Talk:AD 1

Prep work for AD 1–9 is complete

• Template:Decades and years had longstanding issues fixed; details at Template talk:Decades and years (see Template:Decades and years/testcases)
  • This edit was made to its sub-template {{Decades and years/yearlink}} to link directly to AD 1 through AD 9 (just change < 10 to a bigger number to expand direct linking beyond AD 9)
• This edit to Template:Events by year for decade made it link directly to AD 1 through AD 9 (upgrading this to link to AD 10 and beyond is going to be trickier than changing a single number)
• This edit to Template:Drep makes Template:Year nav link directly to AD 1 through AD 9 (again just change < 10 to a bigger number to expand direct linking beyond AD 9)
• Those three templates appear to be the only ones effecting this date range that needed to be changed. We may find additional templates needing changes if we expand the "AD" range to more years; I'm not sure of that)
• I've made several links in mainspace to link directly to AD 1 through AD 9 (mostly years that people were born or died)
• Pages 1 through 9 are thus ready to move (check "what links here")
• My preference remains to move the respective disambiguation pages to the base titles. This is an ambiguous range between the smaller -1, where the number is primary, 0, where there is no primary topic, and 10, where the year for now remains the primary topic. I've found too many cases of links to single digits that shouldn't have been made; these are better patrolled if the title is a disambiguation page
• Nobody has objected to any of my edits so far, and I've even gotten a couple of "thanks" for them
• Just changing the first nine years has been a lot of work. Changing up to 90 more years will be a lot more work... lots of birth, death and events dates to fix, I'm sure. But the hardest template work may have already been done

Looking for opinions on how to proceed. Personally I would be content to just stop at AD 9. Note that {{Year nav}} has long shown "AD" years, but only as far as AD 15 (see the two templates on the right). So we are on solid ground going at least as far as AD 9. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:49, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Well I gotta say that looks pretty good :) There've been some follow-up posts at the ANRFC listing already, and I think it could be worth noting the effort for ~10 pages for general awareness. Do we (I suppose I mean you) know for sure the scope of template changes at this point? (including these? of those, {{Year dab}} might be the most visible one?) Pinging JFG — Andy W. (talk) 03:16, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Oh, I see. AD 9 has one of those {{Year dab}} hatnotes. The thing is, once this has moved from 9 to AD 9 it has been naturally disambiguated, so the hatnote isn't necessary any more, or if someone thinks we still need some kind of hatnote, just use one of the standard ones. {{Year dab}} use can be restricted to titles that remain at the base number, i.e. where the year is still the primary topic for the number. wbm1058 (talk) 03:38, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Ahh I see. I was initially thinking that a hatnote with conditional logic would be more robust to handle lack-of-awareness good-faith cut-paste moves, but I see what you're saying. Side note: good news. {{M1 year in topic}} is now "AD n"-ready via an update to Template:M1YearInTopic (no calendar) and and update to Module:Year in other calendars. — Andy W. (talk) 05:20, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

I see that my radar didn't detect Template:M1 year in topic because that doesn't link to 1. That template links to Category:1. Is moving categories part of the scope of this? That hasn't really been discussed or made clear, has it?

Also noting that, for the first decades of centuries, the article is at 100s (decade), but the corresponding category is Category:100s, without the parenthetical (decade). – wbm1058 (talk) 13:34, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Because {{M1 year in topic}} uses {{PAGENAME}} to determine the category to link to, you strip off the "AD " from the page name so the template still links to Category:1, and not to Category:AD 1. Good catch! wbm1058 (talk) 14:14, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

One of the move preparation edits I made has been reverted. See this diff. Fyrael, you are invited to join the discussion. wbm1058 (talk) 10:35, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Seems completely fine to me. There was just no rationale given in the edit summary that would lead me to this. -- Fyrael (talk) 16:18, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

So the only editor to revert me so far, accepted my edit once the rationale was explained. I'm trying to give more detailed rationales with links, at least in my more major changes...

My changes have not been controversial, so far. wbm1058 (talk) 13:34, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Now applied title change to lead sections of AD 1 to AD 9. Also activated Andy M. Wang's extension of Module:Year in other calendars to display AD notation for years 1–9 already moved, pending RFC closure about years 1–100. — JFG ^talk 23:30, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

There's a good rationale for why low-numbered years are ambiguous without the "AD"... we might describe the lifespan of a person as (b. 25 BC, d. 8)... so is that 8 BC or AD 8? Either would be reasonably possible, so making the date of death unambiguous by stating "AD 8" is good here. Doing this for the first 100 years makes sense from the standpoint of a human lifespan, as very few people who died in 100 would have been born BC – especially in those days when the average human lifespan was much shorter.

