Talk:Calendar reform

C&T Calendar

As a recent calendar-reform proposal, I thought this deserved mention. I just want to note that I am not Henry, this is not intended to be promotion or spam, it's just that the article is so stubby that adding a paragraph about a new proposal does sort of put it out of balance. But I don't see how to describe it in less than a paragraph... and I think that citing sources is important. If they look too link-spammy let me document them here for the record in case anyone decides they shouldn't all be in the article. I think the proposal is a bit nutty, by the way, and his page describing it contains some astonishingly flippant and dismissive remarks about possible objections. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:25, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Johns Hopkins press release on the new calendar
• Dick Henry's argument in favor of the C&T calendar
• Slashdot discussion of Dick Henry's C&T

---

In my quest for reform of the calendars, I have been attempting to update my arguments/thoughts since 1970-71 after my name got 'first time' in media print Via Tribune, Chandigarh (06 June 1971); and then as Time by Metric (Times of India, New Delhi (04 July 1971). Today, I stand in favour for *shifting a day from July (thereby making this month of 30 days; and adding this day gained into the month of February making this of 29 days in all Years* falling in line for my proposed Vij's Gregorian Rhyme Calendar 2005-2006 under discussion with Calndr-L group. Added advantage of this format is that NOT ONLY the four(4) quarters and two(2) half years can have 91-days or 13 weeks in each quarter ON KEEPING THE 365th day & 366th days of the year outside of the calendar format BUT *durations in each month follow the Kepler's Laws (unlike the C&T calendar or International Fixed Calendar). I evolve the period of 373632-years wherein the THREE cycles: 128-yr,(7*128=896-yr/159 Lwks)and the 834-yr_148 Lwks can be made use of/for the CIVIL calendar. 128-yr cycle gains over others by NOT MAKING any drastic change except that the CENTURIAN RULE gets modified from 100/400-yr "Leap Day Rule" to 128/896-yr for making the adjustment for leap day accounting. Luni-solar alignments are possible using (33,33,33,29)years or [(33,31)& (33,31)] i.e. 2*64-yr aligning using 19-year lunar cycle with 235 lunations - alongwith 'rationalised Tithi/ phases' of duartion 138*7-day/965th. Values for Mean Year and Mean Lunation are possibly the best 'comparable with any calendar'.

Brij Bhushan Vij (metricvij AT hotmail.com) 7 January 2005

---

This article should probably switch focus more to the idea behind calendar reform and there should be created an articles just for C&T

- Singpolyma 14:01, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

---

I think the calendar reform page should not discuss specific proposals as such. Instead, it should outline the concept of calendar reform and discuss the reasons why people feel its necessary. A history of calendar reform would be especially interesting, because it has a surprisingly rich history:

• Julius Caesar reformed the ancient Roman calendar into what we now call the Julian calendar. The concept of 365-day years with one leap year every 4 years was imported from the Egyptian calendar.
• Pope Gregory XIII? reformed the Julian calendar into the Gregorian calendar in 1582.
• February 29 was only standardised as the official leap day in leap years a few years ago. Prior to that, the official leap day was February 24.
• Calendar reform was seriously discussed at the League of Nations and the United Nations.

--B.d.mills 11:44, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---

I have modified the page as described, and moved most of the calendar-specific discussion to a new page. --B.d.mills 10:43, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---

Reformed Reform article

I felt the need to expand this page. Previously, it was stub-like, with a list attached, and said little about these proposals.

I agree with B.d.mills and others, above, that the original revisions of this article - i.e. the long, drawn out explanation of ONE proposal (C&T) - was not appropriate. However, going into the reform of the JULIAN calendar is also wrong, and I'm glad to see that didn't happen. That's done very well in the Gregorian calendar article.

As it stood, there were blanket statements made in the arrticle that do not apply to all calendar reform proposals. It pointed out the flaws of the calendars with "null" or "off-calendar" days, and pointed people in the direction of the 53-week calendar. That's not very complete, and its inaccurate because not all suggested calendars suffer from those flaws.

My revision hits on:

• Perpetual calendar proposals and
• 13-month calendar proposals

Each calendar proposal is BRIEFLY mentioned in the text, WITHOUT much elaboration, since that's done in the other articles. But it's an injustice to these proposals to have left this intro as is, since it said little about the reform movement, which has been - and is - quite active.

Comments welcomed, and bear in mind I am not criticizing previous editors in particular. This was a very well maintained short article. Nhprman 05:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Numbering Years v. Reforming the Gregorian

Japanese Era calendar is simply an established naming system used in Japan, and is not a "reform" of the Gregorian calendar.

The Holocene calendar is a proposal to re-number the calendar from the Holocene epoch. Mention should be made of that proposal on that page. Nhprman 01:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I compromised and created a separate subcategory re: numbering the years, while I still say these are NOT specifically Gregorian calendar REFORMS, simply renumbering the current year (and in the case of the Japanese calendar, it is not a proposal, it is a FACT and has already been implemented, so it is unlike any of the other proposals. Even the Holocene is a legitimate proposal. Nhprman 17:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

New Earth Calendar - exceptions to leap year rule?

The "With exceptions" in the following sentence has been reverted and restored. Before it becomes a revert war, can someone lay out the exceptions, so it's clear what the answer is? -- Nhprman ^List 17:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

"...The New Earth Calendar does likewise by adding a leap week once every 5 years with exceptions."

The exceptions are those years whose number is divisible by 40, but not 400. See New_Earth_Calendar#Leap_week_rule_and_New_Year 08:00 Karl Palmen

Thanks. - Nhprman ^List 17:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The lede is wrong

Calendar reform is not just proposed changes to the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar was itself a reform -- and a reform of the Julian calendar, itself a reform. I'm adding some history. Goldfritha 17:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Western reforms?

Most reforms, all over the world, were to better synchronize the calendar with the actual year. Does anyone have any reference to substantiate the claim that only Western reforms were thus intended? Goldfritha 03:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is mainly about reform of the Gregorian calendar. Initially dealing with the reform of the Julian calendar into the Gregorian calendar to make its year (and Easter lunations) more accurate. Later reforms, which have been never carried out were intended to make the calendar easier to use, by simplifying the months and often by making every year start on the same day of week. One could add a section about reforms of non-Gregorian calendars, but such information may be better kept at the page of the calendar concerned, especially if the reform has been carried out. Karl 12:50 3 October 2006 UT

That this article is suffering from systemic bias is no reason to reinforce it. And most reforms of calendars have been carried out to make the calendar conform more closely to the year, so putting in "Western" is to falsely imply that non-Western reforms weren't carried out for that reason. Goldfritha 23:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I added "Western" because the reforms of the world's lunar and lunisolar calendars are not discussed here, and probably shouldn't be. There have been 50 to 100 reforms of the traditional Chinese calendar over 2500 years, all of which were intended to better fit the average lunar month and the average solar year, but every year differs from a solar year by many days because each year must have 12 or 13 lunar months. There have been at least four similar reforms of the lunisolar version of the Hindu calendar, all intended to make the average month a better match to the lunar month and to make the average year a better fit to the sidereal year. There have been reforms of the 'solar' version of the Hindu calendar which changed the distribution of the days in each month to better match the length of time that the Sun spends in each sidereal zodiacal sign. The same applies to the Buddhist calendar. The Islamic calendar was a reform of the preceding lunisolar calendar which utterly divorced it from the solar year. Not one of the many modern efforts to reform it is intended to make it conform to any solar year. — Joe Kress 06:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Which doesn't answer the question of whether "Western" is misleading.

It would be simpler for you to take that paragraph you just wrote here and put it into the article. That way we don't need to misled readers and your dislike of having a general reference to calendar reform in an article without a discussion of them will be satisfied.

As for the modern efforts -- that the article is suffering from systematic bias is no excuse for putting in more. More historical perspective would do this article good. Goldfritha 23:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, we could add most of that paragraph to a new section called Reform of Lunar and Lunisolar Calendars. Karl 10:00, 5 October 2006 UT.

