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Archive 1

Reference 2

The second reference from TIME magazine does not contain the information the citation is used for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.55.18 (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Light vessel used by Pliny the Elder

According to my French version of Pliny's nephew's letter, Pliny the Elder ordered launching of quadriremes (your "fleet galleys") and took place in one of them, not in the light vessel first planned by him. Jean Marcotte (talk) 07:42, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Rename

I think 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius would be a better title for this article. Volcanoguy 17:10, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Is there an actual name for this eruption? I've noticed some previous eruptions have names, and are nowhere near as well-known, which is kind of confusing, for example the Avellino and the Mercato eruptions. The name, "79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius", is a bit of a mouthful. Even the Eruption of Pompeii, or to a lesser extent the Eruption of Herculaneum, sounds better and more organized than the current title. Surely there is a shorter alternative? --JezzDawga (talk) 06:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The informal name used by most people is probably "the Pompeii eruption" - this is used by the Smithsonian Volcanism program too, see http://volcano.si.edu - though three cities were buried, not just Pompeii.83.254.151.33 (talk) 05:18, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
@83.254.151.33: The problem with "the Pompeii eruption" is this: what Pompeii eruption are you referring to? More than 40 eruptions have been observed at Vesuvius since 217 BC, the latest of which occurred in 1944. The 79 AD eruption is perhaps the best known but it's not the only Pompeii eruption. Volcanoguy 12:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
The only one that did substantial damage to the town of Pompeii. ;) None of the post-17th century eruptions have even come close to pouring powerful, fresh torrents of lava and pumice on the ruins of the town. 83.251.170.27 (talk) 22:50, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Ejection of lava

I've read an encyclopedia regarding volcanoes that when Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, lava was violently ejected out along with other volcanic elements. But why my edit regarding the ejection of lava during the A.D. 79 eruption undone or reverted? Does that mean I have to find more trusty resources? --Aki (my talk page; contributions). April 12 2016, 09:26 P.M. (PST)

No, it means wiki is full of proprietary editors that are in love with their own phrases. People should "improve, not revert". I hovered over "molten rock" and it leads to a page called "lava". LOL. 184.69.174.194 (talk) 07:51, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Technical Sections Too Technical

The two sections on magnetism and stratiography are great but they are way over the head of readers. Could their authors please take 30% of the fluff out and make it clearer? The citation tag seems a bit harsh, as the words are all from published scientific articles, but the writing is overly academic. 184.69.174.194 (talk) 07:53, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

overstatement

The first line of this article describes the eruption as "one of the most catastrophic and famous eruptions of all time". While this fits well in terms of fame, in terms of all eruptions in "all time", this isn't all that high in terms of catastrophe. It was a very large and catastrophic eruption, and larger than average, but still small compared to a number of other eruptions; this is especially true if one includes prehistoric eruptions and ones that have relatively documentation. Would it not be closer to call it one of the most catastrophic in "written history"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.45.169.2 (talk) 17:59, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, the number of victims directly killed by the eruption was probably much larger than at the Taupo or Mt Baekdu eruptions. The Minoan eruption of Thera, in the 16th or 17th cenbtury BC, was more violent and likely affected a wider area, but it probably didn't kill as many people, unless Crete and Rhodes were badly hit by a tsunami, which is very uncertain.83.254.151.33 (talk) 15:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
The current "one of the most catastrophic and famous eruptions in European history" looks about right if you believe Wikipedia. NebY (talk) 15:48, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
We're all agreed on famous. Catastrophic is a bit more subjective, but justified if you ask the local residents :). Maybe you are really debating "violent". Although not as big as Krakatoa, 100,000 Hiroshimas sounds pretty violent, or catastrophic, to me. What we really need is a scale of volcano violence, like we have with earthquakes. "Most catastrophic" should stay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.69.174.194 (talk) 07:25, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

It is catastrophic by the demographic standards of the time. Populations were not as large as they are today, but Pompeii was a city by standards of early-Imperial Rome. A similar eruption in the general area today would likely kill far more people unless the population were effectively evacuated. A volcano that annihilates a city in Roman times is a gigantic event.