OK, I'm going to boldly move 1, and revert myself if I see any problems. wbm1058 (talk) 14:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I just made another fix, this one in Template:Year category (diff). The lead on Category:1 now says "Articles and events specifically related to the year AD 1." – wbm1058 (talk) 18:09, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Two more templates have been patched, {{Birth year category header}} and {{Death year category header}} (diff). As with {{Events by year for decade}}, this fix only supports years 1–9, and an additional patch will be needed to support AD 10 and beyond. This patch fixed the leads in Category:1 births and Category:1 deaths. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Thanks for your work. I have now clarified the heavily-nested code for {{dr-make}} and added support on {{drep}} for a "p" option to display "AD" as a prefix instead of suffix. Made that the default for years 1-100; the threshold can be easily changed depending on RfC closure. Looks pretty good on {{Year nav}} so far. Hope this helps. — JFG ^talk 12:07, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, your changes look good. wbm1058 (talk) 15:03, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

We are down to 876 pages that link to 1:

• the hatnote on AD 1
• 130 in Talk:
• 227 in User:
• 350 in User talk:
• 115 in Wikipedia:
• 43 in Wikipedia talk:
• 7 in Template talk:
• 2 in MediaWiki talk:
• 1 in Module talk:

Looks like I'm done with that. wbm1058 (talk) 22:53, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I changed a few leftover articles. Wbm1058, are you ready to do anything to the year articles 2 to 9?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:07, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Georgia guy, they're on my agenda. Thanks for helping out. There's a reason I left those edits undone: Don't pipe links, unless formatting requires it, per WP:DDD. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:17, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Wbm1058, I guess your next step is to move all year articles 2 to 9 to the similar AD 2 to AD 9, and then re-direct 1 to 1 (number) and similar edits. Any corrections?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:25, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I will move 2 – 9 to AD 2 – AD 9 soon, unless someone objects. I've been proceeding boldly here, and will pause if there are any issues. My intent is to make the single digits disambiguation pages, though that may only be an intermediate step. At that point I think I will be done here, at least for a while. If another admin closes this, determining that the consensus is to make the numbers primary, thus moving 1 (number) to 1, etc. I will accept their determination of consensus, but I'm not in favor of that, for reasons I've already stated above. If we proceed with 10–99, there are at least three templates that still need changes to support that, as I've noted above. I think it's a good idea to pause first, to let 1–9 settle in, and wait to see if there are any unforeseen issues with the changes so far. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:39, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I think User:Wbm1058 is doing well, given the difficult circumstances. Difficult due to the age and lengthiness of this, and the likelihood that there is no one technically UNINVOLVED who could find the energy to process it all. I agree that there is a rough consensus in support of the move to AD 1. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:07, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Here's a recent example to show you why I'm so opposed to making the numbers primary topics. With this 17 November 2016 edit, an editor added a link to [[2]]. I corrected that to link to [[List of Harvey Beaks episodes|2]]. The "2" refers to the two seasons of Harvey Beaks that have aired. If [[2]] is a disambiguation, that editor may get a disambiguation link notification delivered to their talk page by a bot, and hopefully at least some editors receiving these notices actually act on them. I see this sort of thing a lot now, while I'm looking for it. wbm1058 (talk) 17:04, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I was sailing smoothly until I ran into AD 6. There, I discovered Category:6 establishments by country and its sub-category Category:6 establishments in the Roman Empire, which have both been up for deletion since 8 June 2016‎. These categories have only one member, Judea (Roman province). The discussion is still ongoing at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 June 8 § Roman Empire establishments (1st century and earlier), well it was active as recently as ten days ago. Category:6 establishments by country transcludes {{Estcatbycountry}}, which you can see is reporting an error. I also see from "what transcludes here" that Category:6 establishments by country is the only category transcluding this template. This is not to be confused with, though I confess I temporarily did confuse it with, the very similarly named {{EstcatCountry}} that its subcategory Category:6 establishments in the Roman Empire transcludes. Now, if I haven't lost you yet, I now direct your attention to {{Estcatbyyear}}, a modified copy of {{Estcatbycountry}}, created 15 February 2016,‎ per Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 February 6. I'm wondering why the heck those Romans founded Judea in 6 CE? They're causing us all this trouble. Couln't they have waited until 10 to found that province? So, as these categories are up for deletion, I'll leave fixing those templates as an exercise for those promoting the inclusion of the categories, should they be kept. Moving onward, steering clear of those stormy seas... wbm1058 (talk) 23:36, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I've sorted out {{Estcatbyyear}} and modified Category:6 establishments by country to use it. Estcatbycountry is still broken but now unused, so can probably go to TfD when the dust settles. I've prepared a similar change in {{EstcatCountry/sandbox}} but will pause there before wrecking the thousands of pages that use it. This template seems to have more similarly named rivals with identical aims than the Judean Popular People's Front... Certes (talk) 15:05, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