Sounds good to me. Goldfritha 23:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Moved the paragraph and removed "Western". Goldfritha 21:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I think some mention needs to be made that there is a slightly modified version of the World Calendar that was created by the United States Congress in the 1950s. I have created a rough look at what it looks like here:

http://www.securemecca.com/public/NoMoreDST/US_Congress_Calendar.txt

The purpose of the calendar was to have every quarter start on a Monday which is the first day of the business week. Coincidentally instead of four Friday the 13ths it has none. I mention it is because the only pay check I ever lost was on a Friday the 13th. The reason I want it included is because I used to have a link to it and now it is gone and I cannot find any links to it any more. You may find it in the US Library of Congress but be careful how you search. It is not the Congressional Calendar. hhhobbit (talk) 08:35, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Alienation

The months in this calendar totally lack any correlation with the lunar cycle, encouraging an alienation from Nature which was reinforced by other historical factors, and which has reached an extreme degree in the modern world.

Does anyone see a way to revise this into a neutral POV? Goldfritha 02:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

That's right. I created this new paragraph about our new Hermetic Lunar Week Calendar.Farazcole

Being bold, I am removing the offending paragraph. I didn't like it even when it was all that remained after removing the erroneous info about a lunisolar calendar before Julius Caesar. — Joe Kress 19:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

13 Month Calendar

Changed information on Jose Arguelles' proposal. The Dreamspell was not proposed in 1987, it was released in the early 90s. The reform proposal was known as The World Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Movement http://www.13moon.com/cal_change.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.29.121.180 (talk) 22:08, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

How can the following statement be true?

"The 13-month calendar loses appeal with some when it is realized that it actually destroys quarters. Adding the 13th month is considered by some to be a disadvantage because the disruption it causes results in more problems than the calendar it aspires to replace."

One quarter would be EXACTLY 3 months and 1 week in length! 87.80.240.166 15:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

"Three months and one week" is not a standard size, by any measure. Nhprman [User:Nhprman/Userinterestlist|^List]] 03:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course it is. With a fixed 28 days in a month calendar, this would always be EXACTLY 91 days in length!

Well, yes, but that's 3.25 months includes that 1/4 of a month, which is not an equal division. But your point is correct, there is a *way* to figure it so quarters are equal. Nhprman ^List 16:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Quarters 3.25 is sort of the cost of assuming equal months, 28 days, which also gives them an equal division by seven. The equality of months is many times more important, because it is their measure of length that we use every day, and quarters are important in really few situations. And then it is enough that they have an equal number of days, and in addition a round number of weeks. This is not the case in the Gregorian calendar.

BaSzRafael (talk) 22:05, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of Sol and New Earth Calendar references

This article is going to be made worthless, I can see. Someone went on a jihad seeking the deletion of articles, and now, all reference to calendars that were subject of deleted articles are going to be PURGED? It was suggested in AfD discussions that these calendars at least get a *mention* in this main article, but apparently, elimination was the goal. This proves the point I've been making at the AfD discussions - that deletionism is going to make this encyclopedia sterile and a useless resource. Even a paragraph noting that I hope people derive a lot of enjoyment making articles LESS informative.- Nhprman ^List 16:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The core policy of attribution requires that information in Wikipedia be attributable to a reliable published source. No such source has been shown for the Sol or New Earth Calendars, so the removal of such information is entirely within policy, noting particularly that Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. I would also ask you to be more civil in your comments. --Pak21 16:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I would ask that you not be so aggressive and selective in your application of disputed GUIDELINES as if they were settled POLICIES. Your interpretations are flat out wrong, and are damaging to this encyclopedia. I'm sorry if that's not civil, but your actions are not appropriate. There are enough other locations for these articles online that their elimination of them here does not eliminate them entirely from the public record, so it's enough to know that your efforts at throwing them down a memory hole were unsuccessful. Goodbye. - Nhprman ^List 18:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You are well aware that both attribution and What Wikipedia is not are fully established policies, not guidelines. Please stop misrepresenting the facts. --Pak21 06:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm afraid I agree. I don't really believe these AfD nominations were made in good faith. Certainly there was no call for deletion as opposed to a merge and redirect to appropriate articles such as Lunisolar calendar and Leap week calendar. I notice this article is being revamped now, I can assist when I have time. Frankly, I had planned to ask for a temporary undeletion eventually so that the material could be included in appropriate subheadings that already exist. Fortunately, while there isn't grounds to keep these articles independently, even Pak21 (who is quite handy at stating 'rules') would have difficulty finding a reason why these well-written articles could not be included under appropriate sub-headings. Wiki isn't made better by these deletions, and the end result will be to the detriment of other v. good articles on calendars and calendar reform. Kind regards, --Greatwalk 03:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there was a call for deletion. It was made by me, and supported by the community and the admin who closed the AfD debates. End of story. --Pak21 06:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I still think the calls for deletion should have been combined to get to a consensus about what requirements a proposals shall fulfill to remain on Wikipedia. Anyhow, I have now made most of the text more general and commented out most specific proposals so they can be easily re-included if thought valuable enough. It is not perfect of course, so please everybody improve. Maybe there should be an article on proposed calendars separate from this one, which deals with reforms that actually were enforced. Christoph Päper 15:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Mention of proposed calendars

The problem I have here is once again with the core, non-negotiable policy of attribution: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true". This is not some obscure part of Wikipedia, but one of the five pillars which fundamentally define the encyclopedia. If there are no secondary sources for a piece of information, it really has no place on Wikipedia, and the recently deleted calendars seem to have no sources beyond the creator. If someone could explain to me (preferably without making un-civil accusations of bad faith or the like) why these calendars should be mentioned, despite having no sources that would be appreciated. Cheers --Pak21 07:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Quoting the advice I received:

... appears to think that information can be removed just because the home article for that material was deleted. This is not correct. If someone created an article on Ann-marie de Costa, and it was subsequently deleted as non-notable, we wouldn't then be required to remove "He is married to Ann-marie de Costa" from the Alan Carpenter article. In the same way, a calendar system may be too non-notable to have its own article, yet merit a brief mention in an overview article.

You have received advice from myself and others that WP:ATT deals with articles, not to mentions of these calendars either as redlinks or external links relating to supporting subject matter. Accordingly, the deletions you made to this article and List of calendars have been reverted and (for the most part) appropriate comments have been made in the edit summaries. Please do not delete this material again. In addition Lunisolar calendar will have some material placed on it within the next few days, since you objected to the inclusion of longer passages, and I would appreciate it if you'd consider carefully before deleting it. Thanks. --Greatwalk 11:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't put this more simply than to say that you are completely wrong if you believe attribution deals only with articles. "All material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source." (my emphasis), not "all articles". The point you are missing is that the calendars have not been deleted for being non-notable as in the example you referred to above, but for being non-verifiable. --Pak21 08:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Independent articles are being deleted because only one source can be found online (mostly to a respected C-programmer ((or his company)) who is a known and also respected publisher of calendar algorithms) ...this is not sufficient reason to purge all reference to these calendars (including redlinks and passing mention) from parent articles. Pak, you know at least two other editors disagree with you on this point alone, please review your approach to WP:Consensus. Please also stop reverting reinclusions of redlinks and mention of these calendars in other articles. Regards, --Greatwalk 08:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

