Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/August 1, 2003

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. I'm taking Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/March 1 into account as well. Some form of centralised discussion is probably required on how to deal with these articles on a general basis, not just on a per-month basis. Sandstein 18:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Purely as a time-saving measure, I'm rollbacking the AfD tags on these articles rather than removing them manually. Sandstein 18:30, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

August 1, 2003

Subjects fail WP:N - these are just days, like the millions which have gone past, and the millions (hopefully) which will follow. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, yet this article is just that - an article about a random set of events which occurred on this day. What's more, these are just news items of no particular encyclopaedic merit (those which are would already have their own articles, rendering these redundant. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hip ~~with~~ to this nom. Delete. X MarX the Spot (talk) 02:28, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete while we have articles on individual years and articles on individual days, general consensus thus far has been that days of specific years do not merit individual articles. Icewedge (talk) 02:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Userifyor Keep The status of articles on individual years and days is under discussion, on the grounds that they are indiscriminate collections of information. The objection is that anyone interested in 11 November 2008 will not necessarily want Armistice Day, or a random event of 2008. If this objection prevails, we will want exactly these articles; deleting them is a waste of effort. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment that may be an argument for keeping 'one or two' of the day articles here, not the whole lot. It needs to be demonstrated why any one of these days is notable Ohconfucius (talk) 03:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- No, it is an argument for keeping all of them; if we go to that solution, we will need them all. This need not be done in article space, however. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Don't see that at all: Armistice Day and 11 November 2003 are both subsets of 11 November. Until it's demonstrated why individual days is notable at all, it's just datecruft. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Delete. Good God No. What we really need is every single day in history getting its own article. This is no-holds-barred inclusionism at its very worst. If a noteworthy event happened on that day, then we create an article on the event. There are a handful of days in a year that are notable for an event tied to that specific day and year, but not every single one of them...and none of them on this list. Trusilver 03:35, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: This isn't even a question. There's absolutely no logic in giving every single day an article. Unless it's a day of some hugely important event, there's never any possibility of notability.kuwabaratheman (talk) 03:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect to August 2003. ApprenticeFan (talk) 06:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment is there a WikiAlmanac to transwiki this to? 70.55.84.27 (talk) 06:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all Important things happened on every single day of these years, and a little investigation in news sources will find out what. Its absolutely appropriate for an encyclopedia to have such chronological articles, and we should establish the structure, and then people will fill them .In fact, adding to set-ups like this Is I think a very good way of starting out here. and we should encourage it. DGG (talk) 08:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: neither existence nor usefulness are any demonstration of notability. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:57, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or merge to August 2003. Every day exists (duh!), and something news-worthy happens every day, but that doesn't make every day notable. All of them are stubs at best. Also per nom. – sgeureka ^t•c 08:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete everything from January 1, 10000 BC up to December 31, 2024. Absolutely, they are not notable on its own. Alexius08 (talk) 13:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