See Template:EstcatCountry/testcases. You fixed the expression error, but it's still linking to [[6]] instead of [[AD 6]] – wbm1058 (talk) 00:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, good point. Fixed. Should we promote this from Sandbox or consult more widely first? Certes (talk) 08:36, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Unlike most of the other templates I've updated to support this change, this template doesn't support BC years. But it doesn't seem to be used BC and there is at least one parallel-universe template {{estcatBC}} designed to work in BC only. So I'm assuming that we don't need to fix this to support BC years. wbm1058 (talk) 15:39, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I've promoted your sandbox changes to the live template. It checked out OK with my test cases, but I didn't give it a more thorough review, as it's not worth my time. wbm1058 (talk) 16:15, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Maybe someone else wants to fix Template:Establishments in decade, which isn't working correctly on Category:0s establishments.

Also Template:Discat, which isn't working correctly on Category:9 disestablishments. I'm getting weary of this. wbm1058 (talk) 02:30, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I left a note at Categories for discussion regarding this issue. Maybe someone there will fix it. wbm1058 (talk) 15:12, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I've fixed Template:Establishments in decade and Template:Discat, which also wasn't working correctly on the 9 link for Category:10 disestablishments. I'd welcome a reivew of my changes. In view of the subject matter, maybe the next enhancement should be to support Roman numerals... Certes (talk) 15:46, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

 Reviewed — JFG ^talk 23:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Limited implementation is pretty much done...

...except for the loose ends discussed above. I suppose people may be looking for a more formal close at this point. To summarize where we are at:

• −1, the number, is the primary topic
• 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 is an ambiguous range, and thus these are disambiguation pages
• 10 and above remain years AD, as they have always been

That's as far as I'm willing to boldly go with this.

I suggest that any uninvolved closer may safely find that there is a de facto consensus for what I've done. Whether they find there's a consensus to do more than this is of course their decision to make.

Perhaps a new RfC, or maybe a Requested move, where voters may evaluate the current configuration and !vote on whether to keep it or not, is in order. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:51, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: One more thing you should do is to delete the redirect from Talk:1/Archive 1, because 1 now redirects to One (disambiguation), but Talk:One (disambiguation)/Archive 1 does not exist. GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 21:11, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

OK, done. That's the only page of 1 through 9 that had any archives, and it only had one. wbm1058 (talk) 21:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Great work, wbm1058, thanks again! A key benefit of your boldness is that it vindicates the position that updating templates and articles towards the proposed move wasn't an inextricable task, and doing it even allowed to improve some elements along the way. Now the remaining open questions are:

1. Should this work be extended to the 1–100 range as proposed or limited to 1–9 as you implemented?
2. Should the bare number titles be about the numbers as proposed, disambigs as you implemented, or remain about AD years?

Those two questions should be answered by the closer; I don't see the need for a new RfC at this point. — JFG ^talk 21:56, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