You are once again ignoring the point: the advice that was given to you related to deletions for non-notability, not for non-verifiability. To quote from your own talk page, "on the other hand, if Pak had provided an edit summary that justified removal of the information based on the absence of an appropriate reference, that would be irrefutably correct" is the advice you were given. I have explained the reasoning for the removal here, and you are persisently ignoring the crucial point here: there is not a single secondary source for any of this information. If some evidence could be provided that Peter Meyer is actually a respected professional in the field of calendar research (eg peer reviewed papers on the subject), I can see that some of his inventions may be valid for passing mentions, but without that evidence, these mentions remain pure original research and should be deleted from Wikipedia. With regard to your final comment, I have not reverted any changes on this subject since you actually began discussing it here, so I fail to see why you have mentioned this again. --Pak21 08:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"... a respected C programmer"? Does "Novelty Theory" deserve scientific respect, or is it considered pseudo-science? Do 9/11 conspiracy theories deserve respect? If ideas such as these don't deserve respect then neither does a major contributor to such ideas. If a specific calendar proposal is mentioned online in exactly two places (Meyer's self promoting web site and wikipedia) then I say it completely fails the test of notability and should be completely erased from wikipedia. Respecting the integrity of wikipedia and providing reputable information to wikipedia users is more important than manufacturing "respect" for someone who once had 55 links from wikipedia articles into his commercial web site. I for one absolutely applaud deletion of the articles in question and I vote for purging all mentions of the corresponding proposals from wikipedia. 4.246.231.235 23:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It is strange that I put up a drawing of a calendar on wikipedia this afternoon, in this section, including quoting as a source a national newspaper, and then someone removes it and says information cannot be put up without a reliable source and tells me to go to their chat if I want to chat about it. Isn't the best place to talk about perceived problems with a page the page itself? The first section starts with a note from wikipedia saying "This section does not cite any sources." but has that section been removed by the same person? They may be quite right, but seemingly going the wrong way about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 08:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

"Missing" days

In the section on the change-over from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, it says: "This was perceived by the public as missing those days, although they were in fact committed as several February 29ths during the preceding centuries."

I thought this was a myth; that is, that the public thought they had had 11 days taken from their lives. Wasn't it the case that the outcry was because they would have to pay their taxes 11 days earlier than usual?

I don't understand "committed as" - what does this mean? Wouldn't "restored" be a better term? — Paul G 14:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

See Calendar_(New_Style)_Act_1750 -- Churchh (talk) 22:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Two related Articles

Two articles dealing with related subjects - the World Calendar, a uniform date for Easter and date notations - are at

http://users.bigpond.net.au/renton/301.htm and http://users.bigpond.net.au/renton/302.htm

Nercat (talk) 09:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Astronomically Correct Calendars Proposed

I suggest someone to create an article called "Astronomically Correct Calendars Proposed". That article would list (and explain) all attempts thorough History to create Astronomically Correct Calendars... For example: Calendars that choose an Equinox day or a Solstice day for the first day of the year; Calendars that try to harmonize the course of the Moon with the course of the Sun (luna-solars); Calendars based on the course of other heavenly bodies, like Venus; or Zodiacal-based Calendars; you name it. Any thing but religious-based counting though. It would remove cultural bias from the debate without removing the calendars themselves from the debate, and it would also provide a "directory" within Wikipedia for people to research on non-biased Calendar Reform projects.

I, for one, am I supporter of a global calendar reform. I'm a Latin-American (Western under several points of view, non-Western under others) and I understand that the fact that, whether you are Western or Non-Western, it should not play any role on your opinion on what should be the best choices for a Calendar Reform. If you wanna know my opinion on a civil calendar, I believe the Jalali Iranian Calender is the most astronomically accurate calendar in civil use nowdays (and I'm neither a Muslin nor a Zoroastric either; but a Protestant); and I think the Era Anno Domini should be discharged because it does not have a Zero Year and also (and, mainly) because it's already proven that Jesus was born neither in December 25 nor in the year 1 BC.

Again, in my opinion, the best choice for a new counting of years would be via basing it on Scaliger's Julian Period; reason? Simple, most of our BIOS and software already use the Julian days for Java and PHP scripts in many gadgets and applicationes; all the astronomers got used to the Julian Days since a century ago, so it would be easier for us all to take the next March Equinox in 2010 AD as the Jalali day 1 ("Norouz") of the Jalali month 1 ("Farvardin") of the year 6723 of the Julian Period. And no need to replace the Prime Meridian to Tehran, just borrow the algorithm the Iranians already do. Frankly, I know no better option in which regards an astronomically-friendly Reformed Calendar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.25.88.202 (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

It is a shame that the calendar's start date of the Earth's journey around the Sun can not be initialized at a geometric starting point. The winter solstice would be a good choice and has nothing to do with creatures living on it. However these creatures need an Earth calendar that is perpetual. One that is consistent with the current seven day calendar but not with dependent on days outside the week required by religion or leap weeks outside the year. Sonnypondrom (talk) 17:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Having done my own research into astronomically based calendars, I agree that having an article that focuses on calendars that strive for astronomical accuracy would be valuable. Like the arguably most accurate calendar to currently exist, the Solar Hijri calendar. It can be difficult to find as there are many diverse approaches worldwide and seeing them all in one article would be very useful.65.92.205.173 (talk) 18:15, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Reservations and expectations arising from religion, because there are many denominations, are irreconcilable, so the solution must be sought in science. This will be a mediator difficult to swallow because it is sometimes presented as the opposite of faith. But throughout history, in all civilizations, astronomy has always been behind the creation of calendars!

1. It is a pity that the article does not contain information about existing, still operating organizations that are trying to change the calendar. Adding this would be greatly appreciated.

2. But staying on the subject of astronomically correct calendars - some major discrepancies, a multitude of proposals - we should not expect.

3. When creating a calendar, you need to be aware of what it is for. From the astronomer's point of view, it is to be a tool, an instrument for measuring time. Or describes his transformation. And if it is to be a tool that fulfills its role, then any interference in its construction that violates its basic, the only indisputable and really important function should be rejected.

4. What's important: it's about the current time and the calculation (convenient and accurate) of this elapsed time for everyday use. Not for the use of historians and past events.

5. From the point of view of someone who needs to systematically and profitably measure (or report) the passage of time, some unit of time of variable length makes no sense. Therefore, for example, months with different number of days proposed in the Symmetry454 calendar are unacceptable from this point of view. It is as if every third hour had 80 minutes, and the remaining 50 minutes... Among the more important proposals, this condition is met only by equal months of 28 days, with the exception of one day longer.

6. The basic, smallest unit of time used in the calendar is the day. If we are to measure time in a methodical and meaningful way, the permissible maximum inaccuracy, the discrepancy with astronomical time, cannot be greater than this unit. This eliminates the idea of intercellular weeks.

BaSzRafael (talk) 23:08, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Merge discussion, Symmetry454

I've proposed merging Symmetry454 here. The topic does not appear to have sufficient notability to merit its own article (Google books hits 0, Worldcat hits 0, Google scholar hits 1, JSTOR hits 0), but might merit a brief mention in this one. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:27, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

The article has a lot of references, and GOOD ones (Wall St. Journal, Toronto Star, Discovery Channel, etc.) are certainly plausible and count as "notable" sources. The problem is, you have removed all the content, and I believe that is misguided. Please explain why you have done this. - Nhprman 15:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. I removed only the unreferenced content, as I hope the edit summary "remove unreferenced material per WP:Verifiability" makes quite clear. What then remained was regrettably short; I nominated it for deletion, but that did not find consensus. Now I have suggested merging it here (it'll be a sentence or so, with GOOD references). This wiki is not the place for fringe theories. Of course, if you can show me where this proposal has been discussed in a peer-reviewed academic publication, I'll be happy to recognise its non-fringe status and remove the merge tag, though the COI problem will still remain. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:15, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

So your judgement is that Calendar Reform is a "fringe theory?" and that's where you're starting in your assessment of content for this article? First: It's not a 'theory' it's an academic area of study and the creator of that reform proposal is an academic with credentials, and with decent sources that clearly are "notable." Second, it's not up to you to decide what is and is not fringe. Otherwise, why are there articles here about UFOs? I suppose those are next in the deletionist crosshairs, eh? I'm always truly amazed at the attitude of Wikipedians who seek to limit and eliminate all content from WP based on purely judgement calls like this. You shouldn't be getting away with blanking pages that have survived AfD's, either. - Nhprman 20:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

