This page is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory articles
Hi everyone. I am writing to ask for any volunteers who might like to get more involved here at WikiProject History. Right now, we would like to get WikiProject History up and running again. A number of people have signed up in the past, and indicated their willingness to be involved. If you're still here, feel free to reply here. You can reply here in this section, even if it's just to say hello. If you want, you can simply let me know what you are personally working on right now. or also, if you want, you can let me know what your interests are, what topics you find interesting, what you;d like to do, or how you'd like to be involved. whatever it may be, we'd like to hear from you. we appreciate it. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for posting and calling out. Community building can be a challenge. My view is that if a WikiProject manages to attract 3 people who post once a month, then that is the foundation for being ready for newcomer comments and engagement. All this works better if none of those three go far out of their usual routine and if they also watch for comments. I am unable to be around regularly myself, but I will be a sport and post a challenge for now. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:38, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Bluerasberry, that's terrific. thanks for your reply. yes, that's totally fine. a little interaction is all we need to keep things moving along here. it is great to hear from you. whatever frequency is feasible for individuals is totally fine here. our main goal is simply to get different views over time. your note is very helpful. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 17:56, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've been watching this page for a while, and it's nice to see a little activity around here – it has been seeming a little moribund lately. I agree with Blue Raspberry – you don't need that many posts for a project to reach a critical mass of activity where people start looking at it regularly. Take WP:CGR – there are only about 5 new discussions posted on the talk page per month, but while a few of those are notices of discussions elsewhere, most of them do actually lead to discussion on the talk page itself. And if you hang about there, you will notice the same names coming up again and again in discussions. I suspect the same is true of other active wikiprojects – there are a few regular contributors who keep discussions going, which makes anyone else who looks in feel as though it's worth watching the page. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Caeciliusinhorto those are great points. I appreciate your ideas and input here. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 00:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to see the initiative and jumping in to say that this talk page is now on my watchlist too. I do not have much experience with article assessment or other WikiProject-specific tasks, but history is one of my areas of interest, and I do work on a lot of history-related articles, so it's good to know that this space can possibly be used as a resource/sounding board for related questions when/if they come up.--MattMauler (talk) 16:21, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've been lurking around here for a bit now. I have some older accounts that apparently weren't linked to my email, hence why my account says it was created today. I would personally love to contribute, but I frankly have no idea where to start. Any pointers would be appreciated! If it helps, I am most interested in the period from roughly 1800 onward. Lord Dweebington1 (talk) 04:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In a few months there will be an LGBT+ Wiki conference as described at meta:Queering Wikipedia. This will be the first global gathering of LGBT+ Wikipedia editors to develop LGBT+ content.
Telling the story of the history of the LGBT+ movement is a challenge. We have cultural diversity, as every culture has an LGBT+ history with events. We also have many time periods to cover, as over the centuries, some cultures had more or less activity with records to mention. There is no canon of most popular or recommended events or topics in LGBT+ global history.
As with all Wikipedia development projects we have limited volunteer labor. There are thousands of English language topics, but if the goal is to promote global education and culture, then we should focus on a subset of these articles and stage that subset for translation. I guessed that 100 articles would be a good number, and documented this concept at meta:Wiki99.
Here is my question for WikiProject History: suppose that a group wants to promote global multilingual education in a field, and that group decides to develop about 100 Wikipedia articles in that field for translation and cultural exchange. How should we determine the weight of how many of those articles should be from one country, and from what time period?
Some cases where people have asked about this are religion, architecture, science, women's history, medicine, and other similar broad fields which have their own regional and global culture and history. Any brief thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry: I am wary of efforts like this and WiR because it starts with a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS premise. The meta page you linked lists people of other ideologies as "barriers" which seems needlessly hostile and would otherwise be considered a personal attack. That said, I think that the content developed should be driven by available source material, not arbitrary quotas. While English-language articles can be translated with their English-language citations to other wikis, compliance with WP:V as it exists in other wikis is best accomplished locally with source material from those languages. I would hope translators would be searching for those en-wp articles that are also supported in the target language's literature thereby enabling editors in other languages to discover sources they can read directly rather than reply upon machine translation. There's also a neo-Colonial edge to the project which I find problematic. Shouldn't we let the foreign-language readership determine which articles they desire rather than have articles chosen by first-world editors? I would start in the target-language wikis looking for requested articles and preponderant red links. Our biases as editors shouldn't determine what happens outside our home wiki under the guise of "diversity." Chris Troutman (talk) 17:24, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Chris troutman: If there is hostility then it is an error and either you or anyone else could remove it. I am not immediately sure what seems negative here.
