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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5
This page is an Archive of the discussions from WikiProject European history talk page (Discussion page).
(January 2008 - December 2008) - Please Do not edit!

Collaborations

It looks like this project is set up to have collaborations on particular articles but that the idea never got going. I'm going to change from the February 2007 idea of the Crimean War to a more or less randomly determined (make that less, just an article I like) new collaboration and I'll try to change it from time to time until someone starts suggesting something. Problem is articles desperately need tagging and, eventually, assessment so we can easily identify them as needing work.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

advertising

I think we need to do some more advertising. I've drummed up a first-round advertising banner proposal (for user / talk pages), which you can see here. Feel free to edit it for improvements. - Revolving Bugbear 22:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

If you mean it about "tagging" articles, I can file the bot request which will probably be answered. It'll probably be Betacommandbot, which some people think is malfunctioning, but i alys trsut comtupers, you don't? :) Seriously, I personally haven't had any trouble on the occasions I've had it tag articles before. John Carter (talk) 22:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll request one of those wikipedia ads like these:
Wikipedia ad for Wikipedia:WikiProject Eurovision
Wikipedia adsfile info – show another – #281
Phoenix-wiki 22:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
John Carter: I meant for user pages, not articles. Phoenix: lovely idea :) - Revolving Bugbear 22:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I've put us on the Community Portal. - Revolving Bugbear 22:52, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Bugbear: Great idea, though I see what John is talking about, that really looks a lot like a talk page banner; doesn't mean it's not good or anything. I think John, that we need to do what you're talking about too. The total number of tagged articles is disgracefully low. I've used bots for tagging and stubbing in Ag but those are species specific and I'm still getting used to the whole CAT thing. If John can come up with some good CAT parameters, please send out the bots.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Project scope?

Before we seriously talk about tagging articles, we need to know what the explicit scope of this project is. Right now, I'm guessing Category:History of Europe, minus any subcats which fall within the explicit purview of any other "historical" projects, including Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, which doesn't use the "history" word. Does that sound acceptable to the rest of you? John Carter (talk) 22:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

That sounds acceptable enough to me.--Phoenix-wiki 22:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
It sounds like a reasonable definition. I guess we have to decide if we want to include antiquity, and I would specifically exclude things which are already tagged by other historical projects. I don't have a problem with large cross-over with other WikiProjects, although large portions of Greco-Roman topics will be outside of our purview simply because so much of that history took place outside of what we consider Europe. - Revolving Bugbear 22:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd opt to include Category:Prehistoric Europe and its subcats, simply because of the overlap with the later eras and the locations, but acknowledge the difficulties and possible disagreements there. John Carter (talk) 22:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Then I'm very much in agreement with you. - Revolving Bugbear 22:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't we include stuff right up to present day, like the expansion of the EU?--Phoenix-wiki 14:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Are such topics generally excluded by Category:History of Europe? I wouldn't have an objection to including them in our scope, but of course there are already WP:EUROPE and WP:EU which will presumably work on these articles. - Revolving Bugbear 14:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I suppose they will.--Phoenix-wiki 15:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with all said. Polish history needs to be included in any tagging operation, since their tags are now obsolete and we do need to update our banner to include a task force for Poland parameter. Maybe we could even get a bot to set that to "on" for anything in a Polish Category that we are otherwise tagging. Haven't looked yet at the Strategy page to see if anyone is commenting there, but there was a discussion of scope started there.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

A better main picture

In the search for a better main picture, I thought one of Europe at the death of Charlemagne in 814 would be an appropriate image for WikiProject European history. Martintg (talk) 04:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

PS, I was bold and updated the pic on the project page so you guys can have a look. Martintg (talk) 04:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, it's been updated it everywhere now. Martintg (talk) 17:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Much better, I think we are pretty much stuck with a map as anything else would tend to suggest something more specific (military, art, etc.). This map is much better than the 1905 map and the colors look better too (maybe just because there are fewer of them and they cover larger areas).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

