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To discuss improvements to the corresponding July 19 article, see Talk:July 19 instead.
Frequently asked questions
Q1: Why is [Insert event here], an event that is "more important and significant" than all the others that are currently listed, not posted?
A1: Relative article quality along with the mix of topics already listed are often deciding factors in what gets posted. Any given day of the year can have a great many important or significant historical events. The problem is that there is generally only room on the Main Page to list about 5 events at a time, so not everything can be posted.
As stated on Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page, the items and events posted on the Main Page are chosen based more on how well they are written, not based on how much important or significant their subjects are. It is easier for admins to select a well-written, cited, verifiable article over a poor one versus trying to determine objectively how much a subject is important or significant.
Keep in mind that the quality requirements only apply to the selected bolded article, not the other links. Thus, an event may qualify for multiple dates in a year if there is an article written in a summary style and an article providing detailed content; if one of those pages have cleanup issues, the other page can be bolded as an alternate.
Another criterion is to maintain some variety of topics, and not exhibit, just for example, tech-centrism, or the belief that the world stops at the edge of the English-speaking world. Many days have a large pool of potential articles, so they will rotate in and out every year to give each one some Main Page exposure. In addition, an event is not posted if it is also the subject of this year's scheduled featured article or featured picture.
Q2: There are way too many 20th-century events listed. Why aren't there more events from the 19th century and before?
Q3: This page seems to be biased toward events based in [Insert country or region here]. What can be done about it?
A3: This again is attributed to the systemic bias of Wikipedia. Many users are generally more interested in working on good, well-written articles pertaining to their home country. Since this is the English Wikipedia, there will be more English-speaking users, and thus more articles pertaining to English-speaking countries. And if there are more users who are from the United States, there will probably be more well-written articles about events based in the United States. Again, if you would like to further help mitigate the systemic bias in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias.
Q4: Why is the birthday/death anniversary of [Insert name here] not listed?
A4: There are only four slots available for birth and death anniversaries. As with the events, article quality and diversity in time period, geography, and reason for notability are all contributing factors in whether an article gets selected for inclusion.
Q5: Are the holidays/observances listed in any particular order?
A5: Yes, there is a specified order: International observances first, then alphabetically by where observed.
Q6: Some of the holidays/observances that are listed have dates in parentheses beside them. What do they mean?
A6: There are two reasons that some holidays/observances have dates next to them:
Non-Gregorian-based holidays/observances are marked with the current year as a reminder to others that their dates do in fact vary from year to year.
National Days, Independence Days, and other holidays celebrating the nationhood of a country are generally marked by the year of the significant historic date being observed.
If Burmese Martyrs' Day is going to be more or less permanent, then I don't see the point of including Aung San a 7th time since they're aspects of the exact same event. For a general variation of topics, Seneca Falls Convention seems to be a much better choice.
The choice was actually between Seneca Falls and SS Great Britain, as those are the only two 19th century items eligible (Aung San was there as the token Asian item (ie, geographic diversity)). I chose the ship because it was only making its second appearance. But since Great Fire of Rome just got put back on for balance, I'll swap that one out as it has been on every single year (although I really should go with one of the 16th century items for greater chronological diversity). BTW, it's not unusual for an event to show at the same time as the holiday/observance that commemorates it. If we always omitted the blurb in favor of the holiday, September 11 attacks would never appear because Patriot Day is always listed, and that would bring howls of protest, as I'm sure you can imagine. —howcheng {chat}21:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I can understand that.
Concerning chronological balance, I would not mind pushing Mary Rose for that purpose, but I really, really like Seneca Falls and I think it deserves some preferential treatment because pure social/political topics like it are pretty rare on the mainpage. That it happens to be about women's rights makes me even more partial to its being included every year.
Apart from holidays/observances, no article is guaranteed a spot every year: not even days that many people would consider "important": D-Day, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc. Some articles have been repeated yearly but that's almost always on days where the pool of eligible articles is very small. —howcheng {chat}00:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest replacing the Rome fire with something of higher quality. It's been at "On this day..." almost every year, but has seen little improvement: it's very short (just over 500 words), relies heavily on fairly uncritical use of primary sources and much of the content is not attributed to any sources at all.