225.150 (talk) 16:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's guideline for which calendar to use, in general, is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Calendars. Because the destruction of the Temple of Artemis happened after 45 BC, the date should have been given in either the Julian or Gregorian calendars.

As for the general rule regarding the Selected anniversaries pages, it defers to the supporting articles for the information. If the article specifies a certain calendar, it will normally be posted here on Gregorian equivalent date.

However, in this case, the Temple of Artemis article does not clearly specify what calendar was used ... which means that users and admins here will then tend to bend the rules a little and allow it on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 21 so there are more ancient events posted on the Main Page. Because of the systemic bias here of Wikipedia, there are vastly more articles here regarding 20th Century or later events than ancient ones. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Just curious...

...as to why Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not make it to the main page today - given that it was, reasonably, a very significant historical event. If there's been a discussion on this already, could someone please point me to the right page? Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 10:27, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I second that - clearly a pivotal moment in military and scientific history. Sunil060902 (talk) 11:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Usually, it would be on here. However this year, "Today's featured picture" (further down the page) has a picture of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in recognition of the anniversary. It is standard practice to not have the same event featured on multiple page sections. (And yes, there has been a discussion about this standard practice before, when D-Day was the subject of the featured picture for 6 June 2009, see Talk:Main Page/Archive 139#Ummmm June 6th, Today in History...Doesn't mention D-Day on the front page. But there was no consensus to change the current practice). Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 15:23, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I went through the archive too, and it seems like there have been exceptions made in the past. I agree, though, that they shouldn't be setting a precedent :-) Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 13:04, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for 6 January

1993 - The second web browser, the Line Mode Browser, was general available for the World Wide Web.

coment: this was the first stable release of the browser. Before that there were several betas and was general available at CERN.

mabdul 00:57, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

August 26

For the last two years Heroes' Day (Namibia) was listed on 26 August. Could this year's entry maybe feature Omugulugwombashe instead? --Pgallert (talk) 14:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

PS (disclaimer):I am the creator of Omugulugwombashe but I have equally contributed to Heroes' Day (Namibia). forgot to sign --Pgallert (talk) 14:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I have temporarily added it to Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 26, but there is no guarantee that it will stay up there. Please be prepared that another admin may come along, examine the article, and may put cleanup tags on the sections he feels need cleanup. In fact, in the past 24 hours, this particular admin appears to have gone over the upcoming OTD templates for the next month or so, and tagged various articles listed there that he feels needs cleanup. (Incidentally, it is the same admin who has advocated a "B-Class or higher-only" policy, and I've always been able to get people to shoot it down because there is not enough articles due to the current systemic bias on Wikipedia, and it may invalidate extremely internationally significant events. So the next best thing for him to do is to tag those articles for cleanup, but he has until now only looked at the handful of those templates he later added new events on ... not go over the upcoming month's template like now). Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:45, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Zzyzx11, I am of course aware of the shortness of either article. I just read the "no stub" rule, and I did not feel confident to remove the stub tag from Heroes' Day (Namibia). It is not only short but could also profit from the attention of an English native speaker. The reason I put this notice is that for the previous two years the article was plain wrong about what is actually celebrated on that day in Namibia. The article survived three main page appearances (2xOTD, 1xDYK) in this state. I see that as an embarrassment, both for WP and for Namibia. Now, I believe Omugulugwombashe is better researched and explains the event just as well. Furthermore, it hasn't gathered any attention yet. If there is anything I can still improve on this article, just let me know. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 08:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Fountain of Time

For September 1, Fountain of Time is both Today's Featured Article and On This Day, contrary to the last sentence of Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries#Preset options. Art LaPella (talk) 01:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

"Militants" vs. "terrorists"

Today's OTD refers to "The Palestinian militant group Black September," while the Nov. 17 OTD says, "Sixty-two people were killed by terrorists outside the Deir el-Bahri, one of Egypt's top tourist attractions, in Luxor."

What makes Black September "militants" while the Luxor attackers are "terrorists?"

Personally, I think using a word other than "terrorists" to describe the Munich attackers is wishy-washy: This was an attack on civilians hundreds of miles from any war zone. Our article on the Munich massacre uses "terrorists." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

South Vietnam again

Has anyone counted how many South Vietnam items (especially from the early- to mid-1960s) are now on OTD lists? I think it's gotten out of hand, but I don't want to go through and look at all 365 days. Is there a way to use a bot or something to check this? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I count 69 out of 365 day articles. I didn't use a bot. It took me 7 minutes using the 12 month articles starting with Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries/January, and searching for the word "Vietnam" (which also finds words like "Vietnamese", but not "Viet Cong" or even "Viet Nam".) I only counted a day once no matter how many times "Vietnam" occurred on that day. Art LaPella (talk) 02:26, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I leave article selection to others. Art LaPella (talk) 02:34, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

