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Year-linking responses

This page's designation as a policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion. Please see the relevant talk page discussion for further information.

Please indicate your support vote under ONE option, accompanied by a concise explanation for your choice. Your explanation is important in determining the community consensus.

This was imposed by the edit-warring by a single editor, against strong opposition, as was the phrasing as support. Please be sure, however, that comments which are not support are not counted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I advise that all poll participants abide by the above, struck text please. One vote per editor on each issue please. The supervising clerk has gone to bed and won’t be able to address this disruption for a number of hours yet. Please note that the polling structure has been addressed here on the supervising clerk’s talk page as well as (in depth) here on the RfC talk page. Greg L (talk) 00:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Editors should make up their own minds whether to comply with the bold-faced demands of the user who revert-warred this rule in here in the first place. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I support Option #1 (link only relevant years)

1. Best option out of the four. If the year link is relevant to the article, link it. If not, don't. Steve Crossin /₂₄ 23:16, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
2. I would prefer absolutely no links at all, because they are hardly relevant and seldom help deepen understanding of the subject. Let common sense prevail. Few links only please. Ohconfucius (talk) 23:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
3. Once again only link to the year if it is very relevant to the topic. Links to YYYY in music/film etc. are okay, but even some of those are linked to too much. Rambo's Revenge (How am I doing?) 23:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
4. Per WP:OVERLINK. --John (talk) 23:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
5. Absolutely. Even when a date is notable in its own right, e.g. 1492, it may be irrelevant to the passage in which it occurs. --Philcha (talk) 23:51, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
6. Support: We are overlinking enough as is. seicer | talk | contribs 23:58, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
7. Support. I hope this provision will be construed fairly narrowly. -- Donald Albury 23:59, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
8. Support, the value of these links are way overstated. Year articles are still (mostly) lists of trivia; please note that I am not necessarily saying that these articles are bad, just that they will not help readers of other articles in their current format. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
9. Support, only link the year if it's relevant to the article. Again, common sense and the best way to prevent overlinking, in my opinion. Raven1977_{My edits} 00:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
10. Support. Exactly the same effect as option 4, except there is a chance of less fighting. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
11. Support - Date links, like all others, should enhance a reader's understanding of the topic. This can be decided on a case-by-case basis. Awadewit (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
12. Support. When did you last require "easy access to year articles"? I never have. Year articles are breathtakingly useless. And the day—impatiently awaited—that I do want access to one of them, the search box gives quite easy enough access for my needs. Moreover, the famous "metadata" isn't the same as "useful metadata". Bishonen | talk 00:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC).
13. Support This pretty much covers the rare circumstances when years should be linked. The proposed wording says it all: years “should not be linked unless they contain information that is germane and topical to the subject matter”. Enough said. Greg L (talk) 00:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
14. Support as per Greg L.—MDCollins (talk) 00:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
15. Support (Ditto my date linking reason.) I would tend to support the remove guidance option, but I suspect that past tendencies to link all dates would lead to continued overlinking. Guidance is needed to limit date links to those of notable historical significance. -- Tcncv (talk) 00:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
16. Per Steve, Bishonen, and Greg. NuclearWarfare _(Talk) 00:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I support Option #2 (Option #1 plus birth/death years, etc)

1. Again, this seems the best solution for readers of the article, with further discussion probably required to determine the exact circumstances where year links should be allowed and/or encouraged. I would rank the options 2,4,1,3. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:47, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
2. Support. Years are much more often relevant than month, day articles and should generally be linked to provide chronological context where relevant. I would rank the options 2,4,1,3. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
3. Support, birth years, death years should all be tied together in some way. dm (talk) 00:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I support Option #3 (link all on first occurrence)

1. This is how everything else is linked, I don't see why years should be treated any differently.-Jeff 00:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

1. • If I thought #3 would have that effect, I would support it; but see the link in #4 !vote 1. Weakly oppose.

I support Option #4 (removal of guidance)

1. Strongly support. All links are required to be relevant and helpful to the reader. what more do we need to say about these? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
   • This is the only way to ensure that date links are treated like other links. I observe that, despite the successful campaign to remove this objective from this poll, this equality has received support from support for all forms of language.
   • Even #3 has been read to impose restraints on date links which do not apply to other links, as in These comments. #1 and #2 have been used to justify extreme and sweeeping removals.
   • I therefore strongly oppose #1, Oppose #2 (which at least concedes a major use of these links) and weakly oppose #3. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC
2. Yes please; take as much as possible out of the hands of the hands of the people who made this clusterfuck in the first place. Mr.Z-man 01:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Other comments

• Only Option 1 will be some assurance there will not be a 'sea of blue' on each article. Ohconfucius (talk) 23:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
• Both options 2 and 4 require additional interpretation to determine their meaning, even though I consider them the only marginally acceptable forms. Furthermore, option 1 is mis-titled; it should read "link to only (presently) relevant year articles". Where "link to only relevant years" would appear in the spectrum from option 1 to option 3 would also be a subject for discussion. (All these proposals explicitly amend WP:OVERLINK as well as WP:MOSLINK, so comments referring to WP:OVERLINK may be irrelevant.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
• You may take my "per WP:OVERLINK" comment above to mean that I support the current consensus version of this guideline and think the dilution effect of adding links which are valueless on a random basis throughout our articles to cause far more harm than benefit to our users. Thus I am in favor of retaining the guidance against adding low value links which year articles surely are. --John (talk) 00:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)