With no expertise in this subject matter, I have created a stub for the Hanke-Henry proposal and thought that an appropriate approach would be to have a section in the reform article providing Wiki links to other articles providing more detail on the various proposals such as Symmetry454. The alternative is cluttering the reform article which doesn't seem useful. Squeakycatta (talk) 08:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC) squeakycatta

Five Seasons Calendar

Spring: 2 months or 55 days or 8 weeks from Monday. February, 24 days; March, 31days.
Summer: 3 months or 91 days or 13 weeks from Sunday. April, 30 days; May, 31 days; June, 30 days.
Canicula: 2 months or 62 days or 9 weeks from Sunday. July, 31 days; August, 31 days.
Autumn: 3 months or 91 days or 13 weeks from Saturday. September, 30 days; October, 31 days; November, 30 days.
Winter: 2 months or 62 days or 9 weeks from Saturday. December, 31 days; January, 31 days.
Yearend: 4-5 days. Yearend 1st, Friday; Yearend 2nd, Saturday. Yearend 3rd-5th, Sunday.
orienome (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Calendar reform proposals are a dime a dozen. Only proposals that have received significant coverage in reliable independent sources should be mentioned in the article. See WP:Notability. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:26, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

And for others there’s still Wikia. — Christoph Päper 20:20, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Gregorian Reform

In the article, only the reform of the solar year is at stake, but the reform of 1582 was equally a reform of the lunar year. In other words, my impression is that the Gregorian reform as a whole has unhappily escaped the article.Ulrich Voigt (talk) 12:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The lunar aspects of the Gregorian reform are discussed at Gregorian calendar#Preparation. Perhaps a phrase or sentence should be inserted into this article to refer to that discussion. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:35, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Calendars at Wikia

Nikkimaria (talk · contribs) has removed links to calendars.wikia.com, referencing WP:ELNO without citing a specific part. I assume the reason for removal was the currently twelfth point listed there:

Open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors.

The Calendars site at Wikia lists several designs and proposals that lack the notability to be included in Wikipedia, hence may be of further interest to readers of this article. I don’t know any other site that covers as many calendars in a neutral fashion. If there is one please go ahead and link that instead, otherwise I believe this is a case where we shouldn’t take WP:LINKSTOAVOID too literal or as too strict and therefore allow links to Wikia. — Christoph Päper 11:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Some of the design and proposal articles are credited to English Wikipedia (see WP:CIRCULAR). Others are unverifiable research. In short, the site is not valuable enough to warrant ignoring the external links guideline. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:38, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Many proposals are not notable enough for Wikipedia and, by definition, most of them would be considered original research here. The same discussion has occurred on most articles about proposals that we deemed notable and verifiable enough for Wikipedia (e.g. Sym454 or Hanke/Henry). That’s why Wikia is an appropriate place for them. But take a moment to think about who’s most likely to read this very article and what additional information they would seek beyond an encyclopedia entry – for some, that certainly includes stuff other people have made up one day at school and guidelines on how to invent a custom (fictional) calendar, so they’re not reinventing the wheel and won’t be stepping into common pitfalls. If there‘s a better resource than calendars.wikia.com for that kind of information, please add it, otherwise it’s a valueable and beneficial link for some readers of this article. It may also help to stop some editors from adding their (favorite) proposals to Wikipedia (again). — Christoph Päper 10:38, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of having external links at all is to provide information that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the topic. Stuff people have made up one day at school, etc is by definition not encyclopedic. We're not a directory of all the sites that people might be interested in. And we don't add inappropriate links just to prevent bad edits. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:23, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 December 2016

Brasilis Freak (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Brasilis Freak: You need to make a specific request, so we know what you want changed in the article. —C.Fred (talk) 21:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Advantages and disadvantages of calendar designs

Do we have an agreed-upon list of advantages and disadvantages of calendar designs?

This should be applied to the articles on specific calendars, e.g. World Calendar, Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar, International Fixed Calendar, Symmetry454 Calendar etc. IFC is currently being tagged with {{fact}} by IP User 91.10.44.33 for this reason. — Christoph Päper 09:28, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 October 2018

Include A Bioregional Calendar as seen here: http://astuc.ca/abc.htm 66.203.191.30 (talk) 00:22, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Not done. Calendar reform proposals are a dime a dozen. No proposal should be added to this article unless it has been considered in reliable secondary sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:47, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

That's what Wikia is for. — Christoph Päper 18:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Why talk on your talk page about edits on another page which itself has a talk page?

• Image in question: — Christoph Päper 16:20, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, go back to the "calendar reform" talk page and explain there why a national newspaper is not a suitable source for wikipedia leading you to delete a single sentence and image while the first whole section of the page has a comment from wikipedia saying "This section does not cite any sources" and you leave the entire section there. Maybe a non-sourced poor introduction to the page is setting up the page for failure? This really needs discussing on the pages talk page so a wider audience can contribute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 08:52, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I moved above from my talk page. I undid this edit because it did not contain any citation. I noticed that other nearby mentions of calendar proposals at least had links to Wikipedia articles, so I didn't delete the others. But if somebody else wants to delete them it's fine with me. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Most of the page is not cited but you left it alone. You still didn't answer why. This indicates there is something else about the image you deleted you didn't like. This is particularly true because it did contain a citation, in the image, so your reasoning is invalid or you didn't even bother to read what you deleted. Were you just careless? If you are not willing to give a valid reason for deleting the image with citation then reverse your edit, otherwise it might be misconstrued as being a malicious rather than well intended edit.

Regarding your comment "But if somebody else wants to delete them it's fine with me.". This is rather a careless statement. You should be looking at the value or lack of it things add to the page not whether its something that's "fine with me" to delete or not. It shouldn't be fine with you if I delete the useful introduction one the page because it has no citations, unless I can put something better in its place. If things add value and don't have citations then I add a citation where I can, I don't just delete it because it disagrees with my sensibilities. Such methodology would simply lead to Wikipedia being the a reflection of opinions of people who have the most time to go around and delete things they don't like the look of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2404:4408:2023:EB00:9C9E:ABB1:BBC3:D09 (talk) 11:31, 27 September 2019 (UTC) Tgru001 (talk) 21:09, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Citing sources. The basic idea is that if I am in a library that holds the cited work, a proper citation will lead me to the work, and the exact page in the work that supports the claim in the Wikipedia article. The image contains no citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:07, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Therefor your criticism isn't that there was no citation, but that the citation was not detailed enough so you delete the whole image. Rather a blunt stick approach but it has some logic. I guess you don't have access to the original newspaper either so you didn't want to take the time to refine the reference by adding a page number rather than delete it. Prior to 1940 the paper is on line as historic, easy to access. Later copies were originally in the public library held as bound year copies. These volumes by year took too much space so they moved them to microfilm. Converting them to an on line version is yet to happen. To get the exact page one of us would have to book time on the microfiche reader which is in high demand, go to the city center holding them, do the search, add the page number. When the copies of the paper past 1940 and prior to the paper going electronic comes on line it makes makes sense to add the page number and it's likely someone will when it happens. For now, putting that amount of effort into adding that level of detail to a citation that relatively few people in the world can read until they go online seems unreasonable.

What I would like to see is this page have a change of emphasis for which there may be easier to locate references. What are the drivers in society to develop calendars? Why in the introduction does it indicate that calendars just need to locate time in history using numbers to be a calendar and no more? How narrow is that? Prehistoric calendars (bone) had months. Before artificial light, at some stage, the human reproductive cycle was tied like many animals to the lunar cycle. This has evolved over billions of years before people could think of calendars, but is now apparently irrelevant? Months are arguably essential to a calendar involving humans and animals generally and by definition all calendars are made by humans. And weeks? Lunar quarters are weeks, much easier to count than a lunar cycle in days that can vary by days between months. And days themselves speak for themselves, they impact us even now though modern society tries to ignore them too.Tgru001 (talk) 21:45, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Adding to the article so it does more to address the issue of what do people need from calendars, and under what circumstances a calendar reform tends to be successful, is a good idea. But the basic analysis would need to be done and published by appropriate scholars; then the sources could be summarized here.

