This set of pages serves as a queue of selected anniversaries in history taken from each day of the year's events and holidays/observances section and from current Jewish, Islamic, and other lunar-based calendars. The selected anniversaries queue is used to help facilitate and coordinate updates to the "On this day" section on the Main Page.
Be bold while improving this queue but please make sure you follow the guidelines. Important: although anniversary listings on individual date articles are written in the present tense, "selected anniversary listings" should be in the past tense, to help distinguish them from current events when displayed on the Main Page.
Criteria for listing items on this set of pagesසංස්කරණය
The criteria for inclusion in the selected anniversaries queue are rather subjective due to the fact that any given day of the year can have a great many historical events worthy of listing. So relative article quality along with the mix of topics already listed are often deciding factors. Criteria for inclusion:
- Generally 5 events (always in the past tense) can be displayed each day. This number may vary slightly depending on the length of the Wikipedia:Today's featured article and Wikipedia:Did you know sections so that the left and right columns appear balanced without too much empty space.
- Holidays/observances should be limited to a maximum of 3, but this may also increase to accommodate those that do not appear on the same date each year. Holidays should be listed in this order: international observances first (except those that are not serious in nature, e.g., International Talk Like a Pirate Day—these should appear at the end of the list), then alphabetically by country where observed.When the same day is observed in multiple countries (but not worldwide), then the countries should be listed alphabetically, and the first country used for sorting.
- The event needs to be of moderate to great historical significance (relative to the other historical events that occurred on the same day of the year). It should also be the most, or one of the most, important events associated with the selected article. Finally, the event should have occurred on the day in question in local time, if applicable.
- The event and the selected article (bolded item) needs to be listed in the Events section of its corresponding day-of-the-year article, and therefore should also comply with the criteria for inclusion listed on Wikipedia:Days of the year.
- If the holiday or observance occurs on the same day each Gregorian year, it needs to be in the Holidays/Observances section on the corresponding day-of-the-year article. Non Gregorian-based holidays, whose date of observance varies from year-to-year, do not have to be listed on the day-of-the-year articles, but should still comply with the rest of WP:DOY#Holidays and observances.
- The historical event needs to be important enough to be included in the selected article (bolded item).
- The selected article needs to be updated to clearly state the event or day of the celebration/observance, as well as the exact day it occurred/occurs. Non-Gregorian-based holidays and observances need not state the exact day since this will differ each year. The date must be a cited to a reliable source with an inline citation, since inline citations are used to support specific statements in an article.
- The selected article (bolded item) must not be a stub and preferably it should be a relatively complete and well-formatted article, free from 'yellow'-level or more severe article issue tags. In other words, it should be a good example of Wikipedia content (see also Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page#I think that the articles listed on the Main Page are awful. Isn't the Main Page biased towards certain topics? What can be done about it?).
- As much as possible, the array of topics should include a variety of years (e.g., not just limited to the 20th century), geographical areas (e.g., more than just the Anglosphere), and subjects (e.g., not too many articles on war or technology).
- Births and natural deaths of notable people can be used only on centennials. Assassinations of notable figures may be used at any time.
Ideally, any particular selected article should only be listed (be an emboldened entry) once in this queue. To help make sure articles are not selected (emboldened item) more than once, check the article's links and examine all the pages listed that begin with
Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/. There is no limit to the number of times an article can be incidentally linked in the queue (this includes all the non-bolded links).
So, a combination of the "majorness" of the event, the mix of items already listed, and the relative completeness of the article, are the criteria used, along with the requirement for appropriate "context" and minimal compliance with Wikipedia:Days of the year.
Also, please try to write each entry with a single sentence.
Criteria for listing images in day entriesසංස්කරණය
- Only one image should be displayed for any particular day entry at any one time. The image, however, can be switched throughout the day.
- The image should be no more than 100px wide and 100px high.
- For design purposes, if there is choice between an image of a person facing left and a person facing right, pick the face-left one–it draws the reader's attention toward the associated text, rather than away from it.
- Only free images (PD, GFDL, CC etc.) can appear on the Main Page. Fair use images are not permitted.
A list of other available events and images can be viewed at the specific subpage in the "staging area" (the staging area is not visible when transcluded onto another page thanks to
<noinclude></noinclude> tags). Some of these items (the "Eligible" section) can be used as backups that can be rotated in and out during the day while on the Main Page. Other items are listed as "Ineligible" because they no longer pass the selected anniversaries criteria (see above), and thus need to be cleaned up.
Admins: When removing items from these pages while they are on the Main Page, please consider moving them into the "staging area" instead of outright deleting them so they can prospectively be used again in the future.
Because each of the selected anniversaries pages rotate onto the Main Page every year, they will each need annual maintenance before they appear there:
- Non-Gregorian-based holidays and observances should be moved to the correct day for the current year. When moved, they should not count towards the maximum "3 holidays/observances per day" limit since a number of them might suddenly fall on the same day during a particular year. These holidays and observances should also be marked with the current year in parentheses as a reminder to others that their dates do in fact vary from year to year.
- In general, National Days, Independence Days, and other holidays celebrating the nationhood of a country should be marked by the year of the significant historic date being observed. An exception can be made when non-Gregorian-based holidays also fall within the same day, and the non-consistent use of dates might confuse new users.
- Each emboldened article should be checked to make sure they still qualify under the selected anniversaries criteria. For those that do not, there are two options: An alternate emboldened article can be selected for the same event if one exists, especially if the original emboldened article was merged or split. Otherwise, it should be moved to the staging area, clearly marked that it needs cleanup.
- Make sure to double check, copyedit, and verify each event on the selected anniversaries page so it is consistent with the facts presented in the emboldened article, since they may have changed since the previous year.