The massive destruction from Vesuvius in AD 79 is more properly described as 'infamous' even if such violates NPOV. This said, it is likely impossible to speak favorably of a volcanic eruption that annihilates several cities. What might fit the description as famous is the account by Pliny the Younger of the destruction.Pbrower2a (talk) 06:33, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

infamous

Is it really English to call an eruption "infamous"? Isn't the world only applied to morally reprehensible behaviour? Instead of "most catastrophic and infamous eruptions" wouldn't it be better simply to put "most catastrophic eruptions" and leave it at that? Sorry if this sounds pedantic.Campolongo (talk) 16:35, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

No, the word is used more broadly than just being applied to "morally reprehensible behaviour". Wiktionary has: "having a bad reputation, disreputable; of bad report; notoriously vile; detestable; widely known, especially for something bad". The term can be applied to places and events of bad reputation (e.g. an infamous ship, an infamous trial), as well as to individuals. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 01:06, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the word "infamous" is misued. It strikes me as very slovenly to apply it to a volcanic eruption. The word always has moral overtones. It suggests wickedness. You can't call an avalanche, tsunami or earthquake "infamous".Campolongo (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Infamous is wrong. Famous is a much better choice. "Deadly" is the word you are looking for. Hilariously, I hovered over the "catastrophic eruptions" and found it lead to a list of "most deadly eruptions", so I changed it to deadly. I popped famous back in, because it surely is one of the most famous eruptions of all time, and it is still getting 2.5 million visitors a year. World Heritage Site. Etc. 184.69.174.194 (talk) 07:50, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Nobody speaks of the sinking of the RMS Titanic as 'famous'. 'Famous' has some positive connotations. We may try to be NPOV, but it is impossible to look positively upon any catastrophe.Pbrower2a (talk) 06:37, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 6 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move to include some form of demarcation between AD/BC or CE/BCE, this option seemed the most-endorsed. (closed by non-admin page mover) SITH (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2020 (UTC)


Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 → Eruption of Mount Vesuvius or something else – More concise name, and "in 79" is quite ambiguous  Nixinova   T   C   21:05, 6 January 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. В²C ☎ 00:05, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose per Telecineguy. There have been many eruptions of Vesuvius, so "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius" contradicts the WP:PRECISION guideline for article titling. Up until 2013, this article was titled Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The move to the current title was undiscussed. I would be happy with a move back to the previous title. — hike395 (talk) 06:08, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption is acceptable to me, also. — hike395 (talk) 11:08, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment — Eruption of Mount Vesuvius is clearly inappropriate for Telecineguy's reasons. Contra 2013 pagemove summary, WP:YEAR (specifically, MOS:ERA) permits use of "AD"/"CE" where it aids clarity. I would prefer Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 CE or Mount Vesuvius eruption in AD 79 rather than putting the date first, as I think it reads more clearly (which is the impetus for the move request). jnestorius(talk) 15:28, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
My understanding of readability is that we should take extraneous words out, not add them in? Also – while I acknowledge that there remains a lot of inconsistency – there is a clear majority for 'date first' in both Category:Volcanic eruptions by country and its parent Category:Natural disasters by country. Bring back Daz Sampson (talk) 09:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Consistency between articles is a good all-other-things-being-equal tiebreaker, but readability takes priority. "Most concise" is not the same as "most readable". Readability may involve taking extraneous words out, but AD/CE is not extraneous. As regards ordering, IMO "foo in AD 79" is easier to parse (ie more readable) than "AD 79 foo". jnestorius(talk) 11:01, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I also think "Mount Vesuvius eruption in AD 79" is more readable than "AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption", but either is fine with me. — hike395 (talk) 11:11, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
My view is that "If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out". Unless you can say [why?] you think the longer version is "easier to parse" then we are dealing in WP:ILIKEIT! Bring back Daz Sampson (talk) 12:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Scholars don't give Orwell's lay advice much credence. It you side with Orwell why did you suggest "AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption" instead of "79 Vesuvius eruption" (or even "79 Vesuvius")? The reason I like it is that it's easier to parse. The reason it's easier to parse is that noun-preposition-noun phrases are easier to parse than noun-noun compounds. The reason they are easier to parse is that they are more compositional. jnestorius(talk) 17:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I suppose we have to inherit AD 79 and Mount Vesuvius from their respective articles. Thank you for clarifying and for what was a cogent and interesting response – I withdraw my accusation of WP:ILIKEIT and now see you have a valid point. Like others I agree the current title should go and "AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption" was just a suggestion aiming for simplicity. Another perusal of the relevant categories seems to suggest "foo of AD 79" should be preferred if we are putting the date to the back. Bring back Daz Sampson (talk) 19:17, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Article titles must use the most commonly used term per WP:COMMONNAME. About 80,000 results for "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79" versus about 594 results for "AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption". Volcanoguy 00:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I don't think either of these (or any of those listed below) are "names" per se, just descriptive phrases formatted different ways. Just because the majority of Google searches turns up a particular phrase more often than others doesn't mean much; I would expect different words to be used in running text than I would in a concise title. Accordingly I am placing more weight on CONCISE here. CThomas3 (talk) 18:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@Volcanoguy: I don't think that the search test yields that conclusion. "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79" is a substring of "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD" and "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE". The search will return pages with all three strings. If you look at the first 3 pages of search results, "...in 79 AD" and "...in 79 CE" dominate the results.
Trying a few other queries (with personalization turned off):
If we consider WP:COMMONNAME, then the article should be titled Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. There are five criteria for selecting a name, I think Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD is good, with some weakness in "Conciseness" and "Consistency" (per Cthomas3 above)
— hike395 (talk) 07:47, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
@Hike395: Yes, but articles do not generally use AD, BC, CE, etc. in their titles. Volcanoguy 13:16, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, generally they don't. But when they are needed to avoid ambiguity they should be used. To many readers I would say "in 79" could easily be misinterpreted as in 79 BC; especially if they are just glancing at the page title during searching or if it is wikilinked in another article. MOS:ERA even goes so far as to say "depending on context one- and two-digit years may look more natural with an era marker [AD or BC]". --Voello talk 15:31, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Prefer CE to AD, there does not seem to be compelling reason why AD should be used on an article that documents an event that took place before Christianity became widespread and the historians who documented the event were not Christian. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, the article currently only uses AD, and not CE. MOS:ERA says we should be consistent in the choice, and retain the existing choice -- the title should match the article usage, I think. — hike395 (talk) 23:14, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong Support move to Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This topic is clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the proposed undisambiguated title -- no other Vesuvius eruption is any where near as notable -- and therefore is the perfect title per WP:CRITERIA including WP:PRECISE ("Exceptions to the precision criterion may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria. Most of these exceptions are described in specific Wikipedia guidelines or by Wikipedia projects, such as Primary topic, ..."). --В²C ☎ 20:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Fine as is. WP:TITLECHANGES and incessant fiddling for marginal but arguable theoretical improvement. Vesuvius has erupted many times. To the extent that this one is special, it is associated with the year 79. AD? CE? No evidence that anyone has ever been waylaid or confused. Unnecessary title changes makes the ongoing article not match past downstream uses. That cost is not exceeded by a benefit of any of the proposed. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:46, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
No opposition to Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD; I take the point of ambiguity of 79 vs 1979, but I do not want to engage in "79 AD" vs "AD 79" vs "79 CE" etc. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:20, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Move to Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The current title is basically the best and most WP:COMMONNAME formulation, and as already noted it's helpful to include the year. I would be happy to add "AD" on the end though, on the grounds that (a) it could conceivably be mistaken for 1979, and (b) per evidence above that's the common name compared with the current title. Like SmokeyJoe I strongly oppose any other mooted change though, which would take it to a less well-used title for no very good reason. Adding AD is all that's needed here, and seems to have reasonable support in the discusison below as well.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. When I first looked at the current title, my thought was, 'Vesuvius erupted in 1979? I don't think so.' Only after I began to read this requested move did I see that it was 79 BC AD/CE that was meant. Definitely needs disambiguation. PI Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 20:50, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Clear as is. Why fiddle with a simple, clear title when it's so much more important to improve the text which is very poor in places, and has been so for years. Typical of so many Wikipedia pages where most editors fiddle only with a comma here and a hyphen there. Rjdeadly (talk) 11:04, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Do we have consensus?

