Talk:2004/Archive 1

message: -Has anyone noticed how British-centered this page is?  Seriously, who cares about university tuition fees in Britain?
-Also, genius (and I mean Minesweeper), how do you justify deleting the airline routes and not delete the Grand Theft Auto video game release date?  Oh yeah, it's probably 'cause you put it up there in the first place.  What I'm saying is neither should have been deleted.  Who are you to decide what is too trivial for this list?  Few things can be accurately predicted - I know that the addition of Southwest Airlines service to Philadelphia Int'l Airport is much more likely to happen than say, elections in Rwanda on a certain day.  Besides, Southwest Airlines in Philadelphia is a very big deal - Philadelphia is the 5th largest city in the U.S. and Southwest Airlines is the 4th largest airlines in the U.S.  So I'm putting it back and don't you dare delete it.
:First of all, you're complaining about "how British-centered" the page is while adding information that even many people in the U.S. don't care about, much less the rest of the world?  Second, where did I say I'm against removing the GTA listing?  Third, did you even check who added it to the page before making accusations?  Finally, your airline listings will likely be removed when the time comes around because I know I'm not the only one who finds them too trivial to list here.  If you're so adamant about including them in Wikipedia, then put them on the pages of Southwest Airlines, Frontier Airlines, etc. --Minesweeper 06:23, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)
:To Minesweeper: I have no problem with the listings being removed when time comes around because we all know some of the most important events cannot be predicted and there is no reason that the airline routes should stay in Wikipedia's permanent record of 2004.  But routes are one thing that can be predicted.  Now, I was referring to the British-centricity of the events that happened - not the ones that will occur.  There is also heavy Indian-centricity on the obituaries.  In fact, it seems many of the Wikipedia articles for these pradesh governors are written right after these people die.    
:At the time it was added, the debate on the tuition fees and the Hutton report were actually considered severe threats to Blair. As in, if they'd gone badly, he might have been forced out as leader of the Labour party, and hence Prime Minister. I'd consider events that would change the leadership of any of the G7 nations to be newsworthy. Certainly more than who Britney Spears has married...Average Earthman 21:30, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Americocentric or British-centered? (comment by anon)

message: Polish Wikipedia (e.g. 2004) has a neat feature of listing heads (presidents, prime ministers, kings, etc.) of countries and international organizations in each year entry (going back to ancient times). Could something similar be done here? Ausir 07:57, 12 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Rulers of various countries in year entries

message: Changing box(delete bullets) as per first part of discussion on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Years --(talk to)BozMo 16:52, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  see also 

message: *I've removed various events relating to minor sporting events. There is a 2004 in sport page for such things. Also some people are again posting minor events such as protests in New Zealand parliament! Astrotrain
::Sigh. There's also a 2004 in politics article. Does that mean you'll be moving all the political stories there? In your opinion, then, what qualifies an event for this page? -- Avaragado 22:47, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm confused by your most recent edits. Why is "Two princes go to their (non-royal) grandmother's funeral" worthy of inclusion but "The whole of Europe votes for its Parliament" not? Why does this not meet your criteria as an important political event? -- Avaragado 17:55, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ronald Reagan's death and funeral resulted in articles on the front pages of the newspapers here (Sydney, Australia) for a full week. Kydd, on the other hand.. the only place I heard of her death was Wikipedia. —Stormie 03:54, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)
Someone who happened to marry into the nobility and whose daughter was Princess of Wales is not moe famous than a quite-recent two-term President of the United States. That is just simply false. You may probably say that Diana, Princess of Wales was more famous, though I'd say they're comparable. We only need to mention her death once - in the list of deaths section of the article. We don't need to repeat it with her funeral. --Jiang 22:05, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: I removed the Big Brother "news" a few minutes ago, before I read your comment. I don't think there's any serious argument for including that level of detail on this page. Regarding the Frances Shand Kydd item, I think her death merited an entry in Deaths, and a factual account of her 1960s divorce might be worthy of inclusion in her own article. But her funeral would not have been news had she not been the grandmother of a future king. I don't think news-by-association like this is worthy of inclusion. Funeral of a prince, yes; funeral of a prince's (non-royal) grandmother, no. -- Avaragado 21:34, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: Her funeral made fontpage news in Britain, certainly not in my part of the world/ Who attended her funeral? How many heads of state? Was there a procession? King William's state funeral may be worthy of mention, but not her's. She's just a relative. State funerals are a rare occurrence. Mrs. Shand Kydd was not given one. We only need to accounce her death and nothing more. It's the event we're concerned about, not the person behind it. We don't point out how many times Queen Elizabeth II goes to the bathroom. --Jiang 03:43, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Criteria for inclusion

