Talk:Timeline of historic inventions/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

This list MUST be edited back!

Its TOO LONG and contains things that are not even inventions, let alone historic inventions. I understand that what is regarded as 'historic' is somewhat subjective, but when your historic list contains instant noodles its time for a scythe. It is COMPLETELY irrelevant whether something is notable enough to be in Wikipedia. To be a 'historic' invention it must be a highlight in the whole of history, not that it was invented a long time ago. It must be clearly much more important than most other inventions. Not every crappy new electronic device counts or new fashion, only the most significant ones. Same with medicine. New things are not inventions just because they are made out of something different - solid vs liquid, metal vs wood, analog vs digital, colour vs monochrome is irrelevant. I'm going to be brutal and the article will be better for it - watch this space. I understand people will want things put back in, and to do so is obviously their right, but the policy needs to be that unless there is a clear rationale for inclusion as a historic invention on the talk page, its stays out. Mdw0 (talk) 06:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Right, that's much better - approximating what the article is meant to show. It still needs another edit though, to remove duplicates and fix up the references, which I'll get to tomorrow. To those who think what I've done is vandalism, I'd like to see how you can possibly make a case for inclusion as historic inventions any more than a couple of the things edited out. Mdw0 (talk) 07:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think you understand the article; I've undone your edits entirely. The absence of very important inventions like 'cloth' cannot really be sustained. This isn't to say that the article isn't too long, but that's very definitely too pruned.- Wolfkeeper 06:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

There were too many entries for 'cloth' and different types to leave in all of them. In an overly-long article the onus is on you for all your additions, not me for the odd excessive deletions. If you think 'cloth' should be back in, put it back in, dont add back all the other garbage because its easier to hit 'undo' than actuallly look at each entry. Why exactly do you think I don't 'understand' the article? Mdw0 (talk) 05:57, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

At the very least you don't understand the need for at least some degree of consensus before making radical changes to the article. So far as I can tell, you have no-one backing your changes, and I see no sign at all that you are reading the references and checking to see what they say, and whether it should be in the article or not. You seem to be quite unaware of the importance or otherwise of the topics you are removing and the removals are being made at high speed.- Wolfkeeper 03:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think "Yacht Club" was an invention. TJN

21st century

What happend over the last decade? Only two inventions made in 2001? I got a few from about.com not other sources but just to give some inspiration:

2000: •Environmentally friendly transformer fluid from vegetable oils invented by T.V. Oommen

2001: •Artificial liver invented by Dr. Kenneth Matsumura and Alin Foundation. •Fuel cell bike invented by Aprilia. •Self-cleaning windows invented by PPG Industries. •On October 23, 2001 Apple Computers publicly announced their portable music digital player the iPod, created under project codename Dulcimer

2002: •Nano-tex - nanotechnology wearable fabrics invented by Nano-tex LLC. •Birth control patch invented by Ortho McNeil Pharmaceutical.

2003: •Optical Camouflage System invented by Susumu Tachi, Masahiko Inami, and Naoki Kawakami •Toyota's Hybrid Car •New Fabrics, Salmon Skin Leather invented by Claudia Escobar and Skini, and Luminex a glowing fabric invented by Luminex. •The No-Contact Jacket invented by Adam Whiton and Yolita Nugent, protects the wearer by electric shocking any attackers.

2004: •Adidas 1 the thinking shoes with a built in microprocessor that decides how soft or firm support the wearer needs. Chosen by Popular Science magazine as the best recreation invention of 2004. •Translucent Concrete developed by Hungarian architect Aron Losonczi and called LitraCon and is based on a matrix of parallel optical glass fibers embedded into the concrete that can transmit light and color from the outside. However, this is not the only translucent concrete out there. Inventor Bill Price has been developing another variety. •Ka-on or Flower Sound are plants that play music invented by the Japanese based Let's Corporation. Flowers bouquets will act as loudspeakers when placed in a special vase that has electronics hidden in the base.

83.136.195.130 (talk) 13:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't know what those and other inventions mean yet. History really starts 30 years ago.- Wolfkeeper 05:55, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I dont think this person understands what 'historic' means and they certainly dont understand what 'invention' means. A shoe is an invention. A shoe with something added to it is at best an innovation, not an invention. Concrete is an invention. Concrete that lets through some light is not. A car is an invention, not a car that has a slightly different motor. The artificial liver, though, would probably make the list if it becaomes widely applied. Mdw0 (talk) 05:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

So your definition of 'invention' is whatever you say it is? Uh huh.- Wolfkeeper 12:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The wikipedia's definition of historic is what sources say or clearly imply is a historic invention. Not you. See the difference?- Wolfkeeper 12:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure you're more than capable of finding definitions of an invention versus an innovation or a redesign and making your arguments on a case by case basis. If I reject something you think should be included, make your case based on the nature of the item. You'll find I'm more than willing to allow inclusion of things that are borderline. I noticed you didnt say I was wrong about any of my comments regarding these possible inclusions, you just had a go at me instead, implying arrogance. I dont think its arrogant to say that this list cant contain items that are clearly not historic and certainly not things that aren't inventions. Dont you agree? Mdw0 (talk) 00:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Article reverted to 4th January.

An editor removed 2/3 of the article, and the quality had clearly suffered, so I have reverted to the earlier version.

I think the article needs splitting onto different millenia perhaps. The length is clearly too big right now. I think that reducing quality by ignoring many of the inventions is not correct.

What do others think? Is the shorter version of the article really better?- Wolfkeeper 06:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with your reversion. Far too much was removed.

Some content clearly doesn't belong (eg "2000 BCE: Cockfighting"), and that can be trimmed out carefully. After that, I think splitting it more than once would be harmful. Let's re-evaluate once the trimmings are done, but perhaps a split out of 18thCentury on, would be appropriate? -- Quiddity (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Make up your mind. On the one hand you say the article is too long and on the other you've reverted a stack of entries. No splits. If there is so much here that the article is too long, then logically there are plenty of things that need to be cut back. The article is too long only because of the ridiculous number of unhistoric inventions plugged back in. The quality suffers much more now. Underfloor heating? How is that historic? The bow drill is a minor tool. Plywood? Thats not historic. Stone paved street? Maybe the street is historic, but that would be included as part of the invention of the city. The Bangle? Are you serious? The sickle sword? That's not an invention either - its just a modification of an older invention. You mention loss of quality but havent justified any of the items that have been reverted. Once again I'm going to edit out inventons that are not historic and definitely the ones that aren't inventions. Please advise here of any you think should be back in the list. Mdw0 (talk) 05:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

No, removal of referenced material should not be based on your opinion of what is, or is not historic. The fact that you removed the Jacquard loom says pretty much everything really. You're just going through the article and removing stuff according to your arbitrary opinion- that's not the way the Wikipedia works.- Wolfkeeper 12:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately there is no absolute definition of which inventions are 'historic' which means the reasons for inclusion or otherwise has to be presented and sometimes debated. I noted earlier that I recognise this can be somewhat subjective, so I agree references need to be added to indicate the relative importance of the invention, that it changed the world, or a large part of it. But that's a reason to remove more of the list, not leave more there. This is an exclusive list, which means arguments need to be made for inclusion, not exclusion. If you have a problem with a particular deletion, make your case for inclusion, but dont just revert an edit of multiple deletions because you've got a problem with only one. You cant possibly argue that all of the entries you re-inserted are valid. My reasoning for deleting the Jacquard loom primarily is that its not an invention, its a redesign of a previous invention, so the Jacquard loom is an innovation not an invention. You could make a case for the loom's use of punch cards as an original form of information technology, but that would be the punch card system which is the invention, not the loom.Mdw0 (talk) 00:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

You see, you're still doing it. It's not whether we make a case for it being a historic invention; it's whether the sources do. The consensus is formed on whether they do, or do not.- Wolfkeeper 00:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

In the case of the Jacquard loom; there's a lot of sources for it being a critical, historic invention. For example, James Burke (science historian)'s Connections covers it in quite a lot of detail.- Wolfkeeper 00:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Good, so there's one that can go back in the list, although you'd have to be using the broadest possible defintion of an invention, one which says every new car design is a new invention, and every patent is a new invention. BTW, Burke's book never really pins down a definition of what an invention actually is either. Its nice that you have some references to quote regarding the Jacquard loom, but it would be even nicer if those references were actually in the article. The fact is the vast majority of this list aren't referenced at all, let alone as 'historic.' If you have any other references then please put them in. The deletions I've made have notes alongside each deletion explaining my reasoning for deletion. If you revert my edits again I'd appreciate an explaination of why you think I'm wrong, especially any which dont have references. In the end I'm just trying to get this list down to a managable level and ensuring the items match teh article's description. Without any explainations I'll have to assume further revertions are due to some other motivation. Mdw0 (talk) 02:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I haven't put this strongly enough- your edits removed 2/3 of the references from the article; and the scheme you used for deciding what to remove involved what can best be described as winging it. This is not acceptable.- Wolfkeeper 02:53, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

That original edit was designed to provide a base for which other items could be added back in based on merit and proper referencing. You havent said why subsequent edits were reverted. My 'scheme' was deciding that when there are no references that some things which are clearly not historically significant or not inventions should be removed. Perhaps I have been using a definiton of 'invention' that you find too restricted, but dont let me guess - if that's the situation then you need to say that. As far as I can tell you have no criteria for editing back the article and that even the most trivial non-inventions are allowed, although that is only an impression from your actions. So far you've failed to respond to my query - do you agree that this article should exclude the trivial and non-inventions or not? At the very least let's establish some common ground there. Mdw0 (talk) 04:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

While the article may require reductions in length. Do you really think you won't get blocked if you go about things in this way?- Wolfkeeper 03:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I see, so we've gone from insults to threats. Lets go over what I've done, and your responses. First of all we've got an article requiring reduction, actually dramatic reduction. My first edits were after notification on the talk page, trying to create a base from which further additions could be properly assessed. You weren't interested in doing that and reverted the edits completely, restoring many unhistoric and silly items to the list. Am I right so far? You said I didnt understand the article, but didnt say why when invited to. If the article was all correctly referenced as to the items being historic inventions you might have a case against 'winging it' but you they aren't, so you dont. Most of the deletions were of items which had no references at all, let alone ones that indicated the inventions were historic, but you put them all back in again. Not just the ones you thought important, but all of them. I said I was happy to discuss on a case by case basis. I acquiesced on an item I didnt agree with because you found some references which supported its inclusion but weren't in the article. That's fine - I thought from there we would move on to editing back the article. Fact is there needs to be a standard set up by us editors regarding what is historic and what isnt because of the lack of referencing, but you're also not interested in doing that either. I dont know why we can't work together to allow a sensible editing back of the items in the article that you say yourself is too long. You've decided any future edit I make cant be justified because you disageed with the style of my first edit. You've made an assumption that I'll edit back as severly as I did the first time, but I've obviously gone about it differently this time, slower, and indicating item by item why they dont belong. Rather than participate in editing back the article you've decided you want to use threats about blocking me. You might want to rethink such brinkmanship and get back to concentrating on the article, because I cant be blocked for deleting unreferenced material, or material that isnt refernced correctly with respect to inclusion in the article. All along the way I've invited you to put your case and provide evidence for re-inclusions in what is by nature an exclusive list that is too long. Why havent you done that? Is it because you cant or just dont want to? Is it easier to hit undo and threaten blocking? Its very early in the discussion to be making those sorts of threats. Especially when you haven't said why most of my edits of unreferenced material is wrong. Do you seriously threaten blocking every time you come up against someone with a divergent opinion? Pathetic. I'll ignore this petulant threat and continue with editing back the article as it should be. I'm happy to discuss any specific changes you would like to make, rather than sweeping reversions because you've decided to make it personal. Mdw0 (talk) 03:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The real problem is you have no f***** clue what you're doing. This edit for example: [1] removed bangle... ok, but it also removed 'urban planning'; urban planning in this case means they basically invented cities, that's not ok cities keep people alive; you removed stepwell... ok, but you also removed Animal-drawn plough. This is a critical invention that feeds people and kept them alive. So just slightly more than half your edit was OK. BUT YOU REMOVED AT LEAST ONE AND ARGUABLY TWO CRITICAL INVENTIONS.- Wolfkeeper 04:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Easy Nemo, take a breath. I did NOT remove plough and I did NOT remove city. Plough is ALREADY in the list. An older version, as in, the original invention. City is also in the list. Further up. Urban planning is not the invention of the city, its a public policy to try to control how cities grow, not an invention. This makes me wonder if you've even read through the list. In fact, looking at the definition of a plough, if its not at least driven by an animal, its a hoe, not a plough, so the Mesopotamian plough mentioned must have been animal-drawn as well. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Removing information from articles through careless editing is completely unacceptable.- Wolfkeeper 04:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