AD, CE and (year) revisited

I think the lead should include CE, so I just made an edit to do that (diff). Just because we're settling on AD for the title doesn't mean we need to overemphasize it in the article body. Also noting that while AD 1 and 1 AD are somewhat interchangeable, that doesn't seem to be the case for 1 CE (CE 1, CE 2, CE 3 are red). I also observe that while the primary topic for AD is Anno Domini, CE is a disambiguation page with Common Era buried down in the "Other uses" section. It's not necessary to disambiguate "1" in "Year 1 of the Julian calendar" because "Julian calendar" disambiguates "1", but nonetheless helpful to include the commonly used alternate forms AD 1 and 1 CE in the lead. But in a nod to those who preferred "(year)" on the grounds that we could avoid deciding between AD and CE, I think it might be good to avoid using either where the context is clear. Not to deprecate Andy M. Wang's work on Module:Year in other calendars to display AD notation for years 1–9, but I don't think Template:Year in other calendars necessarily needed to be changed. The infobox identifies the Gregorian calendar, so as "Gregorian calendar" serves to disambiguate "1", adding either "AD" or "CE" to that is unnecessarily redundant. You could think of "AD" and "CE" as alternate shorthand for either "Julian calendar" or "Gregorian calendar". wbm1058 (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The article seems to imply that 1 AD is only a year in the Julian calendar, and can't be a year in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. Although either the Julian calendar or the proleptic Julian calendar is usually used for years in that neighborhood, the Gregorian calendar is used occasionally. Certainly, the Julian calendar can be used with year numbering systems other than AD, such as the system of naming years after the Roman consuls. Of course, applying AD to years in that neighborhood is proleptic, since the AD year naming system wasn't invented until 525. In view of these complexities, I find wbm1058's comment of 01:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC) impossible to interpret. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:14, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The title of the infobox, "AD 1 in other calendars", is confusing. Because of the word "other", and because the infobox contains entries for both the Julian and Gregorian calendars, it implies the article is about AD 1 in some calendar that is neither Julian nor Gregorian. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:20, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

You're more knowledgeable about calendars than me. It's only recently that, through these recent discussions, I became aware of the concept of the proleptic Julian calendar. Oh, I see, the Julian calendar took effect in 45 BC, so some form of that calendar was in effect that year. Now I'm just looking at this concept that they didn't number their years at all, but rather named them after the "consul of the year". It would be like having the "Year of Barack Obama" and the "Year of Donald Trump" – and presidents would only serve for a single year. So if this "AD numbering system" didn't take effect until 500 years later, then isn't saying that it's year 1 of the Julian calendar misleading? It's really year 1, retroactively, of the system started 500 years later. So, Julian calendar is more a method of determining the number of days in a year, and how to make leap-year adjustments, than a method of identifying years for historians? wbm1058 (talk) 02:36, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

There are two different calendar concepts here, I think, and it's too easy to get confused... on the one hand, you have Roman → Julian → Gregorian as their methods of fine-tuning the precise length of a year evolved. That's interesting, but the method used for determining the length of a year doesn't seem particularly germane to keeping track of different years over time. More relevant, is that at the time they used a regnal year system for naming years, and only later did they actually switch to a numbering system. The lines for "Gregorian" and Julian" in the infobox should be changed to Anno Domini/ Common Era, and the title should be changed to "1 in various calendars". Review history of calendars. wbm1058 (talk) 03:03, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

We had a discussion earlier about how when they switched from Julian to Gregorian they skipped several days. It's silly to have separate line items in the infobox for Gregorian and Julian because they are always the same year... at most they differ by a matter of a couple weeks or so, unless you extrapolate them to extremely old history that predates both. wbm1058 (talk) 03:13, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The lead should say that they used the Julian calendar at the time, but it is not year 1 of the Julian calendar, but rather the 46th year that they used the Julian calendar and year 1 of the Anno Domini/Common Era numbering system. Thanks Jc3s5h for setting us straight on this. wbm1058 (talk) 03:23, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Calendar era is the concept here. Year 1 of the AD calendar era (year numbering system). Not year 1 of the Julian calendar. Or of the Era of Martyrs. wbm1058 (talk) 03:55, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Correction (text struck through above): The lines for "Gregorian" and Julian" in the infobox should be removed, and the title should be: AD 1 in other calendar eras. Julian calendar and Gregorian calendar are both calendars (they are each listed in the list of calendars, along with their variants. Indeed, the Gregorian calendar is Julian-derived, so could loosely be thought of as a variant of the Julian calendar. Anno Domini is not a calendar, it is a calendar era. Indeed, the term "Anno Domini" is not even mentioned in the list of calendars article, other than in the {{Calendars}} navbox at the bottom, where it's listed as a system for year naming and numbering.