to be continued... Ohconfucius (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete off the face of the Earth. We need good chronological articles, not a swamp of silly ones. All such full-date articles should be binned. Tony (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: for later years, these things are in the Portal namespace (such as Portal:Current events/2006 August 1). We should probably aim for consistency here, one way or another. -- Jao (talk) 14:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to August 2003 and the individual days of August (non-year-specific). AlexTiefling (talk) 15:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all per current policy. Personally, I would love to see a WikiProject that would set guidelines for doing articles for a limited range of individual dates. However, it would have to be something far enough in the past that there has been perspective shown from later sources. Someday, there might be a "1900s project" where people can write about individual dates from "January 1, 1900" to "December 31, 1999". However, that would have to come about as an express change in policy, and it would have to include rules against vanity items, weather reports, sports scores, etc. While I appreciate the forgiveness-easier-than-permission approach here, Wikipedia policy doesn't allow for this. Mandsford (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a perfectly encyclopedic thing to do. The idea of writing about "what happened this (exact) day" is not something invented on wikipedia. Dead tree encyclopedias had yearbooks, since we have no similar space limititations, why on earth not? Per Pmanderson's argument, exact date articles are clearly less indiscriminate than day of the year articles, which seem to have consensus for keeping. The WP:EXIST and WP:USEFUL essays argue for keeping, since as said above, Encyclopedia Britannica, World Book Encyclopedia, etc have similar features. And "An argument based on usefulness can be valid if put in context. For example, "This list brings together related topics in X and is useful for navigating that subject."John Z (talk) 19:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It all comes down to policy. Of course, there's nothing wrong with lobbying for a change in current policy. If I understand correctly, the policy of doing articles for individual months, such as August 2003, began about three years ago after no small amount of discussion, and as a legitimate spinoff from the articles about individual years. Policy-based arguments are what administrators are looking for in our comments, and you've raised some good points. However, there would have to be a change from what the current system is, and the current system is month articles. If the day comes that we have standards for "exact day" articles, then both sides would benefit-- it would mean that one would not have to demonstrate that a particular day is notable; but it would also come with requirements for what's allowed in such articles. The essays that you cite would be arguments in favor of changing the policy, although there are others that go in favor of keeping it the way it is. My opinion is that the arguments in WP:NEWS would apply to these particular articles, but it would be a moot point until there are rules for "exact-day" pages on Wikipedia. Mandsford (talk) 20:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the current system is month articles, then we want an August 2003 article, and then it's definitely not a good idea to delete these articles, as that would empty August 2003 of all content and require its complete rewrite. ~~Merge into August 2003~~ would be the natural conclusion (and the one I'd endorse, unless someone's up to Portalifying the thing as per my comment above). -- Jao (talk) 20:55, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. I assumed they were transcluded into August 2003 as I've seen that done on other month articles from around that time, but it seems we're not that consistent. So it all comes down to how much detail we want in the month articles. Conclusion stricken. -- Jao (talk) 20:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(crap) Keep: I hate to say this, but I actually think these ‘exact-date’ articles could be a useful resource for writers. For instance, one might be writing about how someone rather famous died but hardly anyone knew about it. Well, with these exact-date articles, one could go look and see if there was a big airplane crash or huge-ass earthquake somewhere that dominated the news around that time. This is entirely separate from the issue of whether or not these articles ought to be routinely linked to via non-aliased links that turn ordinary body text dates blue.
When someone nominates all our “on this day throughout history” articles (like January 1) for deletion, someone please let me know. I am quite motivated to provide my best case for deletion of all of them. Nuke ’em, cremate ’em, scatter their ashes to the wind, walk away and forget ’em. I think it was a colossal violation of Wikipedia policy (WP:Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information) to have created ‘on this date throughout history’ articles in the first place as they are nothing more than beyond-worthless trivia and far too few readers take the time to wade (muck) through them. And when you consider the fact that their contents were virtually never germane to the article from which they were linked, it’s doubly wrong that editors linked to them for so long. Greg L (talk) 20:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your wish is my command: all the articles for the month of March (non-specific to years) are nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/March 1 Ohconfucius (talk) 04:06, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Splendid. Thanks. Greg L (talk) 04:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge. Exactly the same information will still be available if they're merged to August 2003, along with a handy-dandy redirect from the current title. More, in fact, given that some events cause 'ongoing situations" which last for more than 24 hours. Considerable numbers of similar day-specific articles have been merged in the past - including the entirety of January, February, and June 2003. I see no reason not to do likewise here. Note, BTW, that five other months from 2003 also have similar daily articles (see Category:Days in 2003). They should be merged as well. Grutness...wha? 00:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Merge is fine too. And for the reasons stated by Grutness. Greg L (talk) 01:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to August 2003: This was discussed at some length here, here, and here. -- Mufka ^(u) ^(t) ^(c) 14:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per Grutness. --John (talk) 19:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With that, I think that merge gives the closing administrator a safety valve. I don't think that it's realistic to "merge" 31 pages into one page, and I think that the precedent set should be to remind people to stick to existing formats until those formats are changed, through discussion. On the other hand, merge is a nicer way than delete to accomplish the same purpose. Whether one says "Don't try this shit again!" or "Please don't do this until the rules change, thank you," the end result is the same. I think that the free market would take care of an an overly large page. Because a default to keep would be a major change in format, the "easy way out"-- i.e., no consensus-- would be the worst of all worlds. Anyone seriously thinking about closing the discussion with the words "no consensus" should probably get some consensus from other admins. Mandsford (talk) 00:20, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it not realistic to merge 31 tiny articles into one larger article? The same has been done frequently for "list of minor characters in..." type articles, and also - more tellingly - for several of the other articles for days in 2003. In other words, a precedent of this kind has already been set. All of February's articles were merged into February 2003, January's and June's likewise - the redirects all still exist in Category:Days in 2003. It would make perfect sense to do so here and - if I had not been involved in the debate - I would quite willingly have done so as a closing admin. Grutness...wha? 01:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When I say I don't think it's realistic, I don't mean that it's impossible. Shift, down arrow, CTRL + C, CTRL +V, repeat 30 more times. But I don't think it's realistic to expect that one will get a quality article, as March 2003 demonstrates. As you point out, these really are "tiny" articles, but it's not because nothing happened on any particular day. Rather, they consist of "tiny news", with a sentence or two about this happened, and that happened, and then something else happened. I liken it to being at a party, and running into a boring man or woman who gives a rambling monologue about what happened that day. For one of the dates, the "narrative" would go like this, "The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom claims attempts by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) to destroy allegedly important documents about its treatment of BBC source Dr. David Kelly in the weeks before his suicide were foiled by a security guard, who found the documents scheduled for destruction and called the police. The MoD insists the documents were not that important but will now be preserved and supplied to the Hutton Inquiry into the Kelly case. The United Nations authorizes an international peacekeeping force for Liberia. The United States is criticized by members of the Security Council for insisting that UN peacekeepers serving in Liberia be granted immunity from war crimes prosecution. The U.S. demand is described by its critics as a breach of international law. A huge condominium complex under construction in San Diego, California is destroyed, supposedly by the Earth Liberation Front. José Bové, a radical French activist against genetically modified food, is released from prison after serving only five weeks of a 10-month jail sentence. Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein publicly rebukes Ariel Sharon's son Gilad for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into graft and influence peddling. Scientists announce that the ozone layer may be showing signs of recovery due to an international ban on chlorofluorocarbons." I may be wrong. The other thirty segments might be less mind-numbing. Mandsford (talk) 03:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's Windows-speak, is it? Tony (talk) 07:58, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good try, I guess. I'm afraid I'll never be able to sound as interesting as a Windows technical manual. I can imagine what the news would sound like if a tech guy wrote it-- "Although the White House remains the default setting, the executive unit variable is subject to automatic review on a quadrennial basis in years that, when divided by four, remain integers... users were provided at least two options and option "O" received more geographical area points than option "M" in the overall process, and the specifications will be implemented 77 days after the completion..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mandsford (talk • contribs)