message: There are far too many deaths listed here for unimportant people. Bulgarian playwrights, Portugese historians and minor Indian politicans, I don't care that these people are dead, less have to read about them. It also makes the page too big.
Also do we really need to know that it is the year of rice, or other such rubbish? Astrotrain Number One
:If Umberto Agnelli, Miklos Feher, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé aren’t important enough to be on the list, what makes Tug McGraw, David Hookes, Elroy Hirsch and Harrison McCain so important that they deserve to be on the list? What are your criteria? Aecis 14:26, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Deaths

message: *I would ask that others join in the effort to keep events from being deleted by Astrotrain.  A reading of the earlier portions of this talk page will reveal the strong bias of Astrotrain in favor of Britain and royalty, and against many other parts of the world.  Astrotrain is free to add items, but deleting notable changes in heads of state, heads of government, and constitutions (as Astrotrain has done for Indonesia, Cambodia, Belarus, Somalia, and Burma) is seriously weakening the value of this encyclopedia article.  Some things, like the World Series, are not important to me, but I have not removed them, nor have I removed (except in the reverts) any of the royalist fare that Astrotrain adds and defends.  Perhaps Astrotrain is upset by my removal of royalist honorifics — ‘Her Majesty’, for instance, which fails the NPOV test, since only loyal subjects of the queen would use such language.  But deleting other editors’ helpful inclusions is hardly a productive response.  I have posted a message to Astrotrain’s talk page, but received no reply other than reversion.  This is a waste of the time of all other editors.  I am prepared to let other editors add events which they believe are important, but I am not interested in a revert war, and I believe that most editors here will support the inclusion of events outside of Astrotrain’s narrow sphere of interest. — Ford 19:22, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)
I removed some text. the page is still 39kb long. This is intended to be a summary only of the current events page. If there are objections to the removals, voice each one here. There's a lot more to slash. I'm also thinking that we should do away with the deaths section completely since listing here is rather arbitary. A link to Deaths in 2004 will be enough. --Jiang 22:58, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, and FWIW, if information about anybody getting a haircut ever makes it into a Wikipedia article, I for one think it would utterly discredit this project as an informative encyclopedia - I don't care if it's British monarchy, the US President, or the Pope. Some events just are not notable no matter who they happen to. =) - Vaelor 04:30, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: unless it is a symbolic haircut.
*Does Prince Harry affect any of us? The only effect the royal family has, even on British citizens, is that they serve as a money pit. In which case, the cost of his haircut should be mentioned. --YixilTesiphon 02:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of &#8220;unimportant&#8221; events

