Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History/Archive 3

The Great Lilliputian Way
The Great Lilliputian Way
	Map of Lilliput and Blefuscu
Other names	The Tiny Way
Location	Lilliput Island, South Indian Ocean
Significance	Main road used to transport Gulliver
Time period	Early 18th century
Terminus points	Big end; Little end
Length	1 kilometre (0.62 mi)
Highest point	Mount Lilliput
Lowest point	Lilluputian valley
Website	http://www.lilliputianway.org

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject History. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Interesting...

Which of these do we not meet. hehe--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 18:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Review process

we do have tagged A class articles, but this project has no A class review. We do have B class artilces and do not specify according to which guidelines (there are the old wikiguidelines and the new ones from the milhistory project). These issues sghould be clarified and I tend to support an own A class and peer review. Wandalstouring 20:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

We most certainly do have an A-class review. Look at Wikipedia:WikiProject History/Review and Wikipedia:WikiProject History/Quality. It's all there--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Than your layout definetly needs improvement. Wandalstouring 10:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Our peer review directs to a wikiwide review that is definetly a mess. Wandalstouring 10:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Our layout is almost identical to milhist but we don't have many articles at the moment.The peer review thing was a link that predates the creation of our peer review (About 20 days ago) I fixed it--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 11:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review

History of Indonesia is currently under an A-Class review. It is our third one to date--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 10:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany

I have nominated Censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany for peer review (linked). I would really appreciate comments and/or collaboration from anyone in this WikiProject.

Thanks! - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 18:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Assessment drive

Okay, we've started recruiting members regularly (About one a day, which I think is a record) so we're going to need to organise some kind of big assessment drive to get all our articles assessed soon. Anyone got any ideas on how we're gonna do this?

We'll need some kind of script to find all our articles
We'll need to draw attention to the drive somehow, another ad might do and some witty picture, like MilHists would work too

--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 19:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

- Run an assessment drive with the cooperation of the subprojects. Remember, this is till technically the parent project of any project or task force with a historical leaning; therefore the problem may better be described as an issue of how to make people recognize that this project is the top of the pyamid when dealing with History-based articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomStar81 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

We're slowing down, we need to get active again

We're slowing down with our work here. This age is supposed to be watchlisted by our members. We need need to get going again or we'll go under--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's see, there haven't been any significant responses to comments in, what, the past week? I think we might be a little bit premature to say the sky is falling after only one week of comparative inactivity. What would probably be best would be to either determine or create some way other than the banner, specific categories work best generally, which would clearly and explicitly indicate that an article within it is one with which this group is specifically concerned, as opposed to any of the subprojects. Also, some of us are on other tasks for a few days yet. And, of course, action would be impacted by the actions of other projects. I personally kind of like the way the religion project has indicated its scope: that it deals explicitly with those articles which do not fall clearly within the scope of any other extant religion project or that deal with subjects relevant to three or more different, not directly related, projects. A similar approach to determining this project's scope might work as well. Certainly, setting such guidelines would probably involve doing work for some of the child projects as well with tagging, but doing so would also help establish goodwill with those other projects. John Carter 20:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Doug and I have been discussing overhauling WP:EH. You might want to take a look. - Revolving Bugbear 20:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

This project isn't going down. This is a top level project, it needs to play a supporting role and help the subprojects grow (both membership and organizational structure). We all have articles to edit and many of us have multiple projects to work on, you included Phoenix, so no offense, but WP:CHILL, please.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 00:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I see no harm in promoting our cause by using Phoenix-wiki's ideas. It is not like we are wasting ink or harming things in any way- in fact, by getting the word out, we are acting positively to help articles expand. It really does surprise me every time I see historical articles not tagged or recognized and those which need our help. I know we all can't edit everything, but if no one says anything then we really have no purpose for having this WP at all. Monsieurdl 01:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