@Steel1943, Telecineguy, Bring back Daz Sampson, Jnestorius, Cthomas3, Volcanoguy, Voello, and Axem Titanium: A lot of different suggestions for new titles have been offered and several editors have expressed preferences. I wonder if we have an undiscovered consensus? Article titles don't have to be perfect or optimal --- editors can usually find what they need through search engines or WP redirects. I would suggest that we need to find an acceptable title, rather than the best title. Maybe there is a title that is acceptable to almost all of the editors, and we don't realize it. How about if I start a poll for all of the alternatives? If everyone could sign their user name below one or more titles that are acceptable, maybe we have a consensus, or maybe we need to only discuss two or three alternatives. Feel free to sign as many as you wish (using ~~~): you're not limited to one choice. — hike395 (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79


Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD
AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption
  • — hike395 (talk)
  • First choice. CThomas3 (talk) 07:57, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • My preference, removes ambiguity and is concise. --Voello talk 16:54, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support this option. Also ok with the CE variation, whichever has more consensus. --Gonnym (talk) 08:30, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I also think this would be ok, my second choice. -- Sirfurboy (talk) 08:38, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I prefer this one. Apologies to @Born2cycle:, who clearly feel as though they had a 'Eureka moment', but removing the date altogether is the only suggestion so far which is worse than the status quo – since it introduces yet more ambiguity. The arguments for having the date at the back have been very weak too. If I went to Wikiproject Football and said: "Lads, this year we'll be calling the 2020 FA Cup Final the FA Cup Final in 2020", I suspect I'd swiftly be reverted, especially if all I could come up with would be: "I reckon it's parsing better", "consistency is but an all-other-things-being-equal tiebreaker". In fact I'd probably be shown a proverbial yellow card, and rightly so. As for the editors trying to quibble over AD or CE, or whether to have it before or after the 79, I don't think this is really the correct venue. Anyone wishing to rehash what (I assume) are intractable debates should probably make their attempt at Talk:AD 79 or Talk:Anno Domini. Bring back Daz Sampson (talk) 11:20, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
    • Practically speaking, Mount Vesuvius eruption is not ambiguous. Technically it is, of course, but practically, THE eruption is so far more notable than all the others that the reference is clearly about that one famous eruption. What isn’t so well known is that the eruption was specifically in AD 79. In fact, such obscure and unnecessary specificity to a particular year in the title suggests the article is not about the famous eruption because if it was, no year would be specified. —В²C ☎ 15:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
But the Vesuvious article (a GA, if you please) discuses the various other eruptions at length. So I don't think they are quite as forgettable/trivial as you seem to be implying. Bring back Daz Sampson (talk) 19:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
None of the other eruptions warrant separate articles. If you google “Vesuvius eruption date” the result is an oversized October 24, 79 AD. It’s no comparison. This is the quintessential primary topic for Mount Vesuvius eruption. —В²C ☎ 06:26, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
79 AD Mount Vesuvius eruption
Mount Vesuvius eruption in AD 79
Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE
79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption
Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 CE
Mount Vesuvius eruption