message: It looks to me like a guideline (that's one degree below "policy" :-) on what should and what should not appear on this page is direly needed. I think Globulin said it best when he said  "We're trying to get important events on this page, not well-publicised ones. Let's examine these events in terms of their significance ten, twenty or fifty years from now and how they can change history, rather than by how much press coverage they get." That's a rule of thumb we can base arguments on: add things if you can reasonably make the argument that it will be significant in history. Obviously, it's just a rule of thumb, because no Wikipedian I know of is clairvoyant. (No creating  User:Clairvoyant, please. :-)
I'm not saying it makes everything unambiguous. If a banana republic rotates dictators, is that a notable change? Maybe not, but best err on the side of safety and include changes in heads of state by default. If Britney Spears brings out a new single, will it be mentioned in the history books for years to come? Not likely, so it probably shouldn't be mentioned here. How about Janet Jackson exposing a breast? Doesn't seem important in itself, but it had a huge and disproportionate backlash that is likely to be of historical note -- if only just. I hope you agree that this rule of thumb, though still quite subjective, is a more solid basis for discussion than whether or not British royalty has any ruling power, or whether some sport is international or domestic, or which continent counts the most heads.
This would mean many categories get the short end of the stick (there's just much more happening to 2004 in music than will ever be historically of note, even musically speaking, and few sports events stand the test of time), but what are the alternatives? Include everything from the other categories? Include only those events that blew up enough dust in the media? Include everything that is "notable" and invite endless flamewars over what is and isn't "notable"? Just include anything as long as it's somewhere else on the Wiki? (Actually, that last one isn't that bad (at least it's consistent!), but we'd need to split such a page up anyway, because it would become unmanageably large and uninsightful.)
I think the "historically significant" angle has a lot of merit; at least it beats "notable" on the soundness of arguments it invites. Comments? JRM 21:40, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)
It can sometimes be difficult to establish at the time of an event its historical impact (and to further muddy things are we talking 1/10/100+ years or not as well). Disasters can often be turning points for institutions, things like the Hatfield rail crash were a turning point which has caused significant changes to the nationalized status of a national transport carrier (sorry my example is British since I live there). This may in itself have little importance to the international readership but the concept of Privatization is far more wide reaching.
Thus it perhaps an good idea when determining the merit of inclusion of an event whether it fits something like the following template:
event 'X' occurred, (brief one line explanation if the title itself doesn't cover it) this 
* lead to a significant 'change' / 'new idea'
or
* is viewed as a Tipping point in some process/trend
Thus allowing things which are commonly perceived by someone with limited knowledge of something as being significant (even if really the event was merely a media worthy milestone of no critical significance in and of itself).
By allowing these events to be listed the mildly informed or interested can be drawn in by a known reference point and explore, if they choose, the issue in greater depth.
For example had the altercation with Harry caused his conviction for assault thus triggering a wholesale rise in Republicanism and the overthrowing of the British monarchy the event, no matter how trivial the event itself is would have a significance worthy of it's inclusion. Since the aforesaid event has not even resulted in an official caution thus having at this time no lasting effect on his (theoretical) status of future king you have to question it's inclusion by this metric.
Perhaps it would make sense to have a [2004 in perspective] and cascade events in here that have stood the test of time as such and let this page keep future dates as well as the more hit and miss contributions...
MattHope 19:05, 2005 Jan 7 (UTC)
*just a note on the latest revision by Jiang.....say wdh?!? you removed the closing ceremonies of the olympics while restored the national convention?  sure the closing ceremonies of the olymipcs may not have historical significance....but the national convention does?!?!? give me ONE good reason.  — Mike 23:55 Nov 3 2004 (UTC)
The opening ceremonies have already been mentioned. It's therefore not necessary to link to the same article again by mentioning the closing ceremonies. The national convention article is featured so we should link to it. It is linked nowhere else on the page while the Republican convention is. --Jiang 04:33, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criteria for inclusion, revisited 

message: Would it be a good idea to put some images of the main events of the year in this page (and also the other year pages)? It would brighten the articles up a bit??? Astrotrain 19:46, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Images

message: I've never heard of these awards before in my life. Are they really notable enough to deserve a section similar to the Nobel Prizes? Average Earthman 13:42, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Right Livelihood Awards 

message: Astrotrain's affection of royal events is at best cluttering the 2004 page. I've added a royal event to this page myself once, but now I suggest that all royal events be moved to a dedicated "2004 in a royal perspective" page, with a link from the 2004 page.
TroelsArvin 22:47, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving royal events to dedicated page

message: I have removed the following items. If you disagree, please explain why:
* January 13 - An Uzbekistan Airways plane crashes in Uzbekistan's capital of Tashkent, killing 37.
**the deaths of 37 do not make it a significant plane crash or one of widespread consequence. If it were important enough, we would have an article on the specific flight.
* March 5 - CBS broadcasts tape recordings of Diana, Princess of Wales, as she describes suicide attempts while pregnant with Prince William of Wales.
**the mention of a CBS broadcast is given for a couple weeks later so we've given enough coverage for the topic of Diana.
* November 6 - The 1735 express train from London's Paddington Station to Plymouth crashes into a car deliberately parked on a level crossing in Berkshire and derails, killing seven people
**motor accidents happen all the time. 7 is not a large number. there are no far reaching conseuqences here.
* October 21 - Prince Harry of Wales is hit in the face by a camera during a scuffle with the paparazzi after leaving a nightclub in London.
**encyclopedias are not gossip columns. no far reaching significance of the event. might not even pass for mention in Harry's biography article
*June 3- Frances Shand Kydd, the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales
**person who did nothing significant herself. she has an article only by association. let's cut back the mentions since our space is limited.
* November 13 - Simon Bradley, English writer (b. 1987)
**no article=not significant enough for mention.
* September 14 - In London a man dressed as Batman breaches security at Buckingham Palace. Protest for Fathers for justice.
**Queen Elizabeth was not home. the breach of security had no far ranging significance.
* Tony Blair makes an unannounced trip to Basra, Iraq to give a speech to British troops.
**no major significance for this trip.
* May 18 - The IOC announces the short list of candidates for the 2012 Summer Olympics: London, Madrid, Moscow, New York City, Paris. Unsuccessful cities are Havana, Istanbul, Leipzig and Rio de Janeiro.
**we should only mention when they announce the winner. the short list isnt significant enough
--Jiang 01:17, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your removals. TroelsArvin 08:59, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I disagree with: Uzbekistan Airways crash, all fatal plane crashes involving a major airline or national carrier should be listed. And 37 is a high number to die in a plane crash. Similar with the Berkshire train crash which also had a large fatality. Also disagree with the removal of Diana's mother from death section, mainly because at least 75% of the current entries on this page are insignificant. Astrotrain 09:14, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: So your suggested solution of the page being full of insignificant entries, is to add more insignificant entries? -- Chuq 09:34, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rmv'd some listings 