And this is just one edit you made; there's nothing particularly special about it, I'm sure I can find similar problems with the others.- Wolfkeeper 04:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I am NOT going to go through your junky edits and do this for all of them. I am going to revert them en-mass until you start making sensible edits.- Wolfkeeper 04:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I mean why stop here? Just remove the whole article, we can always put back the important bits, right? Hint: f**** y***- Wolfkeeper 04:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, and I'm the one whose behaviour will obviously lead to a block... Dont get personal, it doesnt help your argument. Despite the fact that you're doing your best to sabotage your own position on this, I do concede that the original edit may have been a bit over-zealous, but it certainly wasnt reckless or careless and I'm not reckless or careless now. Since I've explained to you that the particular edit you didnt like was the removal of two obvious unhistoricals and two non-inventions with older equivalents further up the list, is it OK if I keep going? I'll make it easy for you - I'll do it piece by piece, and I'll indicate deletions where there are simlar inventions further up the list so you dont have to check yourself. That way if you dont like something you can get rid of it without affecting the rest. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Practically every single edit you have made to this article is both careless and reckless.. I'm simply going to revert every edit from here on in. They're uniformly awful practically every single edit removes things you have really no right to.- Wolfkeeper 15:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Note that the length stuff is only a guideline. Deleting content because of a length guideline is practically never done in the wikipedia; nearly always material just gets moved.- Wolfkeeper 15:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

My primary concern is the poor quality of so many of the items here, not the length of the article. I mention length only because other editors have, including yourself. The article says historic inventions and the simple fact is, its full of items which are neither, something you dont seem to be able to acknowledge. Most of Wikipedia is inclusive - it seeks to add information, but this isnt a standard article. This list is exclusive and cannot include just any old thing. If you want you could rename the article 'Chronologcal List of Technological Advancements' which would be much more inclusive, but would still need to remove the more trivial items. This article's readers are looking for only the most important inventions.

I notice you havent responded to my note above in which you incorrectly accused me of removing vital inventions - plough and city - that were in fact duplicates of older inventions further up the list. In your latest reversion you have re-inserted noria right next to waterwheel which are the same thing. You've re-added pharmacy next to drugstore which are the same thing. You've put back 'Fully-stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge' and dagger and kabbadi and underfloor heating. Are you seriously telling me you think these are 'historic inventions'? I cant believe that. So the only motivation for wholesale reversion is because reverting anything I do has become personal for you and nothing to do with the quality or otherwise of the edits. It doesnt matter how many times you say that a deletion is 'reckless, careless or naive' that doesnt make it true. BTW, I most certainly DO have the right to remove unreferenced inappropriate material, just as you have the right to reinsert it if you think it should be back. However, it would be good if you could justify the material you reinsert on its merits, without throwing around accusations. I can curse just as well as you can, but this isnt personal for me like it obviously is for you - I'm only interested in fixing the article.

You said earlier you would keep deleting until I 'started making sensible edits.' In order to back up that statement you will actually have to read the edits properly and start making sensible edits yourself. I'm going to continue with the deletion of items which dont belong in the list, line by line. Please try to have a go at discussing the actual content of the article instead of having shots at me - you might enjoy it. Mdw0 (talk) 23:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Uncertain items

Not sure about these. Please verify or clarify in article, if possible; or remove. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• 810-887: Artificial weather simulation: Abbas Ibn Firnas

Suggest addition of Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) in 1937

PCM is a critical invention that is the basis for today's digital telephony as well as the Compact Disc or CDs. The invention was in 1937 by Alec Reeves, a British researcher working in France. See PCM Wikipedia article. Tony (talk) 03:11, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

A new approach

In an attempt to get around an impasse I've decided to flag any items I would otherwise delete here on the talk page, citing my reasoning as to why they dont belong in the list. If anyone has any objections to a deletion they can comment, make a case for inclusion and I wont delete it until there's some sort of resolution. If there are no objections after a few days I'll go ahead and delete the item from the list. I hope that will be acceptable to everyone? Mdw0 (talk) 01:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

1. Vertical and polar sundials are adjusted versions of the Universal sundial invented 800s already in the list
2. The double-piston flamethrower is a minor adjustment to the Greek fire flamethrower already in the list.
   • Possibly, but it's also a double piston; which is a really important invention.- Wolfkeeper 18:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

   If this invention used the original double-piston then the line should read Double piston(Flamethrower). If I can find a refernce for the originl double-piston I'll replace this.

3. Either the Fire Arrow or the Fire Lance can be attributed as the first rocket-propelled weapon, but not both. The item should read Rocket-propelled weapon (Fire Lance)
   • No, fire lance is a rocket engine used a bit like a flame thrower. A rocket/fire arrow is a rocket vehicle that propels itself through the air. They're not the same thing at all.- Wolfkeeper 18:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

   I'll check to see if I can find an older use of a similar engine. Is this particular engine a precursor to others?. Mdw0 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

4. Mechanical singing bird automaton is trivial, not even a siginficant development of music delivery.
5. Clear colourless high-purity glass and glass from stones are both developments of glass, not the invention of glass which is on the list already at 2nd millennium BCE
   • No, that's a really huge invention, glass before that was useless for things like glasses, windows etc. etc. You doubtless have clear glass all around you, right now, due to this invention.- Wolfkeeper 18:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

   There's the difference in our definitions of invention. My defintion would be that the original glass invention is the historic invention and the rest are improvements that shouldnt be in the list. I'd actually rate the invention of spectacles much higher.. Mdw0 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

6. Municipal solid waste handling is a development from sewage collection and disposal from 3rd millennium BC
   • Just because it's a development doesn't make it not an invention.

   It really depends on how close it is to the original. As you say, to be definitive the reference needs to remark on its 'historicalness.' In this case, we also need to compare how different it is from the original invention further up our list. We really need to decide whether both a precursor and the main event both deserve places in the list. If they're not very different from each other then I'd suggest we only need one. As a comparison, glass and clear glass is much more of an advancement than the difference between these two. Mdw0 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

7. Stonepaste ceramics are a stepping stone between pottery and porcelain, both of which are mentioned in the list higher up.
   • I don't know. I suspect it should be kept though if this was widely used.- Wolfkeeper 18:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

   Its reasonably important in terms of the styles of pottery and ceramics, but acknowledged as inferior in quality to porcelain. In terms of worldwide hitorical significance in our list its a minor European style whose invention is usually mentioned only because of a suspected simultaneous invention in China and Europe because no Middle Eastern peoples used it. Leaving it in would be severly testing our notability standard, but I'll see if I can find some references with similar denigration. Mdw0 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

8. Trick drinking vessels. Trivial.
9. Distillation has been mentioned 4 times - pure distillation, distilled alcohol, dry distillation and distilled water, when the technological process should only be mentioned once.
   • They're used for different things. Just because they're all distillation doesn't make them the same invention. Distilled alcohol is a drink and an antiseptic. Distilled water has numerous uses including drinking. They're independent inventions.

   The list says 'pure' distillation and distillation of alcohol are made at the same time by the same person. Use of the same technology to distill different things is not the significant breakthrough, the process is. Distilled products are undoubtedly useful but they are derivative from the invention of distillation. Inclusion of the process really presupposes all the new things that result from that process, unless there's one particular historical standout. Otherwise we'd have to include everything else thats distillable and useful, such as the different types of fuel from crude oil. Alcohol had been created before, so what we have in that case is a minor improvement in quality using the new distillation, so again its the process which stands out from the individual resulting product. Can we at least remove dry distillation which is not much of a technological leap?. Mdw0 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

10. If the claim of the Water-powered rotary fan is for the first air-conditioning unit, it should say Air Conditioning (Water-powered rotary fan). If this is not the claim, what's it in the list for?
    • It's a question of whether it is historic or not. Is or was it widely used? Is it referenced? You're not asking the right questions.- Wolfkeeper 18:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

    Those questions are important, but the question needs to be asked whether an item is an invention in the first place. Redesigns and use of different materials can make an item much more widely used, but that process is one of innovation, not one of invention. According to our list this is not the first rotary fan and its not the first example of water-power. This is a classic case of innovation rather than invention. And there's no references for it at all. Mdw0 (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

11. Pre-cursors of an invention are not the invention. Chaturanga, a precursor of chess, and Pachisi, a precursor of ludo even admit they are pre-cursors, and as such are not historically noteworthy. Even Ludo itself isnt noteworthy so how can its precursor be? Mdw0 (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Games are probably not an invention in my opinion. It seems to me that precursors of an invention are an invention if they're widely used or otherwise particularly historic in their own right. Otherwise you get nonsenses like 'horse and buggy' was a precursor of a motorcar, so delete the horse and buggy...- Wolfkeeper 18:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I've restructured the list, using #'s instead of bullets for ease of referral, and removing the linebreaks as it's a bad habit code-wise (see Wikipedia:LIST#List_styles for explanation - it creates an html list for each item!). Also 2 spelling fixes. Hope that's all ok with you.

Yes, that's much better. I'll follow that style. Spelling fixes are always good, although in my case they're always typing errors... Mdw0 (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Content-wise, I tentatively agree (IANAExpert) with all points, except #11 - I was assuming that only the precursor/originals should be mentioned as initial inventions of their type (eg Pachisi as the first known Cross and circle game) - One option, is we could just make a single Board Game mention, using "3500BCE Senet" (and Jiroft civilization?) with a link to Board game#History? Otherwise we'll end up listing far too many. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I see your point regarding precursors, because in many respects technology builds on what went before. Whether a precursor counts is the reasoning behind a lot of debate regarding the beginnings of human flight. A box kite hooked up to an engine really isnt an aeroplane, but it is the beginning of powered flight. I certainly agree in this respect the first board game overall would be sufficient. Mdw0 (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

1. Historical novel and Novel and Psychological Novel are next to each other. Historical and Phsychological novel should go.
2. In the 11th century section there are 16 surgical tools, not all of which are notable and some of which are adaptations of other inventions, such as surgical hook, surgical spoon, anaesthetic sponge, suction... Of these I'd keep hypodermic needle, inhaled anaesthetic and the ligature as the most important. Is there a medical term which describes more accurately the use of these individual tools in surgery? Mdw0 (talk) 09:38, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
3. There is a duplicate Fire Arrow entry in the 900s and the 1100s
4. Duplication of central heating in 1000BCE and 1100s
5. The reference for 'Mariner's Compass' says Venetians were using lodestone on a needle in a bowl of water in 1190 and doesnt mention the term Mariner's Compass. Our own list has magnetic compass in 1088. The Mariner's compass item fails on both referencing and duplication.
6. I gotta admit this one really is me just 'winging it' but wasn't the Steadicam invented in the 70s when Rocky first came out? I dont know a lot about Kurosawa but I've seen tracking shots from films made in the 20s. Did Kurosawa actually invent anything around this time? I'll do some proper research but I cant believe the 'Kurosawa tracking shot' will be making our list. Mdw0 (talk) 10:16, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with all, except #2 - if we combined the many lines into a single line, would that help? Or a pointer to one of the other articles listing them (either Medicine_in_medieval_Islam#Surgical_instruments or Surgical_instruments#Medieval_breakthrough or Inventions_in_medieval_Islam#Surgical_instruments or Timeline_of_medicine_and_medical_technology#Middle_Ages or Science_in_medieval_Islam#Medicine)

Regarding #6, search for "steadicam" here for what seems to be the origin. I've removed it from List of Japanese inventions also. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that Surgical instruments would work with a single line plus some detail. There's plenty of real estate, so 'Surgical instruments - adhesive plaster, curette, retractor etc', and then hypodermic, inhaled anesthetic and ligature are important enough to have their own entries. That way the claim isnt for every surgical isntrument ever, but also doesnt claim each and every one is historic in and of itself.