Comment

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 8 June 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (And really, no pressing need to move per WP:TITLECHANGES). No such user (talk) 07:30, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD → AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius – I think AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius is better title of this article than "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD". Because, Other volcanic eruption articles are different style title. For example, 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, 1883 eruption of Krakatoa and so on. So I think AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius is better title of this article to same with style of other volcanic eruption articles.--Miamiaim (talk) 13:37, 8 June 2021 (UTC) Miamiaim (talk) 13:42, 8 June 2021 (UTC) —Relisting. Vpab15 (talk) 18:48, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Note: I asked Miamiaim to open a discussion here, because I reverted their move after they moved the article without discussion when there had been an RM last year already. I don't have any opinion one way or another about what the correct title should be. --rchard2scout (talk) 14:04, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
Cool. (also there's no need to ping when replying on talk pages)—blindlynx (talk) 13:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
In the extensive move discussion from last year, three options rose to the top:
  1. Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD (present title)
  2. AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption
  3. Mount Vesuvius eruption
I would suggest that we decide between these alternatives. In particular, AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption is more WP:CONCISE than the proposed AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius that is proposed, and a number of editors noted that conciseness.
Article titles have five criteria. I like to make tables to decide between choices. Here's my analysis of the 3 candidates against the 5 criteria (values are more relative than absolute):
Criterion Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption Eruption of Mount Vesuvius Notes
Recognizable High High High
Natural High Med Med current title did well in Google search
Precise High High Low Many editors wanted to disambiguate the date
Concise Low Med High Argument that this is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, current title has extra words
Consistent Low High Low Per Miamiaim, there is a article title pattern