Wikipedia does not have a philosophy or culture of translation right now. I am not aware of any systematic effort to choose what to translate or how to pass content around.
My objective in encouraging a little translation is to encourage yet more editing and cultural exchange. When there is little content on a subject in any language Wikipedia, then few people want to start engaging. After there is a little information, even if it is low quality, then more people will engage to make that better.
Of course English language Wikipedia is dominant and I do not want that forever. However, Wikipedia is having its 19th birthday this week and still we have major content gaps in many languages with no plan to fix that. Somehow in some way we should plan to get more content into more languages and improve cultural exchange. I am not sure what that looks like, but curating a little content for translation seems like a safe enough low-labor, low-cost initiative for some people to try.
If you have an idea to do things differently then suggest an alternative. Any other options are helpful. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to side-step the LGBTQ topic, & address the more general issue: where should we encourage article development between Wikipedias of different languages? My answer is that we should encourage articles in a given Wikipedia to give preference to sources in its native language. That is, German Wikipedia articles should prefer sources in German, Russian Wikipedia articles in Russian, etc. I base my answer on finding far too often that instead of researching a given topic -- which means the author will look at materials in their own native language -- the equivalent English Wikipedia article is translated without concern about its quality. I first noticed this problem several years ago when I was working on articles about the Empire of Trebizond, where the most recent work has been published in Modern Greek & Russian. When I looked at the corresponding articles in those languages -- hoping to save myself some time finding & translating sources -- I was surprised to find these articles were translations of the en.wikipedia articles, which at the time was based on a book written in 1926! (Even more depressing was the fact that when I looked at corresponding articles in other language Wikipedias, every one was a translation of the same en.wikipedia article, with little attempt to expand on the material!)
I don't know if this answers your question, Bluerasberry, but I feel if speakers of non-English languages were a little more chauvinistic about their mother tongues, Wikipedia as a whole would be stronger in every topic. -- llywrch (talk) 19:27, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Suppose that we imagine a class of educated people who receive a bachelor's degree or equivalent from a university and who have some liberal arts training. This class of people intends to participate in the globalized workforce, with many individuals having a career which includes international collaboration with at least one foreign culture and the collective cohort including individuals who collaborate with every major culture on earth. What 100 topics are useful for such people to know globally? Are there topics which we should expect 95%+ of all such people to know?
For example, can a person be university educated, and traveling around the world doing business or work projects, and participate fully in society if they are completely ignorant that certain classical civilizations ever existed, or that there was a time of colonization, and an age of slavery, and international relations through history? In compiling this list, I attempted to choose topics which both are part of multiple cultures' histories, and which represent most people on earth the most often, and which track the chain of progress through history.
It is not easy to compile lists of this sort and I am sure many people could criticize it. If anyone has criticism, then I would especially like feedback on who has also compiled such a list, if anyone can identify any such similar project for global translation of a canon, and how anyone balanced the representation of the list.