Wow, that reference for Kurosawa is awful isnt it? One guy's impression that the shot must've been done using a technology from 35 years in the future. Thanks for that - I'll end my search for the mysterious invention. Mdw0 (talk) 07:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Other nominations for deletion

1. Spoked wheel chariot. This is another example of innovation as chariot is older and already in the list. If this is the first use of the spoked wheel in any context then it might make the list as Spoked Wheel, not Spoked wheel chariot.
2. Relief-raised map is a minor development on the map already mentioned.

   I looked into it, and that seems to be the case; it had no great impact that I could find.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

3. A star chart is a map of the sky, and map is already mentioned. Printing is an important but separate development, so printed star chart isnt an invention.

   May be true, but you would have to show that the invention was not historic. For example if they were used for navigation, such a map would be extremely important.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

   Surely if its true that the thing isnt in an invention, then it cant make our list of historical inventions no matter how ‘historical’ it is.Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

4. An astronomcal clock is a regular clock with a couple of extra gears to show positions of sun, moon etc. Once you've got your mechanical clock invented this is a very minor addition.

   May be true, but you would have to show that the invention was not historic.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

   That item is unreferenced, but even if it was, chances are it would be like most of the other references which indicate only who was responsible and where and when the invention occurred, without any advocation as to the invention being major or important in comparison to others. Are you really asking me to come up with a reference that says something ISNT historic? Apart from the fact that it would be virtually impossible, it would mean anyone could put anything they liked in the list and it would be up to me to prove it wasn’t historic in order to have it deleted. Isnt that a complete reverse of how Wikipedia usually works? Surely the burden of proof must be on those who want to include items in the listing to show historical notability. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

5. Epicyclic and segmental gearing are examples of complex gearing which is already mentioned.

   May be true, but you would have to show that the invention was not historic.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

   I’m not disputing that complex gearing is historic, it deserves a place in the list, but this is a case of duplication. The other, more specific examples of complex gearing can be assumed to be part of complex gearing, especially when the other items use the exact same reference as the basis for their inclusion. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

6. There are multiple developments of timepieces in this list. I believe there should be more than one, but the differences here are very minor, for example, Mechanical clock, Astronomical clock, Geared mechanical clock, Weight-driven mechanical clock. These cant possibly all be important enough to make the list. It would be hard to make a case that modern timepieces would never have happened should all of these not have been invented. The geared mechanical clock is the clear standout. That one should stay and the rest deleted.

   May be true, but you would have to show that the invention was not historic. Whether they lead to further inventions or were relatively minor changes to other inventions isn't important.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

   Sorry, I'm not quite following your line of argument - surely the criteria for a historic invention is that it is a MAJOR influence on technological development and on life generally. If the item is only a minor deviation in comparison to the original invention then surely that means it ISNT historic. If its not significant enough to be notably different from the original invention, how can it be notable in terms of other inventions throughout history? And as I said before, the burden of proof regarding importance must surely fall to the person who adds the item to the list, not on me who questions the validity of non-referenced or inappropriately referenced material. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

7. Clock tower here is a section of a larger structure of the astronomical clock Su Song built. Is a tower a new invention just because someone put a clock at the top? Is a clock a new invention because of where someone puts it after its built? Surely the answers must be no and no, so this is possibly an innovation, definitely not an invention.

   Whether something is historic or not is to do with how it is regarded as to its impact, not how simple it is.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

   Simplicity isnt the issue - the best invention are usually simple devices. The issue is whether this can be classified as an invention. In this context the claim is that putting a clock at the top of a tower means the tower is a new invention. The claim is bogus. But even from the viewpoint that it must be historic because every town has one, that would mean every different type of building is an invention, the shop, the post office, the butcher’s shop, the hardware store. There needs to be a line drawn as to what is an invention, because otherwise what we have is a list of first occurrences, not a list of inventions. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

8. Bead abacus should be replaced with an entry from Mesopotamia in 2700BC
9. A torquetum may have been an early caluculating mechanism but its so obscure as to be almost trivial. This is a classic pre-cursor that we need to decide whether its relevant. If this thing was never invented, would it matter?
10. Watertight hull compartment - isnt this a bulkhead? In fact its even linked direct to bulkead.
11. A Mangonel is just a different name for a trebuchet, imemdiately above it in the list.
12. A finery forge isnt an invention, its just another forge where pig iron is worked. Finery forge is a name to describe a use for an item, not to name a new item.

    I looked at this, but I was very unconvinced. These forges where critical in the industrial revolution in Britain.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

    No doubt forges were and are important, but its not ‘forge’ that I’m questioning, but ‘finery forge’ as a separate historic invention. These things weren’t a new type of forge, or a redesign, its just a name for a forge where a particular type of work was done. Perhaps some new process using multiple forges could count as a technological beakthrough, but using the same invention for working a different material isnt a separate invention. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

13. An elephant clock is a water clock shaped to look like an elephant. Trivial.

    Not sure; it may just be mislabelled as it seems to have been the first use of a flow regulator.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

    Then the item should be Flow Regulator, not Elephant Clock Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

14. Kitchen appliance is too vague to make any list, let alone a historic one.
15. The humanoid robot implies more than it is. Should be renamed Mechanical humanoid robot to indicate nothing electical.
16. The paper model is trivial, and little more than a form of printed origami
17. Intermittency is a mathematical idea, and a fairly minor one - if we include this we include hundreds of much more important ideas. Can mathematics be counted as technology?
18. Is a research institute really different enough from a university to qualify as an invention? Only the type of person who works there is different. Mdw0 (talk) 07:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably research institute does research whereas a university teaches. Although universities also do research these days, they're not the same thing.- Wolfkeeper 15:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This one is borderline so should probably stay, especially considering a research institute is not just a building. You could certainly make an argument that the expertise of the people and the use of that human capital as a technological process is the key ingredient. Thanks for your input I'll delete the ones for which there is no dispute shortly. Mdw0 (talk) 05:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

1. What is PageRank doing on this list? Is that a joke? Yes Google has made the internet easier to use in the last few years, but Pagerank will not be an "historic invention" that will be with us for centuries. Trivial and actually embarassing. Bokononist (talk) 12:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually before pagerank, web search was practically unusable; you got thousands of hits in an essentially random order, and after a while it got worse because this list was topped by paid-for hits. That essentially all current search engines use some sort of pagerank should tell you something. It's probably the second biggest invention on the web after the web itself; even more signficant than the invention of the search engine (although it relies on that of course).- Wolfkeeper 16:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

No doubt this development was very important, but does it count as an invention? The original search engine, with all its faults is the invention. Subsequent improvements really shouldn't make the list. Mdw0 (talk) 02:59, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does count as an invention, they have a patent and everything. In fact it's a far more subtle and clever invention than a simple web search engine. Just about anything is an invention; the previous sentence here was an invention. The question isn't whether something is an invention, the question is whether it's an important enough invention to be in the article. And that's not really up to us, it's up to the sources, it's a question of us finding the sources and checking that they say or imply that it is.- Wolfkeeper 13:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The definition of an invention used by dictionaries is much more specific than any patent office's. I'd say that likewise you have an extremely broad definition, certainly broader than most readers would have. If an original invention is improved using widespread technology to perform the same function better that is innovation, not invention. Its a different creative process. Its really not for me to say your view is wrong, but there is no way I'm going to agree that 'just about everything is an invention' and neither would the vast majority of this page's readers. They are looking for the first instances of the most important examples, not a list of 'just about everything.' Normally I consider such an inclusive viewpoint as a useful foil to my own, but it seems you want to leave everything in the list as it is until we find sources for every line. That means leaving trivial and repetitive items in the list indefinitely. Those items are what I'm seeking to remove now. I understand your point that 'its up to the sources' but very few of the entries are properly sourced, so there needs to be some judgement calls as to what stays in to be worked on and what should be removed for the sake of a more readable, higher quality list. Judgement and then discussion and decision based on something approaching consensus. In short it IS up to us to work out what is worth keeping and working on and what isnt, because a substantial number of items are seriously not worth keeping and are detracting from the article. Mdw0 (talk) 07:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Nope, this is the wikipedia, you're supposed to include or not include things almost solely based on what the overall weight of sources say, not based on your (or for that matter my) simple opinion (OR) that X,Y,Z doesn't count because A,B,C. A particularly pernicious form of OR, is deletion based on OR.- Wolfkeeper 18:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Correct, but if you live by this credo you can die by it as well. When there's No sources, as with most of this article, and the article is suffering from unreferenced irrelevancies and duplicates you can either delete like mad - which didn't work in this case, or you can discuss first with a view to improving the article. Or you can give up and leave all the unreferenced irrelevancies and duplicates. If there's no referencing at all for an item and someone wants to delete something, you actually have NO basis for an argument to leave it in. Mdw0 (talk) 02:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

You removed ~200 references. You very clearly were not deleting unreferenced material.- Wolfkeeper 03:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

True, because even though they were referenced with dates of creation they shouldn't have been in an exclusive list, but that severe pruning upset some people so I decided to try a different tack, even though I believe the edits improved the article. Which is why I'm focussing more on obvious trivialities and duplicates. No further comments on those items proposed for deletions? Mdw0 (talk) 00:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

No further comment from me. All good to go. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, there is no source cited for PageRank, so it should be deleted. Bokononist (talk) 18:04, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If it's not sourced you can remove it. I point out that there's often a big difference between 'can' and 'should'; and large scale removals, or removals of things that are highly likely to be correct, but are unsourced, will often be considered particularly WP:POINTY, and could result in sanction, (depending on what is removed and how grumpy the admins are feeling that day).- Wolfkeeper 18:03, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with #1 (and have fixed to Spoked Wheel), hesitantly disagree with #2 (and have just copied across some historical detail to raised-relief map), and will get back to the rest later :) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Paleolithic references cleanup

Paleolithic inventions lacking citations got tagged as such August 2009. At least a few of these i added without citation; the dates given were from the referenced inventions' pages. I've added a few references now, and am posting this here in hopes of helping others' find references for the rest. (In the process i removed knife, since knife basically co-dates the invention with that of Olduwan stone-working.) --John Abbe (talk 06:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

need evidences not claims

every timeline "invention" should show the evidences, proofs not only claims...i saw indian and china are lack of evidences...this list must be edit with strong evidences, i don't want liar write in this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shatree (talk • contribs) 17:30, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit out 'historic'?