Looking through these, AD 79 Mount Vesuvius eruption is the least flawed, so I would support a move to that title. Pinging participants from last year to get more opinions: (Steel1943—Telecineguy—Bring back Daz Sampson—Jnestorius—Cthomas3—Volcanoguy—Voello—Axem Titanium—Sirfurboy—Rjdeadly) — hike395 (talk) 16:57, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Still prefer CE to AD for the same reasons as before. The event took place before Christianity was a major religion and the historians who documented it were not Christian. There is no need for us as editors to imbue it with extraneous religious markers. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:27, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
  • "AD 79" is better than "79 AD" for consistency with AD 79. I wouldnt mind a wholesale switch to "79 CE" but not just for this one article. I still personally prefer "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79" as I said above, but it's a fine call and I am comfortable with "AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius" as well. jnestorius(talk) 18:41, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
    • You have to start somewhere. If discussions on every individual article say "look at all the other articles that use AD" as an excuse not to change, it's impossible to change. Axem Titanium (talk) 00:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • I am fine with the first two suggestions. "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius" is too vague as it could refer to any eruption from Vesuvius. Volcanoguy 02:17, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Move to AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius as proposed. If we are going to get into a CE versus AD discussion, let's round up all events with AD titles and propose this en masse; same if we are going to propose "Foo eruption" titles versus "eruption of Foo" titles. BD2412 T 04:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose as presently formulated. Several different arguments are being made here, and we probably need to deal with them individually. "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius" strikes me as more intuitive and more easily remembered than the year. With respect to the era, I don't regard BC/AD as particularly sectarian; they're traditionally used by classicists and historians without any religious implications, and it's a mistake to suppose that "CE/BCE" are purely secular, since a) they're still based on an old calculation of the birth of Christ, and b) many people use the 'C' to mean 'Christian' rather than 'Common'. I would call it a wash as far as one being "more secular" than the other, but one is certainly more recognizable. With respect to the placement, as Necrothesp and jnestorius point out, "AD" traditionally precedes the year, although I'd add that it's technically not incorrect for it to follow the year, either. For that matter, it used to be common for "BC" to precede the year also, although that's now old-fashioned. But because we have three different issues under consideration—and it occurs to me that "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius (AD 79)" might be just as good as "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in (AD 79, 79 AD, 79, 79 CE, ETC 79)", maybe we should lay them all out on the table and take a straw poll on each issue. And by straw poll, I mean a show of hands, not a lengthy argument about each issue. Discussion would be more appropriate if we can narrow down the possibilities a bit more. May I suggest the following? If participating in this suggestion, please indent replies beneath this post, so we can just see where people stand on each issue (we can debate each one later).
  1. "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius...", "Mount Vesuvius eruption...", or "(year) eruption of Mount Vesuvius"?
  2. If "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius..." or "Mount Vesuvius Eruption...", natural language disambiguation ["...in (or of) AD 79/79 CE"] or parenthetical disambiguation ["...(AD 79/79CE)"]?
  3. "AD", "CE", or no era?
  4. If the era is "AD", before or after the year?
P Aculeius (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Edited the first two parts in light of Avilich's post below. P Aculeius (talk) 21:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
  • 1: "Mount Vesuvius eruption..." would probably be the most easily distinguished formulation, since there have been many other notable volcanic eruptions, and readers are more likely to remember which volcano it was than what year it erupted, or be sure about how to formulate the year at the beginning of a search. 2: parenthetical disambiguation seems better to me for the year, since natural language seems awkward for this purpose. But if we use natural language, I think that "of" would be more encyclopedic than "in". 3: I think that the era is useful, but not essential since it's AD/CE. I dislike CE for various reasons that I won't go into, so it would be a distraction to me. AD would not, so it's my preference, followed by no era. 4: if there's a consensus for AD, it should precede the year. P Aculeius (talk) 15:24, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 was suggested in the previous discussion and seems a decent compromise between WP:CONCISE and WP:NDIS. It's common for dates to come last in article titles, as a qualifier of minor importance, even if articles on eruptions do not follow this rule as the nom pointed out. Era style can be omitted in whatever option is eventually chosen: "79 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius" doesn't sound particularly strange. Avilich (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
  • To give a clear position, I oppose the essence of the original proposal. "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in [year]" sounds natural, there's nothing wrong with it, and there's no need for consistency with every single wikipedia article on eruptions. The only change I really support is removing the era style altogether. "Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79" as I suggested above is an acceptable compromise. Avilich (talk) 17:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment. The AD/CE argument is ludicrous. Whichever you use, you are still dating from the supposed birth of Christ! Virtue signalling by using CE instead of AD makes no sense whatsoever. It's also not what we generally use on Wikipedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:16, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
I happen to agree with you, but I'm concerned that the era (which was agreed upon previously, and which seems to have a majority here) is distracting from the basic question of whether the article title should be formulated as "Eruption of Mount Vesuvius", "Mount Vesuvius eruption...", or "(year) Eruption of Mount Vesuvius". Maybe my earlier post contributed to that. P Aculeius (talk) 15:24, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Date of the eruption

The section "Date of the eruption" of the present version of this article begins, "The year of the eruption is pinned to AD 79 (that is, the corresponding year of the Roman ab urbe condita calendar era)" -- which contains a significant mistake. The ancient Romans never used the ab urbe condita dating on a regular basis, in part because there was no consensus which year Rome was founded in (the "traditional" date of 753 BC was only one of many used; when Jerome wrote his Chronicle in the 4th century AD, he stated the year of Rome's founding as 755 BC!), but mostly because the accepted practice would have been to date the year by the presiding Consul Ordinarius. For AD 79, those consuls would have been Vespasian & Titus. I'd correct the text, but I don't know which primary source -- if any -- provides the consuls who presided in this year, let alone the primary sources that provide the information that provides the date. -- llywrch (talk) 21:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

