Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History/Archive 4

1908 boy's (pink) sailor suit at NMAH

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Pink#1908 boy's sailor suit at NMAH. -- Trevj (talk) 12:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

A Proposal

Below are some ideas on restructuring and revitalizing WikiProject History. You may have been notified of this already, as I have left messages on the talk pages of related projects and of editors who may be interested in this idea. DCItalk 01:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

General Points

  • Restructure the front page so that it more closely resembles that of WikiProject Military History. This design is easy to navigate, and getting to specific areas of the WikiProject is made quicker and less difficult.
  • Forge closer ties with some of its "daughter" projects. WikiProject History should serve as a focal point for history-related article improvement drives and discussions, and should be a community of editors supportive of smaller, fairly inactive region-specific history projects.
  • Expand the A-Class review process. This should be a major function of WikiProject History (conducting A-Class reviews for smaller, "daughter" projects).
    • A-Class reviews can be closed only by the Assessment and Review Coordinator or one of his/her delegates. The coordinator/delegate must follow reviewer consensus when determining whether or not to close a review. Any member of any History WikiProject is eligible to be a reviewer.
    • The Assessment and Review Departments should work on developing articles to GA and FA status.
  • Host task forces devoted to improving recently-created articles. Some editors should work with WikiProject Deletion Sorting to save as many quality history-related AfDs as reasonably possible. WikiProject History shall create a fairly inclusive New Article Task Force, the members of which will devote part of their time on Wikipedia to improving and expanding new articles. The Contest Department of the website (see below) should institute a "DYK Contest" for members of this task force.
  • WikiProject History should be less of a "front-line" WikiProject, unlike the Military History WikiProject in this regard, and more of a coordinating effort. An enhanced A-Class review process and forging relations with "daughter" projects would help to achieve this goal.

Membership and Leadership

  • All current WikiProject History members would be members of the new, revitalized project. WikiProject Military History members, as well as members of all region-specific history projects, would be automatically inducted into the project, although these users could opt out at any time.
  • All members of the WikiProject should have an equal say in WikiProject affairs .
    • However, a group of five coordinators should be elected by all editors that are part of the abovementioned categories to make the WikiProject "flow" smoothly. These coordinators must have been members of the WikiProject or an affiliate for at least six months. They would serve for twelve months each, and would be elected in February of each year. The candidate with the highest percentage of the vote will be appointed chief coordinator, and will appoint the other four coordinators to head the departments that'll be listed below.
    • Each coordinator would have a specific task, or "department".
      • Chief Coordinator. This coordinator would serve as a guide to other coordinators and members of the project.
        • The chief coordinator would have authority to appoint members to Project Review Panels, which would assess the functionality of different parts and "daughter projects" of WikiProject History.
      • Assessment and Review Coordinator. This coordinator would sort and (close A-class) reviews, with the help of two delegates that s/he could appoint. He or she would coordinate the Assessment Department and the Review Department. The A+R Coordinator would work with Project Review Panels to improve the quality of articles coming within the project's scope.
      • Membership Coordinator. This coordinator would deal with membership issues, and would direct and judge "contests" on the project. He or she would coordinate the Contest Department.
      • Resources and Assistance Coordinator. This coordinator would assist members in need. He or she would coordinate the Resources Department, and would provide assistance to members who need guidance or support with articles. This is in contrast to the Membership Coordinator, who would deal with issues and run contests.
      • Content Coordinator. This coordinator would work on improving articles in need, and would direct efforts and drives related to this. This person would coordinate the Content Matters Department.

Coordinators should defer to member consensus when encountering major issues or when making important decisions while carrying out the duties of coordination.

Front Page

As I am no expert at page designing, I will list some ideas I have on how a front page ought to look, at least from my perspective:

  • The front page should feature an A-class article weekly, changing with Wikipedia's featured article on Saturdays/Sundays.
  • The front page should be topped by tabs leading to each Department. Some departments, including the Assessment, Review, and Content Departments, along with some news bits, etc. that deserve a piece of the page, should be given "boxes" that fill the page.
  • Membership information should be provided down a ways on the page, along with a list of members where one can sign up as a project member.
  • Collaboration between "daughter" projects should be stressed on this front page.

Role on the Encyclopedia

The three pillars of this project should be:

  • Activity.
  • Coordination.
  • Increasing Knowledge.

WikiProject History should be active, helping to coordinate its "daughter" projects on a daily basis and conducting A-class reviews at a reasonable speed. It should be constantly working to increase knowledge by improving articles and assessing them appropriately. It should be an integral part of the encyclopedia, and an example of editor collaboration on improving the coverage of a subject area they are interested in. Let's make WikiProject History a part of Wikipedia's future.

Thank you for reading this, and for commenting, if you are interested. DCItalk 23:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

You may be interested in reading the latest comments over at WT:MILHIST#General History. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I will support whatever you do; there will be a feel of purpose in this camp if your suggestions get implemented. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 22:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

GLAMs

Please be aware of GLAMwiki, a cross-wiki project working with Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums, which has obvious overlaps with this project; and great potential for collaboration with it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Portal:History...

Is up for FPOC. ResMar 14:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:East Germany#Satellite state of the USSR or not

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:East Germany#Satellite state of the USSR or not. Should this article describe East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic) as a satellite state of the former USSR?"" Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Notification of pending Foresight and Futures Studies Project Proposal

As a subject whose topics may overlap with topics in Futures Studies (particularly counterfactual history and historiography, as well as historical views on the future), I thought it appropriate to notify this project of a new Foresight and Futures Studies Project Proposal being undertaken. I look forward to any discussion your members might have on this subject. John b cassel (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Reviewer needed for W. E. B. Du Bois Featured article status

The project has an opportunity to have another Featured Article: W. E. B. Du Bois is up for FA review, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/W. E. B. Du Bois/archive1. It has two reviewers, but needs a third to be ratified. If you want to review it, make sure you are familiar with the criteria at Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, and dont be afraid to suggest improvements. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 20:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Check this out

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012#Compromise. 68.39.100.32 (talk) 11:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:History will have interest in putting on events related to women's history. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 18:34, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Need help with a history artilce

Hey everyone. I'm working on an article here on Wikipedia that is history oriented, and I was wondering if anybody on this project would be interested in helping me expand it(it is currently a lowly stub). The article is on Isabella, a slave ship that existed in the 17th century. Any help with the article would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! 5hane2012 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)5hane20125hane2012 (talk) 21:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

List of kings of Iraq RFC

Hi. I've opened a RFC at Talk:List of kings of Iraq#RFC - which succession table? and would appreciate the opinions of the editors at this project. Thank you. ClaretAsh 13:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

The article needs some work. It presents a lot of claims by conspiracy proponents as is and gives them undue weight to a fringe position among historical academics. On the talk page we're also discussing what can count as a reliable source which needs a lot of input, since I am not too clear on it. At least I recommend adding the page to your watchlist. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:45, 19 March 2012 (UTC)--

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
Wavelength (talk) 18:02, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Help populating Category:Former colonial capitals

A ways back I created Category:Former colonial capitals, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Do folks reckon there's a use for a cat to cover areas which were capitals of specific colonial possessions at the time of colonial occupation? I find it of interest, because there are many modern cities of current minor importance, which in the past were capitals of large areas during colonial periods. Thanks for any advice and/or help populating this cat and integrating it into the proper category tree. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:03, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

RFC: Deploying 'Start date' template in infoboxes

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Bot requests#RFC: Deploying 'Start date' template in infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Globalization proposal

Hi WikiProject History members, A few of us are trying to get a WikiProject Globalization up and running. Members of this project would work together to improve the quality of articles on Wikipedia on Globalization, global issues and related topics. If you're interested in globalization, please come by and check out our proposal. We'd appreciate any feedback about our ideas, and of course your support if you were interested in lending it. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 13:34, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Forest history/ History of forestry

There is also a semi-active subproject at WikiProject Forestry on Forest history/ History of forestry that may be of interest to some WikiProject History members. Participation & input welcome there, too! Kind regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 16:03, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Need advice on the cultural views of a historical flag in Yugoslavia that one user claims is offensive

There is a dispute at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yugoslavia, over an issue of what flag or flags to portray for the WikiProject. Some users, including myself have expressed concern that the exclusive use of the flag of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) does not represent the entire history of Yugoslavia, but only the Marxist-Leninist regime of Tito and his successors. The concern raised by several users, including myself was that it does not represent the entirety of Yugoslavia, I originally thought a plain Yugoslav tricolour would be more politically neutral, but one user, User:DIREKTOR claims that the plain tricolour has Yugoslav royalist political connotations, and is just as political, but also highly offensive as being associated with Serb hegemonism and the Serb-led monarchy that created a monarchical dictatorship in 1929. After discussion and a great deal of frustrated argument unfortunately, three users have proposed using both the plain Yugoslav tricolour of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia alongside the SFRY tricolour with the communist star to represent the two states of Yugoslavia.

Anyway to cut to the chase, I am requesting help from others on investigating the claim that the a plain Yugoslav tricolour, without the red star, is strongly viewed as offensive by many in the former Yugoslavia. I urge caution though because there have always been people who opposed Yugoslavia in the first place who found it offensive - like Croat and Serb nationalists, or by Communist party figures in the SFRY who supported communist symbolism because they were communists. I think the main thing is whether the plain tricolour is deemed more offensive over the SFRY tricolour with the star. I am aware that this is a difficult question to investigate, but the debate on the WikiProject has really become rancorous, and we need outside help.--R-41 (talk) 01:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I would add that Wikiproject Yugoslavia covers the period 1835-1995, and incorporates the following Yugoslav states:

At present the Wikiproject flag and barnstar carry the second one, on the basis that, as I understand it, there are negative connotations with the plain tricolour due to its use by Serbia and Montenegro during the early years of the Bosnian War. On the other hand, the star has its own negative connotations for other reasons associated with the nature of the regime and some immediate post-war actions associated with the Partisans such as the Bleiburg tragedy. On the wikiproject talk page there have been several suggestions that a. the last and longest used flag (with the star) should be used for the project for those reasons, and b. the plain tricolour is common to all Yugoslavia's. I have proposed that the flag/barnstar could be a combination of the two flags, divided diagonally from bottom left to top right. The other options have been retaining the current one with the star and putting the two flags alongside each other. I hope we can get a fresh perspective from some uninvolved but interested editors. Peacemaker67 (talk) 01:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh for goodness' sake.. Is this really necessary? The issue at hand concerns the project itself, it isn't a content issue. As for the tricolour, it unfortunately does carry political connotations (and I think you yourself said so). It has been the symbol of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Milosevich's Serbia and Montenegro. Both states were decidedly "pro-Serbian". These are basic facts of Yugoslav histroy. I cannot understand what is so difficult to grasp? Setting aside the historical grievances and the oppression in the Interbellum, the plain tricolour was until recently an enemy flag in half of Yugoslavia. Its a tragedy that such a simple and clear symbol of Yugoslavia was abused thus, but that is unfortunately the case. As I told R-41, I personally don't mind the plain tricolour - I just know what it represents to Yugoslavs, and we're trying to have a project for all of Yugoslavia. It must at all costs avoid any symbols that might appear less neutral in the Balkans ethnic squabbles. -- Director (talk) 02:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
DIREKTOR, I showed you that the plain tricolour symbol was used on Yugoslav Partisans' patches - they were not Serb hegemonists. As Peacemaker67 points out that the SFRY had its massacres as well like that of Serbia and Motnenegro that you mentioned. But we are talking about the use of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's flag and the SFRY's flag. Also other users disagree with you, such as WhiteWriter, he sees the plain tricolour as just a Yugoslav symbol. Now then, let's WAIT at the door for new arrivals to come in and hear what others have to say, and not scare them off with our bickering.--R-41 (talk) 03:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
  • And as I told you, the uniform patches are absurdly irrelevant. They are not flags, there was no standardized uniform, the Partisans' main distinguishing symbol was a red star on their cap, and the actual Partisans' flag (when it was standardized) was a red star flag. Also those are historical perceptions since before SFR Yugoslavia was established, not modern ones, there was no official alternative flag until 1944, etc. etc... one thing after another.
  • The SFRY had its share of massacres, certainly, and I'm familiar with them all. The red star flag is not perfect, its communist for goodness sake, but at the very least its fairly neutral in Balkans ethnic squabbles. Repeat: fairly uninvolved in Balkans ethnic squabbles. It doesn't favor one half of the country over the other.
-- Director (talk) 06:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Globalization

The article Globalization has undergone major re-structuring. WikiProject History members are invited to review and comment on the article and add relevant missing information or sections in which your project may have an interest. Also, you may be interested in reviewing the updated Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Globalization proposal for a new WikiProject. Regards, Meclee (talk) 14:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

RfC on Years by Country categories

You are invited to participate in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#RfC on "Years by country" categories. Fram (talk) 07:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Credo Reference Survey (your opinion requested)

Credo Reference, who generously donated 400 free Credo 250 research accounts to Wikipedia editors over the past two years, has offered to expand the program to include 100 additional reference resources. Credo wants Wikipedia editors to select which resources they want most. So, we put together a quick survey to do that:

At this time only the initial 400 editors have accounts, but even if you do not have an account, you still might want to weigh in on which resources would be most valuable for the community (for example, through WikiProject Resource Exchange). If you have any questions, you can leave me a note on my talk page or email me at wikiocaasi@yahoo.com. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 20:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

History of Florida needs help

This article has a grab-bag of specifics, more or less randomly organized in a combination of time intervals and specific topics. It actually has a whole section on the 2000 "hanging chad" controversy - but not a general impression of Florida's effect in national politics. I'm not particularly experienced with trying to balance out and organize very broad histories like this, so simply I'll point it out here to whosoever is interested. Wnt (talk) 20:09, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Ancient Civilizations Textbook

Hello all! I’m working with the Saylor foundation to create a series of original, crowd-sourced textbooks that will be openly licensed and freely available on the web and within Saylor’s free, self-paced courses at Saylor.org. We are using Wikibooks as a platform to host this project and hope to garner the interest of existing members of the Wikibooks and Wikipedia community, as well as bring in new members! We thought that some of your members may be interested in contributing to our book Saylor.org's Ancient Civilizations of the World. Azinheira (talk) 17:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion relating to the David Irving article

There's currently a discussion about how to word the first sentence of this article (in particular, how Irving should be first described) at Talk:David Irving. Input from other editors would be much appreciated. Nick-D (talk) 12:34, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The gist of the dispute is that, while there are several sources in the article that do dispute the propriety of the appellation with regard to Irving, there are about 2,000 published sources that refer to the person as an "historian". The suggestion is to follow the majority view and refer to him as a "historian" or "controversial historian" (also common) in the first sentence, whilst elaborating on the point of view disputing said appellation in the entire third paragraph of the lead (which is already in the article). -- Director (talk) 15:04, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposed changes to WP:NOT

Please see the recent notifications at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts#Proposed changes to WP:NOT and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposed changes to WP:NOT as it effects all religion editors: "There is currently discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Is wikipedia a devotional compendium? regarding a proposed addition to that policy page. As topics of this nature tend to spawn some of the most heated and contested discussions we have, any and all informed, neutral opinions are more than welcome. John Carter (talk) 15:33, 6 August 2012 (UTC)" Thank you, IZAK (talk) 08:30, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

List of African-American firsts

You are invited to visit the article's talk page and comment on inclusion criteria. Zepppep (talk) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

More opportunities for you to access free research databases!

The quest for get Wikipedia editors the sources they need is gaining momentum. Here's what's happening and what you can sign up for right now:

  • Credo Reference provides full-text online versions of nearly 1200 published reference works from more than 70 publishers in every major subject, including general and subject dictionaries and encyclopedias. There are 125 full Credo 350 accounts available, with access even to 100 more references works than in Credo's original donation. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
  • HighBeam Research has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications including newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. Thousands of new articles are added daily, and archives date back over 25 years covering a wide range of subjects and industries. There are 250 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.
  • Questia is an online research library for books and journal articles focusing on the humanities and social sciences. Questia has curated titles from over 300 trusted publishers including 77,000 full-text books and 4 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, as well as encyclopedia entries. There will soon be 1000 full access 1-year accounts available. All you need is a 1-year old account with 1000 edits. Sign up here.

In addition to these great partnerships, you might be interested in the next-generation idea to create a central Wikipedia Library where approved editors would have access to all participating resource donors. It's still in the preliminary stages, but if you like the idea, add your feedback to the Community Fellowship proposal to start developing the project. Drop by my talk page if you have any questions. Go sign up! Ocaasi t | c 02:51, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Daily record by months?