I think its time to give up on a list of historic inventions and revert back to just being a timeline of inventions, because that's what this list is. The resistance to any editing back according to a subjective view of quality means almost anything goes, and the important inventions are swamped by the trivial, defeating the point of having a historic list. The list will always have these problems because there is no agreed policy of what historic means and what restrictions that definition may place on additions, and there is really no prospect of their ever being such a policy. In the light of our collective inability to keep the list restricted in any way to historic invention would anyone seriously object to renaming the article Timeline of inventions? Mdw0 (talk) 04:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I support the renaming. When it comes to 'historic' in the sense of highly important inventions, may be the simplest solution would be to highlight them in in bold, or provide a few lines that explain why they are important. Greyhood (talk) 11:21, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

That sounds good. I was thinking that to make sure we don't end up with everything in bold, perhaps a line at the top could say the 100 most significant inventions are highlighted in bold. That way if anyone wanted to make an addition or have something not in bold changed to be bold they'd have to make a case for it. Being unbolded is much less traumatic for an editor than being deleted altogether, and a limited number like 100 (or less) would ensure an editor knew how significant the alternate would have to be in order to be bolded. And we would still get to argue (discuss?) the relative merits and importance of different items. Mdw0 (talk) 05:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

There must be a few good sources for "most significant" inventions. Anything sourcable, could be labeled as such. If we sourced from just one or two exemplary lists, that would probably be ideal. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:27, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, all inventions here are supposed to be sourced for two distinct things: a) that it was invented b) it was actually a historic invention. I think in practice, they don't necessarily have to be on a list of top inventions, provided most people agree that the sources imply or state that it's a particularly important invention.- Wolfkeeper 00:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It's probably a bad idea to change the article name. If you check the move log it originally was called something like that, and there were significant problems. The idea of having 'historic' there in the name is to emphasise and signal to editors that inventions must be critical inventions for mankind, otherwise you end up with people trying to add their patents to the list, and people took umbrage when their stuff was removed. It seems to work much better with the current name.- Wolfkeeper 00:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

That's OK in theory, but the end result is an article with similar problems - problems that need to be solved. The list is swamped with items that are clearly not historic and there is only a tiny percentage containing references which even hint at the historical nature. Should there be an even more restrictive title? Mdw0 (talk) 13:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that you can have better or worse names though, and they will attract more or less contention. It looks like the current name is a better name than you suggest, people generally take less umbrage when their edits are removed, whereas the name you suggest people have the attitude that their amazing umbo-bongo invention that they have patented (tm) should be in the article.- Wolfkeeper 14:44, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm under no illusions that people will put any old thing they can get away with, and I'm certainly not saying we should allow that. I can certainly see that problem may be worsen if we put it back to Timeline of inventions. I'm just not happy with leaving the list as is, beause we have a list which is not historic, and no clear policy as to what 'historic' entails. Short of a strict list of 100 or 500 most significant inventions I'm not sure how you could restrict it to stop such additions, even with 'historic' in the title. Mdw0 (talk) 03:53, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

It's never going to be perfect, but it can be better or worse. I'm pretty sure that removing 'historic' makes it worse, and leaving it in makes it better; things did seem to calm down quite a lot when that was changed. I think that the best thing for the article right now and always is insisting on references for everything for both historicity as well as accuracy.- Wolfkeeper 04:11, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Jagged 85 (talk · contribs). Jagged 85 is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits, he's ranked 198 in the number of edits). This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. I searched the page history, and found 490 edits by Jagged 85. Tobby72 (talk) 19:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

That's an old and archived RfC. The point is still valid though, and his contribs need to be doublechecked. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:29, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this article really intended to be informative?

I came to this article with the hope of learning something. What I am finding is full of misinformation that looks like it is based the fact that different people have different axes to grind. A few randomly chosen examples will illustrate my dismay:
According to the article the wheelbarrow was invented in Greece during the 5th century BC. Since I had already researched this and was unfamiliar with this particular claim, I read the cited source. I remain unconvinced that the wheelbarrow was invented at that time as it is not entirely clear what the source is saying, but it is clear that no one used the invention for such obvious applications as agriculture. Other articles on inventions place the invention of the wheelbarrow in China, with a separate invention, possibly of a different style of wheelbarrow, in early medieval Europe.
Of all things, the printing press is misattributed! Now this is something I know about, because I have manufactured and set metal type and run printing presses. It is also a subject I have researched in detail. I believe that Bi Sheng actually did invent moveable type, but I am quite certain his type was not used in a printing press. First of all, the methods he used could not have produced type that would survive in a printing press, and second, if type is not designed for a printing press, it will not print properly - a problem all Chinese type had until the 19th century because the type was hand polished. The face of type has to be uniform, or it will not all contact the paper in a mechanical press. Polishing it by hand will not do. In order to work in a printing press it has to be intended for a printing press. I will refer you to the article in Wikipedia, "History of typography in East Asia," which, I believe, gets it right.
I would add that the list presented looks like something that was prepared by a person who cannot differentiate between dreaming up an idea and real innovation. This is a common problem; the invention of steam power is often attributed to Hero of Alexandria even though the design he produced had no practical application, because it was too inefficient to be used. But this list goes much to far! Hangliding was invented by Abbas ibn Firnas in 851? Which we know because accounts from 600 years later talk about the injuries he received trying it out? (I checked the citation.) He is credited with the invention because he thought of it, even though it did not work and the results were a disaster. How can I believe what I find here with that level of scholarship behind it?
The university is usually described as a European invention, with the first one, the University of Bologna, dating from 1088, but this is missing from the list. Instead, the university is a placed as being invented in 859 AD in Morocco, clearly adhering to a less strict standard as to what constitutes a university. But if the less strict standard is applied, why Morocco? Why not the University of Constantinople, which was founded in 425 AD and was much more like a modern universty by 859?
Why is the wine press not on the list, but kvass (bread drink) present? Is the wine press that unimportant compared to fermented bread extract?
I have long been impressed by the levels of science achieved by Chinese, Indian, and Muslim civilizations. But the list here seems to be intentionally bent on avoiding mention of European inventions while listing those of other parts of the world, and listing Arab inventions preferentially even to those of China. Here, we find that the restaurant was an invention of the Arab Empire. The history section Wikipedia article on restaurants does not even mention Arabic restaurants, but gives the invention to China, dating it to approximately the same time as the date on this list. This list also does not mention the invention of the tavern, from which the restaurant grew, and does not seem to deal with the facts that ancient Romans had food oriented taverns, which would be difficult to distinguish from "real" restaurants, and also had fast food restaurants.
I happen to have known already that the fountain pen was invented in Egypt. If I had not known that fact, came to this list, and saw what else was in it, I would have felt absolutely no reason to believe that fountain pens were invented in Egypt.
Going through the list, I notice that the same person who invented the hangglider also invented "artifical weather simulation." Why, do you suppose, am I not surprised?
This article does not need to be updated and cleaned up. It needs to have every single entry checked. It might be easier to scrap it and start over. It needs to be redone from the start with clearly defined standards by people whose intentions are to help convey facts instead of proving points. And it should be done by people whose understanding of inventions and technology goes beyond the merely academic and includes exposure to reality.
--ghh 13:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by George H. Harvey (talk • contribs) --ghh 22:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

1902 - Neon lamp by Georges Claude

The glowing neon tube was part of the initial discovery of neon in 1898. I don't think there was a neon-based product in general production until after 1910, when Georges Claude had developed all the necessary pieces: (i) a source for industrial quantities of neon, (ii) a purification method, and (iii) an improvement to the electrodes. So I'd like to remove the 1902 invention listed here. I have seen a variety of incorrect claims in secondary references. I've put some references that I think are reliable into the Georges Claude, Neon lighting, and Neon lamp articles. Please comment here if you have a different view. Easchiff (talk) 17:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Actual time line

Is there a way we can represent this data on an actual scrolling (vertical or horizontal) dated line? --Glubbdrubb (talk) 16:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, this has been done elsewhere in the Wikipedia. Timeline_of_aviation.Rememberway (talk) 02:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

March 2011

This list is historically in accurate. BCE and CE Should be edited to BC and AD respectively. --Jodoloy (talk) 17:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

This is covered in WP:ERA. Since Wikipedia has no preference, changing it from one to the other only creates unnecessary disruption. Better to work on things that matter. --Dbratland (talk) 17:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Stub and rework

For background information, please see RFC/U and Cleanup. With 509 edits, User:Jagged 85 is the main contributor to this article (2nd is Brunnock with 438 edits, last edit on 20 May 2007). The issues are a repeat of what had been exemplarily shown here, here, here or here. The talk page records a number heroic, but ultimately hopeless attempts to clean up the mess:

• #Other nominations for deletion
• #Article reverted to 4th January.
• #A new approach
• #Other nominations for deletion
• #Misuse of sources (first editor pointing out Jagged's central role)
• #Is this article really intended to be informative?

In view of the unsurmountable difficulties in bringing the article again on tracks, I stub it completely. Working in the field of ancient and medieval technology for years, I can say with some certainty, that if I would get 5$ for each false claim, I'd spent my next holidays on the Bahamas in DiCaprio's beach resort. As an aside, the choice of the BC/AD notation by the first author should be respected per WP:ERA. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I dont know if deleting an entire list without anything to replace it is exactly helpful. Its just begging to be reverted. While you're on holidays is there going to be any effort to rewite the article to your standards or not? In any case, there needs to be a fundamental rethink on how to shape the article so that only important inventions are added. Too many editors seem to take 'Historic' to mean 'in history' rather than 'important.' So far I've only been able to come up with a renaming that limits the number of items - the 50 or 100 most important inventions. Would that work? Mdw0 (talk) 00:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

If Jagged85 is the primary contributor, then yes, you should stub the whole thing. Mdw0, the quick summary of all of the links Gun Powder Ma provided is that on historical articles, Jagged 85 include information that unquestionably distorted sources on purpose, the end result of which was to consistently elevate the prominence of Muslim scientific and engineering contributions. It wasn't even just about cherry-picking evidence--it was that Jagged 85 actually changed the sources, turning what the source would call a "minor improvement" into the primary, standalone achievement of significant proportions. There was general agreement at other places that when Jagged 85 was a primary contributor, it may be necessary to just start over again. In other words, people felt that it was better for us to temporarily have very little information than to have information that we had strong reason to believe was very likely wrong.

If we do stub, then I think that before recreating, we need on the talk page to come up with some sort of standard for inclusion on this list. I would be happy to work on that discussion as well. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The issue here is that what constitutes 'historic' or 'important' has a subjective element. Its almost impossible to restrict additional trivia being entered into this list according to the normal principles of Wikipedia which are inclusive, not exclusive. Apart from a restrictive number of entries in the title, the only other option that corresponds with normal Wiki rules is a strict enforcement of a specific statement that a source must detail - that is, a source that specifically states an invention was historic, or at the very least, of major importance over history. This is often very difficult as most sources on inventions focus on when they occurred. They take it for granted that fire, the wheel, the internal combustion engine etc. were historic and dont specifically say so. Enforcing such a standard would make it difficult for trivia to be added, but the tradeoff is that its difficult for ANYTHING to be added. There would also place a particular burden on editors who are enforcing this rule to go through every source quoted to double check that this requirement is present and note approval or disapproval in the talk page. In short, constant vigilance by editors more dedicated than I am. Mdw0 (talk) 05:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Over at List of people considered father or mother of a field, another playgound of Jagged 85, they tried to come to grips with this problem with the tag on top, but I doubt that it makes much of a difference without attentive contributors ready to check carefully each new entry. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The timeline deals, by its very nature, with "firsts" so it was a classic parade ground for Jagged 85's agenda. I've given it some thought and whole chronological concept seems unsuitable for inventions made in earlier times. Only in the rarest cases we know the name of the inventor and when it was invented. Take the Lateen. One scholar dates the earliest evidence to the 1st c. BC, another to the 2nd-4th c. AD. Which date to pick? The only way I see to give the entries and particularly their dates some solidity is by deliberately confining the list to post-1500 period when attributions to individuals and/or places became reasonably clear. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Since the limits of a list are structural, you cant put a stack of information for each entry, so I'd say pick the earliest. If the source is adequate, anyone who wants to argue the source is wrong can be directed to the item's main page. Restricting the timeline defeats the point of the list. Whatever problems a simple chronological list may have in terms of its lack of subtlety, it has its uses and also ability to misinform, so having it, having it broad as possible, and as simple as possibe, and also keeping control of it is important.<smal> Mdw0 (talk) 02:17, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