@Bluerasberry Not bad. Of course I'd nitpick some stuff. history of Tonga, Thailand, Afghanistan, South Africa, Ethipia, West Africa, seem way too minor to include (one article for history by continent would be best, there is history of Europe but not history of Asia?? Also history of Africa, Middle East, Americas...). History of slavery is a minor topic that represents recent Western bias, same for genocides in history (I'd rather go with history of war, history of crime), similar issues I'd see with feminism and human sexuality (human rights too - but I'd keep the latter one as an overarching topic here). History of religion is fine, but dedicating 9 articles to this, probably too much by half if not eight. Listing Native American religion which doesn't exist is a clear evidence of bias (it's a very minor topic for everyone except some American historians); history of United States is much more important and not listed (?). I am not an American but let's face it, US is one of the most important country in the world's history. To have history of China and Russian Empire but not history of US, well, this is a history as endorsed by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin :P On a side note, take a look at Western canon, very interesting topic, very biased - and then note we don't have an article on world canon. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:01, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
hey @Bluerasberry:, @Llywrch:, here's a little template that I made up. do you like this? this is my first time at playing around with templates. just thought it'd be nice to work on. feel free to let me know what you think. maybe this might be helpful occasionally, now and then. thanks!!!!! --Sm8900 (talk) 08:05, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's success to date is entirely a function of our open community. This community will continue to live and breathe and grow only so long as those of us who participate in it continue to Do The Right Thing. Doing The Right Thing takes many forms, but perhaps most central is the preservation of our shared vision for the neutral point of view policy and for a culture of thoughtful, diplomatic honesty.
Newcomers are always to be welcomed. There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers. Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals (and there are real vandals, who are already starting to affect us) should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny".
"Strict scrutiny" means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other.
For example: rather than trust humans to correctly identify "regulars", we must use a simple, transparent, and open algorithm, so that people are automatically given full privileges once they have been around the community for a very short period of time. The process should be virtually invisible for newcomers, so that they do not have to do anything to start contributing to the community.
"You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred.
Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need to make sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as ultimately determined by the Wikimedia Foundation, in full consultation with the community consensus.
The open and viral nature of the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License is fundamental to the long-term success of the site. Anyone who wants to use our content in a closed, proprietary manner must be challenged. We must adhere very strictly to both the letter and spirit of the licenses.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The topic of Wikipedia articles should always look outward, not inward at Wikipedia itself.
Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity. They should be encouraged constantly to present their problems in a constructive way. Anyone who just complains without foundation, refusing to join the discussion, should simply be rejected and ignored. Consensus is a partnership between interested parties working positively for a common goal. We must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk.
Diplomacy consists of combining honesty and politeness. Both are objectively valuable moral principles. Be honest with me, but don't be mean to me. Don't misrepresent my views for your own political ends, and I'll treat you the same way.
@Sm8900: Talking about principles like this is not usually a part of WikiProject discussion, but if you have interest in this, and you can rally WikiProject contributors to engage with such things, then we are in a strange and appropriate time right now to seek community comment.
Regarding what you wrote, all of this is still part of Wikipedia best practices and I still agree with all of it. These are all great things to say and can inspire people. These are the best we have now, and I am not sure what comes next, but it happens that in a few days there will be a major publication recommending Wikimedia Movement best practices and changes.
If you are interested in strategy and statements of purpose, then I encourage you to watch meta:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations from 20 January 2020 and to comment on it within 5 weeks. This strategy discussion has been in process for 4 years and this is the last phase for comment before the next phase of the process, which is implementation of the recommendations. Many people are anxious about this short comment period, which came to be because of past delays and already planned future deadlines which should not move. If you find an angle in the strategic planning to advocate for the interests of the many history WikiProjects in many languages, then please speak out in comment on the meta page after 20 January and encourage others to do the same.
This is part of a transition. Jimbo had some guiding ideas in the beginning but he has regularly divested responsibility and advocated for more Wikimedia community leadership and control over the movement. If WikiProject history found it meaningful to do so, as a community you could set your own goals and principles, perhaps in the context of these recommendations. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:15, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Anent Wikimedia Movement strategy/best practices: my concern all along has not been about the basic principles or guiding ideals, but about the proposals of how to apply them. I suspect some are using the current exercise to fashion iron rice bowls for themselves, at the expense of the rest of us. -- llywrch (talk) 16:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
hi folks. thanks for your replies here. Bluerasberry, that is really fascinating to know. I will take a look at that page. thanks!!