Where do we talk about standardizing articles like January_1913? GeorgeLouis (talk) 02:10, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:History A-Class review & Template:History Top-Class review

{{History A-Class review}} and {{History Top-Class review}} have been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 12:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Has the "R" in SPQR ever been interpreted as "Republicus"? My high school Latin teacher indicated that SPQR stood for Senate, People and Republic. Could this have been an alternatie interprestation or just soemone's false idea? Sreed46 (talk) 14:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Currency of the Roman Empire

There is currently a discussion at Talk:Roman_Empire#Currency about what should be designated the Roman Empirer's 'currency'. Input from others in this project would be appreciated.
Sowlos (talk) 00:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage ready for community feedback

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage, an RFC that will affect the title of the articles currently titled Support for the legalization of abortion and Opposition to legal abortion if consensus is found in favor of its conclusions, is now in its community feedback phase and ready for editors to register opinions and arguments. Please add your feedback; thanks! —chaos5023 (talk) 17:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

RfC on WP:ERA

There is a current RfC on the wording of WP:ERA pertaining to the usage of BCE/CE and BC/AD. I'm alerting members of this project because era-style issues are likely to be pertinent to articles within your scope. The original RfC was posted here, where you may follow the link to the live discussion. Thanks. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Age of Revolutions

While lazily adding categories to uncategorized pages I stumbled on the Age of Revolution stub. I'd like to know if the concept is legit/notable and/or if it is already covered somewhere else. Thanks! --Cyclopiatalk 19:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Input sought at Roman Empire

At Roman Empire, we are seeking opinions about how to fill the "type of government" slot in the infobox. There is a proposal to label it an empire. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What do historians do, and how?

The page talk:historical method (rated top-importance for this project) shows several years of consensus that lay-readers cannot locate useful information amongst the mess of articles purported to describe history techniques generally. Over those years, that article appears to have only declined further; I'm not sure whether the entire group of articles needs complete re-organising (as many have threatened to do) or maybe a carefully phrased hatnote could alleviate the problem. What do people think are appropriate page titles and article scopes for the broader topic area? Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:47, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

inclusion of prehistoric terms in history of country templates and vice versa

Discussion moved from Template talk:History of Hungary#Roman Pannonia:


I started a debate on my talk page about Roman Pannonia. The article of Roman Pannonia has been deleted recently from the row of the template. I think this theme belongs to History of Hungary because "history of Hungary" is not equal with "history of Hungarians". Hungary is a territorial designation or geographical expression. Now we call it Hungary but roughly 2 thousand years ago it was called Pannonia. Moreover, if the History of Romania template has a right to feature Roman Dacia as an integral part of the Romanian History the "History of Hungary" template will have the same right. Fakirbakir (talk) 11:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't the history of Hungary start when Hungary was founded? Just like history of the European Union started when the European Union was created Irji2012 (talk) 11:12, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Interestingly, when historians write a book on the history of a modern state, they dedicate several pages to the period preceeding the foundation of that state. For instance, in László Kontler's book on the history of Hungary there are 11 pages dealing exclusively with the history of the territory of present-day Hungary before the foundation of the state around 1000 (Kontler, László (1999). Millenium in Central Europe: A History of Hungary. Atlantisz Publishing House. ISBN 963-9165-37-9. pp. 21-33.). Similarly, although Romania only came into being in the second half of the 19th century, a history of the country written by leading Romanian historians contains more than 250 pages on the history of the territory of present-day Romania in the preceeding millenia (Bolovan, Ioan; Constantiniu, Florin; Michelson, Paul E.; Pop, Ioan Aurel; Popa, Cristian; Popa, Marcel; Scurtu, Ioan; Treptow, Kurt W.; Vultur, Marcela; Watts, Larry L. (1997). A History of Romania. The Center for Romanian Studies. ISBN 973-98091-0-3., pp. 3-285). Similarly, a well-known book on the history of Slovakia dedicates more than 180 pages to events preceeding the foundation of Slovakia in 1939 (Kirschbaum, Stanislav J. (2005). A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival. Palgrave. ISBN 1-4039-6929-9., pp. 14-183.). Therefore, I suggest that we should follow the example set by reliable sources instead of inventing our own ways to deal with historical issues. Borsoka (talk) 13:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, and the dedicated article for that is History of Hungary before the Hungarians, not Roman Pannonia. The latter is an article whose primary scope is Rome, i.e. it is not focused on a Hungarian POV, nor should it be. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:06, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I should mention here that I had a look at Template:History of Slovakia, and it's got pretty much the same problem, but there it's exacerbated by the fact that they don't have a summary article to link. The History of Slovakia article correctly places the entire period under the first section "Prehistory"; I'll find or create a redirect to link from the template. (All fixed now.) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:12, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
And I should mention what I felt was obvious, but apparently isn't: Roman Pannonia here seems cherry-picked. By the same reasoning, we could include Hallstatt culture, La Tène culture, etc, but the link to the summary article is most appropriate and entirely sufficient. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
You're equating the toponyms Pannonia and Hungary, but that's actually neither accurate nor neutral. You should steer clear of such retroactive irredentism or whats-it-called. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:06, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I see your point. I could agree you if you fixed the "History of Romania" template up as well. There is no place for "Roman Dacia" in the template (if Roman Pannonia has to be removed from here). And there is no point to discuss about "valid claims" (you mentioned it on my talkpage). Fakirbakir (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I cannot catch the point. A significant part of present-day Hungary was included in the Roman province of Pannonia for more than four hundred years. Why is it an issue for anybody to present it separately in the template???? How could its presentation in the template serve irredentism, chauvinism, fascism, ...ism, ...ism, ...ism????? Why do we need to debate this issue???? I think that there are many articles (including Roman Pannonia) that should be improved instead of wasting each other's time on such subjects. Borsoka (talk) 19:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
His point is to list "country POV related" articles in the row of the template (lets see and example Template:History_of_Poland). However I have found counterexamples as well (see: Template:History_of_Russia or Template:History_of_Romania). The "retroactive irredentism" does not make too much sense to me in this case.Fakirbakir (talk) 20:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Borsoka, please read what I wrote above once already: there is absolutely no problem with discussing Roman Pannonia in the context of Hungarian history, but the dedicated article for that is not Roman Pannonia, it's History of Hungary before the Hungarians. Adding an additional link to the article about one specific Roman province, but not the other parts of the history of Hungary before the Hungarians, is tendentious at best.
Fakirbakir, Template:History of Russia doesn't seem to link to any non-specific articles. Neither does Template:History of Poland - they have seemingly too many links to pre-Pole period, but they're all specific, look at the links be hind the pipes: Prehistory and protohistory of Poland, Stone-Age Poland, Bronze- and Iron-Age Poland, Poland in Antiquity. They don't "appropriate" the Stone Age article into their history series or anything of the sort.
The continuity problem only applies to Template:History of Romania, and I've already told you once where you need to address that - at Origin of the Romanians, whose lead section present the theory as having equal weight with the immigrationist theory, so I see no reason to dismiss it it from the template entirely, and I especially see no reason for you to insist on a false equivalence between these two cases. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I am still unable to catch your point. For instance, on the Template:History of Romania, there are at least two titles which refer to the history of Roman Dacia: Dacia and Roman Dacia. Similarly, the subjects of the articles Foundation of Moldavia and Foundation of Wallachia are also described (in a more summarized form) in the article Romania in the Middle Ages, and all three titles are presented in the same template. I think it is not an issue.
As I wrote to Fakirbakir already... the issue there is more general - under the Daco-Roman continuity theory, they don't have a cutoff point such as the Magyars and the Croats, instead, Dacia etc is treated like an integral part of the history of Romania. Maybe this is inherently inappropriate - I don't see any clear reason to assume that it is from looking at the Origin of Romanians article. If you want to clarify that, you should to that there first, until then, that template is just a reflection of those articles. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Again: Where was Roman Pannonia situated? In the territory of a number of modern states, including Hungary. Why is it an issue if it is emphasized in the template? We should follow the example set by reliable sources on the history of Hungary: those reliable sources refer to the history of Roman Pannonia. Borsoka (talk) 09:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Likewise, Roman Pannonia can be emphasized in the Template:History of Hungary, because it is an important part of the history of Hungary before the Hungarians. And again, what does appropriation mean in the above context? A significant part of Roman Dacia now belongs to Serbia - does the putting of Roman Dacia on the Template:History of Romania suggest that the Romanians appropriate Roman Dacia for themselves? Stating this would be a ridiculous claim.
No, it's not a ridiculous claim - you can't make entirely anachronistic, greedy links and expect everyone else to just tolerate it. That would be ridiculous. Roman Dacia can be said to be a part of the history of Serbia because it was one of its predecessors, but it's not an integral part because it preceded the actual "the history of Serbia". (In addition, now that I clicked through to the Roman Dacia article, the Serbian/Bulgarian part is actually split into a separate article Dacia Aureliana, so your analogy makes even less sense.) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Please read the articles themselves: Roman Dacia (="Dacia Traiana") and Dacia Aureliana were two separate provinces. Roman Dacia/Dacia Traiana included exclusively territories north of the Danube, including Banat (which is no divided between Romania and Serbia), Oltenia and Transylvania between 106 AD and c. 272 AD. The other province, Dacia Aureliana was set up after Dacia Traiana/Roman Dacia had been given up by the Romans. This province included territories south of the Danube (which are now mainly situated in Serbia). So my analogy does make sense: should we delete the title Roman Dacia from the History of Romania template because (1) it expropriate the history of a Roman province which also encompased territories now belonging to other modern states; (2) its text is only a more developed form of parts of Dacia article (therefore it is only a repetition); and (3) Romania came into being in the second half of the 19th century; therefore all facts on the history of the lands now forming Romania should be summarized in an article History of the territory of Romania before the foundation of Romania? I would not follow this approach. Accordingly, it is not an issue, that Roman Pannonia is put on the "History of Hungary" template. Borsoka (talk) 09:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Just one more remark, history of modern states cannot be presented in articles that follow each other in a chronological order, because none of the modern countries existed in the same territory for millenia. Consequently we cannot compulsively follow a pure chronological order and we can add the same article to multiple templates. Borsoka (talk) 08:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
What you're saying makes sense, but not in the case of predecessors. For example, the article Narentines describes something that is 'tagged' as both Croatian and Serbian history. That's fine because there were actually tangible connections between that topic and Croatia and Serbia at the place at the time. On the other hand, no such direct links exist between the Roman provinces (Pannonia, Dalmatia) and Croatia (and Serbia), because the Croats had not even moved there yet. The connection is being made retroactively, and if we do it improperly, outside the clear context of the national history series, it's a silly violation of WP:SYNTH. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Again: we should follow the example set by modern reliable sources on the history of Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania,.... They write of the hitory of the territory before the foundation of the modern states. In some cases, the history of the Roman province is emphasized, in some cases not. Why should we find our original way to present those countries history? Borsoka (talk) 09:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that this template (like all other similar templates) should list all relevant articles which deal with history of certain territory regardless if the territory itself kept the same (modern version) of name trough all of its history or not. I came here because User:Joy pointed to this discussion in this edit.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 16:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
So, I am just asking, we should delete Pre-Columbian era topic from Template:History_of_the_United_States because it sounds anachronistic? Fakirbakir (talk) 16:47, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Of course not. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 17:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Finally, again, again, again. What is the point in making a mountain out of a molehill? Most editors have accepted the status quo. Why should it be changed? Borsoka (talk) 09:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I think you are right. My problem is if I inserted the template into page of Roman Pannonia User:Joy would presumably delete it (just see its history). Roman Pannonia is part of the themes of the template and -because of this reason- page of Roman Pannonia should show the template in its article in my opinion. On the other hand article of Pre-Columbian era is part of topics of History of America template but the Pre-Columbian article does not feature it?! Fakirbakir (talk) 10:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Borsoka, I read your latest response and actually concurred with you with regard to the intricacies of describing Dacia, but then your going so far to deny the Daco-Romanian continuity to push the beginning of the Romanian history into the 19th century, and then somehow using that as an instant excuse to promote this sort of Romano-Magyar continuity under the guise of "why don't you just let us be creative", proceeded to convey an impression of yourself as a petty Hungarian nationalist who isn't here for the encyclopedia, but instead just wants to play with all the same toys as the other neighborhood kid.

I guess it's my fault for not remembering that the neighborhood kids have petty rivalries, and that if you don't herd them in the same direction, they'll just make a mess of things. :P

Anyway, I'll re-state the basic argument once again: what I did simply made the templates consistent with their articles:

  • History of Hungary lead section has this for its first sentence: "[Hungary's] history under this name dates to the early Middle Ages, when Pannonian Basin was conquered by the Hungarians [...]"
  • History of Serbia lead section has this for its first sentence: "The history of Serbia, as a country, begins with the Slavic settlements in the Balkans, established in the 6th century [...]"
  • History of Romania doesn't have such a thing in its lead section, instead it has equal-level sections "Prehistory", "Dacia", "Dark Ages", "Middle Ages", etc.

The only place where I first made a major intervention in the article was History of Slovakia, which before my edit had the same look as the Romanian history article, but without any apparent link to a Slovak-pre-Slovak continuity theory or whatever, so I was bold and I fixed that.

I'm not being bold with the Romanian article because there *is* a well-referenced continuity theory article there that I'm not willing to casually dispute in this kind of a janitorial manner.

So if you wish to genuinely argue his matter, as opposed to concocting whatever argument allows you to promote whatever POV you have, please feel free to take this issue to your own (sic) history article talk pages. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:02, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and about the American template: that's a red herring, because that template already looks exactly the way I made these templates look - there's a single link to an article that describes the pre-colonial history. Yes, that article isn't specific to the United States, but at the same time there are no multiple links to overly specific articles such as Paleo-Indians, the Woodland period and whatever else. Do you see the pattern now? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:07, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. I cannot catch your above points. (1) Wikipedia is not a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes. Therefore, the reference to the History of Hungary article is surprising. (2) I have never referred to any continuity theory in this debate, because this is not about continuity. What I still maintain is the following: (1) Reliable sources narrating the history of Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia .... always dedicate pages to the history preceding the the establishment of the state. (2) In the territory of present-day Croatia, Hungary, Romania ...., there were one or more Roman provinces. Reliable sources narrating the history of these states always dedicate pages to the history of those Roman provinces. (3) Yes. The article "History of Hungary before the Hungarian Conquest" is dedicated to the history of the territory of Hungary preceding the arrival of the Hungarians. Accordingly, this article should clearly be added to the template "History of Hungary". However, I still do not understand why the article Roman Pannonia should be deleted from the same template? It does not suggest any continuity, since the same template also refer to the arrival of the Hungarians: therefore, this is not an issue of continuity or discontinuity. Duplications are not rare either: I again refer to the template "History of Romania" which refers to two articles (Foundation of Wallachia and Foundation of Moldavia) which are covered by a third article (Romania in the Early Middle Ages), itself also presented on the same template. Are you sure that deleting a reference (based on reliable sources) from a template is the best way of improving WP. Borsoka (talk) 16:07, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I think we should consider mediation because this debate leads nowhere. User:Joy, your reasoning is actually obscure. You find excuses why you leave articles in Template:History of Romania but you easily edit other templates in accordance of your POV. You edited template of History of Czech Republic a couple of months ago. Why did you leave for example Boii in the template of History of Czech Republic?? It has nothing to do with history of Czech Republic (according to your POV). Shall we use article of Avar people in the Hungarian template? What is the difference between the use of Boii and the use of Roman Pannonia in the templates ?O Why can we use article of Khazar Khaganate in template of History of Russia? Khazar Khaganate was a Turkic polity and was not only situated in present-day territory of Russia. Fakirbakir (talk) 18:17, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmmm, I do not see the problem with including Pannonia on the History of Hungary template. I also cannot understand the connection of this issue and being or not being a "petty Hungarian nationalist". Anyway, what about the History of Portugal template? It also includes Roman provinces, such as Lusitania and Gallaecia. Why is it okay, while providing Pannonia on this template is not okay? Cheers, KœrteFa {ταλκ} 04:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
All this "but other country does it, too!" stuff is really starting to remind me of WP:OSE. Yes, the Portuguese template also has a bunch of excess links hidden behind the "Ancient" link. I'm going to go remove them, too. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:15, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Your position is not supported by other editors. Significant changes should not be performed without gaining consensus first.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
This is not a significant change that is supposed to garner a lot of controversy - even after the change, Roman Pannonia article is still effectively linked through the summary article, which links and explains it in context. (Same goes for the other examples.) The only reason this is controversial is that people are apparently treating history as a fief. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:55, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
PS: In my understanding, History of Hungary includes both the history of Hungarians and the history of the territory. KœrteFa {ταλκ} 04:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Nice wikilawyering practice you have there, Borsoka.
To say that the reference from the history series template to the history article is contrary to WP:CIRCULAR is a plain old red herring - the whole point of the history series template is to be a navigational aid of the history articles, not a separate article in and of itself. If you want to argue that the template needs its own references, then I suggest you find something in the real world to reference it to - it would be difficult to find a reference that wouldn't be subject to scrutiny under WP:SYNTH - because how do you prove without any doubt that no editorial decision is involved in mapping a set of chapter titles from a book to a set of lines/links of a template? That would make the template editing process entirely ridiculous and that's why what you're saying is entirely bogus.
There is no dispute about dedicating space to the prior history. There is also no dispute about linking specific articles that are within the uncontroversial period/context of a country's history in the template (assuming they are linked as prominently in the history article, obviously). The dispute is about linking specific articles that are outside of the uncontroversial period/context of a country's history. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the appeal to consensus employed by Borsoka at the Portuguese template - I find it entirely disingenuous, because a near-immediate blind revert asserting "a lack of consensus" is contrary to the letter and spirit of WP:CONS - you're just filibustering the change despite the fact I had expended non-trivial effort adjusting the articles History of Portugal, Prehistoric Portugal and Ancient Portugal to provide a more coherent overview. That was just some plain old silly let's start an edit war attitude. *sigh* --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