1) The proper place to discuss the future of this project is right here. 2) Rome wasn't built in a day. That's all I'm getting at. --Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 02:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Trust me, as soon as I finish tagging the rodent articles for the new Pocket pets group, I'll start tagging some of the historical articles again. However, there does remain the question of how to tag for projects which have banners but not assessments. If someone wanted to be really useful, they might contact some of the other history projects to see if they would be willing to use our banner for assessment purposes. John Carter 01:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if they need to use our banner for assessments, but I was strictly speaking about getting the word out about going through articles for assessments, what really needs help, input on general history topics, etc. I don't know how many would be willing to give up their banners for ours, but it could be added if they agreed and so we would have a record. Of course, there would be a problem if an article had four, five, or more banners. That would be ugly! Monsieurdl 01:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I could adjust the banner like some of the other projects have to include a drop-down at the bottom saying that the article is specifically supported by their project, like the Template:WPMILHIST does, and adjust the banner to give separate assessments for each subproject as well. That would help reduce the banner clutter, and probably help some of those projects get a better idea regarding the quality of the articles relevant to their project. John Carter 01:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering about the very same thing, I suggested a less comprehensive version at Wikipedia:WikiProject European history. What do User:Revolving Bugbear and the two coordinators here think about that idea? (I specifically ask for Bugbear's opinion because he's active at European history with me, obviously anyone else is welcome to chime in too). Seems like that is is exactly the sort of thing this project can do for the subs.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 02:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Another way to deal with banner profusion is the useful banner shell template. -- Rob C. alias Alarob 03:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a separate issue, for which that is the best solution. I think John was just suggesting a general History Banner that all subprojects could use, not so much for decluttering as to cement the relationship between the projects and avoid everyone having to create the same thing over and over again. Am I right John?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 04:04, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Basically, yes. That would allow the article to be assessed, and potentially even display at the bottom the name of the relevant subproject, all in the same banner, in much the same way that the Template:WP Australia and others do. Also, by instituting that sort of setup, it would probably make it even easier for other subprojects to be created, as it would require less work to create everything, go about tagging, etc., as at least some of that work would already be done. John Carter 15:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, but what about projects with many task forces? We'll clearly have to forget about MilHist and History of science in this--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 18:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

With the caveats brought up by Phoenix-wiki, I think this is a good idea. - Revolving Bugbear 18:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not myself entirely sure what those caveats specifically are, though. I don't see adding Military history to the banner anytime soon, they already have a more than adequate assessment component. WikiProject History of science covers a rather different area, and already has assessment, so I'd leave that alone as well. Basically, at least initially, I was only thinking of those projects who either don't have assessments to be incorporated into the banner, and, potentially, the project itself. Only thereafter do I think anyone should even consider trying to merge in active projects with assessments. -- John Carter (talk) 18:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

That was what I meant, not to include the MilHist or Science logo, or any other established project's ones--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 19:38, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

I've made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#What to do with WikiProject History--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 23:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year

I noticed that the WikiProject History talk page template was added to Talk:February 9. Is it the intention of this project to make Wikipedia:WikiProject Days of the year a subordinate project? That might be a good idea in order to get more interest and organization behind the days of the year articles but it seems to conflict with the proposal above. -- Mufka ^(u) ^(t) ^(c) 20:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The banner seems to have been added by one of the project's more active editors, so I guess it'd be best if he responded. Personally, I would welcome getting more attention to those articles myself, and wouldn't necessarily mind if the History banner were adjusted to generate statistics for the Days of the year project, but right now that's beyond my own limited abilities. I do look forward to answers from others, too. John Carter (talk) 21:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It was me who placed the template, it was an accident. I dunno about making you a subordinate project as you're not about history solely. It might be beneficial to work in close contact with days of the year though--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 22:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

As for getting more attention to those articles, maybe we could create a subpage to list historic events that can be added to such pages? That would help.--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 22:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think the days of the week project pretty much is basically solely history, as their basic focus is to list historical events that happened on a given day. Granted, it's rather an unusual extension of the topic, but still falls within the scope of this project. John Carter (talk) 23:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

So what do you want to do? MAke it anothner child task force or a task force? I think it's fine the way it is though we should list it as a child project--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:35, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

It's already a child of Wikipedia:WikiProject Time. Let's leave it alone for now but think about it for the future. If membership in both projects doesn't improve, maybe combining might be in order. -- Mufka ^(u) ^(t) ^(c) 04:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