Llywrch, you make some valid points as well. it is totally valid to think about and to wonder where this will take us. i suggest we all try to look at this, and see what we can glean from there, and also what we can offer or discuss.
this is an interesting topic. i had totally known about this before. now I'm doubly glad that I posted that template above, just as food for thought. thanks for the great info, again, Bluerasberry! I will take a look there. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 20:49, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Michael E Nolan take a look at the replies above, especially the comment from Bluerasberry about the discussions currently in process, interesting, isn't it?
everyone, I initially posted this template on my own talk-page, then tagged Michael E Nolan to give him a little look-see at this. we both liked it, but we weren't really sure where we could use it. glad that this could lead unexpectedly to some new and interesting topics! thanks for your replies here. let's keep the discussions going. maybe over a nice cup of coffee, too! thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 21:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Bumping threadfor 3560 days. Keeping this section here, as a general resource for new member intros and comments. thanks! .Sm8900 (talk) 15:50, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I'm a new member. I joined because I have an interest in improving the religion section, particularly when it comes to including old/lesser-known religions in the religion tree/template. Glad to be here! ArcticSolstice (talk) 15:18, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note from Coordinator:
Welcome, to all new members!!
If you are a new member here, then we would like to hear from you!! I see we have some new members who have just joined our WikiProject. to all new members, welcome!!!
We would like to invite you to please post an initial message. If you wish, please indicate which topical areas you wish to work on, or which areas of history you are most interested in, or simply to say hello. We welcome any input or ideas. please feel free to write any time. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:04, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi I’m interested in history of all places and periods. The areas I’m most keen to work in are Middle Eastern history and European colonial history. I’m very interested in China and Japan and can help tidy up articles about them, but can’t read Chinese or Japanese sources. Mccapra (talk) 11:24, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I'm most interested in New Zealand history, however, I also have a general interest in French and premodern history. --Violetnights (talk) 11:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Skateboarding Digital History Project (SBDHP), founded in 2018 by wil540, is a research and publishing initiative promoting the digitization of skateboarding history. The goal of the SBDHP is to create and promote the creation of accessible skateboard history online. The project currently focuses on writing wikipedia articles for notable skateboarders and skateboard related items; as well as, leading skateboarding themed edit-a-thons. In October 2019, the Skateboarding Digital History Project and Wikipedia for Educators at Fordham hosted its first edit-a-thon, a Latinx-American Skateboarding themed edit-a-thon, that took place in the Bronx, New York. Articles for Jaime Reyes & Ben Sanchez were written at this edit-a-thon.
Goals for the future
The SBDHP plans to host more edit-a-thons in 2020.
The SBDHP plans to continue publishing and facilitating donations of skateboard photography to Wikimedia Commons.
The SBDHP dreams to translate articles about skateboarding/skateboarders to other languages.
Please reach out with any questions, comments, or suggestions on the talk page or you can email us at: [email protected].
Grüß Gott,I am Vami_IV (call me Vami), an editor of seven years and some change with a few Featured Articles to show for it. At time of writing, all of these are architecture articles in Germany and the United States; that's a pretty good summation of my area of most competent interest. That said, I've been awarded a Quarter-Million Award for American military history and am currently working on Simón Bolívar, so history interests me generally. I am also a semi-active member of Women in Red, where I primarily translate articles for Latin American women. To wit, the extent of my WP:HIST-related editing spans from the Early Middle Ages to the present, and mostly in the Americas and Europe.At Sm8900 (talk)'s request, I'm here to volunteer my time as a Project Coordinator here at WP:HIST. As an acting Coordinator over at WP:MILHIST like Iazyges (talk) (courtesy ping) and Key Editor Gog the Mild (talk) (ditto), I believe I'll make a good fit here. As an added bonus, I have now plenty of experience collaborating with editors on-wiki and on the Discord server to compile research and improve articles. As a Coordinator and a member of the Collaboration Group, I'd be focusing my efforts there and with busywork like assessing articles. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 02:57, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Although actually you are a bit too modest. take a look at this, folks! User:Vami IV/Awards. well done. glad to have you here!!! Sm8900 (talk) 03:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Core Contest—Wikipedia's most exciting contest—will take place this year from April 15 to May 31. The goal: to improve vital or other core articles, with a focus on those in the worst state of disrepair. Editing can be done individually, but in the past groups have also successfully competed. There is £300 of prize money divided among editors who provide the "best additive encyclopedic value". Signups are open now. Cheers from the judges, Femke, Casliber, Aza24.