Most calendars in wide use appear to use some relatively minor variant of twelve months of 30 or 31 days, but they all define a year as approximately one rotation of the earth around the sun. The historical Haab' calendar is more different: The Haab' comprises eighteen months of twenty days each, plus an additional period of five days ("nameless days") at the end of the year. But as long as its total length is 365–366 days, it could be mapped to other calendar eras. I'm not aware of any calendars that define a year as significantly more than 366 or less than 365 days. But if one calendar starts their year sometime in winter and another starts their year in summer, then a particular year in one calendar era would map to portions of two different consecutive years in another calendar era. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:46, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Related discussions:

• Template talk:Year in other calendars § Julian calendar needs to be added
• Template talk:Year in other calendars § Julian Date (JD) should be added
• Template talk:Year in other calendars § Limit display of calendars?
• Template talk:Year in other calendars § ... and other calendars
• Template talk:Year in other calendars § "calendars" vs. "epochs"

So, calendar era or calendar epoch? What's the difference? I see, an epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. So, AD 1 is the epoch or reference date for the AD calendar era. wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

You nailed it wbm1058! The article Epoch (reference date) reminds me of one of my earliest edits on Wikipedia… — JFG ^talk 18:05, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

0 to 9 should be about numbers instead of disambiguations.

It is great that the articles from 1 to 9 are now AD 1 to AD 9. However, I am against having 0 to 9 be disambiguations. The whole purpose of this RFC was to have the articles from 1 to 100 be about numbers. Therefore, having 0 to 9 as disambiguations would defeat the purpose of the RFC. Please make 0 to 9 be about numbers. Good job on AD 1 to AD 9. This should be extended to 100. Thanks! Timo3 21:43, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Usually we take page views into consideration when determining primary topics over at WP:RM, and I'm surprised not to see that here, though I may have missed it. Anyhow, some examples:

Since the year has been off the PT for over 10 days, this picture should be clearer...

• 6 Number 904, Year 15
• 9 Number 562, Year 20

So the numbers are ringing the bell on page views. Any argument for years at this level will need to be based on "long-term encyclopedic significance" or other criteria of that sort

Let's see how far this page-view dominance extends...

• 74 Number 73, Year 13 ... I'm surprised the gap is still this much, though they are converging
• 98 Number 42, Year 24
• 112 Year 51, Number 16

So by this, it seems the decision to stop at 100 was a good choice. wbm1058 (talk) 06:05, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Current situation is stable, though perhaps temporary. We should wait for guidance from a closing statement by an uninvolved administrator. — JFG ^talk 08:50, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

We should consider 0 and 100 specially. If the number one is the primary topic for 1 then the number zero is probably the primary topic for 0, but we came here to discuss moving year articles 1 to 100 and need to be clear about whether 0 is now included. I'd support moving 0 because the number wins the view count by 2,467 views to 9, but technically it's out of scope. Also, are we agreed whether 100 should move like 99 or remain like 101? Technically, I think having it remain would simplify templates etc. Certes (talk) 09:33, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It was pretty obvious that the article titles "1"..."9" should be renamed "AD 1"..."AD 9". It's less obvious what the article title "0" would be renamed. "Year 0" might not come to mind to a reader who was looking for the topic; after all, that's not how one would usually write it. Also, this is probably the wrong talk page to discuss it. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The title 0 is definitely out of scope of this RfC which was about articles representing years. An hypothetical "year 0" was never at page title "0". Whether title "0" should remain a disambig or host the article about number 0 is a potential discussion on Talk:0. — JFG ^talk 13:19, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It feels awkward to me to leave 0 as an ambiguous island surrounded by primary topic numbers. There have been two previous proposals in this regard:

* Talk:0 (year)#Requested move – an August 2013 request to make 0 (year) the primary topic was a nonstarter and was closed with unanimous opposition.

* Talk:0 (number)#Requested move 24 April 2016 – a request to make 0 (number) the PT was closed as not moved. The leading rationale in opposition was "No need for a new round of ridiculous primarytopic grabs. I'd make other numbers like 0, if anything, but the number of links to be fixed probably makes this prohibitive."