The "date of the eruption" section seems to follow one source (Rolandi): I provided a non-paywall link to that paper. The paper doesn't talk about ab urbe condita at all. I'm concerned that the whole section could be giving WP:UNDUE weight to a minority viewpoint. But, I'm certainly not an archaeologist or classicist, so I don't know. —hike395 (talk) 22:24, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
Later --- apparently, the "ab urbe condita" phrase was put in by an IP editor (in this edit) who was trying to make the section less WP:POV. It doesn't look supported by any source, so we can delete it. —hike395 (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
The eruption happening in the course of AD 79 has never been seriously questioned by any notable historians or archaologists in the modern age. I figure there are a number of different things about the references to the eruption itself in ancient written sources that pinned it down to that year (Pliny isn't the only one mentioning it). The distinction between AD years and AbUC years was probably just added to remind the reader that Roman writers of the day did not use the BC/AD convention (of course!). It doesn't say that Pliny actually dated it by means of ab urbe condita.
The real issue with that section, a few years back, was that one opinionated editor (Botteville aka Dave), tried to WP:OWN that bit and push the view that scientific consensus had settled on a date in the autumn, not 24 August, for the eruption. There is an ongoing discussion about this, because certain aspects of the findings don't seem to square very well with an August date, and it is reflected in the text here, but Botteville wanted to make the article appear as if it was an open-and-shut thing and 99% settled. In doing so he ran over other editors, flatly rewrote major parts of the article without discussion and drenched that section in hopelessly arcane and weaselly prose to bend things to his point of view. This stuff was corrected after a while and after quite a few bad-faith edits. Strausszek (talk) 23:31, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
Should we delete the section, condense it, or leave it as is? —hike395 (talk) 02:03, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
It looks fairly good as it is now. The issue of the date is important, it just shouldn't become overly technical or POV-pushing. It's also an interesting example of how methods of dating ancient events really operate in practice. I left the comment also because Botteville sometimes revisits his old contributions, and he can be very tenacious. ;) Strausszek (talk) 05:37, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
I have changed the date in the infobox from "24 August 79 AD or 24 October 79 AD" to "24-25 August 79 AD (probable)". First of all, it is a known fact that the eruption occurred over a two-day span. This was not noted in the infobox before. In addition, mainstream scholarly consensus has always favored August 24 as the date of the eruption, and, as I said in an edit summary, that date "should be given preeminence." I am not exactly an expert on the mountain or the eruption, but I have read some material about it and watched the Pompeii the Last Day documentary, and I can say that reading this article is the first time that I can recall the mention of a date other than August 24. I also find the section "Date of the Eruption" to be confusing and poorly sourced. Display name 99 (talk) 18:08, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

This new find could tip the scales in favour of late October or November, but we should await the scientific discussion which will surely follow, before we make any definite change of date: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/archeological-find-changes-date-of-pompeiis-destruction 83.254.130.142 (talk) 04:43, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the IP editor above -- there is a new finding in the Regio V excavation of Pompeii that indicates an October date, but that has only been reported in the popular press. I cannot find a scientific paper about that finding, only a web site posting. There will clearly be a scientific debate: let's not get ahead of it. —hike395 (talk) 07:53, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello; I'm writing with regard to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vesuvius and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_79_AD

I've just finished a 9-year project on the Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79, and the Letters of Pliny the Younger about that event. The book will be published by Routledge in March 2022. The book offers a number of corrections and clarifications to the nature, sequence, and date of the eruption, and the evidence for each.

I have posted some results on my professional blog: https://quemdixerechaos.com/2022/01/07/the-date-of-the-ad-79-vesuvius-eruption-in-the-textual-sources/

This link contains a video presented last week to the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. It specifically explains why the Aug. 24 date is the date that Pliny the Younger recorded in the written sources. There is also a link to the book at the publisher's website; the book examines all the archaeological evidence for alternate (autumn) dates.

There has been much debate about the date recently; this book project has been an effort to clear that up.

I have not previously engaged in any requests for edits on Wikipedia, so I apologize if I don't yet understand all the protocols; I just want to provide the public with the most recent and sound arguments and evidence. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Pedar W. Foss, Professor of Classical Studies DePauw University, Greencastle, IN USA Pfoss (talk) 14:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

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