As for citations, when a Wikipedia editor adds a citation, the editor is indicating the editor read the citation and believes the source verifies the claim in the article. If you didn't read the newspaper article yourself, you can't add it as a citation. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:23, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

You are jumping to conclusions. I did read the article when it was published in the newspaper. The year was noted in some literature I have from then but the issue of the newspaper was not noted. When I went on line to get the detail I found it was not there. You seem to be questioning more what I am doing then what I put onto the page. I have still to hear a substantiated reason for you deleting the image. I'm beginning to believe you did so on the basis of assumptions that were not correct. Now that your assumptions on which you based your edit are shown to be incorrect it would be consistent of you to take action to reverse your edit? Tgru001 (talk) 01:22, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

The image is a hopeless mess and hardly anyone has taken notice of the calendar it attempts to explain. Mention in one issue of a local newspaper is not sufficient notoriety to make a calendar proposal worthy of being mentioned in this article. WP:V explains the sorts of sources that should be used. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:31, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, I've seen you have rearranged the debate above from how it happened, perhaps to try and make it more useful. You still don't say why a you call the New Zealand Herald a local newspaper. The United Nations considers New Zealand a member nation. I can provide a citation showing this but you would probably criticize the source as not being authoritative (that's a joke). I am not just trying to be annoying with the citation question. Recently my edits included dictionary definitions of "calendar" and "reform". Uncertain as to the editorial process if any around Wiktionary I also use the Cambridge dictionary but both definitions were deleted. When a definition is required what dictionary's are considered suitable as a Wikipedia reference? The definitions source is not likely to change the meaning of the paragraph deleted but I am still unsure what source of a words definition wont be deleted by a well meaning editor. The definition of calendar reform at the top of the wiki page needs teasing out. One of the reasons I found this whole page confusing to start with is it attempts to entirely mix up the older definition and more modern definitions into a gooey mess. Calendar reforms of the magnitude of the Gregorian and Julian were defined as reforms because "broken" calendars causing pressures on society called for a change that came from society and the leadership. Those calendar reforms are mixed up with modern term which equates to something like "Various proposals of improved calendars that attempt to supplant the Gregorian." As I work down the page to separate out the two definitions a bit more cleanly I need a starting point that does not keep getting deleted. Otherwise the page will fall back into a gooey confusing mix of the two definitions again. Unless there is an opinion out there that the older and newer definitions can't be separated and can be used interchangeably? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 07:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Astrolynx, I clicked on your user and you don't exist so I can't take your edit seriously. Especially when you call a classic calendar work translating old calendars outdated when it is used by publications I have read in the 1990s because there is not more "up to date" reference they wanted to use. If yoiu really think I should discuss edits on this page before making them then why didn't you? It's hard to take you seriously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 08:34, 30 September 2019 (UTC) Tgru001 (talk) 08:51, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

So I comment on the reasons for the change on the talk page as indicated above, as this was a criticism from Astrolynx who apparently had missed his opportunity to comment here before the change. Astrolynx then reverses the change again without talking about it here on the talk page before making his change either. Perhaps he has no coherent reason to offer here on the Talk page?Tgru001 (talk) 08:51, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

One mention in any newspaper decades ago does not make this calendar worth mentioning. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Which just goes to show Jc3s5h that you deleted the image and reference without reading the article you critique, you are simply wrong. Your straw men criticisms are two easily knocked over and are irrelevant banter that you seem to enjoy for some reason. I have not added the calendar back because adding to this page without first distungiushing properly between the historic and modern definitions of calendar reform would be inappropriate. And with Jc3s5h and Astrolynx reversing edits that might help move the article out of start class, without giving reasons that stand up to even cursory scrutiny, this article is likely to stay as a start class for as long as they hang around. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 09:23, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Making clear which meaning of "Calendar reform" is being used at different places in the article

Hi Jc3s5h, maybe I should have started a new section as I have never reversed the edit you made regarding a newspaper decades ago, I was talking about later edits I did, some of which Astrolynx reversed. Regardless of how good I am at citations in this field of endeavor this page is in poor shape just from the consistency of use of the definitions for calendar reform. I am trying to separate out the old meaning of "Calendar reform" from the newer meanings, something the article seems to have neglected. Even the subscript of the Page title says it has more than one meaning "Calendar reform or calendrical reform, is any significant revision of a calendar system. The term sometimes is used instead for a proposal to switch to a different calendar design." It seems logical to explain what is meant by a "significant revision" as opposed to ones that could be called not significant and therefore not "reform" in that sense rather than frequently use the term ambiguously. To say as the article does "There have been 50 to 100 reforms of the traditional Chinese calendar over 2500 years" without citation is so vague as to be meaningless as to whether they are "significant" in terms of the definition for the page, or even if they are reforms at all. To call the Islamic calendar a reform of some older one, without citations is just not sensible especially when the cited properly elsewhere in wikipedia it refers to the calendar as the beginning of an epoch rather than a reform. When I first read the article I had assumed it was only about proposals for reform, as historic calendar reforms are far better covered and cited under the separate calendar pages already in Wikipedia. I thought the scantly covered large reforms were just meant as examples of major reforms that stuck for long periods. Re-reading the article assuming the original editors did not make clear which of the definitions was being used in each context the article is highly ambiguous. My more recent edits started from the top of the article and worked down, separating out the information according to the historical use of the term "calendar reform" from more current uses. I thought I had done at least one citation well but Astrolynx decides it is two old a citation and deletes the lot. I admit citations in the arts area are not my forte. However the whole article has almost none of use before I started and I don't see the point in trying to dig up citations to support a structure that is too ambiguous to be very meaningful to start with. Astrolynx says changes should be discussed here first, but apparently this is also a grey area, because some edits they didn't change and the ones they did they didn't discuss here before Astrolynx made them. Nor has Astrolynx tried to engage other than reverting edits they don't like even if its just because in their opinion they are "outdated". I now can see clearly now why my original posting was reacted to so strongly by you and have never reversed it. You have been willing to take the time to engage. Astrolynx doesn't even seem to bother to have a user page much less engage in a useful way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 07:44, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Some comments on using outdated sources. Emmeline Mary Plunket's Ancient Calendars and Constellations (1903) is a republication of various articles published between 1892 and 1901. Although still available as a modern reprint most scholars on the history of astronomy and calendars ignore it as it is hopelessly outdated and many of her claims were already dismissed when it was originally published. It is now only cited by authors of fringe theories on the antiquity of Babylonian astronomy and civilization who are willing to believe that Sargon lived around 3800 BC (p. viii) or that the zodiac was invented as early as 6000 BC (p. ix).

Basing your arguments solely on Plunket's book is to pretend that no further research on ancient calendars and astronomy has been done in the century which has passed since its first publication. If the Accadian Calendar really is as old as you claim it to be then it should be fairly easy to find other more recent scholarly sources that can corroborate your claim. Just for the record, I do have a Talk Page and please sign your own comments by adding four tildes (~) at the end. AstroLynx (talk) 08:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Astrolynx. I understand where you are coming from. Please understand you are misquoting me when you say "Accadian Calendar really is as old as you claim". I don't claim this, I cite someone else who does not claim it either. She is speculating based on her translations of ancient texts. While you state otherwise you presumably understand I did not refer to Plunket's book or later reprints but the original proceedings. This was deliberate as in the article in her own words she says of her paper on the Acadian Calendar "It may seem that too much weight has been attached in this Paper to what can only be called a guess; but there is so much we desire to know". For you to say "it is hopelessly outdated and many of her claims were already dismissed when it was originally published" is stating what the author knew herself. Its easy to criticize others, but she is something much rarer, self critical. The piece I quoted from her article for Wikipedia was to do with how authors in the calendar field at the time of the publication were using the term calendar reform. Whether her "guess" pans out to be true, that the calendar changed little for thousands of years is for the experts to rebuff or not with archaeological evidence. Not for debate here. It is far more difficult for her to prove the Accadian Calendar hardly changed than for her detractors to prove it did as they only need to find a single significant change. Maybe that is why even 100 years later it still gets reprinted. But as I say, I was establishing how calendar reform was viewed historically. That was the quote. Not as proof that her claims represent a proof or are a perfect academic work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 08:50, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Apologies, but this is not how I read your proposed edit. Perhaps you should reformulate it in such a way as to make it clearer. The way I read your edit suggested to me that there once existed an Accadian calendar that had not significantly changed in 6000 years.