message: (Note:  the following message was originally inserted by Brianjd at the top of the page. — Ford)
The NPOV section does not seem to have been updated for a while (I could have missed a reply). Can someone make it clear why the neutrality is still disputed, or remove the notice? Brianjd 08:45, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)
:The discussion is continuing under different headings below and a number of members, including myself and the original poster of the tag (Ford) still dispute the British-centric bias of the entries. The page has got somewhat better in the last few weeks, but I still have specific problems with Jan 27, May 19 and Sep 15. There is a wider debate on what should be included here, 'historical significance', 'world impact', 'is it important to X number of people/families' etc. The dispute is definately not over. Psychobabble 09:46, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV inquiry

message: Powell's resignation is not of immediate importance - he is still in office. I really don't see why that item deserves mention. --Jiang 22:12, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that Powell's resignation is a notable event, because it highlights which part of US's foreign policy "schools" has won. And US foreign policy is certainly of global importance. TroelsArvin 13:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colin Powell 

message: September 15 - The British House of Commons is stormed by a small group of protestors during a debate about fox hunting.
Psychobabble also opposed this. It does not have its own article, but again, I think it represents a significant security breach. Brianjd 12:07, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
There are small breaches of security somewhere almost daily. No. --YixilTesiphon 04:47, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fox Hunting - House of Commons stormed 

message: SimonP’s message, on deleting the disputed tag:  “issue has not been discussed in a few days and the dispute is not large enough to merit a header on such an important page”.  I am not really sure where to start with this.  Just because we do not put up a new header every couple of days saying “Yep, neutrality still disputed!” doesn’t mean that the neutrality of the page is no longer disputed.  And right here at the bottom of the page is Brianjd saying why the page is disputed:  the inclusion and exclusion of items on the page, which represents a judgement on which events are notable, is biased, beyond the point where some of us feel we can leave the unsuspecting reader of the encyclopedia uninformed of the dispute.  Brianjd noted that on December 18, and a few hours later SimonP comes along and states that it hasn’t been discussed in a few days.  But just look at the edit history, if you think things have been settled.  Hardly.
As for the dispute being too small to merit a header on such an important page, I strenuously object across the board.  First, what determines whether a dispute is large or small?  I think it a very serious dispute indeed.  Second, the importance of the page suggests to me that it is even more important that the page be neutral, so that the more important a page, the smaller the dispute can be and still merit a warning tag.  Third, the implication that, because it is an important page, we should be masking the dispute — presenting a façade to the unsuspecting reader — is, I hope, not intended, but that is certainly what it sounds like to me.
I would like to see the dispute resolved, but I have long felt that we are at an impasse, and I am not going to allow this page to be both edited from a strong bias and presented to readers as a legitimate, neutral encyclopedia article.  I think at this point there are enough of us to shout down a particular editor (Astrotrain) if we wanted to; but then surely Astrotrain would feel the article was not neutral, so that would not actually solve the problem.  The problem is the open-access format; and since it is better to have that sort of problem than to have no wikis at all, we would all, I think, prefer to live with the problem.  <BR>— Ford 01:29, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)
:I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of the NPOV header.  It is not to inform editors that a page needs work, it is rather to warn readers that the information on the page should not be fully trusted.  While this article is flawed, I don't think readers need to be warned off it. - SimonP 06:02, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
I have to agree with Ford. The neutrality of this article is disputed and, as a reader not an editor of this page, was very glad to find the NPOV tag and be directed to the talk page to see what the fuss was about. Wikipedia works really well this way. We should alert people to disagreements about content. It is an advantage to this format. - Trick 21:27, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV, yet again 