OK. I understand that those who do not share your thoughts are either kids or nice wikilawyers. I also understand that unilateral change of other templates in order to prove the validity of our views is a respectable approach. I even understand that I am a pig-headed warmonger. However, I still do not understand why does the putting of Roman Dacia on the Template "History of Hungary" contradict to any Wikipedia policies, if this practise is based on reliable sources which refer to the history of Roman Dacia when narrating the history of Hungary? Borsoka (talk) 17:58, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
More wikilawyering. Why don't you ask yourself why can't you put the link to the Paleolithic on the template "History of Hungary" when reliable sources refer to its history when narrating the history of Hungary? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 07:51, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Because Paleothic is not a geographical expression but a (pre)historical era. Why do not you accept that Roman Pannonia belongs to the history of present-day Hungary? I would like to understand your reasoning. What do you think we can use Avar Khaganate or Eurasian Avars in the template? Because Template:History of the Czech Republic easily uses Boii and Marcomanni....Or article of Khazars (as !Khazar Khaganate!) is featured in the Russian template and according to your point of view that page should not be there?! Fakirbakir (talk) 14:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the above remark by Fakirbakir. For instance, if an article with the title Prehistoric Hungary were created, it should be put on the template "History of Hungary". Similarly, since a significant part of Hungary was once part of Roman Pannonia, it could be added to the same template. Of course, the same article (Roman Pannonia) could also be added to the template "History of Croatia". These duplications are not rare in our region. Borsoka (talk) 16:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
So you're fine with using an anachronistic geographic term in a historical template, but not a historical term? Do you realize how incoherent this sounds?
In any case, I see we're generally stuck on WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. This should be be normalized everywhere, one way or the other. Can we move the entire RfC to e.g. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:22, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Roman Pannonia should be part of this template because it is part of history of Hungary. Perhaps editors can reach compromise to include Pannonia in this template, but not to include this template in Pannonia article? Perhaps Avars and Huns can be included into this template too? Hungarians consider that Avars and Huns are their predecesors, so why not to have them in template? CrnoBelo (talk) 14:41, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

End moved part. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:32, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

[I came here following a pointer from the Village Post] I think that there are 3 possible meanings of the "History of Foo" template. The first is to group articles about the history of a particular piece of land (the exact shape of which might vary slightly from article to article) - "History of the land that is now called Romania". The second is to group articles about a particular people - "History of the Romanians". The third is to group articles about a particular country - "History of the country known as Romania". Coming from Britain, I feel that the first meaning makes greatest sense - I would expect a template about the history of Britain to cover from Stone Age to the Present, irrespective of various migrations and/or divisions into different countries. However, I can see that people from territories with more fluid boundaries might prefer one of the other senses. Bluap (talk) 22:58, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, essentially it's a question of scope. I think the key detail here is that the country history templates are all using the phrase "Part of a series on the History of Portugal" or similar, and then linking the country history article. There's very little leeway to interpret it as a template that matches pieces of land or peoples, the connection to the specific country history is simply very strict.
And even so, I don't see a major problem with interpreting it as broadly as possible, because the history articles are broad - they also include sections on history preceding the nation's formation/settlement. The issue I have is going even more broad to be ridiculous - linking entirely anachronistic concepts from the navigation template. It's essentially a nationalist trip that is of zero use to the readers, in fact it may only confuse them to see e.g. no mention of Slovakia or Slovaks in the Lombards article.
The example you mention doesn't have this problem - History of the British Isles doesn't have a matching template, the only template it uses is {{Timeline history of the British Isles}}.
--Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:27, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Do you suggest that all articles dealing with the history of a territory that now belong to a modern country should contain to a reference to that country? "Roman Pannonia was a Roman province in a territory now shared by Hungary and Croatia", "Roman Dacia was a Roman province in a territory now shared by Romania and Serbia", "the Lombard around 500 lived in a territory what now belongs to Slovakia", etc. For me, it is OK. Borsoka (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Notification of user conduct discussion for Paul Bedson

There is an ongoing user conduct discussion regarding Paul Bedson, which may be of interest to members of this WikiProject, since Paul contributes to many history articles. It can be found here. If you comment there you may wish to review the rules for user conduct comments first. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:People of pre-statehood West Virgnia

Category:People of pre-statehood West Virginia has been nominated for merger at CfD.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:31, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Seasoning (slave)

Hi,

I believe the above article to be incorrect, and in need of someone with the resources to look at it. As the article is linked to the Wikipedia:WikiProject African diaspora, I have also left a message there.

I have for the past year or so been studying colonial empires and have only seen information to the contrary of what this article states. I am no longer in procession of the various books I had on the subject, so I am unable to edit the article myself. The general consensus as to what the term "seasoning" means, which can be found all over the net, is of a person (European or African) who has survived a year or so in the Americas and not just general term for the torture and breaking of slaves. The article contains no sourced information on the subject to back up its claims, other than where slaves were destined for, their price, and the average mortality rate. Therefore, I propose someone who has the time and sources improve and move the article.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 01:11, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A bit of frustration

Hello fellow historians! Would it be possible to have some central place with article requests? I just created two articles that I thought were needed, only to find that they were dupes of existing articles. This is very frustrating because I surfed here hoping to help out a bit with the workload. Nobody expects every redlink to redirect to the proper article, but in areas where articles are supposedly being requested, it's a but frustrating (not to mention a waste of time) to have that happen. If somebody wishes to have some pages created, feel free to dump a list on my talk page. It's easy enough to crank out the minimums with stub tags, cats, infoboxes, and talk page banners. I am here if anyone needs me. --Sue Rangell 02:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Request for B Class review of Noel Malcolm

G'day all, could someone please have a look at Noel Malcolm and assess for B Class? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 05:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Request for input on peer review of Zong Massacre article

I've recently been working on the Zong Massacre article, which is now in peer review. I'd appreciate any feedback that project members might have on this article. Also, the article has not received an importance or quality rating from this project -- do people think it is worth submitting it for "A class" review? Celuici (talk) 11:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Timeline of Independence African Nation

Hi all,
What do you think of Timeline of Independence African Nation? An editor made an ambitious start on it in 2011 but it's still a mostly blank table and the structure is not ideal. Can it be salvaged or should it redirect elsewhere? bobrayner (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

It appears too ambitious and complex, unfortunately not very readable. I think a more traditional list is preferable. With regards, Iselilja (talk) 00:42, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Germans and Ethnic Germans - input requested

A long discussion has taken place at Talk:Germans which has resulted in a proposal being made (by myself) to rename and redefine the article and also the Ethnic Germans article. Any comments from historians welcome. The renaming proposal is here, though much of the discussion takes place in the preceeding sections. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 00:10, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

List of Jewish deportees from Norway during World War II

Hello all,
I'm concerned about this article - it's just a giant list of people with minimal notability. Is it encyclopædic? What should be done with it? What do you think? bobrayner (talk) 16:38, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

TAFI

 

Hello,
Please note that Wonders of the World, which is within this project's scope, has been selected to become a Today's Article for Improvement. The article is currently in the TAFI Holding Area, where comments are welcome about ideas to improve it. After the article is moved from the holding area to the TAFI schedule, it will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's Article for Improvement" section for one week. Everyone is invited to participate in the discussion and encouraged to collaborate to improve the article.
Thank you,
TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:22, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
(From the TAFI team)

 

Hello,
Please note that Recorded history, which is within this project's scope, has been selected to become a Today's Article for Improvement. The article is currently in the TAFI Holding Area, where comments are welcome about ideas to improve it. After the article is moved from the holding area to the TAFI schedule, it will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's Article for Improvement" section for one week. Everyone is invited to participate in the discussion and encouraged to collaborate to improve the article.
Thank you,
TheOriginalSoni (talk) 07:29, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
(From the TAFI team)

Muslim conquest of Persia

The article seems to contain a couple historical inaccuracies and inappropriate sources and there in need for attention by an expert and probably an overall review as well (see article's talk page for details).--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Isle de France

Is French Mauritius a "top-importance" article to your project? Talk:Isle de France says it is, which I find very strange. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 08:44, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

No. Its low importance.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 00:23, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Help with Monetary Sovereignty?

Hello Historians,

I've been working on the monetary sovereignty page for a bit and there's plenty of history involved. Recently there has been some debate in the talk section (eg. this and this), and many historical references have been removed. Any contributions on these or other topics would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Chetrasho (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

RfC on Juan Manuel de Rosas

There is a current RfC on how much weight political and nationalist revisionist viewpoints should be given in articles. The RfC was posted here. Thanks. • Astynax talk 19:33, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Al-Mustansir (caliph) wrongly redirected

Maybe someone can fix this: Al-Mustansir (caliph) is a redirect to Abu 'Abd Allah, the Hafsid ruler, but its afluents are expected to point to the Abbasid caliph of Bagdad, son of of Az-Zahir (Abbasid caliph). --pt:Stegop talk 06:57, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Makeover of 'Enslaved Women in the Colonial North America and the U.S' page

This article is currently start-class, and I plan to make the subject my research project for the duration of this semester. The majority of the article at this point is arbitrary examples from slavery in the U.S., so I plan on reorganizing these examples into a separate section and adding additional sections with general information about women in slavery in the colonial Americas. I want to expand the article from it's focus on the U.S. to both American continents, so I will be including sections on violence, gender paradigms, and sex ratios among slaves to serve as general information that is representative of the whole region of the Americas in colonial times. I also intend to add two specific examples of slave life for women in two countries; Brazil and Jamaica. These examples will also serve to broaden the focus of the article. Some sources I plan to cite from include Women and slavery vol. 2 edited by Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, Joseph C. Miller, Laboring women : reproduction and gender in New World slavery by Jennifer L. Morgan, and Slavery, Freedom, and Gender by Moore, Higman, Campbell, Bryan. I would be grateful for any ideas on other credible sources that may be useful to this topic.

If there are any specific suggestions about aspects of this topic I should include while working on this article they would be greatly appreciated. I would also appreciate any general history research hints, because I'm no history major!

Lggernon (talk) 06:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC) Lggernon (talk) 17:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

"Austrian"

Hello,
I'm working on the coverage of the Brabant Revolution for WP:BELG and I come across a problem. Sources talk about the revolt being put down by "Austrian" forces. Ditto, about the "Austrian" Netherlands. My problem is that I cannot find out whether this is just a reference to the Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs in general, or of the Archduchy of Austria (part of the HRE after all) in particular! Any clarification would be much appreciated - it doesn't seem to be just me who has misunderstood! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 11:57, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Limerick Pogrom would like your input!

There is an active RFC here at Talk:Limerick Pogrom that could use your participation! Appreciate it, cheers... Zad68 14:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussions of Vital articles

There are discussions at Wikipedia:Vital articles and Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded which may be of interest to this project pbp 01:07, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Request: Editing history section of Jainism

It was found by one of the reviewer in the peer review of Jainism that the history section does not present a clear historical perspective. Would it be possible for someone to help me out in improving that section? Rahul Jain (talk) 17:32, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Peer review request

Hello, I've initiated a peer review request for the List of historic schools of forestry article, and would appreciate comments from WP:History editors on ways it can be improved. Ultimately, I would like to nominate it for Featured List status. Please add your suggestions at this link. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi all

A discussion has started due to recent edits that have been challenged.

Would any interested parties please join the discussion.

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 14:46, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Request for comments

There is an WP:RFC at Talk:Sockpuppet (Internet)#Orlando Figes' sockpuppetry? as to whether the historian Orlando Figes belongs on the page. --Andrewaskew (talk) 03:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC on title of Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown)

Hi, there is an RM/RfC here that may be of interest to this project. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:07, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

More Eyes Needed at Iraq War

There have been recent major (and very bold) changes to the Iraq War article. I would appreciate the involvement of more editors, since there don't seem to be many people who regularly edit there any more. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:50, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

New article on gender studies lecturer Nicholas Chare

I've created a new article on gender studies lecturer, Nicholas Chare.

Further help with expansion would be most appreciated.

Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 06:00, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Horrible Histories

Hi. We're having a discussion on the fate of Horrible Histories TV show at: Horrible Histories (2009 TV series)#Moving on. Being marked as a Wikiproject of interest to the article, we would greatly appreciate it if you would voice your opinion on the talk page, or to have a crack at editing and improving it. Thankyou for your time. :)--Coin945 (talk) 13:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Prehistory and Ancient history inconsistancy

There seems to be some uncertainty about the time spans of the subdivisions of Ancient history and Prehistory. To explain, the introduction to Ancient history states that it covers all recorded human history preceding the Postclassical Era. Fair enough. This would start around 3000 BCE with Sumerian cuneiform (so it says) and end around 500 CE with the Early Middle Ages and the Postclassical Era (i.e. the fall of major empires). That's all simple. Equally straightforward is the fact that Prehistory claims to cover all human history before written records. One would assume this would cleanly precede Ancient history in a nice, organized fashion.

However (to get to my point) the Three-age system completely disturbs this. For those not in the know, the three-age system supposedly divides Prehistory into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. Yet the Iron Age occurs from around 1200 BCE to around 500 CE, well past Prehistory. Similarly the Bronze Age begins, at earliest, around 3600 BCE; even so, the majority of the time period takes up Ancient history, not Prehistory. Now, obviously the Three-age system is a well-respected theory and whatnot and I even advocate entertain the use of its time periods. But why does it presume to cover most if not all of Prehistory, when it is nearly the exact opposite? I'll admit this may be a lack of my understanding in Ancient and Pre-history. But if so, what am I missing? I legitimately would like somebody to explain this to me, because I sincerely do not understand what's the deal with this (if you will).

I also confess that this entire inquiry may result in nothing more than an explanation followed by an immediate close of the discussion, but I feel as though it is an important topic to bring up. Resolving this will make it easier for me (and hopefully others) to picture and frame world history time periods. This is especially true for templates such as Template:Ancient history, Template:Human history and prehistory, and even Template:Human history. So I humbly implore you Wikipedians, enlighten me on this inconsistency. Thank you.

InvaderCito (talk) 20:03, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I tried to make this same point when I first started editing here, "long" ago. Others thwarted my activities, so you may have to work around it ... --J. D. Redding 13:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Fixing use of Middle Ages in global context

There are many articles and templates that refer to the Middle Ages as a global time period. these need to be replaced with the Postclassical Era. This is a pretty straightforward issue and I don't think anyone should object to the changes, as the Middle Ages is obviously too Eurocentric for these purposes. I've already made changes in places like Template:Human history and History by period, but I feel certain there are many, many more templates and articles that retain this issue. Thus, I encourage anyone that notices this to convert mentions of the Middle Ages in a global context to Postclassical Era. I'm not suggesting Postclassical Era replace the Middle Ages; the latter is still to be used for European related situations, but only for that. I thank anyone that will help this endeavor; it's really very simple, but an issue I thought is important enough to address in this fashion. Once again, thank you.

InvaderCito (talk) 20:04, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you mentioned this on the talk page. I'm a history major and this is the first I've heard of it. I've read the applicable articles and talk pages. It would appear that this change in terminology is limited and recent innovation. I would caution against being too bold. Let's find some reputable discussion before we make more changes. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:14, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
The article Middle Ages is not located at Postclassical Era because Middle Ages is the WP:COMMONNAME for this period in modern English (especially but not strictly in reference to European history). I would strongly caution against getting too carried away with replacing Middle Ages with Postclassical Era. Which articles and templates are we talking about, specifically? Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 02:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
The Euro-centric warriors had for a long time guarded the "Middle Ages" articles against globalization. The Postclassical Era seem as the only refuge to detail the real middle ages of the world in universal history. --J. D. Redding 13:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
To tell you the truth, I was not aware that the Postclassical Era was a recent development. I knew of it before working on its article, so when I found it I assumed it must have been already well-established. After I did a little (and I truly mean "a little") extra research, I noticed it was very sparsely mentioned and obviously uncommon. I know it was used as a primary period in World Civilizations: The Global Experience (textbook by Peter Stearns, ISBN 9780131360204), although this was written in 2011. Apparently Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past (textbook by Jerry H. Bentley, ISBN 9780076594382) also used the term heavily, and was also written in 2011. Admittedly, I haven't actually read Traditions & Encounters, but I did completely read World Civilizations. But I digress. I understand now that Middle Ages is much, much more commonly used than Postclassical Era so I'll concede not making a complete (or even significant) conversion until it's certain this relatively new term will catch on. Nevertheless, I feel something should be done to prevent this apparent Eurocentrism in some of the history articles that use a global context (such as History of the world or Ancient history). When users wanting to look at a world historical timeline are directed to the Middle Ages article, it inconveniences them. I suppose some sort of compromise could be made, perhaps including both links in the same place (although that might end up being too unwieldy) or more disclaimers like the one at the top of the Middle Ages article. — InvaderCito (talk) 04:08, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

gun control rfc

There is an RFC that may be of interest to this group at Talk:Gun_control#RFC. Subject of the RFC is "Is the use of gun restriction legislation or other confiscations by totalitarian governments (Nazi, Communist etc) accurately described as "Gun Control". Are such instances appropriate for inclusion in the Gun Control article. (Details at RFC in article)" Gaijin42 (talk) 15:59, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

This RFC could use additional input. Gaijin42 (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Improve Coverage of Wars of the Roses Historians

Would it be possible to improve the coverage of academic Wars of the Roses (WOTR) historians? Wikipedia has articles for major historians teaching today like Michael Hicks and Christine Carpenter; however, scholars and historians who have made pioneering contributions to the field like J.R. Lander and Cora L. Scofield are missing. The scholars created pioneering and foundational work that Hicks and others have built on. Also because they died or retired before the age of the Internet it is very hard for researchers to learn about the backgrounds, educations, and potential biases or their work. (Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I'm a new user. Aka don't flame me. :-) ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sval1971 (talkcontribs) 03:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

"Holocaust" OR "The Holocaust"

Recently, the article that was titled The Holocaust was changed to Holocaust with relatively little input. Please see the follow-up discussion at Talk:Holocaust#Follow-up discussion about a hasty decision and please contribute your views. Thank you. IZAK (talk) 07:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Is the article name of Press coverage of the Armenian Genocide in accordance with its content?