No, I do not have a home page on WP and many other editors do not have a home page either -- having a home page is optional and not a necessary requirement for being allowed to edit. As I mentioned earlier, I do have a talk page and you can always reach me there if you have a question. And no, I did not revert your edit by mistake -- in my opinion a reference to Plunket's outdated book is not helpful in the way that you have formulated it but other editors can of course disagree with this. AstroLynx (talk) 09:18, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Astrolynx, I suspect your apology above is rather hollow for 3 reasons. 1)you call the published edit you deleted a proposed edit despite implying you did it mistakenly by apologizing. 2)you have not reversed the edit. 3)You are still not following basic wikipedia common practice of having a home page. Is this your only ID on wikipedia?Tgru001 (talk) 09:03, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

So Astrolynx, according to your apology above the way you read the edit "suggested to you" something you did not like so apparently you did not think it fit to reverse your edit. If I replace the edit, and then reword it to make it even clearer that I am not suggesting that I or the citation is presenting a proof for a calendar that was unchanged for 6000 years, are you likely to not reverse it? Or have you another pile of reasons lined up for reversing the edit that you are holding back in case I decide to reverse it with the change you asked for? If the latter present your arguments now rather than later so your edits can be seen as constructive rather than destructive. Aren't you tired of this page being ranked "start class" for so long? New contributions may not be perfect, but the old structure is obviously not perfect either and leaving it unchanged is not going to get it out of the starting blocks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 09:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

If you are unsure about a proposed edit you can always first post it here to let some other editors look at it before you place it on the main page. If the proposed edit is indeed an improvement nobody will object. I have inserted a colon before your edit so that other readers can see that this is a new comment by you. AstroLynx (talk) 09:38, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Why start you response with a question rather than the answer which never comes? To answer your question I am not unsure of my edit, I am only unsure of what your response would be to it. Another reversal by you followed by another apology by you would not be an effective use of your time. No one else objected to the edits I made. The only piece reacted to was by you, this one "It remained arguably the same for some 6000 years by which time the stars had receded from the seasons by some 3 months." Apparently you somehow interpreted "The way I read your edit suggested to me that there once existed an Accadian calendar that had not significantly changed in 6000 years.". Since any other problems you perceived with the edits were not significant enough to worth mentioning but interpreting that one line was a significant problem for you I will change it to "The Accadian calendar lacked reform for so long the stars had receeded from the seasons by some 3 months." If others wish to see the rest of the edits you reversed rather than reproducing them here they can do the comparisons by checking Astrolynx edits of the page "Revision as of 08:33, 30 September 2019". If all the hard work you do deleting other people's contributions wasn't so great I would reproduce them all here but I don't want to fill a discussion page with all the detailed edits when you are only objecting to this one.

I don't see a question mark anywhere in my reply so I cannot answer your question why I responded with a question (which I didn't). If you feel that your edit is good then by all means insert it. When your edit is an improvement nobody will change or remove it but when it is not an improvement then other editors have the right to change or remove it. As you say that you are new, it may be helpful to make small changes at a time. If you want to make a large change in one single go, it is best to first discuss this on the talk page. And please sign your comments with four tildes at the end, how difficult is this? AstroLynx (talk) 08:00, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I thought the lack of a question mark was a typo as the sentence starts "If you are unsure about a proposed edit". Either you are making a false assumption or you were asking for confirmation. As you were not asking for confirmation using a question then I'll take it you are advising me on a false assumption that I was unsure of my edit. Followed by your false statement that I said I was new as I said rather I was new to referencing in this filed. You false staements about me are consistent with the fact you say "If you want to make a large change in one single go, it is best to first discuss this on the talk page." Saying I should discuss it on the talk page is a criticism not in very good faith as this entire section is a discussion around my proposed changes and it is on the talk page you are advising me to have it on. So far, other than your bad faith shown here, no one has criticised the edit. Regarding the signing, thanks for the reminders each time. Without them I tend to forget so I hope you don't start forgetting to remind me as well. Luckily my real ID is there for you to fall back on even if my memory fails on occassion. Tgru001 (talk) 09:53, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I am amazed how you can construe the first sentence of my posting on the 7th to be a veiled question -- your command of English is obviously much better than mine (I should of course mention here that English is not my first language). My suggestion to first discuss your proposed edits here were only meant to be helpful but in nearly every instance you have managed to read it as a criticism of your work or as a possible sign of my insincerity. I am at loss how to further help you in being a useful contributor to WP. Make your edits as you please -- if they are an improvement nobody will touch them but if they are not an improvement or simply wrong you cannot expect that other editors will not take appropriate action. AstroLynx (talk) 11:15, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you are "at loss how to further help you" because the most help you have been is to remind me to sign with tildes at the end, but even that you are now neglecting. Your statement refering to my edits "if they are an improvement nobody will touch them" is patently incorrect as many of your statements have been. It is incorrect for at least two reasons. 1) WP has dispute resolution procedures etc for when people do inappropriate editing. 2) I am always hopeful someone will come along and improve my edits rather than nobody touching them as it appears is your goal. As you seem to think my command of English "is obviously much better than mine" I must think the best of you too and assume your lack of English comprehension resulted in your reversal of my edits as you have been unwilling to engage here in an effective discussion as to why you changed them. Nor have you reverted the edits after you apologized for invalid reasoning given for doing them. So keep your anonimity and your reasoning to yourself if you find that comforting. I will just have to guess at your motives for reverting my edits as you refuse to give valid reasons. Giving you the benifit of the doubt I have to put it down to one of the few things you have told me about yourself. I'll assume your reasoning is just because you can't comprehend the English I use well enough to know when you are doing something wrong by reverting my edits. Assuming that is true, I hope you remain happy in your ignorance and I hope one day you move to your native language on Wikipedia (HTML?) and discuss there where you can perhaps do less damage to start class articles. There is little point in me trying to improve an article by editing it when someone who can't comprehend what is being written well enough to critique it is still willing to revert the changes they don't fully comprehend. It's a shame WP is the one to suffer for now, at least until you get bored or move on for another reason. But hopefully it will outlive both of us.Tgru001 (talk) 06:56, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I cannot help you any further -- you will have to figure it out yourself or enlist the help of other editors. I think that I have been patient enough with your baseless allegations about my motivations or my sincerity. If you have issues with my editing behaviour you can always report me to the appropriate authorities. AstroLynx (talk) 08:27, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

If the Accadian calendar had previously been mentioned on the page and how often it changed or did not, then my reference to it would not seem to imply that I was trying to introduce a calendar that was absent from the page entirely. Feel free to re-introduce and edit the comment to reflect your opinion, or even better add a reference to the Accadian Calendar that shows it changed every 50 years or whatever and therefore showed Plunket that any reform was not resisted by the religious at the time. I picked the Accadian calendar by searching for the term "calendar reform", trying to find original references outside the Julian, Gregorian and modern reform proposals that haven't stuck. If you can find a better one great, if you can't I think you have detracted from the page by removing all reference to one of the oldest calendars in the world which, if it wasn't reformed, was a prime historical candidate. Maybe that's why it isn't around any more?