WP Former countries

Nice work getting this project started. As a partner project, I would like to recommend WikiProject Former countries. At WPFC we are primarily concerned with improving articles about former states (or former versions of current states) so they can be properly incorporated with other works. We also have a number of partner/child projects that focus on particular European states (eg. Prussia, Naples) - see the sidebar on the WPFC page for a complete list. If you have ideas regarding how our two projects can work together (and avoid duplication or overlap), I would be very interested in discussing the matter. - 52 Pickup (deal) 07:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Great! Mutual links between our projects would make sense together with links to your child/related projects related to Europe. In the case of task forces, dual (or more) parentage would be worth consideration, such as the way WP:MILHIST often does; that's also possible, though less meaningful with child projects.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me as well. John Carter (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
52 Pickup - take a look at our topic map/outline that we are working with at Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Strategy, if you get a chance.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Your plans look quite reasonable, but you must be careful that you do not over-extend yourself too early. The various child projects of WPFC always have the option to grow into projects of their own if they become big enough. For example, we have a Holy Roman Empire taskforce which is not all that active. Another example is WP Prussia, which we half-reconstituted into a taskforce due to its inactivity - this is why WP Prussia articles use the WPFC banner. - 52 Pickup (deal) 15:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
One of the questions there is exactly what status they would have as separate projects. If you note the recent developments in Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa, you'll see that each separate nation now has its own individually named "WikiProject", although most of the newly created ones still use the AfricaProject banner. That way, in the event the number of transclusions, or complexity of the banner, grows too great, the project can create it's own banner. For the less active relevant projects, that might be the way to go here as well. John Carter (talk) 16:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Every African country under the Africa banner? Hmm, I can see that that would get messy. The only continent where that setup works is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia. For differentiation between WP:EUROHIST and WP:WPFC, I'd say that only the articles about a former state (eg. Austrian Empire) are WPFC while articles that discuss former states (eg. Congress of Vienna) are not: the same way that Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries only concerns itself with articles on current countries (eg. Austria).
A certain amount of overlap is, unfortunately, unavoidable - just look at all the banners at Talk:Nazi Germany. - 52 Pickup (deal) 16:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it's only the countries which have recently had separate projects created that actually use the Africa banner. The countries of northern Africa already had their own banner. And all I was trying, evidently unsuccessfully, to say was that, potentially, in the event that we do think there might be too many banners on a page, we could try to maybe "consolidate" them like the Australia banner. Also, for a lot of subjects regarding European history, there will be a lot of overlap, because regions and issues often cross over current national boundaries, so one banner like the MILHIST one might be the least cumbersome way to proceed in such matters. I also want it noted that I was in no way suggesting that FC use the EH banner. I know that project deals with a lot of content outside of Europe as well. John Carter (talk) 16:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I think we're both reading the same page here. I agree totally with what you say. Personally, I believe that the whole banner system needs to be reworked - i tried to come up with an alternative long ago but then gave up after it got too confusing. A joint FC and EH banner for European entries does make sense, though. - 52 Pickup (deal) 07:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Strategy discussion

The following is merged here from our Strategy Page, the talk page to which will now redirect here, on the suggestion that no one will ever find the discussion there. If it doesn't make sense, look at the strategy page, which has a detailed "map" of the various projects and portals and that was the basis for these discussions - much of this will seem pretty disjointed without that. If it still doesn't make sense, maybe I can explain, maybe I need to refactor - it's mostly copied verbatim:

Deep questions

I tend to think some of the questions about the definition of history and historical articles should wait while we organize the project a little more. Some of that deserves to be discussed at the SuperParent Wikipedia:WikiProject History too. Definitely needs to be discussed though, don't get me wrong.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Portal:European History?

I'm leaving the heading on the main sub page as it is important to the the "outline" of our scope but thought best to actually discuss here. I'm not sure, depends on whether there's enough interest in maintaining it in the first place and also, could it better be done by a section on Portal:Europe and a section on Portal:History, if not, it at least needs a link there, maybe still a section with a "for more information" link.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


Relation to other WikiProjects

In regard to "There are a number of extant WikiProjects with large crossovers areas. Some are highly active, and some are defunct. How will we define our relationship to them?", probably a number of ways to slice and dice this. One approach could be to use this WikiProjects as a coordinating project for the other sub-projects: develop common templates, info boxes, article formating; and to fill the breach where a corresponding sub project doesn't exist or are inactive. Perhaps historical events of Europe-wide scope (say spanning 4 or more countries, e.g. Black Death, Protestant Reformation, etc) could fall under this project as well. Martintg (talk) 02:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