Heh - I love it! Grutness...wha? 22:07, 13 November 2008 (UTC) (PS - I've changed the indents slightly to make things clearer)[reply]

- Sounds fine to me for a list article, which these articles basically are. Combined into a month article, they would give a chronological list of things that happened during the month, but also have the ability to give overviews to the whole month. A lot of chronological list articles seem pretty boring when you just consider them as one item after another, the way you are doing - but if you were researching the history of the David Kelly incident, or the timeline of UN peacekeeping, it would be very useful to see what other events were going on at about the same time. That's why these month articles exist. Sure, a lot of them don't make riveting reading, but that could be said of many articles on Wikipedia. Personally, I don't see anything riveting about articles on obscure mathematical laws or characters in Pokémon, but they exist as sources if information - a major reason for an encyclopedia to exist. Grutness...wha? 05:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Great discussion guys! I stand by my merge per Grutness. --John (talk) 07:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per above, and per WP:BEFORE. Dates are obvious search terms, and more or less a poster-child (calendar-child?) for the policy that says to create useful redirects instead of bogging down AFD. Neier (talk) 23:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to August 2003 per prior established consensus. None of these articles seem so big as to make the article for the entire month too large. Any excessive detail can be merged to an article on an appropriate topic and linked to from the month article. DHowell (talk) 06:30, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.