If there's a range of different ideas about when something happened, you should list them or give a range of values. I also don't think that sticking to post 1500 is going to solve this problem, it's a general problem, people don't even entirely agree on when the telephone was invented. A lot of inventions happen over a period of time, and you can't necessarily entirely pin down which day, month or year that was.Rememberway (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

You cannot stub the whole article. No article is ever going to be perfect.Rememberway (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

No, you're not understanding. It's not about being perfect. It's about documented evidence that a very high percentage of Jagged 85's additions to articles in topics of this type were intentional falsifications/distortions of sources. Gun Powder Ma may remember the exact percentage, but my recollection is that several random checks of his additions showed intentional distortions at well over 50%. Personally, I've never understood why he's still allowed to edit. Ideally, what we want to do is get as much as possible back into the article that we can verify. I'll try to put some info back in today. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

No, you're not understanding. We can use automatic tools to identify which bits of the current article were touched by jagged85 and handle just those. This isn't the first time it's happened and it's not going to be the last. So we need to be able to find who wrote which bits of any current article. But the wiki software already keeps track of who changed what; so it's just a question of getting that out in useful form.Rememberway (talk) 00:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Such a tool does not currently exist, and, if I'm understanding you correctly, would need bot approval, which, as far as I know, takes months. We should not allow known bad information to remain. A much more efficient and reasonable approach, which would improve the article anyway, would be to go through and copy out those parts of the old article which we have a reliable source that we can verify, and copy those into the new article. There is no deadline, so we there's no reason to keep up known bad information just because some of it may be good. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:41, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No, not a bot. A bot is something that makes automated edits, and that's not required, you get the program to identify the lines that Jagged has edited and then manually delete them.

But I did some investigating and it turns out that the guy has made 500+ edits, but they were made in 44 solid blocks of edits, we could easily do diffs on those 44 blocks, and identify and remove the text he added in the current article (where it's still there). And luckily it turns out that 5 of those blocks alone add up to 315 of his edits. This isn't difficult at all. It would take a few hours at most.Rememberway (talk) 03:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Then feel free to do that. My feeling is that if we're cleaning it up, we might as well also take out anything else that's unsourced, but you can proceed that way. You can do that while still keeping the current article blanked, by working out of the history. Let me know if you're not going to do that, otherwise I'll try to start working at it from the other direction. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:12, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, you don't get to unilaterally delete entire articles of this size. That's a community decision, not yours.Rememberway (talk) 03:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

So far his edits don't look all that bad actually in this article. One diff of 115 edits here, most of the changes seem fairly reasonable, although 'surgery' and 'piston engine' are clearly not correct, but they've already been fixed. Your estimate of 50% wrong looks to be very high based on this single diff which is about 20% of his total edits here.Rememberway (talk) 03:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not based on this article at all--I didn't even realize this was one of his articles. It's from following the many discussions linked at the beginning of this section. This user was a massive problem across numerous articles, all following a consistent pattern: distorting sources to give prominence to non-European (particularly Islamic) scientists, mathematicians, and other researchers. It's based on the decision (which I didn't participate in, but I did read) that said that we essentially cannot trust anything that Jagged 85 did with regard to this subject matter. 06:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwyrxian (talk • contribs) 06:23, 25 April 2011

Right. Essentially, we're saying he's biased and has bad judgement. Fine. In articles nobody reads, that's a big problem. But in this article, a lot of people actually watch it, and thousands read it every day, so any outrageous claims he made already got largely or completely removed. Trashing a fairly well watched article over one user, is a waste of time.Rememberway (talk) 13:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Look, what I'll do is get the 44 diffs over the next day or two, and you can go through them and actually look at them. If the community really think that those diffs justify trashing the whole article, then we can go ahead, but having looked through them myself, it doesn't look like we need to do that. IMO trashing the whole article should only be done if we can't identify what he's done, or if it's impractical to undo them.Rememberway (talk) 13:08, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

A quick #Exemplary check has shown that the stubbing of the entire article was exactly was is needed for building up contents again. For "identifying" what Jagged85 has been doing for years, we don't need to discuss this again, it is all recorded in his RFC/U. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Jagged 85 edit list

This is the list I have so far of the diffs of his blocks of edits, in date order, newest first, I haven't linked them all yet. We just need to check through the diffs and pull out any that are still in the article and can't be verified, and revert any obviously bad bits.Rememberway (talk) 00:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Diff link/edit count	date	checked by
9
9
46
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
6
7
6
10
27
2
108
1
1
3
3
1
3
6
4
17
4
4
8
9
3
115
1
15
6
1
1
46
2
2
1
12
4

Please go ahead and verify every single entry. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey, Gun Powder Ma, just three questions:

1. is going through this list going to take more or less time than deleting the article and starting entirely from scratch. (Hint: the answer is less.)

2. Is deleting the article going to annoy the thousands of people that read the article? (Hint: yes)

3. Is repeatedly deleting an article that is 90% not contributed by jagged 85 a disruption that will probably soon get you blocked? (hint: yes) Rememberway (talk) 19:42, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

1. More, 2. no and 3. no. There is a overwhelming consensus in the community that Jagged85's 'contributions' need to be removed, you just do not seem to notice. Hint: See below. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:49, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Rememberway, I think you seriously underestimate how long it takes to check each diff. Have you actually tried? I am currently trying to clean Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe, which has 162 Jagged edits. Using a tool provided by User:Johnuniq, these have been consolidated down to 27 diffs. All the significant edits have serious problems; with cutting and pasting, with misuse of sources, with undue weight, etc. I am currently on diff 6 out of 27; this has taken me nine days.

For every entry that Jagged has added to this article, you have to do some sort of verification that what he added is broadly correct. Presumably you will do a web search; presumably you will compare what you find with what he said; if he's provided a reference you will need to check whether he's correctly reported that reference; you may have to consider whether he's used a reliable source, or whether other, more reliable sources disagree. If you're quick at doing research online, I'd estimate an average of twenty minutes per entry, to make an accurate assessment and make a correcting edit as necessary. That's probably an underestimate if you're adding sources. You have to do that with every single entry he's added. That's not 20 minutes per diff; that's twenty minutes per item.

On the other hand, I am not sure that I agree with stubbing an article which is 80% non-Jagged. I am (after all) trying to clean a large article myself without stubbing it. I think in the case of the article I'm looking at, that is just about achievable in a sensible timeframe. With this article, where hundreds of individual items would need to be checked, I would suggest that the simplest thing to do is just to delete all the entries Jagged made. They could be cut and pasted to here or a user page until they can be checked and added back. But leaving the entries Jagged has made, untouched, is not an option; they're wrong, and need to be removed as quickly as possible. --Merlinme (talk) 08:21, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

He hasn't tried and you can bet that Rememberway, if he is clever won't ever dare to try, because the checking process as he envisions it would take literally hundreds of work hours and even then many entries would be left unchecked for reasons of lack of access to sources. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:02, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the comments above that checking each set of changes is not feasible. However, here is a record of Jagged's edits (with each set of consecutive edits shown as a single diff):

• [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]

Johnuniq (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Possible inclusion criteria

I thought a new section might help separate out the issue of stubbing vs. inclusion criteria. Above, Gun Powder Ma proposes a "post-1500 period" limitation, which Mdw0 is opposed to. I am also opposed. While I understand the concern that we don't actually know exactly when older inventions were invented, I don't think that's particularly relevant. It is useful to know, for instance, reservoirs were invented approximately a millennium before plumbing (to arbitrarily pick 2 sourced entries). I think that we can rely on whatever precision is available in reliable sources. We'll need, of course, some way to handle disputes among sources (say, with Telephone). Probably we could use date ranges.

Just to be thorough, I want to say that one fairly obvious criteria is that only items which have their own Wikipedia entry, and whose entry has sourced discussion of the invention's origin can be listed. Furthermore, we should only include actual "inventions"--so, no artistic works (although artistic methods are okay), no creations of sports, and no foundations of geopolitical entities.

How, though, do we define "historic"? I think that's the real key, and the hard point to get agreement on. I'm just "thinking out loud" right now, but I do feel that what is historic changes based on time period. For instance, the creation of beer and the start of milking is huge from the time period, but the creation of a new type of snack chip in modern times is not. In general, I think we need to be extremely wary of putting anything very recent on the list, as it's hard to evaluate "historicity" at such a close range. I disagree with Mdw0 saying that the list should be "as broad as possible"; I think that a narrower definition provides a more useful tool for a reader.

Finally, we need to be wary of straying into original research territory. I have a pretty hardline approach on this (side note: Gun Powder Ma, you were one of the editors supporting deletion of List of largest empires, right? If so, you already know my feelings about lists like this in general). I'm inclined to say that for "obviously" historical inventions, they can go on without really strict sourcing beyond what's already in the target article. Here I'm thinking of things that all editors will agree to, like "agriculture", "automobiles", or "computers". For anything that's contentious, I think we should try to have a source that clearly indicates that the item is considered by at least some serious researchers/writers to be historic. I'd prefer that we err on the side of non-inclusion. Again, thinking of modern examples, I'd be very hesitant to include tablet computers on this list, because (I assume), we don't yet have evidence that these inventions will have a significant impact on the world.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwyrxian (talk • contribs) 05:58, 23 April 2011

You need to be careful about making different rules when something is 'obvious' because whats obvious to you isnt to others. Its too subjective. That assumption creates the lack of source material that specifically says something is historic and world changing, because the authour thinks its obvious. Its just something this article will have to live with, and not include an item if the sources dont specifically say its historic. You can make special rules for this article till doomsday, but adequate protection can only come through rigorous examination of sources. Also, when I said the article should be as broad as possible I was referring to geography and the nature of the inventions, not the number of articles. I'd hardly be talking about changing the title to a Top 100 or Top 50 if that was the case. Mdw0 (talk) 23:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Exemplary check

Quick exemplary check as they has been some doubt that the list may be not as flawed as all the other edits by Jagged 85. Rest assured, it is just as flawed. To show this again, I checked a couple of entries for the 1st millennium BC:

• Claim: "1000 BCE: Dike in the Indus Valley Civilization"

This is wrong. Preceded by Egyptians: "In the Faiyum, where Predynastic Period inhabitants had discovered the ease with which they could turn to agricultural pursuits, efforts were made to channel the water coming through the Bahr Yusef into the region. Dikes, canals, and ditches were dug in the Old Kingdom (2575–2134 BC)" (Margaret R. Bunson - Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, p.12)

• Claim: "750 BCE: Celestial spheres in ancient Greece"

Poorly sourced. Celestial spheres#Antiquity speaks, relying on a much better reference, of the early 6th century BC.

• Claim: "8th century BCE: Button in Ancient Greece, Etruscan civilization"

Imprecise. It is important to differ between ornamental buttons and real buttons that is those used for fastening clothes. The former type dates back to the 3rd millennium BC, but the latter only rose in any quantity during the Late Middle Ages, see Button#Early button history (I provided the Lynn White source several years ago).

• Claim: "700 BCE: Chain pump in Babylonia"

Wrong. The earliest reliable evidence for the chaim pump comes from Roman water-lifting, not earlier than the 1st century BC. Cf. the seminal treatment by Oleson, John Peter (2000), "Water-Lifting", in Wikander, Örjan (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, Technology and Change in History, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, pp. 217–302 (263-267), ISBN 90-04-11123-9

• Claim: "7th century BCE: Latin alphabet in Ancient Rome"

Correct, but irrelevant, as there was nothing inherently new to the Latin alphabet. The major step from the consonantal to the true alphabet where each vowel and consonant was represented by a separate symbol was already achieved in the Greek alphabet, the Romans simply adopted these principles, only the letter forms changed.