The article currently does not present the topic in the general view its title implies (concerning language, religion, geography, and period of time). Should the article name therefore be amended?--FoxyOrange (talk) 08:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

  • Press coverage of the Armenian Genocide was recently moved to Press coverage during the Armenian Genocide. The reason given was "suitable name and provides contemporaneous connotation". "Suitable name" explains neither why the previous name was unsuitable nor why the new name is (more) suitable in the opinion of the page mover. I don't understand what is meant by "provides contemporaneous connotation". Press coverage of the Armenian Genocide restricts the article content to coverage of the genocide, while allowing for historical coverage of it by the press years or decades after it was over. Press coverage during the Armenian Genocide limits the article content to what the press wrote while the genocide was actually happening, but could also include non-related topics, such as football press coverage during the genocide. Wbm1058 (talk) 12:32, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
  • See also: Talk:Press coverage during the Armenian GenocideWbm1058 (talk) 12:43, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
  • FoxyOrange, you recently tagged the article with {{Disputed title}}, a template that I'm not fond of, because it's unclear as to the reason(s) for the dispute, though it's survived two recent requests for deletion. When you say "The article currently does not present the topic in the general view its title implies" above, that imples {{Inappropriate title}} to me. Does that tag apply here, if so, why didn't you use that one? Noting that {{TitleDisputed}} used to redirect to {{POV-title}}, would that tag apply here too? Wbm1058 (talk) 13:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I received a request for input on this RFC, so I reviewed the article. Considering a choice between Press coverage of the Armenian Genocide and Press coverage during the Armenian Genocide, the latter is far more accurate in regards to the article. It accurately displays the content of the article and the information in the article reflects most accurately the intent of the title. If we were to go to Press coverage of the Armenian Genocide, we'd then have to include all press coverage after the Armenian Genocide as well by the definition of the article title.Wzrd1 (talk)

"Timeline of x" considered stub-by

It seems to me that "Timelines" have been constructed as a cheap and dirty way out of constructing actual histories with text. They are fine as a "quick and dirty" outline, but should not really be accepted by the Wikipedia community. They are lists. See WP:NOT. The items ("bullets") are often uncited. See WP:RS.

We often do not know who or why these "bullets" were selected, and not others. They often cover more ground (or less) than a place history. There presence in a specific "Timeline" is sometimes incomprehensible. See WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. And worst of all, they are probably used by schoolchildren doing research just because they are "easy to read," though among the least credible articles in Wikipedia.

IMO, we should label these categories, e.g. Category:City timelines, as well as the articles under them like we do stubs. Except with the caption, "This is a temporary article. The material will be moved to the appropriate history article with citations." Student7 (talk) 16:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Modern history inconsistency

Similar to the Ancient history/Prehistory issue that I've inquired about, is the oddity in our division of the Modern history time period. What seems affirmed is that the period begins with the end of the Postclassical Era. This cleanly moves into the Early modern period. Additionally, Modern history seems to end with Contemporary history, which itself begins in the early 1900s and finishes in present day. What is mysterious is the time frame between these two sub-periods. In the Template:Human history, this space is occupied by... modern history. Which, obviously, is the parent-period and, obviously, simply leads back to the overall time frame: Modern history. The article on Modern history also seems to masterfully neglect naming this time frame from about 1750 to the early 1900s. Long story short, I want someone to offer a well-known and well-respected period to cover this time frame. Right now, my personal prime candidate is the Long nineteenth century. There's always the Industrial Revolution and Age of Revolution but those periods are a little too narrow for this purpose. Anyone have any better periods? Anyone even have a completely different way of going about this? Please, I encourage you to comment. No legitimate opinion is worthless. Thank you.

InvaderCito (talk) 01:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Ideally, the Early and Late modern periods (with the contemporary history) could be contained in one article ... but that is way too large of an article [that is why it was {{split}} before] (see also Wikipedia:Splitting, Readable prose size [even with the current split-up structure, the articles are big]).
The late modern period is mainly covered contained within Modern history. The 1500s to the 1800 are in the Early modern, The 1800s to the 1950s are in the late. And the Contemporary article covers the 1950s to the present.
Btw, the IR and AoR periods are not neglected, I do not think you looked close enough the series of articles. J. D. Redding 12:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Neglected? Do you mean to say they're not in poor condition? Because even though Age of Revolution is, that's not my point. Also, what do you mean when you say you think I didn't look closely enough at the series of articles? Exactly which articles are you talking about and what'd I miss? I'm sorry, I hope I don't sound hostile or sarcastic; I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. — InvaderCito (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Neglected as in ignored ... as the shape of those particular article, improve them. 'Human history' and 'Human history and prehistory' templates cover all of history [as wp defines it, written history]. And the modern article mentions both [summary] and directs to the appropriate article [{{main}}]. --J. D. Redding 16:08, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I counsel caution here, too. Periodization is a tricky art because it tends to form around narratives. I'll look into it and try to provide a good suggestion. To a large degree I don't think anything should be done. Study of events prior to after 1750 isn't history, it's journalism. The more recent we get the more historians should be hands-off about the study.
On a side point, I'm sorry no one has bothered to welcome you or interact with you on other talk pages. It's a consequence of having a moribund wikiproject. I hope we can do a better job of working with you in the future. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:25, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
What do you mean, "Study of events prior to 1750 isn't history, it's journalism"? 216.8.129.17 (talk) 13:08, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
That was a typo on my part, I meant after. I went to bed last night and was lying awake wondering if I had typed that correctly or not. Ultimately I decided not to get up just to check my contributions.
History is the study of what happened in the past but proper historical study should be detached from popular conceptions and recentism. It depends on which historians you ask. I just took an upper division course on East Germany, which the professor admitted is really too recent to study. In this case, I don't think we should spend too much time trying to periodize modern history. History for our purposes should end with the absolutist monarchs and the Age of Enlightenment, which is technically when Modernity begins. We can always have articles about more recent events and people but we don't need to (in my opinion) try to identify more recent historical periods. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
I think the historians of the Worlds Wars would disagree with the end of the modern period at being the 1850s. =-] --J. D. Redding 13:10, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I thought it was a typo. Thanks. 216.8.129.17 (talk) 15:58, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Historical periodization

Just to be clear [and, understanding, periodization is to some extent arbitrary]
1500s to the Present : Modern history
1500s to the 1800s : Early modern
1800s to the 1950s : Late modern
1950s to the present : Contemporary
When many talk of "modern" history, they are referring to the late modern period. Most laypeople use the term in connection with the contemporary period.
Btw, this also fit the other ages [ancient and medieval] in this "fuzzy" structure. Span of time is usually divided into 7 parts [knowingly or unknowingly, as the case may be], with 4 in the early period, 2 in the high/middle period, and one in the late period. [... and, interestingly [to me, atleast, on a metatheorical view], the whole span of written history falls in to this same pattern.]
--J. D. Redding 12:56, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I like your presentation of periods. The overall structure of world, or universal, history begins with Ancient history, followed by Medieval history, and ending with Modern history; that's simple and appears to be pretty clear-cut. Additionally, I'll accept the subdivisions of Modern history you mentioned: Early modern, Late modern, and Contemporary. So considering that, shouldn't the Late modern history have its own article? If the Early modern period and Contemporary history have their own articles, it seems logical to give Late modern history one. My objective here is to organize the history on Wikipedia so that it's clear and understandable. Considering (as you've mentioned before) Modern history is much too long to describe beyond a summary on its own article, its subdivisions must be separate so that they can be more fleshed out. It is important (in my opinion) that we group together this history into clearer sections for global history so that the content can be more easily read and edited. — InvaderCito (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree that a primary objective of historical scholars should be to organize history so that it's clear and understandable to everyone, not just here on Wikipedia though (... the other sciences would also do better if they took heed of such objectives).
Anyways. not too favorable on that idea, though it would not be super-bad. But, and the reason I favor incorporation is, it is all modern history, from the 1500 on. This is also as the historical references cite it, so to split it inappropriately verges on originality. The early period is summarize in the main modern article and split. Also, the contemporary period is summarized and split. [See the guidelines on summaries.]
As I write this, I was thinking if there is a good page title [not even sure if there is a guideline on that, but don't doubt there is... have to look] that can be used to summarize and split the late modern history one to? Think that modern age redirect to the late modern age.
Now, splitting does not mean the removal of the existing information (if that is what you mean by "clearer sections"), but if there is an expansion needed ... it could go there. --J. D. Redding 13:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
[P.s., The aforementioned comment on 7:4,2,1 sometimes is reversed (7:1,2,4) in some histories; keep noticing this ... thought of looking for the equation that fits it, but have not come across it [I'd claim it if there isn't such a 'theory of periodization' =-]. Depends on how a particular historian describes and frames the history. To take this to it's logical conclusion, some histories would be also in the format of 7:1,4,2 and 7:2,4,1; many are not though. Note, a simple thirds (1/3) or fifths (1/5) approach does not work out; it'd be much more simplistic to do so, but doesn't seem to fit the written histories.]
To give a graphical look at this "periodization theory", the following will do:


High and Low (complexity) are used in the middle periods. --J. D. Redding 13:17, 12 August 2013 (UTC) [pS., I think they call this Epic Win and Epic Fail in today's common vernacular =-]
Believe that this has to do with logarithms, but have not come across this explicitly stated.--J. D. Redding 15:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC) [PS., as John Green states in one of his videos [IIRC; and probably said before], "for when something is gained, something is lost" ... and each of these framings has good aspect, but can lose some information.]
Oh found the quote: For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else. - Ralph Waldo Emerson --J. D. Redding 18:06, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:List of Georgian monarchs#Splitting into many lists

Please join in discussion on splitting Talk:List of Georgian monarchs#Splitting into many lists.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 01:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Chittagong

Hi, Can anyone from WikiProject History kindly help in building the historical sections in the article on Chittagong, a historic port city in Bangladesh. It would also be helpful if anyone familiar with the history of great port cities could review the lead as well. Thank you.--Bazaan (talk) 23:29, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Categories: Is History a Social Science?

It is my firm view that History is NOT one of the Social Sciences, but rather is part of the Humanities -- and that Historians are not Social Scientists. Over the years, I have removed any number of History-related categories from Social Science category-trees. However, it appears that there are a number of editors who believe that it IS a Social Science, and have added such categories as parent cats. Before I proceed with removing them, I thought it would be good to raise the issue for discussion, just to be sure there is concensus on this point. I am especially interested in hearing from people who feel there is a strong case to be made for considering History to be a Social Science. Please share your views! Cgingold (talk) 01:00, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

In the 1970s, teachers in primary school lumped classes in geography, history and civics, as "social science," I suppose to give them latitude in teaching, instead of drawing some line that would have seemed arbitrary to the children. These same children have grown up without knowing that there was a distinction. (forgetting about civics for the time being) I agree with your relabeling history as a Humanity. Not sure it has a single label though. "Social science" is too vague at an adult level IMO. Student7 (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
History is the the study of past events, particularly in human affairs, while Social Science is the scientific study of human society and social relationships. Smells similarity but there's a sharp diff. from mine perspective and yeah, Historians are not Social Scientists. AnupMehra 17:28, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
Everyone has to agree to differ I'm afraid. To quote from our article on Social science, "History has a base in both the social sciences and the humanities. In the United States the National Endowment for the Humanities includes history in its definition of a Humanities (as it does for applied Linguistics).[19] However, the National Research Council classifies History as a Social science.[1]. Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics says "T take one prominent example, these researchers were at the forefront of the scholarly effort to rework the role of states as actors and as institutions, a development that reoriented agendas across the social sciences (including history)." On the other hand, you can see a lot of academic institutions that talk about "History and the social sciences". I'm afraid that there is no definitive answer (except to say that some historians quite explicitly use social science methodology, if that helps). Dougweller (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for this very on-point reply, Doug. And thanks to both of the other editors for their remarks as well. Cgingold (talk) 05:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
I myself have one foot in each field, which is no doubt why I am very aware of the distinction. Historically, the study/academic discipline of History has always been considered part of the Humanities. In more recent times, with the development of what we now refer to as the "social sciences", some historians -- especially those in the field of social history -- have begun to incorporate a social science perspective into their work. So it's fair to say that there is indeed a certain amount of overlap here and there. But in terms of the field as a whole, I don't believe there has been sufficient convergence to bear out the proposition that Historians are properly described as Social Scientists. But of course, that's my personal view of things, and I would still like to hear from other editors on all "sides" of this issue. Please keep your comments coming, folks! :) Cgingold (talk) 05:33, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
While I consider History to be a Humanities (as in Arts & Letters) I have taught at several colleges where there was a Social Science Dept. rather than individual discipline departments. Typically, they have consider social sciences to be: Anthropology, Economics, History, Political Science and Sociology, all facets of life where we look at the actions and opinions of human beings (rather than looking at other species or "culture", the artifacts of human beings like literature and the arts). That's the thinking behind this categorization.
If you are looking for a definitive answer, I suggest visiting the website to the American Historical Association and sending in an email asking how the organization locates itself in the network of professional academic societies. That can be very telling and it would be more official than a decision based on the perspectives of a few Wikipedia Editors. Liz Read! Talk! 00:06, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:14, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Poll on Ireland article names

A poll has been set up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ireland_Collaboration/Poll on Ireland article names. This is a formal vote regarding the naming of the Ireland and Republic of Ireland and possibly the Ireland (disambiguation) pages. The result of this poll will be binding on the affected article names for a period of two years. This poll arose from the Ireland article names case at the Arbitration Committee and the Ireland Collaboration Project. The order that the choices appear in the list has been generated randomly. Voting will end at 21:00 (UTC) of the evening of 13 September 2009 (that is 22:00 IST and BST).

Please offer opinions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Romanticism and Revolution. -- Banjeboi 15:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Public history

 

Category:Public history, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:09, 14 March 2010

RFC at Teenage pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy isn't likely on your list, but I have just started a history-related RFC at Talk:Teenage pregnancy#RFC on including or excluding Mary, Mother of Jesus there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been featured

 

Hello,
Please note that Recorded history, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 01:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

gun control rfc

The following RFC may be of interest to members of this board. Talk:Gun_control#Authoritarianism_and_gun_control_RFCGaijin42 (talk) 16:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

David Littman (historian)

There is a controversy on the talk page to see if David Littman can or cannot be qualified as Historian. Could some uninvolved contributor try to solve the issue ? Pluto2012 (talk) 11:28, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Judaism and political radicalism: needs review

I've just taken a look at the Judaism and political radicalism article: it seems to me to be full of unsourced opinion and conclusion-drawing, and very light on references to reliable sources. If anyone could cast an eye over it, I'd be grateful. -- The Anome (talk) 11:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I will be improving it.RRD13 (talk) 07:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
This is a WP:OR that should be deleted. Pluto2012 (talk) 19:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Istrian exodus

There is a long standing edit/POV war on the topic between two editors, which are basically the only ones currently involved in the article. I am trying to mediate and I managed to get full page protection, but I am not an expert on the topic or subject matter. I would be glad if someone interested can put the talk page on their watchlist, have a look at the previous and current discussions and try to help getting consensus for edits that are and will be proposed. The article needs a lot of eyes. Many thanks! --cyclopiaspeak! 19:53, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Overhaul of subjects related to mummification

I am currently undertaking the massive task to improve the article on mummification. It lost "good article" status in 2008 and there has been very little done to bring it back up to standard. In doing this, I have also noticed many other articles related to this subject that are sorely lacking. I have added them to my list of articles to improve once the the main article overhaul has completed. I would definitely welcome any suggestions/feedback/collaboration on this project. I have a done/to-do list on my userpage if anyone would like to see it. Thanks in advance! Saint Soren (talk) 06:09, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposed restrictions on styles & titles of former royals

A proposal is now pending to !vote to ban use of titles, honorifics and styles historically associated with titled members of no longer reigning families or to require that wherever such titles are mentioned in a Wikipedia bio, article or template that a disclaimer must be attached informing the reader that the title/style is not legal or is a courtesy title only. You may read opinions and express your views here. FactStraight (talk) 23:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

A request for help in getting an interesting project started.