If you wish to start or stop receiving news about The Core Contest, please add or remove yourself from the delivery list.
The articles early modern period, modern era and late modern period cover very similar topics, but all are in a very bad state. All three are trying to simultaneously cover the periodization of (mostly) Europe-centered history and covering virtually all history within the timeframe of about 1500 until today, including the history of regions that aren't actually included in the concept of post-medieval history and modernity. The latter article is also quite a mess that confuses the idea of modernity with the historical period.
There's also the glaring problem that "late modern period" is what most historians describe as the "modern period". The concept of the modern era encompassing the entirety of post-medieval history pre-dates the concept of the "early modern". Other than Wikipedia, I've never seen historical works that describe the period of 1800 to today as "late modern", and the article late modern period doesn't actually have any references supporting the use of the term.
All of these articles need some serious attention because as they are right now, they are mostly just coatracks for any and all historical events that happen to have occurred between 1500 and today, regardless if they are relevant to the concept of periodization relating to modernity. All three articles need to be seriously overhauled based on sources that focus on the periods as a whole, not just any random source that happen to include "modern" in the title. PeterIsotalo 21:21, 25 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Scholar might turn up some relevant sources, but Google Books is frankly nothing but a liability. There's too many unreliable or irrelevant sources, everything from self-published crap to hopelessly outdated 19th century works. It's much better to search relevant collections through the Wikipedia Library. There's a search function for all collections which is pretty decent. Specifically, JSTOR, SAGE, Brill, De Gruyter, Cambridge Core, Oxford Reference, Oxford Academic, Oxford Research Encyclopedias and MUSE have plenty of historical research.
The issue here isn't "late modern period" either, because it's simply not a common term. If it was, there would be plenty of sources. It might seem logical that "early modern" and "late modern" are used the same way as, say, Early Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages, but that's not the case. Just search any major library catalog for books or articles with "late modern period" in the title and compare with how many there are with "early modern period" or just "modern period".
What's sorely lacking is content on scholarly discussions about periodization as such. That's why we've wound up with our own definitions. PeterIsotalo 00:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a point of clarification, the search bar at TWL doesn't search all publishers (for example, it cannot search Brill or Springer). Folly Mox (talk) 02:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, Google Books is a good starting point: of course we have to look at each individual potential source. The first 10 books it shows for me are from Polity Press (x2), Edinburgh University Press, John Benjamins, Academy Editions, NSU press, Peter Lang, and Routledge (x3), none older than 1980 and eight from the 21st century. By dismissing Google Books as a liability you are depriving yourself of many academic sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:41, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry if I sound crass. People are of course free to search wherever they like. For myself, I just don't think Google Books is useful in a case like this where people have clearly built up an article without actually verifying the scope of the article content properly.
Do you think there are any specific that we should look closer at in this case? PeterIsotalo 22:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those articles seem to be very arbitrary in their cut-off points. Anyone who wants to write about the history of the uS or Australia is effectively going to be forced to conform to that periodization and that's effectively a form of forced POV.
Would you consider it relevant to discuss a proposal for some sort of content guideline regarding periodization? PeterIsotalo 19:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would love some sort of standardization here. I've brought History of the United States (1776–1789) to GA because that's a fairly concrete periodization that was easy to work with ("Revolutionary US"), but I stopped after that because it's just too arbitrary. I'd gladly continue in this area if the cutoff problem was solved. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Historical periods are almost always somewhat fuzzy around the edges. There are very few clean breaks, except for maybe when a state or organization simply stops existing, like the Soviet Union.
Overall, I think the only workable solution that wouldn't result in Wikipedia deciding it's own periodization schemes would be to follow the most common periodizations used by historians for a certain topic. So for China or Ancient Egypt, this would be various dynasties.