• Claim: "592 BCE: Anchor in ancient Greece"

Misleading. Stones as anchors actually date back to the early days of navigation, the Copper and Bronze Age. What is apparently meant is the classical two-armed anchor. This but only this type of anchor is a Greek invention (cf. Gerhard Kapitan: Ancient anchors-technology and classification, in: The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration (1984), 13.1 : 33-44).

• Claim: "500 BCE: Iron plough in China"

Wrong. The earliest iron ploughshares date from around 1000 BC in the Ancient Near East (cf. White, K. D. (1984): Greek and Roman Technology, London: Thames and Hudson, p. 59).

• Claim: "350 BCE: Water wheel in India"

Wrong. It is consensus that the waterwheel was invented by Greek engineers in the Hellenistic kingdoms from where all early evidence comes from, see Water wheel#Greco-Roman world, fn. 3. Needham's claim was just linguistic guess-work.

• Claim: "350 BCE: Watermill in India"

Just as wrong. It is consensus that the watermill, which is a development of the waterwheel, was invented by Greek and Roman engineers, see List of ancient watermills#Earliest evidence.

One could go dissecting the claims in the pre-stubbed version forever but it has been long sufficiently established – and confirmed by many users time and again – that Jagged 85 was an extremely unreliable editor whose (60,000!) edits do not warrant the benefit of doubt or single check anymore. So, only material which has been carefully checked and for which no rival claims have been found should be reintroduced into the article. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Whatever.

All changes to articles need to be consensus. It's quite unclear that people have agreed to wipe out the article and start again. If you want to do that, I suggest you run an RFC.Rememberway (talk) 20:21, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

"Whatever" is all you say to this? I have already pointed you above to the RFC/U and the year-long clean-up effort. The only thing unclear is why you place your faith in an edit war instead of bothering to address my arguments. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Um, yes indeed. If some takes the trouble to produce a careful analysis demonstrating the problems and all you can say in reply is "whatever" then I think that just means you are insufficiently interested in the details to be participating in this discussion. Please find something else to be involved in that you are actually *interested* in. Having just done a sort-of compromise of hacking out some of the worst bits I've now changed my mind after reading the above discussion: stub it is William M. Connolley (talk) 21:18, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I mean what are you trying to do here? Are you trying to take out jagged 85's work, or are you just trying to take out everything that's unreferenced? Anyway, I called an AFD, you should make your views known there, and after a consensus is formed in that forum, we can act accordingly.Rememberway (talk) 21:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure you know what you are doing? Since no-one is proposing article deletion, the AFD is meaningless. Your edit comment suggested you meant WP:DR, which would also be meaningless, as the article hasn't been deleted. Also, had you read WP:AFD you'd have found If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD. The article can indeed be fixed through normal editing. But, you'll need to actually engage with the arguments. Simply shrugging your shoulders and saying "whatever" isn't a coherent argument William M. Connolley (talk) 21:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

This edit is a deletion. The article (which gets a thousand hits a day) was left like that with no content for 4 days. About 20% of the edits were done by jagged, who is a disgrace, but he didn't remove the other 80%. If you want to delete a several hundred page article with hundreds of references, then sorry, I think you need to do a deletion review.Rememberway (talk) 22:21, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not like you've got any credible way of recreating the article from the deletion; it's taken 9 years to get to this point, and because of one user, whose edits I've listed above, you've decide to wipe out the whole thing. There's no way to copy stuff from the old article, because you'd have to check it individually against jagged's edits. It's actually harder to do that, than go through the list above on the old article. This is in every sense a complete deletion of the article. Rememberway (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Err, no, it isn't. Deletion is when the page is blank and it appears as a redlink William M. Connolley (talk) 12:00, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

To show what can be done

I went through the Paleolithic section from before this was stubbed, and pulled out all those things that had a reliable source, and re-added them to the article. Personally, I think that as long as we're re-building, we might as well do it with only sourced info. Have to run, but will check back in tomorrow. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:38, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I re-added it now after Gun Powder Ma went back to the stubbed version (which I think was correct--I don't see any logic in starting out with a wholly unsourced article). I'm not so happy with the phrasing at the top of the section, so hopefully someone else can fix it. I did check all of those references, so that information should be verified. There were some more "sourced" items on the prior version, but if I couldn't reach the sources (because they were in print or dead linked), I didn't include them, or those that had unreliable sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:35, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Paint the taint

An idea of which I'm not sure how feasible it is, but here it is. It occurred to me that it should be possible to mechanically apply the successive edits successively to the article, starting with the most recent untainted version of February 1, 2006, while colouring all text originally inserted by J85 red, say. From the resulting text, it is then relatively easy to separate out the individual tainted items from the rest. The untainted parts could immediately replace the stub; the tainted ones need to be checked. While a considerable amount of work (I estimate some 20 hours of programming to get this right for an ace programmer, but perhaps less dependent on how the input is structured and whether existing Wikimedia edit machinery can be reused), in the end this could, all together, prove a huge time saver.  --Lambiam 22:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

You don't even need to have access to the edit machinery, there's only 44 blocks of edits and one final article. You can potentially dump the 44 diffs out, and compare the diffs with the final article and look for common sequences of characters.Rememberway (talk) 22:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I started looking at doing that using unix diff tools, but for various reasons it looks easier just to go through the 44 diffs manually.Rememberway (talk) 22:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Bad faith from R

The badly-out-of-process AFD that R started has been speedy closed as return-to-pre-AFD state. Which is the stubbed version. R tricked THO into restoring the unstubbed version (see User_talk:Thehelpfulone#AFD_close) and has started a sneaky request for page protection too ([[2]]) William M. Connolley (talk) 12:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Which date?

If we are rebuilding, we have an opportunity to consider which date to use for putting modern inventions on the timeline.

The current lead has this:

Dates for inventions are often controversial. Inventions are often invented by several inventors around the same time, or may be invented in an impractical form many years before another inventor improves the invention into a more practical form. Where there is ambiguity, the date of the first practical, fielded version of the invention is used here.

Before stubbing, many entries did not conform to this criterion. For example, Philo Farnsworth's invention of an electronic television system was placed at 1923, but he demonstrated a working system only in 1927.

I propose:

1. that we also include notable inventions that are generally recognized to be conceptually correct, even if they could not be made to work in practice at the time (example: Babbage's Analytical Engine);
2. that we use the earliest date of (a) patent application; (b) published description; (c) public demonstration – mentioning in the entry which applies.

--Lambiam 13:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's start from scratch again

The speedy close of the Afd has shown that it is consensus to remove all material by Jagged 85 altogether. The next question is now whether to start all over again or to begin from a pre-Jagged 85 version. Fact is that the pre-Jagged 85 version has only ten references to its name, only three of which can be called scholarly. In view of the many hundred entries, not more than 1% of the total material is referenced. All these unreferenced entries could be removed on the grounds alone of, well, being unreferenced (which is exactly what I did again). Therefore, I think it is best to keep the article stubbed and use the opportunity to begin from scratch again. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:11, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it makes sense to start from the pre-Jagged version. The quickest way to move forward, as I see it, would be to take the recent pre-stub version and (1)cut all the Jagged entries, (2)check the wikipedia articles for each of the remaining claims of invention date to see if the claim is duplicated there with a reliable reference. If there is no reliable ref in the linked article, remove the entry for now. I had personally checked at least 50 entries from this list over the past year or so, and can say that there are a number of claims with valid references, and that many of the more dubious additions had already been cleared. Dialectric (talk) 12:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Cutting out all the Jagged edits is a non-trivial task (feel free to do it on a test page somewhere, if you disagree). Moreover, as GPM has pointed out, there are big problems that aren't just from Jagged William M. Connolley (talk) 12:59, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

You're saying we need Wikipedia:PERFECTION. A stub is certainly perfect. Nothing can be more perfect than a stub. Rememberway (talk) 15:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Your view

Opinions on what to do with the article seem to vary quite a bit, so I think it may be a good idea if everybody gives his/her view of how to proceed now. This is no vote, just to get a better idea of what we think.

• GPM: Keep the stub, define carefully "historic" and "invention" and build up contents from scratch on the basis of scholarly references. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:04, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
• WMC: Keep and expand the stub. Perhaps dump in the headings for the various periods - do people agree they are about right? Perhaps establish some list of important things that ought to be added. For example, I looked at the early stuff, and tried to find a good date for agriculture, and couldn't William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
• Qwyrxian: Keep the stub, go back through the old article and bring over any reliably sourced statements. At the same time, work on defining "historic" and "invention". While it may mean we end up later removing some of the re-added info as being either "non-historic" or "not an invention", I'm worried that the task of defining those will take so long that we do have a responsibility to get some reliably sourced info into the article in the meanwhile. The final step would be to go back to those items in the old article that aren't sourced, but do have a wikipage, then go into the pages to look for sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:45, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
• Merlinme: Return to pre-Jagged article, improve as time allows. Although I disagree with Rememberway's argument style and parts of his argument, I actually agree with him that perfection is an unnecessarily high standard to aim for. There are many, many unsourced articles in Wikipedia; making all the articles Jagged touched properly sourced is out of scope of the cleanup, and an even more herculean task than is currently being undertaken. I agree that Jagged's edits are so broken it's reasonable to remove them without checking; I do not agree that the cleanup should do any more than this. Doing more than this creates more work, and I'm dubious whether the people who are here for Jagged cleanup will now stick around to fix the article. Stub and then fix the article is ok; removing Jagged's edits is ok; remove Jagged's edits and a lot of other edits which are unsourced and you don't have time to check, and then leaving the article, is not ok. "Stub and run" should be a last resort; I personally think that returning to a previous, non-Jagged version, however imperfect, is preferable. Apart from anything else it avoids us wasting time having arguments about non-Jagged material. Non-Jagged material should be a matter for the normal editors of the article, not for people who are only here because of the Jagged cleanup. --Merlinme (talk) 13:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Apart from anything else, if the problem is that the pre-Jagged article is unreferenced, then it's scarcely beyond the wit of man to add an "Unreferenced" tag to the top of the article, and then updating or deleting entries as they are checked. This seems preferable to me to effectively deleting the entire article. --Merlinme (talk) 14:12, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

What difference would it make? One puts this tag on top, this would allow users to remove any unsourced material and then we'd immediately end up with a stub with hardly any entries at all – exactly where we are now but without this bureaucratic procedure. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:21, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Um no. That's not what "Unreferenced" says. It says: "This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may (my italics) be challenged and removed." According to WP:Unreferenced, there are 250,000 articles with that tag. Some have been tagged since 2006. So with that tag, what it would be saying is: "treat these claims with caution; experienced editors, please improve the article by checking the claims and removing or sourcing as necessary". --Merlinme (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced material, all unsourced material in this article, is being challenged, that is what all the discussion is about. Wikipedia:Verifiability#When a reliable source is required says clearly that the burden of proof rests on those who put material into the article and that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source". Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:43, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I think you're aiming for perfection again. The normal procedure with a good faith edit that is unsourced is to add a "cn", or, if you know or strongly suspect it is wrong, to delete it. What was particularly dangerous about Jagged's edits is that they weren't good faith, and that he even gave them a false sense of reliability by adding bad references. That's not true of the other edits.