Over on Wikiversity I am prototyping WikiChronos in my userspace.

The idea is to write a Wikivoyage like travel guide page for various Historical destinations!

(I.e Wikivoyage is Travel Guide, so WikiChronos is a 'time-travel' guide!)

This might need a lot research, so I would therefore appreciate the co-operation of WP:History in getting the project started, and in helping to write the articles. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:16, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Help needed with the End of history

Currently, End of history is a disambiguation page. I believe that the concept of there being an "end of history" (i.e. the development of a stable political/economic/social state such that major change no longer occurs) is the primary topic of the term, and have begun a draft at Draft:End of history. This being a bit outside my field, I would appreciate any help in making a complete and thorough article of it. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Article on Debt inheritance

Color me shocked, but I was just failed by Wikipedia for the first time in many years. I couldn't find an article on Debt inheritance. I know it used to be commonplace during the Middle Ages as a way of keeping people in serfdom, but was made illegal as one of the foundations of American ethics (as a way of abolishing the aristocracy), which then spread to the rest of the first world. But I don't know enough to write an article about it, and I couldn't find any information on Wikipedia. Is there some article that exists that I couldn't find that Debt inheritance should be a redirect to? Or did I really stumble across an article that doesn't exist, but should? Thanks. --Cyde Weys 22:04, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia really doesn't seem to have any information on the various debt inheritance schemes that existing from the Middle Ages through the Colonial Era. I'm not aware of any key volumes on the subject. I guess if you were to write anything about it, the article on inheritance looks like a good place to put it. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:40, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Depends on perspective, I think. In premodern societies some debts and obligations weren't really personal so much as they were seen as obligations of a family, village, or another group of people. The use of a personal monetary debt as a tool to create a lifelong labour commitment is a rather modern view - a number of premodern societies wouldn't have seen any need to involve such a tool, as if you lived in village X then you were obliged to give part of your harvest to Lord X (or to the king's agent), and that's that. I won't pretend that our coverage of premodern economies is good - we don't even have articles on aspects of land tenure that shaped the lives of a billion people, even though we have coverage of every pokemon - just saying that perspective can make a difference here. bobrayner (talk) 00:10, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Stab-in-the-back myth

Eyes needed here. An editor is pushing a POV counter to standard histories of post-World War I Europe. BMK: Grouchy Realist (talk) 07:17, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Am sorry, but that is a blatant lie. Well established sources have been presented to amend three incorrect pieces of information that were, themselves, POV pushing (further sources can be provided). Ken was asked to take this dispute to the talkpage (diff and thus far has not done so despite my posting (diff). However, further opinion is very much welcome since this dispute appears to be in deadlock.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:20, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Further investigation show that this POV editor is pushing a theory based on a single journal article. This is a case of WP:FRINGE. BMK: Grouchy Realist (talk) 08:16, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Visiting Scholar (please apply now)

Want to gain free access to a top research university's library so you can improve Wikipedia articles? Apply to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar!. George Mason University's position is now open: Application. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 15:54, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

RFC

Could use some fresh eyeballs and voices at this previously stale merge proposal, splitting the content at Opium Wars into the articles First Opium War and Second Opium War and turning the page into a dab between them, to avoid the existing content fork. — LlywelynII 13:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Urgent Clean Up Needed

Just hit Persecution of Traditional African Religion while doing some WP:NPP and it is a mess. The subject is notable but the article is closer to an angry op-ed piece than a scholarly encyclopedic entry. It desperately needs attention from someone with some background in African and religious history who can throw a little balance into it -Ad Orientem (talk) 06:10, 31 January 2014 (UTC).

Category:Pseudohistorians has been proposed for deletion again.

Category:Pseudohistorians has been proposed for deletion again. Anyone interested in commenting can do so here. __ E L A Q U E A T E 06:54, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

DRN

Assistance request. There is a DRN which has run away before a volunteer took it on at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Puerto Rico.

The issue revolves around including sourced material in the article narrative. -- Whether to allow both sides of a controversy into the article introduction -- how PR is "unincorporated" and "incorporated" as alternately sourced. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:29, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Help

Hi,

I written article about history of Slovenia in Finnish Wikipedia. I have one little problem: my source book said that Habsburg Monarchy was called Austrian Empire in official documents already in 1711, but all others sources said that change happens 1804 or 1806. Is my book totally wrong or is here something that I just can't dig up? Najboljši (talk) 20:05, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

And please, could you post your answers to my fi-wiki talkpage. Just press button called "Lisää Aihe". Title is named for "Otsikko" and Save page is "Tallenna sivu". Thank you. Najboljši (talk) 20:24, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Recorded history in the age of written writing

Isn't the topic "recorded history" a misnomer? Shouldn't the topic, if included, explain to your gentle reader that history is the use of records? 72.81.180.161 (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Opium Wars

FYI, a level-4 vital history article is to be reformatted, see talk:Opium Wars for the information on what was decided. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 19:31, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Archived some threads

I've archived some inactive threads to subsections which were notifications about discussions that have since been closed. — Cirt (talk) 00:13, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Formatting and copy editting help requested on toothache#History, society and culture

The above section is looking a bit of a mess... Would appreciate if someone could have a look and implement a better layout... perhaps a paragraph for each century or something? Many thanks if you can help, Lesion (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Genocide definitions, Definitions of pogrom and Definitions of fascism for deletion

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Genocide definitions, Definitions of pogrom and Definitions of fascism are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genocide definitions until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:09, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Pogrom list inclusion criteria

An RfC has been opened at Talk:Pogrom, regarding the appropriate WP:LSC for the events listed. Comments are requested with thanks. Oncenawhile (talk) 11:45, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Age of Revolution

I am starting a major expansion on the Age of Revolution piece. I welcome any suggestions, input, etc. PurpleMonarch (talk) 04:44, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Four-paragraph leads -- a WP:RfC on the matter

Hello, everyone. There is a WP:RfC on whether or not the leads of articles should generally be no longer than four paragraphs (refer to WP:Manual of Style/Lead section for the current guideline). As this will affect Wikipedia on a wide scale, including WikiProjects that often deal with article formatting, if the proposed change is implemented, I invite you to the discussion; see here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#RFC on four paragraph lead. Flyer22 (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 04/03

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Maritime Trade Among the Ancient Maya. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:40, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency

I've created a new article about the Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at Talk:Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Thank you for your time,

Cirt (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Infobox for articles

Hi, what are the infoboxes widely used by this project and related portals (thinking of Portal:History)?

I see that some pages have a sort of infobox manually created (see {{Iron Age}} and {{Bronze Age}} templates for instance, used by the same named pages).

I'm working on a personal project which will use many project's articles mainly using DBPedia as a source of relational data and Wikipedia as source of content. DBPedia strictly relates to Wikipedia structured information (as infoboxes) to acquire and build it's internal database. It's a kind of Wikipedia of data rather than articles. So it would help a lot to have as many article as possible to use infoboxes.

I'm glad to help in that, but first of all I'd like to start a discussion about the use of infoboxes for the project/portal articles.

  • Is it OK to use them?
  • What have been already used?
  • What should be added?

are some good questions to start with

thanks! CosimoAlfarano (talk) 13:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

History of Anatomy

  • A great opportunity to improve your knowledge of the history of medicine!
  • Willing co-editors and a grateful audience!

If any editors here have time, I'd be very interested in collaborating editing the history of anatomically-orientated articles, in particular:

This would be a great benefit to the anatomy wikiproject! Please feel free to drop by on our talk page at WP:ANATOMY or post me a personal message (or simply start editing :P!) if interested! --LT910001 (talk) 05:29, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

WP History in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject History for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 02:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

@Mabeenot: I watch this page, but I'm not sure there are any active members in the project. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:16, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
I would happily comment, but I agree that this project is a little quiet. There are many historical topics that attract a lot of discussion and collaboration and sometimes controversy, but they tend to be quite tightly focussed and there is less activity here at WikiProject History. bobrayner (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Feel free to add your responses. We've got at least two participants, which is a great start. –Mabeenot (talk) 00:39, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
@Bobrayner: Don't forget to add your comments to the interview questions. We'd like to run the interview this week. –Mabeenot (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
@Mabeenot: I've answered your questions and I'm eager to see who else takes a bite. This project doesn't have the largest aggregate though I think a lot of editors work on historical articles without giving any thought to it. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, what is the done thing in these cases? Thanks, Matty.007 20:07, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Mahatma Gandhi

Hi all, After reading a book named "Naked Ambitions" by Jad Adams (a historian), we come to know about mind-blowing facts about [[|Mahatma Gandhi|The Father of the Nation]]'s sexual life. Do you think, these informations should be added to the article? Remember Jad Adams is a qualified historian (not a biographer or journalist that we can call the informations fake). At the same time I am coming to know all these details for the first time and in no other book I have read so. I am totally confused. Further comments are welcomed. RRD13 (talk) 15:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I have replied to your post at Talk:Mahatma Gandhi. Please don't spam multiple WP forums, the Gandhi page is enough. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 25/03

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Bruce Mazlish. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:04, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 27/03

Draft:Czechia. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:59, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 19:00, 31 March 2014 (UTC).

AfC submission - 03/04

This looks like a good article, although some of it looks like WP:OR. Draft:Isabella Breviary. Could you have a look? Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 04/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Margaret Woelk. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I have doubts about the notability of the subject...Brigade Piron (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beatriz Colomina

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Beatriz_Colomina. --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 11:23, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Help request

Help is needed at the dispute resolution noticeboard (WP:DRN) in a a dispute King Charles IX of Sweden (1550 – 1611) and our articles at Kvenland and King of Kvenland. The dispute is at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Kvenland, and like all Wikipedia pages, anyone is free to comment. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:20, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Protect Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Article

Hi everyone, i've noticed that the Tiananmen Square article has been vandalized or blanked quite frequently, mostly from IP addresses. Can this article be protected, so that only auto-confirmed users have access to editing it and not vandal IPs, or something like at the Ron Paul article where edits must be approved before institution. If some of these perpetrators are coming from Chinese IPs, i'm not surprised... Nguyễn Quốc Việt (talk) 22:55, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

  Done @Nguyễn Quốc Việt: I've submitted the request, but it will take an admin to implement the change. So you know, requests for page protection have their own noticeboard. Twinkle also has an easy interface to request protection. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:08, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you! Nguyễn Quốc Việt (talk) 23:10, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been featured

 

Hello,
Please note that Exploration, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 01:00, 21 April 2014 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Was Voltaire wrong about William Penn's 1683 treaty with the Lenape Indians?

There is a discussion here about William Penn's 1683 treaty with the Lenape Indians, and specifically whether Voltaire's famous quote ("...a treaty never written, never broken") from his 1764 Dictionnaire philosophique was incorrect. Could someone please take a look at it? Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:51, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Would you please tell us your opinion on this matter? All comments are welcome.Fakirbakir (talk) 16:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

German private army post-WWII?

This story from Der Spiegel looks fascinating:

" Files Uncovered: Nazi Veterans Created Illegal Army"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wehrmacht-veterans-created-a-secret-army-in-west-germany-a-969015.html

I can't easily think of an article title for this, since it doesn't seem to have any clearly defined name, but this is definitely article-worthy, if it can be supported by multiple sources. Are there any other reports to back it up? -- Impsswoon (talk) 21:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

The german wiki has some content on this that includes some additional links to sources. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schnez#Geheimarmee
This appears to be a good english translation of that article (not just a google trans) http://operation-gladio.net/albert-schnez
A start would be to make the article about the person as the German wiki does. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:19, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
I've just done so: see Albert Schnez. Thanks. -- Impsswoon (talk) 21:44, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
And also for the Schnez-Truppe, the thing itself. Stubs created and interwiki links generated, I'll let those rest for the time being as article seeds. The story itself seems to be in the news, so no doubt others will come along in due course and fill them in. -- Impsswoon (talk) 22:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Medieval censorship

New article with no citations, 2 sources named but one was a student's website.[2] Dougweller (talk) 10:00, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

A quick glance suggests it's an essay. I will take a closer look when I have a few minutes. But this article has serious problems and I'm not sure it's fixable without a major rewrite. Seriously thinking about AfD right now. Any other opinions? -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:04, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
I really hate to delete thoughtfully written content but if the author doesn't respond, I tend to agree with AfD. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:39, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
I dropped a note on the author's talk page. Hopefully she will pop over and help out with this. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
It definitely looks like an essay, perhaps something written for a class. As you can see, I deleted some material from a student's website, it might even be the same person or a student at the same university. Dougweller (talk) 20:19, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree. If the author gives some indication of intending to fix it, I think he/she should be given that opportunity. But if we don't hear from them in the next 24hrs or so, I will send it to AfD. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
Of course, I think the solution of the AfD is WP:USERFY. I'd be willing to take on that content unless we userfy it to the original author. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:31, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion regarding due weight for views on Middle Eastern clothing

I started a discussion at Talk:Hijab#Unintentional_pushing_of_fringe_views about historical representation of the Eastern head covering associated with Muslim people. Community participation and assistance would be much appreciated. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:55, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been featured

 

Hello,
Please note that French Revolutionary Wars, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 01:00, 19 May 2014 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Leaflet For Wikiproject History At Wikimania 2014

Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at Wikimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 14:58, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles related to LGBT history may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! --Another Believer (Talk) 19:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

See my comment on the talk page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:35, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Royal intermarriage Good Article nomination

I've been working on expanding the Royal Intermarriage article now for a little while and have just nominated it for Good Article Status. As it falls within the scope of the portal, a review from any of you would be much appreciated. Many thanks. Sotakeit (talk) 10:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject History At Wikimania 2014 (updated version)

Please note: This is an updated version of a previous post that I made.

 

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 13:16, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of the Jews in Nepal

Howdy all. This AfD is about an article on what is ostensibly a historical topic. Please, please, some historians, please have a look at the AfD. Drmies (talk) 23:06, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

It's only up for deletion because Ubikwit (talk · contribs) was stalking Sairp (talk · contribs). Sairp made a trivial copyedit, so Ubikwit had to burn the whole article down to the ground. As far as I can tell, Ubikwit has now driven Sairp off wikipedia, and I'm not going to volunteer for that treatment again, so I'm staying well away from the AfD. bobrayner (talk) 01:48, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I took a look at that Wiki cluster-bleep yesterday and about halfway down something in my brain clicked and said "Nope. An apparition of the Virgin Mary could not persuade me to touch this mess." Filed under reason 1027 for why I have zero interest in being an Admin. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Madeleine McCann requests for comments

I have started two requests for comments at Talk:Madeleine McCann. 159.92.1.1 (talk) 18:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

@159.92.1.1: No, your RfCs are at Talk:Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:11, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Interpreting Domesday

Hello Historians. Is anyone able/willing to provide a little assistance in interpreting sources regarding entries in the Domesday Book? I'm unfamiliar with the terms used and don't want to misinterpret anything. Thanks. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

100th Anniversary of World War I

Does anyone know why the 100th anniversary of arguably the most important geo-political event since the French Revolution is getting such short shrift on the Front Page? Even the "On this day" section has, with very few exceptions, almost studiously ignored the events that lead up to, and now the actual outbreak of the Great War. -Ad Orientem (talk) 12:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation hiring an experienced humanities editor

Wiki Education Foundation is hiring two experienced Wikipedia editors for part-time (20 hours/week) positions: Wikipedia Content Expert, Sciences and Wikipedia Content Expert, Humanities. The focus of these positions is to help student editors do better work, through everything from advice and cleanup on individual articles, to helping instructors find appropriate topics for the students to work on, to tracking the overall quality of work from student editors and finding ways to improve it. We're looking for clueful, friendly editors who like to focus on article content, but also have a strong working knowledge of policies and guidelines, and who have experience with DYK, GAN, and other quality processes.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:21, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Majestic 12

There is currently a discussion on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard concerning the article Majestic 12 that may be relevant to this project. Comments from interested editors are welcome. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:54, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Draft:Division of Korean History by period

FYI, there's a notice about this draft article at WT:KOREA -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:51, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

New essay: Historical portraits

I've been drafting a new essay that I thought people in this project might be interested in: User:Future Perfect at Sunrise/Historical portraits. Comments welcome! Thanks, – Fut.Perf. 08:59, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you expect comments at the talkpage of the draft in your userspace or you intend to move this draft to the main space?--Antidiskriminator (talk) 09:04, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
I'd say we can first discuss it on its talkpage where it is now, and then maybe move it into Project space if there's enough of a positive response. Fut.Perf. 09:10, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Requesting verification on Battle of Lyncestis

I'm hoping someone at this WIkiProject can take a look at Battle of Lyncestis. I originally tagged it as a suspected hoax, because a google search for the title yielded zero results and the refs are poorly formed. The author has pointed to some references, but none seem to identify the battle by name. Could someone please take a look at this article, make sure the content is valid, and figure out if there's a better title that's backed up by sources? Thanks so much! Swpbtalk 14:12, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Proper terminology for the lead of Almohad Caliphate

For those interested, there is currently a discussion at Talk:Almohad_Caliphate#Caliphate.2C_dynasty regarding whether the Almohad Caliphate should be referred to as a caliphate or a dynasty in the lead. MezzoMezzo (talk) 16:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Massive History GAN backlog

Sorry to be that person again, but I'd be grateful for everyone to have a look at the Good Article Nomination backlog for World History and see if they can do anything to help improve it. There are currently 30 articles waiting and only five under review. Some have been waiting since February! —Brigade Piron (talk) 20:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

RfC Notification regarding Chevalier d'Eon

There is currently an RfC on the proper use of pronouns in the article Chevalier d'Eon, which falls within the scope of this Wikiproject. The RfC can be found here. Your comments and discussion on the matter would be appreciated. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 14:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

npp for category tool

Please comment. Gryllida (talk) 23:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about icon use at Infobox former country

Please see a discussion relevant to this project I started at Template talk:Infobox former country#Deprecate easter-egg links in successor/predecessor timeline? Fut.Perf. 11:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

History of Somalia POV

I threw a NPOV dispute tag on History of Somalia (1991–2006) and am considering delisting it as a Good Article. It is highly biased to anarcho-capitalism and disproportionately draws from obscure libertarian sources, giving this undue weight. --Gerrit CUTEDH 19:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Criteria for being an outright revisionist (of history)

What criteria are needed for an article to proclaim that a person is a "historical revisionist"?