As to the latter (multi-country historical events), I think they certainly should fall under this project. As for inactive sub-projects, I think we should actively seek to take them in as task forces as we did with Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Polish history task force, if they ever get going again, we can talk about the best organization then, but better to preserve what they've done here than to have to deal with MfD's on them. In most cases, there should probably be a geographic parent too; however in Poland's case they still use a Portal notice board (sort of a proto-project), which doesn't really lend itself to parentage. Of course, some projects may not really belong here, so we may need to come up with other solutions, the point is to make sure they are preserved and that appropriate focus groups are formed. (We should also encourage the formation of country specific (or regional, e.g. "eastern Europe", etc.) historical task forces in order to avoid a small group forming a project that will eventually die from lack of interest as happened with Poland).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I think this project should be proactive rather than just coordinating. Of course, sub-projects can move in here if they want to or stay independent, but I think relegating this project to a coordination role would be a disservice. Just my opinion, though. - Revolving Bugbear 17:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Of course, sub-projects can move in here if they want to or stay independent - of course when I said we should actively make them task forces, I was referring only to inactive projects - or to volunteers. I think Bugbear could tell that's what I meant but I just want to clarify that I don't advocate telling active projects to do anything.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, sorry for any confusion -- my response was more to Martintg than to you (Doug). - Revolving Bugbear 18:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't saying this project should be relegated to just a co-ordinating role only, I just thought it may be useful, as an adjunct, to help sift through the multitudes of infobox styles, templates, article layouts to form a common "look and feel" across all article domains. Martintg (talk) 22:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
In that case I agree with you :) - Revolving Bugbear 22:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Naming Conventions: Monarchs

The naming convention for monarchs has previously been an exception to Wikipedia's general naming conventions. Efforts are now being made to bring them in line, with a propoasl for the most common name for a monarch to take precedence. (eg. William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mary, Queen of Scots.) Please consider the proposals at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)#Proposals to change Monarchal naming conventions so we can get wide consensus on this matter. Thanks. Gwinva (talk) 01:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration for February 2008?

Any suggestions? Transylvania was last month, didn't get much attention, but it got a little. We need to keep this going. If there are no suggestions, I will just pick something, which I don't like to do as my interests are a bit narrow. Name several, we'll put them all in line.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Personal opinions would be in favor of important articles of low quality. Right now, there are a lot of them, 953 Top-imporatnce stubs at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index, and 3320 Top-importance Start class articles. I wish there were some sort of more specific list, but there isn't. I can try to look to find a few a bit later. or maybe some of the other articles in the Category:Former principalities in comparatively poor shape. I can try to help a little myself, but that might be dependent on time factors. John Carter (talk) 21:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

A few ideas:

Personal favorites might be the Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights or Teutonic Knights, though. John Carter (talk) 22:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

If you're attached to the Teutonic Knights ideas, let's do one of them.
In the future, can we set up some sort of system so we don't have an enormous gap between collabs? - Revolving Bugbear 13:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Not really "attached to them", but do think that they are among the more, shall we say, unusual groups in history, and the state certainly was. But any other former countries would be reasonable as well. I just find a religious state in Europe a bit of a novelty, and certainly one that lasted for several hundred years. John Carter (talk) 17:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Retract that question -- see below. - Revolving Bugbear 13:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Task Force Transylvania?

Any thoughts on this? It was proposed as a full fledged project at Wikipedia:COUNCIL/P#WikiProject_Transylvania but comments there were to make it a task force, as a dual task force of this project and WP:European history WikiProject Romania it could bring more interest to both projects. If interested, sign up at the preceding link.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea -- but bring this up at WP:Rma. - Revolving Bugbear 13:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh, there was an error in the above post, I've fixed it. I had already posted at WP:Rma and then I copied it to here without changing the name of the "other project". The post at Romania did not get a response.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

collaboration of the month

In the spirit of WP:BOLD and WP:Don't be a whiny bastard (given the discussion above), I've begun to create the system I asked for above for nominating Collaboration articles.

The page is Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Collaboration/Nominate

Comments / changes / slapping more than welcome.

Cheers! - Revolving Bugbear 13:44, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

  • OK, that looks great. Like everything else here, it will be tweaked and improved over time but we need something functional and this looks like it will work. Let's make it one of the two Teutonic Knights articles for this month because pretty soon it will be March. Then let's post all of John's suggestions on Bugbear's new nomination page as suggestions. One question about the nomination page, is the nomination counted as one of the three votes? That wasn't clear to me. I haven't got time to make this happen this instant, I'll try later but whoever gets to it first, just do it. Also, the first step in improving may just be tagging and assessing. Most of the above articles need that. We need a tagging drive, maybe done by a bot, followed by an assessment drive. So many many things to do. . . !--Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Eh, I suppose it doesn't really matter. The three / two thing was kind of an arbitrary decision. I suppose for formality's / clarity's sake we should maybe say no, but there's no reason the nominator can't voice his support in the support section. Like I said, doesn't really make a difference. - Revolving Bugbear 21:34, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I

  1. changed the collaboration to Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights and
  2. added John Carter's suggestions on the nominate page.