Put it another way: if you were reading any other article and it made lots of unreferenced claims, would you delete the entire article, tag it, or add some "cn"s in particularly dubious places? --Merlinme (talk) 14:52, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about Gun Powder Ma, but I remove unreferenced claims from articles all the time. It's actually not true that the normal procedure is to tag with a cn--that's one option, but WP:V, a core policy, does not require us to do so. Yes, maybe at one point, 5 or 6 years ago, that was a good plan. It's not so any longer. Yes, sometimes, tagging is a great way to go. Sometimes, other approaches are more fruitful. We have a chance here to work from the ground up, focusing on verified claims. This is almost an opportunity. I am willing to go forward with the same procedure I started with the "Paleolithic" section (bringing over the sourced claims). I have just been waiting to do so until I get a clear sign that other editors aren't going to reject that approach--it's a bit of effort, but worth doing as long as supported by consensus. Qwyrxian (talk) 15:14, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Why are you doing this?

Seriously, why are you doing this? It took almost a decade to build this article deleting the whole thing and starting again is going to take much, much, much more time and effort than just removing jagged's stuff. I took out 46 of his edits, it took me about an hour. It will take about 9 hours to deal with the remaining. How many person-weeks is it going to take to rebuild the article? There's about ten times more stuff that isn't jagged, than there is jagged. In the meantime, there's nothing there at all. Why are you even doing this shit on the live article? Rememberway (talk) 14:08, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Re-adding the Paleolithic section took me about 30-60 minutes of not very intense work--it's just about looking at the sources, verifying that they state what the article says they state, and then copy-pasting. It's not all that hard. Anything unsourced stays out. Anything with a poor quality source stays out. Isn't this a nice, clean way to build up an article? I know, we still don't have inclusion criteria, yet, but this way gets info back into the article at a relatively low work level. The next step then would be, for those old entries that don't have a source, to look at the target article (assuming there is one) and see if there's a source there that we can bring over. That takes longer, but still isn't awful. Qwyrxian (talk) 15:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

That's about half a page of text on my screen. The old article was about 50 pages. It's going to take about 100 hours to get back to the old size; or 50 hours if we assume that half of the old article was jagged. That's actually better than I hoped, but I can't see this article being worth reading for a good few weeks, at the very best. I still can't see why you're doing it this way.Rememberway (talk) 16:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that you still can't see why you're doing it this way. That is because when GPM tried to explain in detail (see "Exemplary check") you couldn't be bothered to read it and just said "whatever". If you would actually read what people have written about the problems, you might well see what the problems are William M. Connolley (talk) 16:45, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

No, because he cherry picked out Jagged's stuff.Rememberway (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Because having wrong information scattered throughout the article is worse than having a bare bones article. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:47, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it really isn't.Rememberway (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm planning to come back in a month and merge back in most of the deleted article; the article is unlikely to be much longer than it is at the moment. I reckon you guys are big on accuracy and deleting things and low on actually doing anything positive. Feel free to prove me wrong.Rememberway (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I also object to the deletion of the entire article in the way Qwurxian is doing. This, to me, is very unorthodox and a cumbersome way to fix some bad entries. I made lots of good edits to this page and there was no need to throw them with the bad ones. I say the article should be restored.DonSiano (talk) 21:44, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

DonSiano, re-add your entries or, perhaps better for the moment, post them here on TP so that we can include them again once we have figured out how to build up the article again. Make sure to support your entries by WP:reliable sources. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I should add my entries, that you deleted, for no good reason, again? I wrote a best seller, you destroyed the manuscript, and now claim I should just rewrite it! Using the imperative voice, no less. Pretty nervy, I'd say. Your deletion of my edits, and those of many others, which are not at all controversial, and were made in good faith is unacceptable. Put them back.

DonSiano (talk) 12:41, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Your contribs are [3]. From 2009 on, the ones that matter are [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. To be picky, none of those had references within them. I'd say that for things that link to articles that clearly reference the invention, that is OK William M. Connolley (talk) 11:31, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Editnotice

{{admin help}}

Re the Jaged85 cleanup. We've seen GF attempts to "restore" the content of this article as it has been "nearly deleted". Can we please have a warning message explaining this, added to the article's WP:EDITNOTICE. Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 10:30, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Please suggest and/or discuss a suitable text to be used and then request administrative help again using {{adminhelp}} or {{edit protected}}. Regards SoWhy 16:36, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Would be nice. We ought to propose a suitable piece of text though - an uninvolved admin won't know what to write William M. Connolley (talk) 11:33, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

What does the notice need to say? Jamietw (talk) 14:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

1800s

As an experiment, I did the 1800s (1800-1809). These are the ones that failed and I didn't add in or corrected:

• 1802: Screw propeller steamboat Phoenix: John Stevens (No refs, and http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfulton2.htm says it was a paddlewheel boat.)
• 1802: Gas stove: James Sharp (the GS article says 1820s)
• arc welding: folded into electric arc
• morphine: corrected to 1804
• Puffing Devil: claims of first transport (as opposed to rail transport) are unclear
• 1807: Steamboat Clermont: Robert Fulton (first commercial success, not close to being the first)
• 1808: Bandsaw: William Newberry (no refs. [11] says 1809, but also says bandsaws remained impractical because of the blades. No-one could make a bandsaw blade that could withstand the constant flexing until Frenchman A. Perin introduced a viable blade in the early 1860s)
• 1809: arc lamp: "corrected" to 1802 (date unclear)

That looks to be close to a 50% failure rate, which isn't good. And I doubt any of those are Jagged. Some are in the pre-Jagged version [12]. That version also contains Refrigerator which seems to have been correctly removed subsequently William M. Connolley (talk) 17:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

This is exactly why I think the process of starting from nothing and rebuilding is correct. Yeah, WP doesn't have to be perfect. But there's no reason not to take this chance to fix, from the ground up, the systematically unsourced and as WMC points out, incorrect, info. What would be the benefit to restoring something we know to be wrong? Qwyrxian (talk) 01:24, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It depends if you know it to be wrong. In any case, I was largely arguing as a counterbalance to overzealous stubbing, especially as in this case it cannot be justified as part of the Jagged cleanup as such. However I don't particularly wish to get drawn into a discussion on yet another article, and I'm happy to leave it to long-term editors of the article to reach their consensus. --Merlinme (talk) 06:34, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Fine. That leaves the question whether we reinclude only entries with references or also those without them. In the latter case, we may run some danger that one day in future another editor comes, unaware of our work, and removes again the unreferenced parts. Would be a shame. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 09:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Definition and scope

The article Timeline of historic inventions naturally needs three points to be clarified:

• "Timeline": Do we sort the entries strictly by year or by field (engineering, medicine, physics, warfare etc.). The former is obviously easier and less subjective, but the latter gives the article more structure and the reader a better overview.
• "Historic": Which inventions are important enough to warrant inclusion? The Draisine from 1817, the archtype of the bicycle and the first means of transport based on the two-wheeler principle, is a historic invention. But is so to the same extent the addition of cranked pedals in the 1860s, of air-inflated wheels at the end of the 1800s and bicycle gearing in the 1930s, all of which did not change the fundamental concept but improved it enough to create the bicyle as we know it today?
• "Inventions": Where do we draw the line? Lesser inventions which are more like improvements are commonly called "innovations". We also have to distinguish between inventions and "discoveries". Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:44, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments:

By timeline - the whole point of this article is that its a total overview. The lists by field can be separate articles.

Historic can ONLY be determined by the sources - if its not explicit, its out.

Any question as to whether something is an innovation would have to be determined by discussion. Mdw0 (talk)

The devil is in the detail

The history of technology is no linear development. Simultaneous and/or independent inventions were common and many invented items lay dormant for centuries and even millennia until their potential finally began to be fully realized and exploited. The question is do we allow multiple entries? Some case studies:

• Simultaneous independent inventions: Catapults were invented in Greece in the 5th-4th c. BC and in China in the 5th-3rd c. BC. There is reasonably no more precision possible to pinpoint its exact date to invention. So do we only list Greece or also China?
• Independent inventions: It is well known that the Old and the New World followed very different development paths in the Pre-Columbian period. Nearly everything emerged much later in the New World; agriculture itself, for one, is much younger there. But in the Old World too independent inventions were absolutely common. The script, for one, arose in at least four different places independently (Egypt, Sumer, China, Indus Valley). So do we only list the first appearance anywhere in the world or do we also take account for later, independent inventions?
• Invention and use: The watermill was invented in anitiquity. Currently, there are about 100 watermill sites known from the whole of antiquity. But in the Middle Ages its use rose dramatically. In Norman England alone there are 6000 sites recorded. So do we also mention the quantum leap in its use or leave it at listing the time of its first modest appearance? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:44, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments:

What seem like simultaneous becomes more blurred the further back in time you go. If the invention is significant and there is as yet no separation as to where it was done, list both.

Independent later inventions dont make the list. Anyone inventing the wheel tomorrow, bad luck.

The point of this list is to mark the historic inventions, not their development. Mdw0 (talk)

Difficult-to-place inventions

For Electrical telegraph I couldn't see (looking at that article) any real definitive start date. So, I just stuck it in 1830s William M. Connolley (talk) 21:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Problems

This article is problematic. Some of the claims are dubious, and each claim lacks a short description to explain the arguments made in the sources or competing claims. You can't just claim "X invented Y" without more detail, when for so many inventions, there's a lot of scholarly controversy over who invented what. I'll help clean this article up.--Ninthabout (talk) 12:48, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

If the linked article for the invention has a clear, sourced claim of origin of the invention, that should be adequate, and in my opinion is preferable to short descriptions which are redundant given the article on the invention itself. Dialectric (talk) 13:23, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

A short, sourced description that explains the evidence is neccessary for preventing this article from turning into the mess that it previously was. Sure, the reader can find more information by checking out the linked articles, but summaries inform the reader and prevent the article from becoming a giant collection of blue links. I believe that it's a Featured List criteria that each entry in a Featured List contains a summary of the linked articles.--Ninthabout (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The summaries also remove any ambiguity surrounding the dates. If summaries aren't included, then readers won't know if the dates refer to the date of discovery, the date that an invention is patented, the first written record of an invention, etc.--Ninthabout (talk) 16:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Both systems have their pros and cons but with explanations we'll hit the 100 KB ceiling even faster. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Once its hits 100 KB, we can emulate Timeline of United States inventions with separate articles sorted by century or millenia. Many of these inventions require explanations. Like Movable Type. Bi Sheng did technically invent the first, but do we want to imply that his invention influenced the later one by Gutenberg?--Ninthabout (talk) 10:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Format guideline proposal

Proposing the following format as a guideline for all entries on the list. Short and informative, partially based on the format currently being used by the Indian inventions and Chinese inventions lists.

• Year: Invention in Location: Summary by inventor.

or

• Year: Invention by a Nationality national in Location: Summary by inventor.

if the nationality and location are different. Example:

• 1990: World Wide Web by a British national in Geneva, Switzerland: The World Wide Web was first proposed on March 1989 by English engineer and computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, now the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium. The project was publicly introduced on the December of 1990.