As a more general comment. I think reputable authors at their time like Emmeline Plunket, who stick their neck out a bit by speculating using common sense to introduce new ideas and therefore debate should be appreciated, not dismissed or even ridiculed because their speculations may turn out to be wrong. Karl Popper might say something like, if you don't have ideas that are wrong so someone else can try and falsify them your knowledge wouldn't progress as quickly. Darwin's theory of Evolution started out as speculation and was ridiculed by peers. When Darwin became popular Lamarck was ridiculed. Now Lamarck's idea does turn out to have evidence to back it and is making a come back, albeit in a different form. My feeling is Wikipedia should be written to outlast popular perceptions of "reality" so ideas that held sway for a significant time need to stay in the record in the proper context. Readers reading any encyclopedia want ideas. I use to love reading a 1890's version of the Encyclopedia Britannica we use to have when I was young because it was cheap second hand. Knowing that what I read was outdated made it all the more interesting. I wish we had space to bring the Goliath with us when we moved!

---

I had remembered to log in but nearly forgot the tildes Tgru001 (talk) 23:03, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Please sign your own comments by adding four tildes (~) at the end. AstroLynx (talk) 11:17, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

In this edit [1] you reverted sourced fact claiming the addition was "repeated vandalism". Please explain how you evaluated that addition as "repeated vandalism". 86.146.193.136 (talk) 11:29, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

See User_talk:AstroLynx#Calendar_changes_in_Europe_east_of_France_since_the_Reformation, final comments. AstroLynx (talk) 12:42, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Astrolynx home page

Astrolynx, please use a user name AstroLynx that links to somewhere rather than a page that does not exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 09:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

See talk page. AstroLynx (talk) 09:22, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Astrolynx, I looked at your talk page and it is very nice. Great you advertise the pillars of Wiikipedia etc. But where is your home page? Wikipedia provides you with a home page for a reason and asks you nicely to fill it out. Without a home page it is easier for people to have multiple log ins on Wikipedia to conceal their activities and therefor real intents. Can you confirm AstroLynx is your only identity on Wikipedia? I don't want to waste the time of the administrators with a complaint but if you are unwilling to acknowledge that AstroLynx is you only identity on Wikipedia I will. My memory must be improving, I remebered the 4 tildes this time. Tgru001 (talk) 19:25, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

As I mentioned earlier having a WP home page is optional and I am certainly not the only WP editor without a homepage. If you have reasons to doubt the sincerity of my edits or the use of multiple identities on WP then by all means open a discussion on the appropriate noticeboards. Please use this talk page only for the improvement of this article. And you can also reach me on my own talk page. AstroLynx (talk) 08:04, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

You repeatably use this page to tell me to sign edits with Tgru001 (talk) 08:43, 3 October 2019 (UTC) which I try and remember to do despite already signing them with a real user ID. Yet when I do the same to remind you of wikipedia etiquette when you only sign with a pseudonym and you say do it somewhere else? Where is the consistency? The same place as the consistency with critiquing other's work on this page? Tell me, before you criticize the forum I will bring it up in, tell me which forum you think deals with problems caused by people having multiple identities on wikipedia such as the problems I perceive, true or not, in you case?

I only asked you twice to sign your comments (which you have forgotten again -- so now three times). If you have issues with my editing behaviour then perhaps Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations is the proper avenue to address your concerns. AstroLynx (talk) 08:53, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Astrolynx, thanks for restoring this section. As others changed this page to alter its sense without discussion I thought it was not against any rules to change it. I wouldn't want to delete only my parts of the discussions as it reduces the readability. The most useful part I found was you last post about where to address concerns, but if you think the rest is still useful I'll leave it intact.Tgru001 (talk) 03:58, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Reference 4 goes to www.timeanddate.com

My reading of citations requirements would indicate that using www.timeanddate.com is not suitable, particularly because it contains advertising, currently for Samsung cell phones. If I'm not mistaken while it is not a book it falls under "Self-published books, personal Web sites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources." Rather than just delete it I'll try and find something similar first that falls within Wikipedia's guidelines better. Still may not be perfect, but better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 08:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC) Tgru001 (talk) 19:34, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Astrolynx, I made the change discussed above and you have apparently reversed it leaving no reason. The citation I removed was that of a company with no overt authority to publish in this area or peer review and contained advertising. The image I replaced it with was a drawing of a calendar that demonstrated the similar information visually to assist the readers understanding what a historical calendar might look like but without the commercial content. Can you please explain why you deleted the published content?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 19:34, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you did not notice it but 31 October was missing in the proposed month table (I did mention this in the summary, perhaps you should read it again). As far as I know 31 October 1582 was not scrapped from the calendar (anywhere!) and a source which makes such a claim cannot be considered to be very reliable. AstroLynx (talk) 08:11, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

It is a stretch to refer to a typo in an image as an unreliable source. It was not even a citation. Are you so poor in reading? I read no mention of the missing day in the summary, it was blank at the time I looked. If there is a typo it can be corrected. I will do so and then reinsert the image. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgru001 (talk • contribs) 09:19, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

See [2]. AstroLynx (talk) 09:28, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

WP:QUESTIONABLE states in part

Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, that are promotional in nature, or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions.

There is a difference between publications that are promotional in nature, like most of the Amazon website, and reliable publications that contain advertisements, such as The New York Times or Scientific American. Maintaining otherwise cannot be accepted as a good-faith position and editors maintaining such nonsense may be referred to administrators for appropriate action. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:42, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

So in the case of timeanddate.com the samsung phone advert seems to have now disappeared, though could re-appear at any time, but I don't seem to see on the page any reference to editorial oversight. How does it meet the criteria you just mentioned "or with no editorial oversight"?

What does the Samsung advert have to do with anything being discussed here? Web pages are allowed to have adverts even in references. There's a difference between a webpage that is advertising and a webpage that contains advertising. The former is not permitted, while the later is. Canterbury Tail talk 12:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I can't tell what the underlying issue was behind this wall of text, but as someone involved in timezone issues, I can vouch that timeanddate.com is an accurate and comprehensive source. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 15:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm sure the issue behind the wall of text differs for each of the contributors. Personally I'm trying to get consistent standards of editing on the page from a neutral stance. Overall the referencing may be "perfect" in terms of trying to match rules for Wikipedia but is scant and often less than ideal, neutrality seems missing. Introducing a citation of one of the oldest calendars in the world in dire need of reform at its time was deleted promptly as being old. It may not have been perfectly presented but gave more information then zero and could easily have bee edited by the editor rather than just deleted. On the other hand timeanddate.com was used to give a graphical representation of a single month, not as a site for converting time or calendars. I didn't need a citation at all, just a picture. But to see the picture the citation take you off to an advert first. Again when I insert a picture with a typo, rather correct the typo the editor deletes it. Even now, with the picture there the rather out of context citation is left. I don't mind the odd marginal citation alongside valuable ones. However deleting important classic ones at the expense of, well modernist type ones distorts the whole page's view of the topic. It's one of the reasons I misposted something on there in the first place.Tgru001 (talk) 23:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

If timeanddate.com meets WP:RS, the wrong page is being cited. This page [3] directly supports the statement being made, without requiring the reader to resort to arithmetic. Frankly though, it should be possible to find a better source for this than an online calendar - calendar changes have been discussed in detail in many works written by academic historians. 86.143.228.87 (talk) 15:43, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

If timeanddate.com meets WP:RS? I did ask what the editorial oversight for timeanddate.com was but no answer came other than another editor saying they could vouch for it. I'm not sure that counts as WP:RS. I noticed Jc3s5h knows a great detail about the Harvard site I proposed to stand beside timeanddate.com and they weren't absolute in their language but listed in great detail where the site was derived from and the quality of the work. Perhaps Jc3s5h could help us and list here who the programmer of timeanddate.com and how it's algorithms are independently verified as being valid? We can then more easily decide if either reference is suitable?Tgru001 (talk) 01:23, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I did look up a bit more on timeanddate.com just now. It is even more bewildering now to me why it is used here. While their site does not explicitly say anything about an editorial process ensuring it's quality it does say

"Information on this website may contain technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Information may be changed or updated without notice. Time and Date AS may also make improvements and/or changes in the products and/or the services at any time without notice. Time and Date AS takes absolutely no responsibility for any errors on the site. You use the information at your own risk." It does not inspire confidence that it attempts to meet WP:RS in any way.