The hard part for a bot is determining what is a "South Vietnam" article. I can tell you there seems to be 2714 bolded items on all 366 day articles (don't forget February 29). 230 of those have "Viet" somewhere in the page's wikitext, but that does include pages like Virginia Tech massacre that simply mention one of the victims was Vietnamese. Feel free to edit either list as long as the list is the most recent revision, or copy the list elsewhere if you'd rather. Anomie⚔ 02:56, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, most of the items on the that list have no apparent relationship with Vietnam. Battle of Washita River, for instance, is on the list, but that was in Oklahoma. Nothing in Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/November 27, including the Washita River item, mentions anything Vietnamese. Perhaps your bot decided that the word "Soviet" in the unprinted part of that day's anniversaries included the letters "viet", and then reported an unrelated item for the same day. Art LaPella (talk) 04:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Battle of Washita River#The Battle of Washita in film mentions the Vietnam War. I'm sure you'll find something similar in every erroneous example. I did warn that passing mentions would be picked up, but it's easier to go through 230 items than 2714 so it may still be somewhat useful. "Soviet" would not be picked up because the "v" is not capitalized. Anomie⚔ 13:03, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, maybe. But I think the original question about "South Vietnam items ... on OTD lists" meant mentioning something Vietnamese on OTD, not after clicking the article. Art LaPella (talk) 17:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I took the question as meaning the topic of the item had to do with South Vietnam, whether or not the country was specifically mentioned in the blurb. OTOH, I have no idea whether there are any related items that don't manage to work in the name of the country. Anomie⚔ 20:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Given the past and continuing overexposure, I propose that there be a ban on all South Vietnam related topics and Ngo Dinh Diem in particular from OTD for one year. Greenshed (talk)

I wouldn't go as far as all "South" Vietnam related topics, but we could probably ban the Ngo Dinh Diem photo sine diem. Physchim62 (talk) 01:47, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Another celanders

I didn't read all the page and its discussion, so I don't know if someone allredy wa rote about this or not, however I'll write it: I suggest adding a section or at least some sentenses in the section "on this day" about acces wich happened on this day's date according to another celanders exept to the English celander. For example: today is the fiveth day on Hol Ha'Mohed (nrearer to a jew holiday) according to ths Hebrew celander.עברית (talk) 08:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Gonzales

For tomorrow, October 2, the 1835 Battle of Gonzales duplicates the featured article. Art LaPella (talk) 13:42, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

15 October - Airship America

1910 – Airship America launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft.

Please consider placing the above centennial in today's Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries, replacing either Hurricane Hazel or New Zealand's anti-terrorism raids (considering New Zealand is now in 16 October). -84user (talk) 20:37, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Light Brigade

For tomorrow, October 25, the Charge of the Light Brigade duplicates the featured picture. Art LaPella (talk) 18:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for 17 December

17 December is the 75th anniversary of the first flight of the Douglas DC-3. Can we mention this on the day? Mjroots (talk) 05:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for November 7

This year will mark the 70th anniversary of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940) aka "Galloping Gertie". Should it be desired, there are good photos of the collapse and the video of the event in the article. Imzadi 1979 → 04:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

OS vs NS dates

I'm actually quite surprised there is no guideline written about this, but for events that happened before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, what date should they appear? For example, I just put in Transit of Venus, seeing as how it's listed on November 24, but that's under the Julian calendar. In New Style, it's December 4, and it's currently on display on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 4, but missing from December 4. What general rule do we want to institute? I assume there may occasions where the OS or NS date is better known, so in those cases it would make sense to use the more famous date. howcheng {chat} 08:14, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia founding?

Should we (on Jan 15) have the Wikipedia founding as an anniversary on On this day? Perseus (t • c • g) 15:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

No. Although technically it wouldn't be a violation of WP:SELF, it's too navel-gazing. Having content about ourselves in the featured areas on the Main Page is like saying, "Hey! Look at how awesome we are!" This is the reason why Wikipedia (when it was a Featured Article) was banned from being TFA, and why Jimmy Wales's photo is listed at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Unused. howcheng {chat} 17:04, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Francesco Scarlatti- Dec. 5, 1666

I regret I am not a registered user or editor, but I do have a suggestion: re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Scarlatti Francesco Scarlatti- b: Dec. 5, 1666.

I think it is a shame Francesco's page was trumped as a feature article on Dec. 5 by 9-year-old rock album; his birthday did not even make it to the planned "On This Day" section. He is the brother of more famous Alessandro Scarlatti and uncle of the even MORE famous domenico Scarlatti. This was interesting news to me, and might have made for an interesting article/feature on the Scarlatti family.

More info on him: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/christopher.hair/francesco.html

Thanks for your efforts as editors,

roncepts 67.82.12.95 (talk) 15:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Francesco Scarlatti is not a Featured Article, which by definition precludes it from appearing as "Today's Featured Article". It also is not eligible to show up in Selected Anniveraries/On This Day because it is currently tagged as lacking references, and we prefer to showcase only our best articles on the Main Page. Lastly, our guidelines for inclusion for OTD allow only for listings for births/deaths on the centennial anniversaries, thus making him eligible in 2066. Regards, howcheng {chat} 17:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)