Cheers! - Revolving Bugbear 23:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

announcments

Do we want a way of distributing announcements / developments, like a newsletter or perhaps a more informal wotsit? - Revolving Bugbear 21:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, I know a few projects do that sort of thing.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Aryan invasion theory (Europe)

Anyone fancy having a go bashing this into shape? Without work it's AfD'able, but maybe there's something salvageable there for someone with knowledge on the topic. I leave it to your collective better judgement. Knepflerle (talk) 09:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't here long enough for me to even look at it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Appears so! There were a few revisions, it got prod'ed, then it disappeared. If you want to see the deleted content I think you can get it from any admin, but don't think you're missing much. There's probably room for expansion on Aryan invasion theory if you're interested in the topic though - be nice to have a succinct rundown of the theory, the arguments around it and its use in nationalist rhetoric. Knepflerle (talk) 08:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

AfDs needing expert attention

some knowledge of German would help. DGG (talk) 18:55, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Eeek! yes these need a German history specialist or someone who can at least read the external link pages which are in German.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I can read German and I can't find either one mentioned one the pages linked to. I don't not assume that they might be notable, but they sure aren't mentioned under those names on the sources linked to. John Carter (talk) 01:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
    You may want to comment at the AfDs. The second one is at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ruthard_Baron_von_Aargau. Both do have some verifiability in a paper source apparently according to the AfDs but your information might be helpful there. Also, if these are verifiable we may want to try to take them under our wing - might be a good opportunity for a joint task force /German history with WikiProject Germany. Although these initially seem to have been nominated based on WP:N the discussion seems to have quickly changed to WP:V which is a place we really ought to be able to help. I wouldn't want to see these articles go down just because nobody could find a good source - even if they are pretty minor. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Merger

I am considering merging this page Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient European History with the European history pages, please direct all opinions to my talk page, thankyou. Tom.mevlie (talk) 11:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

TaskForce Inquiry: Ancient Germanic Culture

I have been searching through the various parent and child projects and can't find one related to Ancient Germanic culture. I have been going solo on the related portal for several weeks now, and I believe a taskforce or project could help coordinate things. I'm not sure if there would be any interest, however, or if a similar project already exists (or maybe used to exist). If anyone knows anything, or is interested in working constructively on articles related to Ancient Germanic culture, please let me know. Aryaman (☼) 21:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed task force

There is now a proposed task force of this project to deal with the Ancient Germanic peoples at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Ancient Germanic peoples. Anyone interested in potentially working in that group should indicate their interest there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 14:04, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Another Proposed Taskforce

I've proposed a Sub-Roman Britain Taskforce, and would like to invite you guys to check it out. It falls within the scope of this project, so I've set it up as a taskforce for this project. Any comments would be great. ---G.T.N. (talk) 15:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

All good things come in threes

With the risk of turning this talk page into a taskforce-fest: I'm looking into creating a taskforce to improve the quality of articles relating to the Etruscan civilization. Let me you if you'd be interested in joining or you have ideas about which project it would best be organized under. Best wishes/Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 00:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Possible task force?

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Revolutions of 1848. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Spotlight

...... Dendodge .. TalkHelp 20:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

1345

An admin moved the summary version of this article to 1345 (summary) from the main 1345 spot. This article is in the scope of this project. Commentary is needed on whether summaries in the main year articles should be encouraged or not. Discussion is here. Wrad (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

History of Limerick FAR

History of Limerick has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Jackyd101 (talk) 09:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there anyone prepared to help out on this? It needs significant inline citations and expansion of the period 500–1,642 AD, most importantly 1,200 onwards to 1,642. TIA ww2censor (talk) 15:21, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:56, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merger with History of Scandinavia

Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Scandinavia has only two members, only one of whom has been active since January. Propose that that project be merged into this one. Considering the rather limited development of that project, maybe as a separate work group, or maybe, given the number of other groups and projects dealing with the same basic subject, maybe just merged directly. John Carter (talk) 00:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Support making it a child project or taskforce - rst20xx (talk) 16:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - I would make it an inactive taskforce and redirect it's talk page to our talk page or move it to a subpage here and then replace the contents with a redirect to our parent project page, that would preserve the outline and format and make reactivation simple but avoid the page just sitting there doing nothing or possibly doing harm.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for European history

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Task Force Nottinghamshire?

Currently focused on Newstead Abbey and Byron. Can we set this up please, I cannot do it all on my own. Wikisaver62 (talk) 16:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

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