Tgru001 (talk) 02:40, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm starting to get the swing of this, maybe..... Past pages I have edited seemed to have no interest from editors other than the bots and correcting typos but here diplomacy seems more important. I can see timeanddate.com could be a useful to for people reading about calendar reform who are image oriented rather than mathematically or academically minded. The reference points to a page automatically calculating a graphic of what a month would have looked like at the time of reformation. timeanddate.com is a nice useful bit of graphical/mathematical programing. During fixing my typo in my image I found a better one which I inserted and so far it hasn't been deleted. The figure illustrates the same thing that timeanddate.com illustrated and makes the page graphically more appealing while reducing the need for people to follow links to see it. So how about we shift the reference from its rather outdated position in the text and move it to the area that talks about proleptic calendars? We could add a sentence about the usefulness of modern tools converting from one calendar to another and cite timemanddate.com in that context along with simple though a bit more academic equivalent such as http://www.math.harvard.edu/computing/javascript/Calendar/ ? Could people make it clear if there would be any objection to such a change on this page. If I make the attempt to change it tomorrow the way I quote the web sites may not be perfect though I'll try to figure it out. If there is not objection to the principle of the change I'm suggesting I'll learn a lot if another editor could correct any mistakes I might make rather than just reverse the edit. The science citations I usually deal with have links on pubmed for example that seem to automatically work on wikipedia when I use them and things like journal, authorship, page numbers etc are easily defined. timeanddate.com in contrast uses "Year 1752 Calendar – United Kingdom". timeanddate.com. Retrieved May 20, 2019 doesn't need any of these things and is still valid.Tgru001 (talk) 04:34, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I have replaced the citation to timeanddate.com to a book chapter by Owen Gingerich, which I belive is a better source. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:03, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

'Examples' and 'Specific proposals' sections.

These sections seem to contain multiple examples sourced directly to their proposers, while citing no evidence that such proposals have ever received significant commentary from third party reliable sources. Per Wikipedia policies (i.e. WP:RSSELF for a start), they should not be included. I'd remove them myself, but the article seems to be locked. 86.143.228.87 (talk) 17:08, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

It's locked to prevent the inclusion of the following information:

Ten days were dropped so that October 5 became October 15 in 1582.

Julian to Gregorian Date Change

This restored the northward equinox to the same date in the new Gregorian calendar (20 March) as it had when the Council of Nicaea made recommendations in AD 325. Catholic states adopted this reform over the next century or so. However, the German Protestant princes rejected the Gregorian calendar in favour of Erhard Weigel's "Improved calendar", which they introduced on 19 February/1 March 1700. The date of Easter was calculated astronomically and the calendar died out in the nineteenth century.

Following scientific advances in the measurement of the exact length of the mean tropical year, in 1785 Barnaba Oriani proposed a political calendar in which the centennial leap years were those giving remainder 0 and 400 on division by 900. In the twentieth century, countries which had rejected Eastern Orthodoxy in favour of communism dropped the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian. Greece, the only remaining Eastern Orthodox state, adopted Oriani's calendar on 16 February/1 March 1923. On 10/23 March 1924, together with the Greek Orthodox Church, Greece adopted the Revised Julian calendar. A number of Orthodox churches have followed suit on varying dates, the latest being the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church in 2012. In this calendar, devised primarily to prevent Greece diverging on 1 March 2000 (29 February Gregorian), only those centennial years (those ending in 00) that leave a remainder of 200 or 600 upon division by 900 are leap years, decreasing the average year length to 365.242 days.

To justify multiple locks, which affect not only this article but also Adoption of the Gregorian calendar and Gregorian calendar, a wholly fictitious "long-term abuse" page has been created, which could have been drafted by Boris Johnson's lawyers. The first allegation reads "[...] has a long history with Jc3s5h. She routinely edit wars with Jc3s5h especially in calendar articles." Needless to say, none of these allegations is supported by evidence ("diffs"). Perhaps the most bizarre is the claim that the editor has alleged an administrator to be a fles-deralced xes rekrow (scan these words from right to left to get their meaning). 94.0.175.75 (talk) 07:33, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I have provided some citations, removed some calendars, and left a few marked with {{citation needed}}. This latter group are calendars which I suspect might be notable, but the linked Wikipedia articles do not contain any citations I'm willing to use. Reasons for my unwillingness include

• dead links
• paper books I don't have access to
• works by the calendar creator, or maintained by societies that exist only to promote the calendars.

I don't really agree with this edit by User:Joe Kress because it cites societies that exist only to promote the calendars. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:32, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Please expand "this edit". If its the World Calendar, Elisabeth Achelis published several books and began the Journal of Calendar Reform espousing her calendar – the question is which is more easily accessible. I vaguely remember a website that had all of its articles online. — Joe Kress (talk) 22:23, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

It does not "cites societies that exist only to promote the calendars" but it is "works by the calendar creator". I found only one other mention of it at [4] which explains it – no months, just four seasons. However, I had never heard of it before I saw it in this article, so I don't think it is important enough to mention in our article. — Joe Kress (talk) 01:10, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Use Fourmilab as a source?

In the section #Reference 4 goes to www.timeanddate.com Tgru001 proposes using http://www.math.harvard.edu/computing/javascript/Calendar/ as a source. This appears to be a copy of Fourmilab by John Walker.

I object to using the version at Harvard for two reasons. First, it is used in the context of a Javascript example, an is not presented as a correctly functioning calendar converter. Whoever put there did not undertake to keep it up to date with any corrections Mr. Walker might issue. Also, the credit to Mr. Walker is marginal and the hyperlink give one the impression this example and Mr. Walker have some connection to Harvard; I doubt that is true (but I'm not sure).

I use the original version myself, and have never observed any errors. That said, Mr. Walker is a successful software developer, but I have not seen any publication indicating he is qualified in the area of calendars. I'm not sure he would satisfy the guidance at WP:SELFPUB. Also, the software has a peculiar convention that I regard as incorrect. Walker describes this convention as follows:

While one can't properly speak of “Gregorian dates” prior to the adoption of the calendar in 1582, the calendar can be extrapolated to prior dates. In doing so, this implementation uses the convention that the year prior to year 1 is year 0. This differs from the Julian calendar in which there is no year 0—the year before year 1 in the Julian calendar is year −1. The date December 30th, 0 in the Gregorian calendar corresponds to January 1st, 1 in the Julian calendar.

All in all, I'd rather find some other source to cite. But some of the good sources are at https:www.usno.navy.mil/USNO which is not available to those outside the US. Other good sources are print, which is not ideal for a page that is contentious and frequently vandalized. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:14, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Sure, feel free to find another source. I'm happy with the good sources of print you talk about. We can't start excluding print because of vandalism. No print references on wikipedia would make it a bit sad.Tgru001 (talk) 02:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

"Cotsworth calendar" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Cotsworth calendar. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 December 15#Cotsworth calendar until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 (he) ^talk _contribs ^subpages 17:50, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Advantages and disadvantages

@35.139.154.158: has repeatedly removed disadvantages and advantes from the International Fixed Calendar‎‎ article for lack of reliable sources. Their argument is not entirely wrong if Wikipedia rules are applied very strictly, but I still think that such sections are helpful in these articles: The lists of pros and cons are similar for various calendar reform proposals like the World Calendar, Hanke–Henry Permanent Calendar, Symmetry454 or leap week calendar in general. So we should probably reach a consensus how to deal with them or find reliable sources that can be applied to multiple of them. — Christoph Päper 09:51, 6 July 2024 (UTC)