"In 2014, the prize was awarded to the controversial playwright and historical revisionist Peter Handke" --Pankycont (talk) 18:58, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

This version [3] of the article, is not a victim of section blanking/edit warring. --Pankycont (talk) 19:12, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I was actually about to remove the "historical revisionist" section, but there was an edit conflict... The section is not neutrally written and a similar section was duly modified at the Peter Handke article. Iselilja (talk) 19:16, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Normally we only repeat what is reported in reliable sources. If the assertion is something that reasonable people are likely to see as negative, then you probably want multiple RS sources saying the same thing. In most cases if there is a potential for controversy it is better to hedge the wording a bit... i.e. "John Doe is an author and historian who is regarded by some (or many) as an historical revisionist. Remember WP:BLP applies and we have to be very careful when reporting posting potentially negative stuff about someone. Also if there is any doubt we have to avoid absolutes. Thus it is OK to call John Wayne Gacy a serial killer since he was convicted in a court of law. But otherwise we would say alleged or suspected. When discussing purveyors of weird pseudo-history etc you may also wish to refer to WP:FRINGE and WP:DUE. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:17, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Need assessment

National archives- new article about the concept of a national archives. My goal is C-class so provide feedback as appropriate. Chris Troutman (talk) 06:28, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

history of music

Are there any editors who primarily work on the history of music for this Wiki project? Miguel Pena (talk) 20:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Imperial index

Imperial index - Is this something genuinely used by historians, or something invented by the creator of the page? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 03:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd say a hoax, but that's me. At a minimum, in the absence of independent sources to the page, its original research. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:05, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
The page creator admitted to making it up - User talk:Nejc Kincl. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 14:32, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
In that case, I've gone ahead and 86'ed the the pages. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:39, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

George Buck

Hello! I've been working on this article about the British historian George Buck, who wrote the first history defending King Richard III, among other things. Should it get the History project banner? Does it need more history-related cats? Thanks for any assistance. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

RfC at Talk: Bath School bombings

There is a Request for Comments at Talk: Bath School bombings concerning how the article should be named. Shearonink (talk) 07:19, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Academia?

Please see here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Academia. Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 18:40, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015

Hi there; this is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2015 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, more than fifty users have signed up to take part in the competition; interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Historical roads

Category:Historical roads, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 04:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Help Wanted: RMS Lusitania 100th Anniversary

On May 7th of this year we will observe the 100th anniversary of one of the most consequential events in maritime history. May I suggest a full court press to get this article up to FA status in time for the anniversary? -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:41, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

 

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

750th anniversary of De Montfort's Parliament

20th January 2015 is the 750th anniversary of the first English Parliament.[4] The article De Montfort's Parliament is being improved and further contributions would be welcome and beneficial to work it towards GA.

The BBC [5] are planning a "Democracy Day" of live events, discussions and debate, produced in partnership with the Speaker’s Office of the House of Commons, including broadcasts from inside Westminster. Whizz40 (talk) 21:12, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Interpreting the Domesday Book

Hello historians.
I'm adding information from Domesday Book-related sources to various settlement articles, but they're not always easy to interpret. Can anyone give me some advice? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:19, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Guidi di Bagno

I signal to you this discussion...probably the discussion will be deleted by a vandal so, please, check the history. Thanks.--Caarl 95 (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia Primary School invitation

Hi everybody. On behalf of the teams behind the Wikipedia Primary School research project, I would like to announce that the article Apartheid (of interest to this wikiproject) was selected a while ago to be reviewed by an external expert. We'd now like to ask interested editors to join our efforts and improve the article before March 15, 2015 (any timezone) as they see fit; a revision will be then sent to the designated expert for review (please see the article's talk page for details). Any notes and remarks written by the external expert will be made available on the article's talk page under a CC-BY-SA license as soon as possible, so that you can read them, discuss them and then decide if and how to use them. Please sign up here to let us know you're collaborating. Thanks a lot for your support! Elitre (WPS) (talk) 17:07, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Franz, Duke of Bavaria

salve, le scrivo per dirle che la fonte da dove ho trovato le seguenti onorificenze, si trova a The Descendants of Queen Mary IV and III quindi le dico che la fonte è attendibile --82.48.43.186 (talk) 11:53, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Is this material about history or does it provide an annotated bibliography?

I'd be grateful if folks from this project would please review Climate fiction#history, and then offer opinions if the section is discussing the history of climate fiction or provides an annotated bibliography? The thread for that discussion is Talk:Climate fiction#History or annotated bibliography?. Thanks for your opinions. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:02, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Cool little timeline template I made

I was in the process of making a graphic timeline a couple of years ago for a project I've since lost interest in. I'm clearing out my user space and thought I'd leave it here in case anyone here wants to use the code as a template for their own graphic timelines. Abyssal (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


AD eraBC era21st century20th century19th century18th century17th century16th century15th century14th century13th century12th century11th century10th century9th century8th century7th century6th century5th century4th century3rd century2nd century1st century1st century BC2nd century BC3rd century BC4th century BC5th century BCLambeosaurusHypacrosaurusVagaceratopsStyracosaurusLambeosaurusDaspletosaurusProsaurolophusPanoplosaurusChasmosaurusGryposaurusCentrosaurusGryposaurusEuoplocephalusGorgosaurusParasaurolophusCorythosaurusEdmontoniaChasmosaurusCentrosaurusDyoplosaurusAD eraBC era21st century20th century19th century18th century17th century16th century15th century14th century13th century12th century11th century10th century9th century8th century7th century6th century5th century4th century3rd century2nd century1st century1st century BC2nd century BC3rd century BC4th century BC5th century BC

Czech history categories

Since 31 March there are a couple of Czech history categories listed for discussion, starting here. Marcocapelle (talk) 11:53, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Marie Antoinette

There is currently a discussion at Talk:Marie Antoinette#Tone and appropriate content that may be of interest to members of this project. Comments from interested editors are welcome.. NebY (talk) 21:01, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

We need help with sources and new books, I totally support NebY request.Aubmn (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Should Kingdom of Hungary be a child category of History of Romania?

With User:Redbluelighting I've had a discussion here among others about the question whether Category:Kingdom of Hungary should be a child category of Category:History of Romania (and more generally whether Kingdom of Hungary should be a child category of the history of all of Hungary's surrounding countries). The discussion hasn't led to consensus between the two of us. Could you please share your opinion on this issue at the talk page of WP:Romania? Marcocapelle (talk) 05:52, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Category discussion about Serbs of Montenegro

Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_8#Category:Serbs_of_Montenegro. Marcocapelle (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Move proposal: Disambiguate Burning of Parliament (British) and Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal

There is a proposal to move Burning of Parliament to Burning of British Parliament and Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal to Burning of Canadian Parliament. Please take part in the discussion at Talk:Burning of Parliament#Requested move 8 May 2015. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 15:16, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

This looks like a WP:TWODABS situation. Navigation is already covered in the hatnote, so I see no need for an additional navigational aid. bd2412 T 15:38, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

Hi, anyone interested to do a GA review of Lenin? RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি (talk) 16:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Holy Roman Empire versus Germany

See this discussion on how to use the category structure for Category:Centuries in Germany versus Category:Centuries in the Holy Roman Empire in the best way. Please share your thoughts. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Draft:List of German U-boat WW2 Raiding Careers

Could someone please have a look at Draft:List of German U-boat WW2 Raiding Careers, and see if it's up to Wikipedia article standard? To me, it looks lacking in references, but I don't have access to the references, and have no real subject knowledge. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:09, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Does anyone want to assist with finishing and polishing an already DYK appropriate article?

I started working on User:Ryan Vesey/Xerotine siccative in mid 2011 (Xerotine siccative was a paint thinner that caused explosions on a number of ships in the late 19th century) and have never been able to finish the article. It meets the DYK requirements already, but I really want to have an article that is both polished and as complete as possible before I submit it. I haven't been active much in the past 3 years and don't know if I'll ever find the time to finish it myself, but I hate to see it sit in my user space, unseen by anybody. Is there anyone here who is interested in taking up the project? I don't believe I ever fully got through the House of Commons papers that I used as a source, so those should provide a good amount of information. I'm leaving messages at WikiProject Chemistry and WikiProject Ships as well, since editors there may have an interest. Ryan Vesey 20:27, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Ethiopian Empire category discussion

See here. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:14, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

GA Review

Hi anyone interestested in reviewing GAR Babur? RRD13 দেবজ্যোতি (talk) 10:58, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Expert attention sought

... at House of Landi. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 22:03, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!


  • What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
  • When? June 2015
  • How can you help?


  • 1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here
  • 2.) Upload photographs or other media related to LGBT culture and history, including pride events, and add images to relevant Wikipedia articles; feel free to create a subpage with a gallery of your images (see examples from last year)


Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!


If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.



Thanks, and happy editing!


User:Another Believer and User:OR drohowa

Requested moves

Three requested move discussions which concern this project have been started. They can be found at:

BMK (talk) 17:15, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Balochistan, Pakistan

Comments requested at Talk:Balochistan, Pakistan/Archive 1#comment requested.

Article is a general overview of the Balochistan region. The dispute seems to be about whether any content about insurgencies, human rights violations, etc. belong in this article.

Arguments against inclusion seem to center on POV, UNDUE and COATRACK. Some have argued that since articles exists at Balochistan conflict and Human rights violations in Balochistan, no summary of these subjects should exist at Balochistan, Pakistan. Instead, links to the relevant articles should be added to the See also section.

Arguments for inclusion center on insurgency and human rights violations being intrinsically tied to the history, government and culture of the region, so including a brief summary of the subjects and links to the main articles is proposed to be reasonable.

Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:28, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Eyes needed

RfC

There is an RfC on the subject of whether Wikipedia:Notability (history) should become a guideline, which is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Notability (history)#Should this become a guideline?. James500 (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

 

Hello,
Please note that Information Age, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning Monday 03 August 2015. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by North America1000 23:45, 4 August 2015 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Prehistoric Egypt renaming

A discussion has been initiated for Prehistoric Egypt to be moved to Predynastic Egypt, see the discussion at Talk:Prehistoric Egypt#Requested move 27 July 2015 -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:38, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:Predynastic_Egypt renaming

"Category:Predynastic Egypt]] has been proposed for renaming, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_July_27#Category:Predynastic_Egypt -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Expert attention needed

Expert attention is needed at House of Landi, an article about a noble house of medieval Italy. Please see Talk:House of Landi#Expert attention please for more details. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 10:36, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library donations

Hello all, I wanted to let you know of two recent donations we just opened up at the Wikipedia Library: WP:Cairn and WP:Taylor & Francis. Please sign up for the accounts if you think you can use them. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 00:11, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Niall of the Nine Hostages

I'd appreciate some other input into Niall of the Nine Hostages. Another editor, Wjhonson (talk · contribs), keeps asking for a cite that Irish annals other than the Annals of the Four Masters are sources for Niall. I've given him a cite to a relevant secondary source, Byrne's Irish Kings and High-Kings, which devotes a whole chapter to the question of Niall's historicity and the sources for it. He's demanded detailed cites of primary sources, and I've explained to him in the talk why that's inappropriate - that would be original research and way too detailed for a footnote in the lede, and most of the references to Niall in the annals are indirect, to his sons, but give us valuable information on the man himself, his dates and context. I've linked examples. But he just keeps putting the citation tag back in. Somebody help! --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:51, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Lists, lists, lists

I'm grouping these together because they're somewhat related, and I don't want to clog up the talk page.

On List of historical societies, for example in #Local societies, there are lots and lots of redlinks. I have cleaned up some of them, but it would be useful if there was some sort of consensus which could be put in a notice for criteria for inclusion.

Regarding List of Statewide and Local Partners of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it seems that the list is very specific, and most of the contents are probably not notable.

Any thoughts, or is this best discussed elsewhere? —George8211 / T 20:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

There’s some debate about this proposal. If you have a minute, please chime in at Talk:Novorossiya#Requested moveMichael Z. 2014-09-23 18:10 z

RfC on Iran nuclear deal

See RfC here: talk:Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Your input is appreciated! Iran nuclear weapons 2 (talk) 15:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Translating history pages?

I found some bilingual glossaries that are related to both world history and U.S. history: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/biling/bilinged/bilingual_glossaries.htm WhisperToMe (talk) 03:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Alternative_theories_of_the_location_of_Great_Moravia requires more editors and attention - new article

Alternative_theories_of_the_location_of_Great_Moravia needs more editors looking over it and needs improvement of references and content. I have put up a request at Wikipedia:Guild of copyeditors for a content clean-up but the content itself and the ideas presented needs more specialist knowledge/expertise than an average user can provide. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 13:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Re-organization of WikiProject Women

There currently is a discussion about the future organization of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women and several other women-related Wikiprojects and taskforces at the above link. Some aspects may be of interests to editors of this project and your participation in the discussion would be appreciated. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:19, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

United States Reconstruction Era help needed

An anonymous editor has added some US Reconstruction Era history to the article Eufaula, Alabama with this edit. I don't know if the new material is balanced or even factual. The opinion of someone who knows more than I would be appreciated. Thank you,  SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

The edit has been reverted.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:45, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Merging science and technology categories

FYI, there is a suggestion to merge the history of science and history of technology category trees, see WP:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_September_12#Science_and_technology -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

GA reassessment for History of Japan

History of Japan, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community 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. Hijiri 88 (やや) 07:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Aelfric problems

There's mismatches/issues with Ælfric of Crediton, Malmesbury Abbey, and Alfred of Malmesbury.

Alfred of Malmesbury uses an obsolete source -- see Aelfric of Eynsham. If the same Aelfric was indeed both Abbot of Malmesbury (see http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol3/pp210-231) and Bishop of Crediton circa 977-9 then the dates fit. Malmesbury Abbey lists both Alfred of Malmesbury, as well as Aelfric of Eynsham per an 1870 text.

I believe the following should occur:

  1. Aelfric of Crediton should be updated to indicate that:
    1. he was Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey
    2. that he was also known as Alfred
    3. that he was misidentified as Aelfric of Eynsham by William of Malmesbury
  2. Malmesbury Abbey should replace both Alfred and Aelfric of Eynsham with Ælfric of Crediton
  3. Alfred of Malmesbury should be converted to a redirect to Ælfric of Crediton

Problems:

Hydronium Hydroxide (talk) 11:57, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Article request

When I was doing research for different topic I came across lot of anthropological, historical researched references to Pole-star worship This is a request to develope a good article on this issue. (Pl.avoid ocnfusion,Pole worship is distinct)

Thanks and regards Mahitgar (talk) 06:14, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Poles in mythology

Now we have a new article Poles in mythology, Please see and include suitable improvements , if any, in article Poles in mythology.

Rgds Mahitgar (talk) 09:31, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of merging recently created content fork

France in the American Revolutionary War has been the subject of two recent move requests (Requested move 29 January 2015, Requested move 20 August 2015), both of which have failed. Perhaps frustrated by the failure to move, but undeterred from purpose, new User:AdjectivesAreBad chose to build the created redirect into its own article. France in the ARW is a legitimate topic, has existed since 2005, and deserves improvement. Newly created Anglo-French War (1778–83) is a clear content fork, and should be deleted and redirected (or perhaps merged) to the France in the American Revolutionary War pagespace. I encourage interested editors to visit the merge discussion here. BusterD (talk) 21:09, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir

Could you please drop by here and think up a better name? Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:14, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

MOS:IDENTITY is being revisited: How should Wikipedia refer to transgender individuals before and after their transition?