message: I may have taken the liberty prematurely of effacing the 2004 entry of this event, but it seems wholly irrelevant. Worldwide, atrocious slaughters occur on a seemingly constant basis. This deed, while dastardly, shouldn't be considered anything worthy of international recognition. Even through the killing was of an expectant mother, I still would relegate it to the realm of local news. I would advise whomever responsible to rethink its place among major, worldwide occurrences that have reshaped the world in which we live. Earthliberator 21:45, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missouri Murder on December the 18th 

message: The three-revert rule has the virtue of preventing a numerical minority, including a minority of one, from forcing through edits against the will of the majority.  It prevents a single individual from dominating a page, if so few as two persons are in disagreement.  For the record, Astrotrain has just violated the three-revert rule:
Number one<BR>
Number two<BR>
Number three<BR>
Number four
Everyone else editing the page may think that this argument between the two of us is silly, but I am abiding by the rule, and Astrotrain is not.  Astrotrain has just reverted the honorific change four times in three hours and twenty-five minutes, which was made possible because SPUI and I have both removed the honorifics that Astrotrain has been inserting.  It is also worth noting that these reverts of Astrotrain’s have mostly been unsummarized, which is generally viewed as an unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s actions, or an attempt to disguise them.
Astrotrain accuses me of not explaining my edit, even though I have done so time and again.  These honorifics are not neutral.  They are an endorsement of one government’s position about the relative worth of certain persons — in the present instance, Alice Windsor, Angus Ogilvy, and Alexandra Ogilvy.  These persons are considered to be superior to the rest of us; in the case of Alice and Alexandra, to be quite literally “higher” than the rest of us.  If the British government wishes to say so, it may.  But the encyclopedia may not — not if it wishes to remain neutral.  The honorifics do not serve to further identify the persons in question; they are not even part of the articles’ titles.  They are Astrotrain’s royalist point of view.  I am a republican, and while it seems that I am therefore in a minority in Wikipedia (with its celebrity-worshipping culture and neo-romantic nobility obsession), I think it is clear that the encyclopedia should not be taking sides in the debate between those of us who hold egalitarian beliefs, and those who genuinely believe that some persons are better than others by virtue of birth or the political sentiments of the British (or any other) government.  <BR>— Ford 00:44, 2005 Jan 8 (UTC)
: Honofifics are a part of someone's legal name. Therefore it is perfectily neutral to use them, particularly in a formal encycolpedia. The titles in question are confered by English statue, and are the correct terms to use when describing these individuals. I think you are perhaps suffering from a sense of inferiority when viewing these titles. For instance, the style of Serene Highness is applied to the ruling Prince of Monaco, whether the said prince is peaceful or serene at all. Most countries of the world apply titles and styles to certain individuals. For instance the President of the United States is always addressed as "Mr President", judges as "your honour", bishops as "your excellency". Indeed the Pope's style of His Holliness is universally used.  You may well object to an individual's right to be styled HRH, or Sir, however they still legally and universally retain these styles. It is more the case that you are not being neutral by allowing your self-confessed republican views to infulence your edits. Astrotrain 14:39, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
::Indeed they are: in the United Kingdom. In the wider world, the impotent royalty of a democratic nation is both irrelevant and undeserving of honorifics. --YixilTesiphon 23:36, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality and the three-revert rule

message: How about both Ford and Astrotrain are forbidden from editing this page, then seeing where things go. Perhaps then this can cease to be a political battleground and become an encyclopedia article. --YixilTesiphon 23:42, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You might as well just ban Astrotrain—Ford's views are shared by quite a few other people, and if Astrotrain leaves, honorifics et al. will be gone for good.  I'm not sure that's an appropriate course of action, however.  A vote on some of the major issues would be a better idea. --Simetrical 22:32, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: No, because his POV is that honorifics are unnecessary, whereas yours is that they are. Thus you are supporting your POVs, which by definition is a POV dispute. --YixilTesiphon 00:56, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  An idea