For the 1776-89 US history article, maybe it would be more accurate to simply call it United States during the Revolutionary War, or something that doesn't abruptly start and stop on specific dates. PeterIsotalo 21:16, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The word "modern" means of the present time but this is not a stable way of referring to historical periods because the present keeps moving. We should stick to more specific, stable terminology such as the Renaissance and Age of Discovery. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're referring to one of the common everyday definitions of the term "modern". That's not the definition used by historians and it's no less precise than most other periodizations. Think of this as the difference between how the word "gas" in everyday conversation compared to how it's defined in, say, chemistry or physics.
To give just one example, there's a fairly recent work called What is Early Modern History?[1] dedicated entirely to describing how the "early modern" became a subset of "modern". It's part of a larger series focused on defining all sorts of historical disciplines and concepts like cultural history, global history, etc.
The modern period not as strictly defined as gases are in physics, but to professional historians, it doesn't simply mean "the past X number of years". PeterIsotalo 09:41, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Formally naming anything (a historical period, an art movement, etc) "modern" is silly. Either 1) you eventually have to come up with a term for a later period, in which case "modern" is no longer modern, or 2) the "modern" period keeps growing and growing until it becomes unwieldy. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It might be silly, but it's often done. We even have the rather vaguely defined term "post-modern". Phil Bridger (talk) 13:29, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure why you're bringing up your personal views about the word "modern". What you're both saying here is a bit like saying that scientists are "silly" for using the term "gas" to mean something other than petrol.
Periodization is a serious and important aspect of historical research and isn't just arbitrary, regardless what words might mean in completely different contexts. PeterIsotalo 19:46, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, what I am saying is more like saying Americans are silly for using the word "gas" for petrol. Any definition of "modern art" that doesn't include art produced this year, but stops some time in the 1970s is a definition that can only serve to confuse the student for no good reason. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:44, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are mixing several completely different definitions of the term "modern" and just giving your personal views about it. It's not helping in this case. PeterIsotalo 21:06, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes history articles need to be split simply because of size rather than on any external basis. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:27, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The issue of when an article "needs" to be split is a whole separate can of worms. Even so, a split should respect accepted periodization schemes, not merely what this or that Wikipedian think looks good. PeterIsotalo 00:04, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
First off, there is a problem here, and the problem is that the articles are in rough shape. I don't think it's an easily fixable problem because the core question is inclusion / due weight. Almost anything important enough to even consider discussing in a top-level world history article has copious references, but the real question is whether to mention it at all, whether it gets one sentence or one paragraph, and so on. Encyclopedia articles already greatly compress other works like books, even general overview texts. So... there's going to be a decent amount of editorial difference between just how much to talk about the French Revolution or the like. But "doing it right" would involve finding scholarly sources explicitly covering huge time periods and comparing them to see what they most often have in common or the like to make sure the due weight is covered.
That said, I disagree with Peter Isotalo's idea that the articles are a COATRACK, or original research, or something. Wikipedia is explicitly allowed to arbitrarily subdivide topics however it likes - this is not "original research" but rather content organization no different from what editors do all the time. It's trivial to show historians using the term "Early modern" (a gazillion hits on Google Books - saying that you don't like Google Books misses the point, it being used in less prestigious books still says something important), and the reason "Late modern" doesn't come up that often is that the era is usually referred to more specifically. But its meaning is clear enough. If you consider that this topic really is something like Modern era, except split across year boundaries, the articles really mean Modern era (1500-1800), Modern era (1800-1945), and Modern era (1945-present). Which is fine.
