Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History

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History Noticeboard Skip to Table of Contents Working Groups at WikiProject History: Assessment · Collaboration · Review · Outreach · Task forces Talk page This is the central discussion area for WikiProject History. Feel free discuss any topics relating to history here. It is recommended that members watchlist this page Collaboration of the month The collaboration of the month for October is List of history topics. Peer review Current peer review requests: Rogers Act History of Anatolia 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramla A-Class review Current A-class review nominations: History of Indonesia

WikiProject History needs you!!!!

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)

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)

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)

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)

Caeciliusinhorto those are great points. I appreciate your ideas and input here. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 00:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

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)

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)

Developing a canon of culture to translate

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)

@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)

@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)

WP:VITAL? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:53, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

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)

Wiki99 for world history

I gave a go at compiling ~99 articles as an attempt at a canon of world history.

• meta:Wiki99/world history

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.

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:00, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@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)

note re wiki item

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)

@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)

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)

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)

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)

New member introductions

Bumping thread for 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)

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)

Please add your introductory comments below

• 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)
• 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)

Skateboarding Digital History Project

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

1. The SBDHP plans to host more edit-a-thons in 2020.
2. The SBDHP plans to continue publishing and facilitating donations of skateboard photography to Wikimedia Commons.
3. 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: skateboardingDHP@gmail.com.

Follow the SBDHP on instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/sbdhp/

Application for WikiProject History Coordinator: Vami_IV

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)

• 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)
• Support. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Note by Lead Coordinator:

• APPROVED. Congrats, and welcome @Vami IV:. looking forward to having your valued input here. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:34, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Monarchism in France

Please see this discussion regarding what to do about a botched merge at Monarchism in France. Thanks,

Signups open for The Core Contest

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.

RFC on whether citing maps and graphs is original research

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RFC on using maps and charts in Wikipedia articles. Rschen7754 19:04, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Isabella II discussion

There is a discussion at Talk:Isabella II of Spain#Spain's only queen regnant. You are welcome joining it.--Thinker78 (talk) 05:19, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

This article needs A LOT of work

the article Stresa Front needs to be re-written and re-sourced, the sources it has are dubious and entire sections are unsourced, the article is also written in a weird third person style following Mussolini, like a novel. the article is also framed weirdly as pro-Mussolini. I am woefully underskilled to re-write and research a whole article, so I am requesting that you fine Wikiproject editors check it out. Clone commando sev (talk) 23:32, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@Clone commando sev I'd suggest leaving a note about your concerns on the article's talk page. Its certainly possible that someone here will take a look, though I wouldn't necessarily count on it :) So like a lot of issues, good to identify it, but it might be a while before it can get resolved. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Alright, I'm make talk page post. (sorry for late reply) Clone commando sev (talk) 08:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

"Deportations during the Great Depression" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Deportations during the Great Depression has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 April 11 § Deportations during the Great Depression until a consensus is reached. 64.229.90.172 (talk) 06:40, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion opened regarding early Chinese aristocrats

There is a proposal that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject to make changes to how surnames of early Chinese figures are defined in a particular infobox at Talk:Chinese surname#Proposal to make changes to a protected template regarding Chinese surnames. Casting a wide net after no interest from more targeted WikiProjects. Folly Mox (talk) 03:37, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Biledulgerid

Eh... there's a stub article on this imaginary place that someone knowledgeable in NW Africa really should clean up if they can spare the time. We shouldn't completely delete it since it does show up on many many period maps, but we should make it clear that it wasn't a real thing, who the actual people in the area were, and what the actual states were during the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s when Europeans just handwaved the region with this mangled Arabic name. — LlywelynII 14:03, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

2022 Peruvian political crisis move discussion

An editor has requested for 2022 Peruvian political crisis to be moved to another page. Since you had some involvement with 2022 Peruvian political crisis, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so).--WMrapids (talk) 00:48, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Habsburg monarchy has an RFC

Habsburg monarchy has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. User23242343 (talk) 15:00, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Operation Gideon (2020) move discussion

An editor has requested for Operation Gideon (2020) to be moved to another page. Since you had some involvement with Operation Gideon (2020), you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). WMrapids (talk) 17:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

2019 Venezuelan uprising attempt move discussion

An editor has requested for 2019 Venezuelan uprising attempt to be moved to another page. Since you had some involvement with 2019 Venezuelan uprising attempt, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). WMrapids (talk) 17:50, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Advice on naming of a historical period

For Namibia there is a naming issue with its pre-colonial period, outlined on Talk:History of Namibia#Pre-colonial name?. I haven't got any response yet. Someone here like to help? Thanks, Pgallert (talk) 06:09, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for History of Singapore

History of Singapore 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. Onegreatjoke (talk) 21:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)