Alternative History talk:On This Day

Is there a way to code this so it pulls the current calendar date, and have templates for each day of the year? Louisiannan 22:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably, but that is beyond my knowledge. Mitro 00:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it would be good to ad the name of the timline to the news items.--Marcpasquin 13:23, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I did link the article I got the information and most were TLs. The LBJ one though was my own creation. Bad news, there are no dates on this wiki that go with July 3 unless I missed something. Mitro 15:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion

I love that this is actually getting made, and I love the way we're doing it - one bite at a time, month after month.

May I suggest a guideline? Don't include events that are identical to OTL - this is "Today in Alternate History", after all - unless you can add a few words explaining the context, showing that it is clearly AH. So for the US Constitution bit on July 12, I added "all sixteen American states". Benkarnell 21:09, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. Mitro 21:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Recent additions have included events (notably wedding dates) that are identical to our time line. These events just take up space and should be deleted by those who added them. Read the guidelines, people. We even said "Please."  :-[ SouthWriter 19:31, March 11, 2011 (UTC)

Proposal

Ben if its ok with you, how about you do the weekends and I will do the weekdays? Unless you want to pick up a few more. Mitro 20:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I've just been doing them as they've come. Do you want me to do yesterday's? Benkarnell 20:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

July 23, etc.

Hi, guys. It looks like you guys got bogged down after only three weeks. I can see why. Browsing each day means going through thirty or so "hits" of the search engine to choose the best ones. I did July 23, and June 14th (today's date). While I was at it, I did my birthday, January 10th. It looks like we only have 340 more days to go!  :-) SouthWriter 22:31, June 14, 2010 (UTC)

Reorganization?

I don't like the new format put in by XterrorX. though it seems to represent major work on his part. What do the rest of you think? SouthWriter 17:20, December 15, 2010 (UTC)

Despite the fact that it's my own work (2 hours of typing) I think I know what you mean. I personally dislike all the lines, but it was the only way I knew how to properly separate the days. Also, adding each day between an equal (=) is also not feasible, since that would unnecessarily lengthen the content overview tab on top. If you have ideas, feel free to add, since I was just frustrated with the state the article was in (just 4 months and a couple of days shown) --XterrorX 19:26, December 15, 2010 (UTC)

Another try

I've been filling in some more events. When this project began, it looks like the goal was to fill in every possible event on the wiki for each date. That seems frankly impossible, and instead I'm trying to find just one each, and hopefully the large number of dates will end up producing a variety of timelines and periods.

I also think that an original goal, an "On This Day in Alternate History" feature on the Main Page, is achievable in principle through the use of templates similar to our monthly rotating Featured Timeline, though obviously that's still a very, very long way off. Step one, fill in all 366 dates, is still less than half done. Step two, create 366 templates, would come next. Step three, create a section of the Main Page that can rotate among the 366 templates, would be the culmination. It would be a very cool feature if it ever gets done. It's just an aspiration for now. Benkarnell (talk) 13:18, May 24, 2020 (UTC)

Great effort. A close eye should be kept to avoid turning this article into another list of PODs, especially when it comes to single-page and narrative althistories. --NFSreloaded (talk) 00:20, May 25, 2020 (UTC)

I mean, the POD is probably the likeliest date in any timeline to be identified, and it serves as a good point of entrance to a timeline. But you're right, if this were nothing but POD's, that would be rather monotonous. I'm trying to do as much variety as possible: variety in the historical eras (a challenge because the more ancient the TL, the less likely the writer is to bother with calendar dates); variety in the types of events (trying to go beyond just military events, and trying to avoid really mundane events like birthdays or minor shifts in an election); and variety in the thematic content of the timeline. All while sticking to timelines that are (at the very least) interesting, readable, and fleshed out to the point where it's worth sharing. Yes, it takes a long time. Benkarnell (talk) 16:17, May 25, 2020 (UTC)