New WikiProject Created

The United States WikiProject has been created. If you're interested, please add your name to the list of participants. I'm currently working on getting all the templates and categories created (i.e., fixing all the red links). Any and all assistance would be appreciated. Thanks! Corvus coronoides _talk 13:48, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I look forward to aiding you whenever possible- as I noted in the participants section, I'm most knowledgeable in early American history since it coincides with a lot of the history of New France. Nice addition! Monsieurdl (talk) 13:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I assume you posted to attract the attention of users with the knowledge of US history, which is a great idea. We currently don't have the manpower but a US task force might be something to think about creating in the future. What do you think, John--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, if the members of the new project wished to use the {{WikiProject History}} template for assessment purposes, it would probably be easier to maintain than an entirely separate banner. It might also have the benefit of allowing the banner to be used for multiple related task forces which deal with a specific article, reducing the amount of talk page space taken up by the banners. If the members of the project wanted to use the History project banner, I think the changes could be made rather easily. John Carter (talk) 16:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think switching banners is really an issue at all. Corvus coronoides _talk 17:18, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

RfC Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Could editors please take a look at this article and comment on its talk page? It is mostly the work of one editor and I have concerns about neutrality. It is also looking increasingly unencyclopedic and probably contains excessive detail (such as on the 1903 coup). Your opinion may differ, of course. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Will do--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 23:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much. For the avoidance of doubt, my specific concerns are verifiability, neutrality and undue weight plus various Manual of Style issues. (It has the longest section headings I've ever seen on Wikipedia, for instance. Though no doubt someone will be along soon with links to even longer ones :)) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

2001 Cincinnati riots needs your help

2001 Cincinnati riots is currently tagged This article does not cite any references or sources. (September 2006). Some cites have apparently been added since then, but the article still needs cleanup. -- Writtenonsand 19:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Addded to openasks--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 21:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Chinese Exclusion Act

Chinese Exclusion Act is on WP:ACID If you can help out that'll be great. Marlith ^T/C 05:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

A-class

The A-class review department isn't very active, and I note we haven't any A-class articles at present (Category:A-Class history articles). (There was one but its A status wasn't assigned by the project [1].) Why don't we adopt a simpler assessment scale, simply leaving out A-class (FA-GA-B-Start-Stub)? Other projects have their own scale, e.g. Maths: FA-A-GA-Bplus-B-Start-Stub; so, I don't see why we shouldn't. It doesn't actually require any coding changes, as if we simply leave it out, the v1.0 team automatically ignores it, cf. Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Biography (baronets) articles by quality statistics. DrKiernan (talk) 10:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, people have a habit of assigning A-class without discussion, but that's the standard layout for most wikiprojects and having an unconventional layout would mean no statisctics, as the bot doesn't recognise anyhting except the current fromat (Of course, importance ratings can e removed, but it might be better to keep them)--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 20:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals#Assessment does not recognise GA-class and has deleted that category (see Category:WPChem worklist articles by quality). The bot works quite happily without it. As I said above, it doesn't require any coding changes to the bot, it just ignores empty or missing categories. So, if we decide to delete A-class, I think we can just go ahead and do it. DrKiernan (talk) 08:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but we won't be deciding to delete A-Class anytime soon--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 20:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

History of the Jews in Wales

If anyone can help, still needed is an article about the History of the Jews in Wales to complete the History of the Jews in Europe. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 12:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Templates

How about more fully integrating WP Eurohist by adding a |europe=yes parameter to {{WikiProject History}} which automatically switches an article from this parent project to the daughter one, and also means that Eurohist can use this project's peer review and A-class review processes (if they wish to do so)? British Royalty and Biography have this kind of relationship and it seems to work well. I don't know much about template coding though, so someone else would have to actually do it. DrKiernan (talk) 08:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'm afraid that the template coding is probably beyond my own, meager, abilities, but I'll at least try to come up with something in the next few days. Anyone else who feels more comfortable regarding such matters is free to jump in before me, of course. John Carter (talk) 15:56, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm working on the Africa template. Oh yeah, John, I've got the syntax rigth and now it's just tedious typing out of the same thing, but'll it'll be done soon--Phoenix-wiki ^{(talk · contribs)} 21:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

No rush. Sorry to be putting you to all this work, but I'm really too stupid to figure it out myself. John Carter (talk) 22:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Phantom time hypothesis

Phantom time hypothesis: "The Phantom time hypothesis is a theory developed by Heribert Illig (born 1947 in Vohenstrauß) in 1991, which suggests that the Early Middle Ages (more precisely, the period 614–911 AD) never occurred, meaning that all artifacts attributed to this period are from other times and that all historical figures from this period are outright fabrications."
-- Article is currently peppered with "fact" and "cleanup" tags requesting that mainstream-historical criticisms of this eccentric theory be cited. This is fair (if silly) and IMHO shouldn't be too arduous for historians.
(We also have New Chronology (Fomenko), but that's in better shape.) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 14:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

1345

This is an article a couple of us have completely revamped in an experiment to see if it was possible to make a year article an FA. Obviously, it's a history article, so any help you could lend would be wonderful. Wrad (talk) 02:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Antonio Armijo

Hi, can somebody give me some help editing and improving this article, I would like to try and push it to GA status. Blueanode (talk) 16:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

AfD on History of western Eurasia

The above article is currently being considered for deletion. Anyone interested should feel free to take part in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of western Eurasia. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 18:09, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Robert Conquest needs cleanup

Robert Conquest needs cleanup for neutrality and weasel problems. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 20:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Decent history book article?