To the extent there is an issue, I'd say that Late modern period should just explicitly say it really means, for Wikipedia purposes, World history from 1800-1945 and more decisively cut out anything post WW2. SnowFire (talk) 16:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More productively, what exactly is the call to action here? I have too many unfinished projects sitting around in Google Docs for rewrites, but the content of the articles (aka the history) is the important thing, not how they're split up. If someone wants to do some deep analysis of what reliable sources consider the most important things to cover in very general history-of-these-eras overviews, that'd be cool, and then rewrite some of these articles by that. But I'm not sure what Peter Isotalo is asking for here - a Requested Move to some new title for these articles? Splitting on different dates? To what dates and what titles if so? I think this is way less important than the content myself, but let's hear it. SnowFire (talk) 17:17, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Peter Isotalo: You've continued to insist on adding your original research cleanup banner despite the fact I'm not really seeing a consensus here that this is an OR problem, the status quo being no tag, and claiming I did not explain myself on a talk page when what I wrote was right there. I'd rather focus on the actual changes you want, but if you'd rather talk about procedure... WP:OR is a policy about content. Suppose there's 30 paragraphs of history that are unquestionably "good" - well referenced, etc. It would not matter if the article containing them was titled something completely insane like "Broccoli era" or if the 30 paragraphs were split in an awkward spot historians don't generally use. Those are problems, yes, but they aren't violations of original research - they're fixed by rearranging the content or filing WP:RM requests. Original research would be someone adding to the article something like "Based on my analysis of Kennedy's speeches, he was secretly a communist agent of the USSR" or the like. I believe the OR banners should be removed (and replaced with, if you insist, RM requests or merge requests, which seems to be the actual call to action here - but feel free to enlighten me if you're actually proposing something else). SnowFire (talk) 20:14, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I find this comment concerning: "Wikipedia is explicitly allowed to arbitrarily subdivide topics however it likes".
Are you seriously saying that it's both NPOV and verifiable for Wikipedia to choose it's own periodization schemes for history topics? PeterIsotalo 20:15, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not me. It's Wikipedia policy. Which is fine to disagree with, but this isn't me going off the grid. See Wikipedia:Summary style - an article on "Modern era" is too long, so we split off sections by date. Which is allowed per the cited policy. And of course it's better to go with what sources use when possible, but you aren't exactly making a strong case for yourself by saying that you think we should ignore Google Books suggests and go with your own personal vibes. That's the reverse of doing what the sources suggest.
I note that you haven't responded to everything else I've written. Do you understand what WP:OR is, and why the OR tag is inappropriate here? SnowFire (talk) 20:31, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What you're arguing for here is the equivalent of splitting up the animal kingdom into arbitrarily defined clades when someone thinks an article about a certain phylum, order, family, etc. is too long.
What you're arguing for here is that periodization isn't a serious academic topic and that Wikipedia should ignore research in that field because it's convenient.
It's technically more about ignorance than anything else, but it amounts of original research nevertheless. Your approach to this ignores history as an academic discipline. Choosing your own preferred periodization is not in the least neutral. PeterIsotalo 19:59, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:OR: If no reliable independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it.Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:27, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That is definitely not a problem on a topic as wide as the modern era! SnowFire (talk) 20:31, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Contemporary history and late modern period are definitely engaged in at least some OR. The latter term doesn't actually exist among historians since the modern period is today usually defined as the period from about 1800 until today.
The late modern article is mostly a result of Wikipedians drawing their own conclusion instead of consulting sources. PeterIsotalo 20:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
these articles are all stable and all have community support. this is simply how Wikipedia works. I don't see any problems with these articles.
one area where Wikipedia shines is its coverage and inclusion of history. obviously I have a major interest in this academic field. I'm not against a surplus of large articles covering major perioods like these.
if you want to know, one concern of mine is that sometimes Wikipedia has too many articles for different events within a single topic, which perhaps had been notable for a while, but then declined in significance. so I'm fine with articles which seek to cover larger periods. in the case of these articles, they have been stable for a while. Sm8900 (talk) 13:34, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Stable" and "community support" does not alone trump WP:V; we don't vote about facts nor do apply grandfather rules to keep unverifiable content.