This should be revisited. The result of another week-long RM here should provide clarity to the larger request-for-comment. If we can't get consensus to move 0, I think that's problematic. 0 should be easier to make the number primary, given that the "year" has such a weak claim on the title. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:41, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The status of "0" should surely be discussed again, but imho only after the present RfC about "1"–"100" is formally concluded. I don't think it would be productive to re-ignite the two failed debates on "0" before that. On the contrary, if "1" to "9" become the number articles, moving "0" will be a no-brainer. If they remain disambigs, then a separate discussion could still occur at Talk:0. — JFG ^talk 15:51, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're afraid of. The first debate is moot and has zero chance of re-igniting anything. I checked the participants in the second debate who opposed making zero the number primary topic, and not one of them has opposed your RfC. Of the ones who are recently active and have voted here, all have voted in support and some even suggested extending it beyond 100. It seems an oversight to have left 0 (number) out of this, and we should generally favor widening the scope of discussions, to avoid later cries about "limited consensus". Either moving "0" is already a no-brainer, in which case it can already be considered part of this proposal, or if not, we shouldn't come to a consensus here that makes the fate of 0 (number) a "no-brainer" or a "done deal" before that debate has even started. Leaving the status of 0 (number) in doubt makes it harder to determine the consensus for the RfC. wbm1058 (talk) 18:43, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Fair point, and I'm personally in favor of having "0" be the number article. I'm just saying such a move would be out of process at the moment. Maybe I'm being extra cautious because I've been editing too much in politics lately… — JFG ^talk 19:05, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

So, I'm not sure what process rules we would be breaking here, but I think it's time to agree to a little bit of WP:IAR. Initiate an RM over at Talk:0 (number) since the April 2016 request there has established this as "potentially controversial". Frame it as an amendment to this RFC. If it runs for a week over there then we've given proper notification to the page. Consensus in that discussion adds 0 (number) to the list of pages to be moved here, and we can make that contingent on the RfC here moving at minimum the adjacent page 1 (number) to 1. That should cover it, and is probably overcompensating a bit on the side of caution. wbm1058 (talk) 19:55, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: I would agree to your proposed steps at Talk:0 (number). Indeed a properly-framed move request may yet get approved even before this RfC is formally closed. — JFG ^talk 21:05, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done See Talk:0 (number)#Requested move 4 December 2016. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:11, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Y and settled now! — JFG ^talk 22:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@Agtx: As the closer of the first RfC, could you comment on what has transpired since, and whether you think we are on a good path. Given that nobody has shown up yet to close the second RfC, and there's no telling how much longer it might be before someone does. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 19:55, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure, I'll have a look. I've intentionally avoided commenting on this page (or really following this discussion) to avoid any appearance of involvement. Do folks want me to close the discussion, or just give some thoughts on progress? I don't want to monopolize the topic if you decide you want a different closer, but I'm happy to do it if asked. agtx 06:48, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Agtx: Your opinion is most welcome in the discussion but I believe we need a fully uninvolved closer here. Given the lack of response to the close request of November 7, I have pinged Oshwah a few days ago; he is currently considering whether to take on the task. — JFG ^talk 12:29, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I think SmokeyJoe made a good point when he opined about "no one technically UNINVOLVED who could find the energy to process it all", which is why I pinged Agtx as they have a head start on this. Anyone else needs to go way back to the beginning and read the first RfC as well as this one. So I guess you have a right to a veto here – I don't know whether there is any policy on these matters – thus I welcome Agtx's comments and recommendations as potentially valuable input to a potential closer. Your choice of closer is interesting and unexpected, given that they specialize in patrolling vandalism. Though I wrote a lengthy comment in opposition to their RfA, I've no objection to their closing this. I think as we've let this drift for a longer period of time, closing it becomes easier... in contrast to the "New York battles", this page has been pretty drama-free of late – nobody's come here to scream about the direction that we've been drifting. wbm1058 (talk) 16:18, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The lack of drama is indeed refreshing; and the lack of negative reactions to your bold implementation is another positive sign. It was not obvious at first, which I why I took care to craft the initial RfC in a very directive manner with limited scope. I did expect more infighting about year naming but seeing limited support for CE (and some strong opposition to it), I switched my preference from (year) to AD. I didn't pick Oshwah for a particular reason, he just happened to be one of the extra volunteers to adjudicate the New York wars, so he was on my radar as an all-around helpful and extremely civil admin. I was not aware of your or anybody else's opposition to his RfA as I don't follow these matters; thanks for the transparency. — JFG ^talk 21:02, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

0 (zero)

So the closers moved this despite my proposal making that an amendment to this RfC. I'm concerned with link disambiguation and overlinking to numbers.

