Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-07-13/WikiProject report

WikiProject report

WikiProject Years

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Individual years make up one of those unusual areas of Wikipedia's coverage which make people say "Oh, I didn't realize there were articles for that. That's cool." WikiProject Years, the subject of this week's WikiProject Report, is the project responsible for the coverage of these individual years, as well as decades, centuries, and millennia, and various other articles. In January 2009, WikiProject Years earned its first Good Article with 1346. Here to tell us more about the project is Grimhelm, who is currently working on revamping the article on the 1340s.

1. For our readers who aren't familiar with the year articles, what material is covered in them? Is the breadth of coverage even something that the project's members have firmly decided on?

The first paragraph of our project page acknowledges that "our scope is incredibly large", but the defined scope only hints at our actual breadth of coverage. Originally, the project's scope was "primarily to formalize the unofficial standard used for creating year pages" — that is, to have an article for each year, with the main events listed chronologically. This also implied that there would be articles listing the events and trends of whole decades, centuries and millennia. However, the project has expanded far beyond that. Now it also deals with categories and lists that sort articles by year. If you search through the subcategories of Events by year, you will see just how broad an area this can be. It ranges from general categories for every year from the earliest periods, such as 753 BC establishments or 1564 births, to sub-articles that cover very specific topics in more recent years, such as 2008 in sports or 2009 in spaceflight. Topic lists of year articles, such as List of years in literature or List of years in paleontology, show that some topics obviously have better chronological coverage than others. Our coverage therefore overlaps with numerous other projects, so as you suggest, "boundaries" have not been strictly defined. This makes our potential scope exceedingly broad for such a little-known project.

2. There are also individual year articles for certain countries, such as 1965 in Norway and 1837 in Australia, though not all countries have such articles. Is there a method by which countries are chosen to have such articles?

I don't think there is any method really. Our coverage of years by country starts in the 10th century, but our coverage is a lot patchier in practice. With over 200 sovereign states worldwide, and many centuries of history to cover, it would be a particularly daunting task to attempt what is essentially grouping every notable event in world history by country. Instead, our actual coverage is determined by three kinds of unintentional but systematic bias. Firstly, Wikipedia editors are affected by geographical bias: we currently have articles on 1773 in Great Britain and 1773 in Canada, but not on 1773 in China or 1773 in Tonga. The category 1773 by country shows just how uneven our coverage can be because of this. The second bias to affect this aspect of our project is recentism: compare, for example, 2008 by country with 1308 by country. This ties in closely with the third kind of bias, although this is probably the most excusable: bias based on the availability of sources. There are obviously going to be more easily accessible media sources on 2008 in Ireland than 1308 in Ireland, and the list of events reflects that. At the extreme, an article on 1308 in Australia would certainly be impossible. These biases are not necessarily a bad thing — they are far from ideal, but eventually other countries will be covered and the most important thing is to recognise that Wikipedia is a work in progress.

3. To what extent do these biases affect the standard country-unrelated year articles? What can be done (or is being done) to prevent these effects?

With the availability of mass media, biases caused by geographical distribution of editors or a simple lack of sources are a lot less acute, especially for more recent year articles than for year articles in previous centuries. Wikipedia editors are particularly good at compiling news coverage of current events as they happen. Articles on recent years receive a lot of attention, and a glance at an article on any year in the last decade will show that they are comprehensive and that a high standard is maintained. In January 2009, the project also drafted an updated guideline for the inclusion of events in recent year articles. For example, the "Three-Continent Rule" requires that any new events "must demonstrate independent news reporting from three different continents" as a minimum requirement for inclusion. This will not only ensure that events are well sourced, but will also ensure the right balance of coverage and reduce geographical bias. Other "rules" clarify which sporting events, political elections and deaths are worthy of inclusion; although editors can decide to ignore these by consensus.

However, although recentist interests, the availability of sources and clear-cut guidelines have a largely positive effect on recent years, the effect of these biases is not as benign for earlier years. Even familiar dates in history such as 1066 or 1666 are significantly shorter than 1966. Regardless, there will always be some committed classicist and medievalist editors working on years in their own field of interest. If there were not, it would not have been possible for 1346, a narrative rewrite of a medieval year, to become WikiProject Years' first Good Article. I myself am currently working on a similar redraft of the 1340s decade article. What all this shows is that there is as much interest among members of the project for medieval years as for the modern, and this is the most effective way we can and have been able to overcome bias.

4. As Wrad described in our report on WikiProject Color, color articles often cover a broad variety of subjects, meaning that they benefit from the attention of editors with distinct skills and interests. Is this true of year articles as well?

I think so. Different years attract different interests. However, no matter which year article is in question, the idea of summing up all the human activity of a single year will inevitably cover a broad variety of subjects in numerous countries and fields. Our new model for year articles is structured in four parts: timeline of events, narrative summary, list of births and list of deaths. Wrad, of course, originally put forth the idea of revamping 1345 and 1346 in this style, and has done a similarly good job in balancing the four different parts of 1929.

Scope of interests is even broader in the new all-narrative structure for decade articles, which will take the 1340s redraft as its model. The current draft is broken down on three levels: continent (Asia, Europe, Africa, America, etc.); field (political, socio-economic and cultural); and specific subject area. The political field is divided into subject area by geography (eg. European politics is divided by western, central, northern, eastern and Iberian areas). The socio-economic field is divided into areas as varied as fashion, economic crises and disease. Lastly, the cultural area is divided into architecture, art, literature, technology, philosophy and religion. The area to cover in any given decade is so broad that I think the future of year articles will really depend on a collaboration of editors with a range of interests.

5. In which subject areas do you think the project is lacking in experienced contributors?

Political history, current events and popular culture have the best active contribution, but we're undermanned in other subject areas. In particular, if we are going to covert most of our year articles into balanced narrative, we will need more experienced editors in the pre-modern period; more regular contributors to pre-modern years in Africa, Asia and the Americas; and more historians of economic, social and cultural history.

6. Finally, do you think the project's articles would benefit from the implementation of flagged revisions?

Possibly. Well referenced lists such as 2007 or 2008 could benefit from some sort of flagged revision to maintain standards. Even though most year articles are unreferenced lists, here too flagging could be used to prevent the further, indiscriminate addition of non-notable or spurious events. However, since these lists are unreferenced to begin with, they would have to be verified before they could flagged. Also, most of them are of such insubstantial length that I don't know whether flagging would be of any use. The project still has a long way to go before the vast majority of year articles are expanded and reach an acceptable standard — I don't think flagged revisions would contribute to that goal.

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