Consensus and verifiability are two issues that need to be balanced and in the case of the modernity articles, people have chosen to pretty much completely ignore the verifiability. Periodization is pretty complicated and highly contextual but users seem mostly unaware of this issue, even to the extent of raising concerns about WP:GLOBAL when, say, the history of Japan 1500-1800 isn't fully included in the early modern period. As if Japan or East Asia had a historical development completely in sync with that of most of Europe. PeterIsotalo 19:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Numerous reliable academic sources assert the "early Modern Period" and place it between 1500 and 1800, with some minor variations. Sm8900 (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Internment of Japanese Americans - Article name and terminology used in article text[edit]
Despite the consensus seeming to be in favour of keeping "internment" as the title of Internment of Japanese Americans, the article's text now solely uses the term "incarceration". Consistency between the two would be preferred, especially since the change to the article's text seems to have been made recently without discussion. Eldomtom2 (talk) 13:21, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem would appear to be a lack of awareness of the editors of the dictionary definition of internment. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Systematic distortion of historical articles[edit]
Dear All,
Please check urgently this post on reddit detailing how a few Hungarian editors are systematically rewriting articles on Romanian history. It needs intervention and professional editors to correct the changes. I also posted about this in the Administrators' noticeboard, please, contribute there. Adam Harangozó (talk) 07:29, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could we have a link to the appropriate discussion please? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User:Buidhe has nominated Unification of Germany for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:26, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, need your help. There's discussion regarding what to call result in Polish-Ukrainian conflict in 1940s. Partially discussion took place here as well. Dƶoxar (talk) 11:35, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have set up Category:decade overviews as a set of categories, as well as articles, and navboxes, as part of WikiProject History Contemporary History task force, which I chair.
Please feel free to contact me any time, with any comments, ideas or questions. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 14:07, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Kaunas Fortress has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:09, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement![edit]
Hello, Please note that Exploration, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBottalk 00:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team[reply]
There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Guru Tegh Bahadur involving a "Historiography" section. I'd like a member of this Wikiproject to weigh in on the matter. Thanks for any help! WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 13:32, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The process is outlined here but basically amounts to converting the inactive WikiProjects to task forces of WP History one and merging/moving all of its templates and categories accordingly.
Hopefully this would bring a bit more life into these subjects and direct editors interested in them to an active group of editors rather than a moribund talk page. It could also help drive more traffic to this project. – Joe (talk) 09:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for Middle Ages, which can't possibly be called "inactive" and has some subpages. It might well be more active if someone hadn't added at the top of the talk, the ?undiscussed? note: "NOTE: It is recommended that new discussions about the Middle Ages be at one of the Project Discussion Forums and not on the talk page which is for project administration discussions. " - a very bad recommendation imo. Support the others; I wouldn't even bother with "task forces" - a sure way to kill off activity, imo. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It may be quicker to rename the pages and convert the template as task forces, but I suggest redirecting all the talk pages to this one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnbod: Even if the Middle Ages project has some activity, is it worth maintaining it as a separate project—with its own parallel set of templates, categories, etc.—just for the sake of a handful questions a year on that talk page instead of this one? My feeling is that it would benefit both projects to centralise discussion here and eliminate the duplicated maintenance work. We're spread much more thin these days than we were when all these WPs were created.
Agreed on task forces being a waste of time. I've separately proposed streamlining the process of merging inactive WPs here, if it's of interest. – Joe (talk) 08:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
hi all. glad to see this discuission occurring here. we would welcome any task forces here, if anyone wishes to develop them. obviously all of it is strictly voluntarty, as you all know. open to all ideas, of course. Sm8900 (talk) 18:05, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Standard formatting of titles for outline/timeline articles and categories[edit]
This issue was discussed at Talk:Outline of the history of the United States#Move. I think the standard formatting of titles for these articles and categories should be "Outline/Timeline of the history of [country]". The standard title for history articles is "History of [country]", so for consistency, timeline/outline articles naturally should be an extension of said titles, so they are easier to find. It also avoids demonym ambiguity. But a large number of articles currently have the demonym formatted title; see Category:Timelines by country. We should establish consensus here to put in the edit summary of all page moves, before I start moving a large number of pages. HertzDonuts (talk) 20:18, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Article is pretty messy and needs more people to look at it and work on it. More high quality and hopefully academic sources are needed. Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:28, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have nominated The Slave Community for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 23:37, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