--Ninthabout (talk) 15:18, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The bold is rather ugly. Adding people's nationality should only be done if relevant William M. Connolley (talk) 17:15, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Additions and changes

I've added entries on the invention Greek fire, printing press, paper, movable type, numerical zero, cast iron, banknotes, the maritime compass, gunpowder, and the World Wide Web. I've also removed entries in the list that are only incremental advancements. It's fine to have one entry for the invention of the water wheel, but 5+ entries on every different variation of a water wheel or water mill is going overboard. This list should be restricted to major inventions.--Ninthabout (talk) 18:50, 14 May 2011 (UTC) I restored several entries which I feel were removed without sufficient explanation:

• restore pic of printing press at top (widely viewed as the most important invention of modern era)
• (possibly pound lock): all three sources call it in fact outright a pound lock, so "possibly" is already the cautious version
• Ancient Suez Canal: the inventive character lies in the connection of two oceans. Changed that accordingly
• Three-masted ship: simply notable, allowed for much larger and more seaworthy sailing ships. it were three-masted hips were discovered the world in the Age of Discovery
• All dam designs are notable (there are only five anyway)
• crankshaft is definitely notable. Without crankshafts most industrial machinery wouldn't function, including the automobile
• Turbine mill is in fact turbine, made that clearer
• papermill = wechanization of papermaking = true mass production of paper = signficant
• Pointed arch bridge: debatable, but as long as the article does not hit the 100 kb ceiling we could just as well keep it as the most common bridge type of the medieval Europe and Islam
• Greek fire: better record first use it is not entirely clear whether its inventor came from Heliopolis/Baalbek, Syria, or Heliopolis, Egypt
• removed the bolding - consumes KB and hinders reading flow
• the other removals - d'accord, if you like Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Responding:

• But that is the problem. Of the modern era. This timeline is made to represent inventions from all eras, and no invention is as significant as the invention of agriculture, which through the Neolithic Revolution initiated civilization, leading to all the inventions that followed.
• How significant of an advance are three-masted ships from two-masted ships? This sounds like an incremental advance to me. Do you have a source that verifies that three-masted ships were integral to the Age of Discovery?
• I dispute that all dam designs are notable. Some are incremental advances, including the ones that are a combination of two prior designs.
• How significant is the invention of the crankshaft in contrast to the crank? We need to define what constitutes an incremental advance and what constitutes a major one.
• Bolding is for usability, for the reader to clearly see what the ivention is, where it was invented, and by who. KB used in bolding is neglible.
• Disagree with adding the wheelbarrow entry back. I read the M. J. T Lewis source. He states clearly what the consensus among scholars is, while his entire argument to the contrary is built around a single source, the Eleusis list. He admits that his argument is not the established consensus in the field; if scholarly consensus is criteria for inclusion, he does not belong. But that brings up an issue. Do we include minority/fringe views in this list? Ahmad Y Hassan makes a lot of wacky claims dubiously crediting many inventions to Muslims. Should we include his views, or do we favor the majority?

--Ninthabout (talk) 10:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

• Modern era, yes. We live in the modern era and people have voted it to be the most important invention in the time we live in. The printing press certainly is more significant than a sickle.
• All caravels of the Age of Discovery were three-masted. A mizzen helpt balance the sail plan. Mott makes directly this point: Mott, Lawrence V. (1994): "A Three-masted Ship Depiction from 1409", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 39–40.
• Crankshaft: importance is self-evident. Every car has one. Ritti, Tullia; Grewe, Klaus; Kessener, Paul (2007), "A Relief of a Water-powered Stone Saw Mill on a Sarcophagus at Hierapolis and its Implications", Journal of Roman Archaeology 20: 138–163, p. 156, fn. 74 refers to its importance for the steam-engine (they call it a crank & connecting rod, but it is a crankshaft at the same time).
• Please provide a source for your view that not all dam designs are notable. Dam treats them all.
• Disagree with bolding. Bolding people like Cai Lun may also be viewed as too close to POV, as, unlike traditional Chinese historiography maintains, he was not the real inventor.
• Definition: I raised this point long ago: #Definition and scope Gun Powder Ma (talk) 11:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Responding:

• But this isn't Timeline of historic inventions in the Modern Era. And the invention is agriculture, and by extension the Neolithic Revolution, not the sickle. If you want a better picture, I can find one. We can set up a straw poll to determine the picture, if you want.
• The notability issue isn't a RS one, since notability is defined by how we define it on this talk. So how are we defining it? This also goes for the three-masted sail entry. We need to define "historic" vs "incremental". Do we include both crank and the crankshaft? Do we include both paper and the later papermaking proccess?
• That's a good point against bolding the name of the inventor. What about bolding just the name of the invention?
• Definition: Looks like we need to make an inclusion guideline. I'm still hesitant at the idea of including water-powered paper mills without including human powdered paper mills, animal powered paper mills, or modern industrial paper mills.--Ninthabout (talk) 16:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I emphasize the need for clearer criteria. Unless we create a more selective criteria for inclusion, there's no reason why all the sourced entries on the American, Russian, Chinese, and Indian invention lists shouldn't be imported into this one.--Ninthabout (talk) 17:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

There is certainly one big fat reason why entries from these and all other such lists should not be simply copied and pasted into this list: one should only add what one knows to be true or, in WP phraseology, verified. I've always followed that maxim, hope you too. In the case of the Indian list, for example, several Jaggedism which have just been removed here in the timeline still persist. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Extreme Eurocentric Bias

Aha, so it was the Europeans who invented everything. While the Egyptians where building huge Pyramids and the assyrians building one of the worlds hugest empire at that time, most people in the world where still running with sticks and clubs shouting "Uga Buga"...

It annoys me that almost all inventions are contributed to European countries. Crossbow forexample was a Chinese inventions. The oldest version of crossbows can be found in China. Still the invention is contributed to Greeks...

The Ancient Suez Canal was built by the Persian king Darius I goddamnit! That was one of his greatest projects! He did not finnish it, but another king named Artaxerxes finnished it. Yet you still contribute it to some "Greek engineers".

I am going to set a section for the Islamic Golden Age and the Egyptian golden age. I will also contribute some inventions to their real inventors.

The article is of course shortened, but it has not been improved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arsaces (talk • contribs) 10:41, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Crossbow forexample was a Chinese inventions. Jolly good. If you have a reliable reference for that, we'll need to resolve the apparent contradiction between it and the existing sources. OTOH, while it remains just your assertion, there is no problem to resolve William M. Connolley (talk) 11:07, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with the observation of outrageous Eurocentric bias. This entire article needs to be rewritten. As one source I would suggest consulting the magnificent "Science and Civilisation in China" series by Joseph Needham. Some of it is neatly summarized in "The Genius of China" by Robert Temple. Wikipedia itself has some useful pages that should be incorporated and cited, such as Indian and Arab inventions. Francis Bacon stated that the three most important inventions that transformed the modern age were: paper, gunpowder and the compass. Novum Organum (New Instrument, published 1620); in this work he cites three world-changing inventions: "Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon Yes the Chinese invented the actual plough as we know it: the moldboard plow. The Europeans/Greeks/Harappans/Mesopotamians, etc. all used a primitive furrow rake or scratch plough-the ard, or a slight variant the crooked plough. The Chinese developed the iron plough in the 6th century BCE, and there is evidence of Chinese ploughs going back to the 14th century BCE (furrow rakes, etc.). The Greeks and Romans did use a primitive iron ard share, which was substantially inferior to the Chinese plough. Moreover it is the Chinese plough that is the ancestor of our current ploughs.

Deep drilling is a Chinese invention, and the list goes on. I happen to be very familiar with oil drilling, and looking at the Chinese drilling tools is awe inspiring. They used fishing tools such as harpoons and overshots to recover fish (lost tools) from the wellbore. They drilled thousands of feet deep, depths that were not reached in the West until the late 19th century.

In one part of the article it is asserted that the Greeks invented "the crane." That is an unsubstantiated and absurd claim. First of all, which "crane?" There are dozens and perhaps hundreds of lifting mechanisms, which in their simplest form were undoubtedly developed by many peoples all around the world. Perhaps the Greeks (which one?) invented "a crane" (which one and what evidence?) but "the Greeks" did not invent "the crane."

Guttenberg did not invent the printing press. He may have developed "a printing press." The Chinese invented the first printing press and the oldest known dated printed book is the Diamond Sutra, not the Christian bible. It was printed on May 11, 868, approximately 587 years before the Gutenberg Bible was first printed. Needless to say it was stolen from China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra

Here are some more sources from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

Here is the Wikipedia note on crossbows:

Crossbow, handheld: The earliest reliable date for the crossbow in the Greek world is from the 5th century BC.[232] The historian Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), described the invention of a mechanical arrow firing catapult (katapeltikon) by a Greek task force in 399 BC.[233][234] In China, bronze crossbow bolts dating as early as mid 5th century BC were found at a State of Chu burial site in Yutaishan, Hubei.[235] The earliest handheld crossbow stocks with bronze trigger, dating from the 6th century BC, comes from Tomb 3 and 12 found at Qufu, Shandong, capital of the State of Lu.[177][236] Other early finds of crossbows were discovered in Tomb 138 at Saobatang, Hunan dated to mid 4th century BC.[237][238] Repeating crossbows, first mentioned in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, were discovered in 1986 in Tomb 47 at Qinjiazui, Hubei dated to around 4th century BC.[239] The earliest textual evidence of the handheld crossbow used in battle dates to the 4th century BC.[240] Handheld crossbows with complex bronze trigger mechanisms have also been found with the Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shihuang (r. 221–210 BC) that are similar to specimens from the subsequent Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), while crossbowmen described in the Han Dynasty learned drill formations, some were even mounted as cavalry units, and Han Dynasty writers attributed the success of numerous battles against the Xiongnu to massed crossbow fire.[241][242] Chao Cuo (d. 154 BC) wrote a memorial to the throne in 169 BC which included his assertion that the Chinese crossbow was superior to the Xiongnu bow.[243] In a cross comparison with a contemporary civilization which created an early crossbow, the ancient Greeks had a crossbow known as the gastraphetes ("belly-bow", so named because the shooter had to draw the bow by pressing his stomach against the concave rear), which was described in Heron's Belopoeica (1st century AD),[244] yet some scholars assert that the handheld crossbow (as invented in China) was not seen in Europe until the 10th century AD.[245][246][247] Unlike the Chinese crossbow, the heavy weight and bulk of the gastraphetes necessitated a prop to keep it standing, i.e. by mounting it on a defensive wall or using a portable prop.[248] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

You cant use Wikipedia articles as references. You need to declare whether a pre-cursor or a more developed and functional item is to be the 'invention.' It cant be both. If its the precursor, then the Chinese ploughs that came afterwards miss out, as do the minor improvements in crossbows seen in archeological digs from later times. If its not the precursor, the subsequent invention would need to be clearly more significant, not just a minor improvement. If you've got sources that indicate earlier invention in Asia or anywhere else, be bold and change it rather than denigrate good faith text that just happen to be wrong. The source for the Greek crane is legitimate. You can complain to the wind or find a source that indicates an earlier one. Independently invented or not, I certainly agree that Gutenberg's machine had been invented earlier in China and should be edited out. Mdw0 (talk) 01:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Inventions of the 20th century

Doesn't this list completely disregard a lot of the more important inventions that happened inthe past 100 years? Everything from flight to personal computers and the engine. These are some of the most significant inventions of the human timeline, in particular the computer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.231.32.22 (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Besides, it's rather strange that the world wide web is listed, while the internet or even computers are not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.179.159.16 (talk) 21:51, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

This list was extensive at the end of 2005. Someone has massacred it, leaving it only a fraction of what it once was. Why? Philgoetz (talk) 04:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Because a large portion of the content was added by someone who extensive research determined regularly and intentionally misrepresented sources to give certain subjects more prominence than they had, in fact. The problem occurred across numerous articles. You are welcome to re-add reliably sourced info. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this article lies in the fact that it does not take on a global view. These are merely a majority of European inventions. Europe in fact is not the world, but a part of it. Also, I warn the editors of this article to be careful. There is a slippery slope of defining who did what first and who became the first. Many things have been written in history and have taught us that such and such invented by someone although that may not necessarily be the case. There are many controversial inventions (telephone, airplane, etc) that fit into this.

And finally, how about making this timeline about the more important inventions throughout history? This timeline does not have to be comprehensive of every invention ever done, but about the more important ones (wheel, printing press, compass, chair, hammer, paper, fireworks, rocket, lightbulb, transistor, airplane, computer, internet, world wide web, and the automobile). Going by this guideline would keep the article's size properly constrained. Yoganate79 (talk) 12:30, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

If you believe an article can be improved, it is very easy to suggest that someone else do something about it. Mdw0 (talk) 06:43, 24 October 2011 (UTC)