Wikipedia talk:Almanac

Deletion by overwriting

I have overwritten this version of the page. Anyone who comes to this page will be expecting to be told whether, and to what extent, Wikipedia is an almanac. I felt this page had no useful content. It was substantially redundant to WP:FL (and ought to have been located at "most important featured lists" or something like that). No criteria were provided for the alleged importance of the lists. The characterization of this page as an "almanac" was extremely problematic. It may be that we could include a page that is an almanac in the Wikipedia space (at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Almanac) or in the mainspace, but it would not be appropriate to confine it to featured content. There is always at least a probability that the content that ought to be included in an almanac will not be featured at any given time. Moreover this "almanac" included types of information that I don't imagine would ever be included in any professionally published almanac that is what we regard as a reliable source. James500 (talk) 08:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I included a reference to AVTRIV due to suggestions made in archive 9 of WT:NOT. James500 (talk) 08:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Removed from Template:Browsebarmain. James500 (talk) 08:43, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Some observations concerning protocol: The project page that was replaced can no longer be found under its title. That is a form of deletion, and it really should have been handled through a rename/move, or prodded, or posted for deletion discussion at MfD.

While the content of the deleted/replaced page left something to be desired, the purpose of the page was of key significance. There is almanac-like data in Wikipedia. The page was intended to help people find it. And a page that exists is more likely (IMHO) to be transformed by wikimagic. But now it's buried in the edit history, and as a perm link on the talk page. The Transhumanist 21:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Reader expectations

James500 wrote: "Anyone who comes to this page will be expecting to be told whether, and to what extent, Wikipedia is an almanac."

I've answered the first question ("Is Wikipedia an almanac") in the essay.

But the second question remains to be answered: "To what extent is Wikipedia an almanac?"

This question can be broken down into further questions:

What does Wikipedia include that you would expect to find in an almanac?

What can you find in an almanac that you cannot find on Wikipedia?

The essay does not answer these questions. The Transhumanist 21:56, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Hijacking this abandoned essay in an attempt to promote it to a policy/guideline

There's an ongoing problem at WP:DOY, and similar "almanac" related pages, in that no one is quite sure what being an almanac (per WP:5P) actually means. As such, this page will soon be undergoing a rewrite, and hopefully a promotion. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:11, 29 July 2016 (UTC)