A recent discussion of MOS:IDENTITY closed with the recommendation that Wikipedia's policy on transgender individuals be revisited.

Two threads have been opened at the Village Pump:Policy. The first addresses how the Manual of Style should instruct editors to refer to transgender people in articles about themselves (which name, which pronoun, etc.). The second addresses how to instruct editors to refer to transgender people when they are mentioned in passing in other articles. Your participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:48, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Legalism (Chinese philosophy)

FYI, Legalism (Chinese philosophy) has been requested to be renamed, see talk:Legalism (Chinese philosophy) -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 03:25, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

The article is rapidly changing, for the ongoing discussion and dispute, see the talk page -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 23:38, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Category:Lists of firsts

Category:Lists of firsts has been nominated for deletion -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 04:48, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Ancient Tell?

If this is the wrong Wikiproject for this, I apologize. I'm hoping that someone with more expertise in the topic area can have a look at the Ancient Tell article. It appears to be focused on a specific archaeological dig site in Beirut, and unless I'm seriously misunderstanding the source used, it's not describing a place in Beirut called "Ancient Tell", it's describing an ancient tell. While I'm pretty sure that the article name is too broad for it's content, I'm not sure what a more appropriate title would be, or if the article should be merged into a different article, or if it's even notable enough by itself to have an article. Thoughts on what an appropriate course of action would be, if any? Kaciemonster (talk) 23:01, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm no expert in archaeology, but I'd say this should be merged into Beirut. It looks like you're right, it's only a place in the city. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 00:25, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Merging sounds right to me. A quick web search didn't return much besides links to this article. The first hit that wasn't was this recent research, and "ancient tell" is not capitalized, so it's apparently not notable enough to be a proper name. In case you haven't noticed, there's also Ancient Tell: Fortifications and Ancient Tell: Beirut Castle, also started recently, by the same author. John_Abbe (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

RfC about the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) article

There arose a dispute about the proper extent of the Duke of Windsor's wartime activities in regards the German Nazi regime. An editor feels that the pro-Nazi sympathies and activities, including one act of treason, is not reflected with the appropriate due weight in the article, and believes that the insertion of an extract of a German embassy cable should be added, as a footnote. Another editor feels that quoting the entire text of the cable is overkill, and that overall the article is consistent with the views that are presented in scholarly discourse and presents them with due weight and cites them to reliable sources. The question is now being put forth to Wikipedia editors whether to Support the addition of the contested material in a footnote or Oppose it. Anyone interested to participate in the relevant RfC is welcome. -The Gnome (talk) 14:07, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

1980s Portal

The 1980s Portal has nothing on it. It is blank. Can someone add something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.46.213.223 (talk) 21:22, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Royal justices

We have a fair few articles in which English people are described as having been royal justices. (I've linked quite a few of these: see here). However, we don't have an article on what a royal justice might have been. To say I am not a historian is putting it mildly. As far as I can see, they were royal officials who circulated around the country acting as representatives of the king, and dealing out the king's law among the people, like a Roman governor traveling the provinces -- or possibly Judge Dredd. They seem mostly to have been a phenomenon of the Angevin era, and various web sources suggest that the institution led to the development of the common law system. So that seems really interesting. Would someone be interested in creating an article about this? -- The Anome (talk) 23:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposed article move from Syro-Palestinian archaeology to Levantine archaeology

There is a proposal to move from Syro-Palestinian archaeology to Levantine archaeology here and to create separate pages for Archaeology of Syria and Archaeology of Palestine. Your opinions would be welcome, thanks! Drsmoo (talk) 12:13, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

RM of interest to this project

Talk:Bismarck#Requested move 29 December 2015 BMK (talk) 04:51, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

New project starting

I'm not quite sure where on the WikiProject History pages to post this. If there is a project area page where this may be more appropriate, please feel free to move it. While History of medicine has not been tagged as being of interest to your project, I do believe the top level articles may be of general interest.

History of medicine. I'm proposing an overhaul of this article, both to improve the quality of its discussion of Western Medicine, and to improve its world view of other medical traditions in the rest of the world. All are welcome to join in the discussion. Hi-storian (talk) 23:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Provinces of Roman Gaul

Feel free to join this category discussion whether or not to delete Category:Provinces of Roman Gaul. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

"Nazi Germany" vs "Germany" and allegiance tag in Wehrmacht unit infoboxes

I wonder why Italia2006, one of your members, changed many pages about Nazi Germany substituting Nazi Germany with Germany in Infobox's Country description? As far as I know Germany of those days is known, in English language, as Nazi Germany or Third Reich. See changes in I SS Panzer Corps, 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, 46th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht), 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian), 116th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), Waffen-SS, 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian), 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen, 16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS, 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland, 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen, 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg, 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen, 6th SS Mountain Division Nord, 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division, 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf, 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, 27th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 23rd Infantry Division (Wehrmacht), 25th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 24th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 23rd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 22nd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 10th Parachute Division (Germany), 9th Parachute Division (Germany), 8th Parachute Division (Germany), 7th Parachute Division (Germany), 6th Parachute Division (Germany), 5th Parachute Division (Germany), 4th Parachute Division (Germany), 3rd Parachute Division (Germany), 2nd Parachute Division (Germany), 1st Parachute Division (Germany), 9th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 8th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 7th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 6th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 5th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 4th Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 3rd Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 2nd Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 1st Mountain Division (Wehrmacht), 1st Ski Division (Wehrmacht), Panzer Lehr Division, 21st Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 20th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 19th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 18th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 17th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 16th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht), 15th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 14th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 13th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 12th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 11th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 10th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 9th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 8th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 7th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 6th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 5th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 4th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 3rd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 2nd Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 1st Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), 2nd Panzer Army, 1st Panzer Army, 2nd Parachute Corps (Germany), IX SS Mountain Corps, V SS Mountain Corps, IV SS Panzer Corps, III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps, XIII SS Army Corps, VI SS Army Corps (Latvian), XV Mountain Corps (Wehrmacht), Panzer Corps Feldherrnhalle, XLVI Panzer Corps, XXXIX Panzer Corps, LXXVI Panzer Corps, LII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), L Army Corps (Wehrmacht), XXVIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), XXVII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), XXIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), XX Army Corps (Wehrmacht), German Army (Wehrmacht), XVIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), XV Army Corps (Wehrmacht), XI Army Corps (Wehrmacht), IX Army Corps (Wehrmacht), VIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), VII Army Corps (Wehrmacht), VI Army Corps (Wehrmacht), V Army Corps (Wehrmacht), IV Army Corps (Wehrmacht), III Army Corps (Wehrmacht), II Army Corps (Wehrmacht), I Army Corps (Wehrmacht), II SS Panzer Corps.

Even a blind eye, and surely Italia2006, would have seen that by changing flag template to flagcountry template would have had the only visual result to transform Nazi Germany into Germany. This was not an accident; Italia2006 often and willingly removed the preexisting Wikilink to Nazi Germany. For this reason I consider Italia2006's act a vandalic, blatant disruption of Wikipedia, and, as such, should be chastised.

Another Infobox issue, not only related to Italia2006's edits, is what is written to the allegiance tag: sometimes Nazi Germany, or Germany (sic), other times Adolf Hitler and also Wehrmacht. That a Wehrmacht division, eg 4th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht), could pledge allegiance to itself is suggesting a degree of autonomy that was on the contrary totally absent. That Adolf Hitler was considered the absolute origin of any legitimacy is technically correct; nevertheless if we want to take a more aloof, neutral position, and not to subject ourselves to Nazi propaganda and believes, we should choose Nazi Germany. Carlotm (talk) 22:55, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@WP:MILHIST coordinators: This seems more in line with our project, so I'm pinging the other coordinators to get a read on the situation. For my part, this is the first I'm hearing of it. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
I had a brief encounter with Italia2006 about infobox changes yesterday, at Talk:13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian). My concerns there were about Waffen-SS and piping links (consistency within an article), not specifically about the change in question here, but I agree in hindsight that it is a bit POV one-way or the other. Either to associate current-day Germany with Nazi Germany, or alternatively (more likely) to remove the "Nazi" from "Nazi Germany". All Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers individually pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler, so that really isn't at stake here. No German formation ever pledged allegiance to itself, that level of autonomy is anathema in any formal military organisation. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

How on earth is that vandalism? I changed all of them to "Germany" because that seems to be the common usage in infoboxes concerning Nazi Germany, particularly infoboxes for various battles, campaigns, and the main World War II article. I find it just a bit odd that something that should've at least been taken as good faith edits is being called vandalism. You need to calm down, really. Blatant disruption of Wikipedia? That's a bit of a stunning overreaction there. Italia2006 (talk) 02:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Italia2006, if "Germany" is the common usage in Infoboxes concerning Nazi Germany why you had to edit more than 100 pages before achieving that so called common usage?
I'd like to know if what Italia2006 expressed here is the stance of the entire History Project. Carlotm (talk) 02:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
I meant common usage on the other, more prominent articles, such as the major battles, operations, etc. The individual unit pages for the Wehrmacht, especially Heer formations, are poorly developed. That's why. Why is this such an issue? If the extremely well-known Nazi flag is in front of "Germany", what is the need to have "Nazi Germany"? It's redundant. Italia2006 (talk) 02:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Because we love our redundancies. Its why one article will have 62 different links to the same ship, tank, nation, person, etc. Thats just how we roll... TomStar81 (Talk) 02:59, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
What's your opinion on the matter Tom? Obviously this isn't a case of vandalism, surely... Italia2006 (talk) 03:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Its a matter of differing opinions over WP:COMMONSENSE, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:BOLD. The problem here is that there really wasn't any discussion on the matter before it went forward. That seems to be where the primary issue here is: consensus wasn't reached before this was moved forward. For my part I think this thread should help alleviate that somewhat, however when two conflicting points meet like this one always emerges victorious. That can lead to edit warring if the defeated party is unable or unwilling to accept defeat, but for now I see no overt evidence of vandalism or edit warring. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:05, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd agree with that. Italia2006 walked away after I brought up good policy reasons to not make changes to the article infobox in question, although there was a bit of reverting rather than discussion initially. I will revert the articles that are on my watchlist, as I believe the existing consensus is for Nazi Germany. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:33, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
How does it appear to you that the existing consensus is Nazi Germany when, as I have stated twice now, most of the major articles, if not all, use Germany rather than Nazi Germany? The inconsistency within this one project is absolutely bizarre. Why do World War II, Eastern Front (World War II), Operation Overlord, Battle of France, Battle of the Bulge, and essentially every single other article aside from these unit articles use "Germany"? But it's somehow a crime that I changed the unit articles to match the much more prominent articles concerning Nazi Germany? I'd love an explanation at this point. Italia2006 (talk) 04:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
You've been changing them, per the above, haven't you? The main article is called Nazi Germany, not Germany. Pretty clear that, IMO. If you want to establish a new consensus for how we refer to that state on en WP, I suggest you start a RfC at German Army (Wehrmacht) and/or Waffen-SS. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:47, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
What the main article is called matters not a jaunt. Again, the question is why Germany is used for half the articles and Nazi Germany is used for the other half. Italia2006 (talk) 04:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
No discussion I guess then, just reverts. The rules only apply to some, and yet for some reason Peacemaker can't answer a very simple question. Italia2006 (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Why not try a lovely bit of community communication for this? Alternatively, start the discussion yourself Italia2006 since the onus for consensus to be proven is on the party that wishes to change the status quo. If you want, I'll even start the RfC/"community communication" for you. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 05:12, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Jesus. ONCE AGAIN. If this is a consensus why does every single battle/campaign/theater/war article use Germany rather than Nazi Germany? Why is Germany used for half the articles and Nazi Germany used for the other half? Does this inconsistency just make sense to everyone else and I'm unaware of it? At this point I don't care about the issue at hand; instead, I just want an answer to an extraordinarily simple question, and I'll depart the scene. Italia2006 (talk) 05:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
It's really very simple, each article has its own consensus. nb: All of the articles I created or had been a major editor of had been at Nazi Germany since creation or for a considerable time. If you want a community wide consensus, you need to do an RfC, maybe at Nazi Germany would be best. That is what was done to move German Army formations to (Wehrmacht). There are probably still a few at (Germany), but that's how we roll. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
There's no project-wide consistency? If that is the case don't call it a project. It's a loose assortment of related activities. Italia2006 (talk) 05:22, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't know what to tell you. That's how it is with a community-edited encyclopedia. Until someone develops a community-wide consensus about it. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
As utterly bizarre and nonsensical as it is, I have my answer. Auf wedersehen. Italia2006 (talk) 05:28, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Kind of does raise a good point; why do we (Wiki and Project) have such a glaring internal inconsistency? Should we actually choose just one (through consensus, since this is going to delve straight to Godwin's Pit within a handful of edits otherwise)? I'm happy to put in the hard yards for this but just want to ask first since this is part of the MilHist Project's domain. I don't mean this in any facetious or disruptive manner, just genuinely curious. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 05:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Several projects have a large stake, Germany, Military history and this one. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:02, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
I'll let WP:GERMANY know that there's an RfC, but who is the mysterious second/third? (I'm assuming typo/mind-slip). But is there "go ahead" or "bad idea" feedback? Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 06:37, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
This is Wikiproject History, not Military history... Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:29, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
@Italia2006: There is a long-standing consensus on MilHist to use "Germany" and not "Nazi Germany". See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 49#Germany or Nazi Germany? Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Peacemaker67, oops. I must be in need of some glasses then.   Self-trout
Hawkeye7, congrats on the soon to be Cabal-membership again, but how come this concencus hasn't been applied evenly? Or is it just a matter of not being widely publicised? (Haven't read the thread yet, but I'm up for spoilers) Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 09:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Hawk, good find. It is very old, looks like a consensus among a handful of editors, and was Milhist only, but it explains to some extent why some articles were Germany rather than Nazi Germany or vice versa. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Interesting, I wasn't aware. Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:29, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
And I was accused of vandalism for this.... Italia2006 (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

it really should have been added to the Milhist MOS after that discussion, and the fact that it wasn't is the reason why Milhist editors working in that space didn't know about it. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 21:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Please, note that here we are talking about top Infobox's names of states, where some kind of precision should be paramount. The association of Nazi flag and "Germany" is not only too generic and implicitly misleading, but even absurd. In this way the allegiance of, say, Wilhelm Keitel and many other personages, would be:   Germany,   Germany,   Germany. If you really don't like Nazi Germany, and I don't understand why, you should use Third Reich or German Reich. German Wiki never uses the corresponding word for Germany, Deutschland. BTW when it comes to their infoboxes World War II uses only Nazi Germany, Eastern Front (World War II) is ambivalent, and all the other Nazi related pages have only a slight advantage for Germany. Carlotm (talk) 23:30, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
That's a strawman argument. We're not talking about infoboxes for individuals. We're talking about infoboxes for units which only existed from the period 1935–46, which would never run into this supposed "problem" you're talking about. Italia2006 (talk) 00:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
It's the same reason only "Germany" is used in campaign/battle infoboxes for the Second World War. Only one German state existed for the duration, therefore there is no need to differentiate. Italia2006 (talk) 00:06, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
So then we have pages referred to the same state entity and the same time frame with two different wordings. How nice and consistent; to me it looks like only perverse and superficial. I have to ask again: why is there such a resistance, or sometimes indifference, about a proper, consequent and precise choice? Carlotm (talk) 00:33, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
No, the real question is why is this such a big deal for you? Italia2006 (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I would also add that your response makes no sense whatsoever and fails to address the points made above. Neither the German Empire nor Weimar Germany fought in World War II. There's no need for differentiation the same way there is for the many indivudals in the German military who served across several regime changes. Once again, the units we're talking about only existed under the Nazi German state. Italia2006 (talk) 00:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, for the hate of Hitler![FBDB] I'm *this close* to starting an RfC to stop these antics about which flag and wording to use on Reich-only units.

I will place it in a subpage of this talkpage so that it can be transcluded to the other pages, with a note to go to the subpage and watchlist the subpage to receive updates on the RfC. This is honestly just getting out of hand. @WP:MILHIST coordinators: and other interested parties; can I ask for some help in assembling a list of articles that would likely be affected by this RfC, on top of the rather extensive list provided in the first comment of this section? Feel free to drop them onto my talkpage or under this comment. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 01:39, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but Carlo has yet to make a valid point, and it has already been mentioned that a consensus to use "Germany" was actually already in effect. So I don't really see why this is continuing other than Carlo's unwillingness to dts. Italia2006 (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I think that a much wider consensus is needed, and what the Doc is suggesting would be useful to establish it. The previous consensus is very old, experienced editors weren't aware of it, and it was made by editors that aren't even actively editing Milhist articles anymore. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. Italia2006 (talk) 02:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Doc, I think a huge number of the relevant "unit type" articles would be captured by these four categories:

if you wanted to extend it to military people (I'm not suggesting this, as it isn't part of this discussion), the relevant category is:

Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for those Peacemaker67, I typically avoid going into the rabbit-warrens that other's call "Categories". Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 03:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Proposed text of RfC statement (Draft: 1.4)

[Begin draft]

Notices will be/have been placed on WikiProject Germany, WikiProject Military History, WikiProject History, [any other Projects?], the Neutral POV Noticeboard, [any other Noticeboards?] and Jimbo's talkpage (for the watchers - there are a lot, and this would create a community consensus)

Should military units active only during the Third Reich/Nazi Germany-era use in their infoboxes for "Country";
  1.   Germany - says Germany, links to Nazi Germany
  2.   Nazi Germany - says and links to Nazi Germany
  3.   Third Reich - says Third Reich, links to Nazi Germany

This will affect articles in Category:Military units and formations of the Luftwaffe, Category:Military units and formations of the Kriegsmarine, Category:Military units and formations of the German Army in World War II, Category:Military units and formations of the Waffen-SS and other related articles that may not be listed in these categories.