• Zero

I think many of these may need disambiguation. Links should be to Zero (number) to confirm that the number is indeed intended, and so links to Zero that should be linking to Zero (American band) are found and fixed. Bad links will throw our pageview stats off. Along these lines, I made this edit to Template:Integers to clear the "link fog". That makes what links here (mainspace, hide redirects) clear so that it can be patrolled. That's a solution I implemented for templates linking to New York. wbm1058 (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

We have ~170 links to zero -- I'm ging to take a closer look at these. wbm1058 (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I think we should consider #Why change the number article names? some more. This makes internal link management easier. Unless people are dead set against seeing (number) in article titles, in which case we may have to settle for the "New York kludge". wbm1058 (talk) 18:33, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

New York is a special case, because that title is occupied by an article about a topic (NY state) which is not the title's primary topic (there isn't one) nor even the candidate with most hits (New York City). So, busy editors wanting a link to the city just type New York and accidentally link to the state article. We have a similar case for 10, 11, etc. where it's easy to link to AD 10 when the integer 10 was intended. 0 is different, because most links to 0 really do mean the number. It's like any other article with a disambiguation page. For example, Chicago could mean lots of things, and I expect a small minority of links to Chicago should point somewhere else like Chicago (play), but usually it has the obvious meaning. 0 is like Chicago; 10 is like New York. 1 to 9 used to be like New York but are now halfway to Chicago. Certes (talk) 20:00, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, you would think it should be a small minority, but I've been finding a surprising variety to fix. You found some too, thanks for helping. wbm1058 (talk) 22:32, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I've worked through the articles linking to zero, except those with mathematical titles. (If integer mentions Zero (Indian band) then I'll have missed it.) It's amazing how many people and places were the first to invent the concept of zero and give it a name. Certes (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, we've reduced the # of links by about 50, and it looks pretty clean now. wbm1058 (talk) 00:23, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Halfway from New York City to Chicago would be around the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Georgia guy (talk) 20:03, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

This one is unique because, just as the Gregorian AD calendar has no year 0, some old numbering systems had no concept of the number zero. wbm1058 (talk) 22:38, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Categories

Categories were briefly discussed in the section #Prep work for AD 1–9 is complete. We should have a plan before we jump into any changes. From Category:Integers, I see that we just have Category:0 (number) through Category:4 (number), then there's nothing else until Category:100 (number). Since there's no year 0 Category:0 is clear, but then we still have the years at Category:1, Category:2, Category:3, ... Category:9. If we move categories we will need to coordinate that with some corresponding template changes. If we just leave the categories as-is, that will make this easier to implement. The RfC didn't really address the issue of whether to make any category changes or not. I've seen some recent arguments in favor of consistency, and leaving categories alone will leave them consistent with plain numbers always being years. Regarding consistency for articles, that went out the window when we decided not to have plain-number articles always be about years; if consistency was primary we should not have even gone there. Good luck with getting a consensus that the number 2016 is primary topic and not the year. wbm1058 (talk) 00:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Category names should mirror page names, i.e. Category:1…Category:100 (if they exist) about numbers, higher ones about years. Categories about early years should move to Category:AD 1 or whichever name ends up approved. — JFG ^talk 06:53, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

What about categories like Category:8 by continent, Category:8 in Europe, etc.? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

These are very sparsely populated; I would recommend deleting them and keeping just the "1st century in Europe" categories. — JFG ^talk 15:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I would put them up for deletion, as the tree has more categories than articles. AD 100 would be a special case but fortunately we only have Category:100, Category:100 births and Category:100 deaths. List of potentially unwanted categories:

• Category:4 in law
• Category:6 by continent, Category:6 by country, Category:6 establishments, Category:6 in Asia, Category:6 in Europe, Category:6 in the Roman Empire
• Category:7 by continent, Category:7 by country (empty), Category:7 in Asia (empty, speedy deletion pending), Category:7 in Europe
• Category:8 by continent, Category:8 in Europe
• Category:9 by continent, Category:9 by country, Category:9 disestablishments, Category:9 in Asia, Category:9 in China, Category:9 in Europe, Category:9 in law, Category:9 in the Roman Empire

I count a total of nine distinct articles in that lot, and one non-year subcategory (Category:Xin dynasty‎ within Category:9 in China). Certes (talk) 16:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 June 8#Roman Empire establishments (1st century and earlier) was just closed on December 31. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:07, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Great! That's a mandate to move all year categories to a granularity of decades, at least for the period AD 1…AD 100 that we are now implementing. — JFG ^talk 20:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)