  • This RfC seeks to create a broader and more consolidated consensus for reasons of consistency across articles. Please !vote by bolding the preferred number choice as your !vote with your reasoning for such a selection.
    E.g. (#) because WP:POLICY, WP:GUIDELINE and I think this and that. ~~~~
[End draft]

Comments and thoughts? Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 03:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Why are the three Germany's besides Nazi Germany listed as options? Maybe I'm confused here. Why would the German Empire, Weimar Germany, or present-day Germany come into the discussion at all? Italia2006 (talk) 04:12, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
@Italia2006: That was what I understood the options to be from the discussion above. Or was the contention merely over the name given to the piped link (Nazi-/Germany) and whether to use the Swastika or National flag? I got confused somewhere near the end but this is why I like to draft (pun intended) my RfCs. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 04:16, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
@Drcrazy102: This whole thing, as silly as it may seem, is simply over whether to have   Nazi Germany or   Germany in the "country" parameter in the unit infoboxes. This is between two choices, that's all. Italia2006 (talk) 04:22, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Changed it to reflect the actual dispute then and now to let the   Self-trouting commence. I might need a whale pretty soon. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 04:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
PS You have to place a new signature in the same edit as when you place a ping to a user or it doesn't work. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 04:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Looks good now, not sure where you were going to post it, but I would say that it would be useful to post it here (ie on Wikiproject History as well as the other two projects), and on the NPOV noticeboard as well. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
The history of Germany includes various states, some of the imperial, as in Imperial Germany, or German Reich--German Empire, which specifically implies the period from unification to the end of WWI, the Weimar Republic, followed by the German Reich (or Third Reich), followed by Occupied Germany, then East Germany/West Germany (and their associated official names), followed by (again) Germany (and its associated official name). To use the info box to call something "Nazi Germany" (using Nazi as an adjective, I guess!!) is something a misnomer. It should be simply Third Reich. I've long wished to rename the article Nazi Germany to Third Reich. IMIO (in my informed opinion as a German historian), I'd use the allegiance tag to the Third Reich, or whatever appropriate allegiance is. The Third Reich was a National Socialist state, unquestionably. But, do we make such distinctions on other units, except in the cases of a civil war? In Royal_Warwickshire_Regiment, we list the allegiances separately. See also King's_Own_Royal_Regiment_(Lancaster). In these instances, we don't distinguish between the different political parties of English cum British....We simply list the allegiance. I don't often agree with Italia2006, but in this case, I think the proper link should be to Germany, and I'd recommend renaming the article entitled Nazi Germany to the Third Reich. auntieruth (talk) 17:55, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
"I don't often agree with Italia2006". I'm confident we've never interacted on this site, and I have no idea who you are or what we've "disagreed on" in the past. As for the whole moving "Nazi Germany" to "Third Reich", absolutely disagree. Nazi Germany is clearly the most common name for the German state from 1933 to 1945. Besides, we're not arguing about moving the Nazi Germany main article. No one is disputing the name of the article itself. Italia2006 (talk) 18:54, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I doubt that it's the most common name, I think the Third Reich is. In other articles on Germany we refer to Nazi era, sometimes Nazi Germany, etc. But regardless, historically, the Reich-only units should definitely link to the Third Reich or Nazi Germany,, the flag should be the Reich flag (the one with the Swastika); long-term units should show Reich allegiance for the duration of the Reich, and other allegiances to previous and subsequent incarnations of a German state. auntieruth (talk) 20:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
I can assure you "Nazi Germany" is by a long, long margin the most common name, especially in popular usage, which seems to drive WP:COMMONNAME more than anything. Additionally, the final sentence of the above has no bearing on this discussion, as all of the units in question were only in existence during the 1935–45 period. Italia2006 (talk) 22:43, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
@Auntieruth55: You do realise that both flags in question have the "Reich flag" right? At any rate, see my comment below. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 02:08, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll add a third option since this is a Request for Comments draft. Someone would have likely derailed the RFC if we didn't at least include the option; whether or not we agree with it. At any rate, the Third Reich redirects to Nazi Germany (just like the template added) and considering how many editors there are that patrol and "discuss" things on those kinds of pages, I'd say there is a considerable consensus - off the cuff of course - that "Nazi Germany" is the decided article name instead of Third Reich.
I've also added the NPOV/Noticeboard and I am still wondering if there are any other WikiProjects or Noticeboards? Or do we reckon this is good to go? Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 00:49, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Completely agree, there is no way that the main article, Nazi Germany, would EVER be moved to "Third Reich". I must add that it is immensely irritating that the main point of this whole debate is being distracted by this off-topic discussion. Italia2006 (talk) 01:25, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Also, I think the inclusion of "Third Reich" as an option for this referendum should be predicated on the outcome of a discussion over whether to keep the main article at "Nazi Germany" or the move it to "Third Reich". Otherwise Third Reich has no place whatsoever as an option and honestly shouldn't be included. This should be strictly between "Germany" and "Nazi Germany". This is not the place to attempt to insert one's own preferences over something that is essentially unrelated. Italia2006 (talk) 04:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Then the consensus will be to not use "Third Reich". It's honestly a no-brainer situation; 1) if it isn't included, someone complains and derails the discussion until it is included, or 2) it's included from the start but continuously and objectively denied usage in the infoboxes. Simples, yes? If the argument of "Nazi" vs. "Third Reich" comes up, then this can be revisited with an RfC at a later date.
As it is, it's just an option that can be easily shot down during discussion. At any rate, I'll leave this as a draft for another day to allow for more responses and comments before starting the RfC. I will place it on the sub-page /RfC on Third Reich-only military units using Germany or Nazi Germany in infoboxes and transclude to all WikiProject pages with a link to editing the page directly included.
Pinging @WP:MILHIST coordinators: @John Carter and Peacemaker67: for thoughts and suggestions for improvement. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 05:14, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm happy with it "as is" with the three options. I doubt Third Reich is going to attract many !votes, but it is a potential derailing opportunity if it isn't included. It enhances the neutrality of the RfC, IMO. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:17, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Nevermind, I was misunderstood. Agreed, it's a way to prevent roadblocks. Italia2006 (talk) 05:26, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

It's ALIVE!

File:Hollywood steps out (20).png
The RfC ... it is ALIVE!

See this RfC on which name to use in the infoboxes of military unit's active only during the Third Reich/Nazi Germany and leave a well-considered !Vote. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 06:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Infobox for International Political and Economic Rivalry, not just military

Hello all...seeking advice about rivalries in history, such as The Great Game and the Cold War. While both of these involved wars and proxy wars, they were really about who was "better" on the international stage, and the competition between them wasn't strictly military. It was political and economic, in addition to being military. I'm looking to perhaps fashion a "Rivalries Infobox" that would have some summary capacity for these rivalries. I don't know what would go into such an infobox, except for things like possibly dates, whether wars were fought as part of the larger rivalry, what they were rivaling over, and ... I'm not sure what else.

Questions - Question 1: is this the right place to start this discussion? Question 2: is this topic idea overly broad? Question 3: are there questions I should be asking that I haven't? Hires an editor (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Hitler's Diaries article nominated for April 1st Main Page slot

Please give your opinion at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Hitler Diaries --Dweller (talk) 12:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

the Gdańsk (Danzig) Vote and similar problems

  • Many places in Central and Eastern Europe are known under many names. Sometimes historical names are used (Gdańsk/Danzig), sometimes ahistorical ones only (Vilnius). In fact the historical name is Vilna, later Wilno, as far no information when the name Vilnius was recrded for the first time is here available. Either there exists a common politics or nationalistic editors impose their POV.
  • Vadokliai used to be known as Wodakle, I have quoted my source in the aricle but User:Sabbatino removed my sourced text with comment This town has nothing to do with Poland. Therefore, that name doesn't belong here. There is no source in the article explaining when the name Vadokliai was used. The place belonged to the GDL, where Polish dominated during certain period and many Lithuanians spoke Polish. Blanking the real past and replacing it with a naive Lithuanian nationalistic one isn't enctclopedic.
  • A sligtly different problem is when modern non-English name of a historical institution or person is quoted parallely to the English one. It's not neutral. Either only the English name or several (if they parallely exist) and an explanation which names are historical and which names are modern, unsourced to the period. Usage of a modern name creates false past. I understand that some ethnicities were dominated by another ones and weren't able to create written sources but creating parallel past isn't encyclopedic. Xx236 (talk) 11:02, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
My bullet points correspond to your bullet points, so you know which of your comments I'm talking about... Full disclosure: I'm not familiar with any of the cities you mentioned, but I thought I'd take a peak as a neutral party since you alluded to POV pushing.
  • Just to make sure we're on the same page, would you say the Czech Republic article does a good job explaining the different names that region has had in the past? It seems like every time I read something about Czech Republic, I learn a new name for it. IMHO the article was pretty succinct and covered all of the former names I'd heard of a some I hadn't. (Are there more? IDk.) I didn't check the sources, so I have no idea if it's accurate. At least I could follow what it was saying though. :) If you agree that that's a good one, maybe you could use it kind of like a template as you're editing other articles about regions with lots of different former names?
The Czech Republic#History generally uses English names, e.g. Prague, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which is (I belive) neutral. Let's go to Plzeň. Siege of Plzeň leads to the article Siege of Pilsen, but Škoda Works in Pilsen, no logic. Xx236 (talk) 09:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I tried to look at the source you linked for Wodakle, but my browser couldn't translate it since it was like a PDF. Do you have another link with the same text or something similar that's not in PDF?
All long texts I know are in PDF. Here comes a very short information - https://www.fold3.com/document/272741627/, it seems that the parish was named Wodakle at the time when the person was born. Xx236 (talk) 09:32, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm having a hard time following what you're saying here, "...when modern non-English name of a historical institution or person is quoted parallely to the English one." Can you give an example? I'm not sure what you mean by "parallely." I'm also not totally clear on how using one over the other isn't neutral. My first assumption would have been that it was a translation error or just an honest mistake, but that's probably because I don't know enough about it to understand the nuances. Mind elaborating a little bit?
Permstrump (talk) 18:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
Kiev - Each residential region has its own market, or rynok. The word rynok may be the same in Russian and Ukrainian, but if it isn't, it is not neutral.Xx236 (talk) 10:03, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


  • When someone calls some name not historical it becomes clear that certain POV is being pushed. Vilnius' name evolutionized over the years. Vilna is not a historical name. It was used in this letter by Gediminas in 1323 and that letter was written in Latin language, so it isn't historical. Learn the difference between historical and written in other language. In this Polish book from 1893 you can see that name Wilniuja is used. Or even in a Lithuanian book from 1860 (other link for the same book), which was written by Ireneusza Oginskia (cur lit. Irenėjus Kleopas Oginskis; pol. Ireneusz Kleofas Ogiński) you can see that Wilniuja was already used by 1860. Update: Wilniuja means in Vilnius. In 1620, Konstantinas Sirvydas wrote the first Lithuanian language vocabulary (this is the 5th and final reissue from 1713), which included Polish-Latin-Lithuanian words (cover is written in Latin). I went through it and didn't find any city there. However, in page 405 we see Wilia rzeka, Vilia, Neris which refers to Neris river. We could assume that Wilniuja or some other variation could have already been used during that time.
  • Vadokliai used and continue to be Wodakle only in Polish language. That's nationalistic to assume that it was always called like that. And claiming that something should use the Polish names, just because it used to be in GDL is silly. Polish language didn't dominate GDL. It started dominating only after the Commonwealth was established due to Polonization. Until then everything was written in Chancery Slavonic. Showing this doesn't justify the name and its addition. You could instead translate this into English so it would be clear if your addition of that Polish name can be justified. – Sabbatino (talk) 14:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Based on a skim, it looks like the naming convention guidelines in WP:MOSPOL, WP:ENGLISH, and WP:NCPLACE specifically address pretty much all of these disagreements. Permstrump (talk) 19:36, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
According to WP:MOSPOL, Polish names should be used for places that are within the present borders of Poland. I couldn't really find anything regarding names for places outside of Poland. On the other hand, per WP:MPNOlder names should be used in appropriate historical contexts when a substantial majority of reliable modern sources does the same; this includes the names of articles relating to particular historical periods. However, later in the article it is clearly stated – There are other cities for which policy is still debated, such as Vilnius, which in various contexts is referred to as Vilnius, Wilno or Vilna. And what to do when the same city is reffered in different names during the same period? These policies still don't justify the use of Polish name for Vadokliai as there are hardly any sources in order to make any assumptions. And many old Lithuanian writings from earlier than 20th century were destroyed by either Russian or Polish authorities, or disappeared. So it's pretty hard to show sources when someone requests them to be shown. – Sabbatino (talk) 10:06, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
WP:MOSPOL is about geographical names in today Poland, which is obviously not the case.
I'm asking why Gdańsk/Danzig is different than Vilnius/Wilno?
Ruthenian language and later Polish were used in written documents of the GDL, Lithuanian wasn't.
Earliest mention of Vadokliai can be found in Livonian Chronicle from 1378. - was it literally Vadokliai? Xx236 (talk) 08:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Gdańsk belonged to Germany for ~279 years. Vilnius belonged to Poland for ~20 years. Those 20 years don't really mean anything in history. The main difference is that Gdańsk belonged to Poland, then Germany, then Poland again and so on. Vilnius always belonged to Lithuania and as I said – only for ~20 years it was part of Poland. The only reason why everywhere we can see Wilno is because Polish was the main language of the Commonwealth so people assume that it was called like that by everyone (which is not true).
I never said that documents were written in Lithuanian. Lithuanian was more of a spoken language. Furthermore, there was no Lithuanian grammar so it's understandable why very few written letters/documents could be found.
I found something interesting regarding Vilnius' name or Lithuanian names in general. Many old Lithuanian books ar listed here:
  • In page 31 of this pdf, a book from 1727 is shown and we can see Karaláucʒuje which means in Karaliaučius in Lithuanian or present-day Kaliningrad. Page 33 – Karaláucʒuje (book – 1728). Pages 36-37 – Karaláucʒuje (book – 1751). In page 40– Karaláucʒuje (book – 1751).
  • In pages 27–28 of this pdf, a book from 1589 is shown and it reads Vilna. Although that book is written in Italian language. Page 42 – Wilniuje which means in Vilnius (book – 1816). Page 43 – same book only printed on different paper. Page 56 – Wilniuje or in Vilnius (book – 1853). Page 57 – Wilniuj which also means in Vilnius (book – 1853). Page 58 – Wilniuy which means in Vilnius (book – 1854); Wilniuje (book – 1854). Page 60 – Wilniuy (book – 1857); Wilniuje (book – 1857). Page 61 – Wilniuje (book – 1857); Wilniuje (book – 1857). Page 62 – Wilniuj (book – 1857). Page 63 – Wilniuje (book – 1858). Page 64 – Wilniuje (book – 1859); Wilniuy (book – 1859 or 1860). Page 65 – Wilniuja which also means in Vilnius (book – 1860); Wilniuja (book – 1860). Page 66 – Wilniuja (book – 1860); Wilniuja (book – 1860); Wilniuj (book – 1860). Page 67 – Wilniuje (book – 1860); Wilniuj (book – 1860). Page 68 – Wilniuje (book – 1860); Wilniuje (book – 1861). Page 69 – Wilniuje (book – 1861); Wilniuje (book – 1861). Page 70 – Wilno (Lithuanian book, but still uses the Polish name; book – 1861); Wilniuje (book – 1861). Page 71 – Wilniuje (book – 1861). Page 72 – Wilniuj (book – 1861); Wilniuy (book – 1862). Page 72 – Wilniuj (book – 1862); Wilniuj (book – 1862). Page 81 – Wilniuje or Vilniuje. It's unclear, because the book is damaged. As we can see from these names, Wilnius was already used in the 19th century (W letter is used, because Polish alphabet was used to write Lithuanian books at the time).
  • In Page 45 of this pdf, a book from 1824 is shown and we can see Tilʒ̍eje which means in Tilžė in Lithuanian or present-day Sovetsk. Page 46 – same book, same year. Not sure what's the difference. Page 47 – Tilʒ̍eje (book – 1830). Page 48 – Tilʒ̍eje (book – 1834).
We need to look at that Livonian Chronicle in order to tell what was the name. – Sabbatino (talk) 13:08, 7 March 2016 (UTC)