I'm starting an article about The History of the World (the book by JM Roberts). Are there any history book articles that are rated Good Article or Featured article that I could use as a guide? --Sean Brunnock (talk) 22:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Changing country's history by a Wiki-vote, or whats in a single vowel

I have today come across a curious case of a country which wants to change its history. This country is now known as Romania. Ostensibly the current explanation of the etymology on the article page is that the Romanians are descendants of Romans. My proposition is that until recently (in historical terms) it was known as Wallachia or Rumelia have been rejected. The proposition that WWallachins may have arrived in Roman Dacia, and found soldier settlers there speaking Vulgar Latin in the 5th Century CE, and like the French, adopted the tongue was found by the editors to be a personal insult, as well as one to their country. Even the fact that the root of the word Rumania comes from the Arabic ar-Rum for Rome (included in the Koran in the 7th Century), and was shortened to Rum by the Ottoman Empire who used it to refer to the Greek speaking Byzantium, has failed to change the editors' minds on the naming of the country in their determination to Latinise Rumania to Romania. The article has again been submitted for FA rating. This despite the etymology having been shunted off to a behind the scenes page with untranslated references (mostly Rumanian and Italian, and one undated encyclical from Vatican). I have requested a third party assessment of the page after my comments were repeatedly deleted from discussion. Would appreciate someone looking in on it.--mrg3105 mrg3105 14:04, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't sound too good. Could you link to the page, I'll have a look.--Phoenix -wiki 14:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about the Romania page, I tend to think that the policy of WP:NAME fairly clearly establishes that of the name of the page, as that is the spelling in the English language versions of the European Union site here, the Romanian Tourist Office site here, and the English language version of the governmental website here If you're discussing some other name, please specificy the page in question. Even the comments are deleted, we can review the page history to see them. Thanks. John Carter (talk) 16:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe he's referring to what information on the spelling should be contained in the lead paragraph and what in the Etymology section. - Revolving Bugbear 16:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

"Romania" does derive from "Roman". "Rumelia" is correctly explained above as deriving from the Arab/Turkish "Rum" (=(Eastern) Rome). The Turks used it to describe their previously Byzantine territory west of the Bosporus (in opposition to Anatalia on the eastern shore). In more recent times the name referred to territories now part of Bulgaria and Greece that at first remained under Turkish control. Eastern Rumelia became autonomous in 1878 and was annexed by Bulgaria in 1885, parts of Western Rumelia in 1913. Other parts of Western Rumelia (more or less coextensive with Macedonia) went to Greece and Serbia. Romania has nothing to do with it, as the two Principalities were autonomous all along, separated by a natural border (the Danube) and had gained independence before the Bulgarian crisis. Str1977 ^(talk) 22:12, 28 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) 01:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Presidents and Kings of Greece

Hello everybody, please have a look into this proposed merger.

Thank you, Str1977 ^(talk) 21:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Subprojects

It might be possible to integrate a switch into the project banner to permit separate assessments for a variety of countries, thus allowing, for instance, French history, German history, Spanish history, etc. Would the members of this project be interested in setting up such national history work groups for the countries which probably have the most articles related to their histories? John Carter (talk) 02:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. I'll get in touch with some of the larger national projects and ask if they'd like a co-task force in our project space. There's no point setting up task forces for countries that not many people arfe interested in editing though.--Phoenix -wiki 20:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for assistance at Children's Crusade

This is an article in need of a makeover. It's confusing and heavily dependent on one historian's view. --Dweller (talk) 16:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Concerns about articles

Would watchers of this page look at Psychohistory and Early infanticidal childrearing, two articles which seem to relate to history. I wonder if they are pushing a fringe POV, or if they are accurate, and do not have the expertise to judge. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I've heard of Psychohistory in this context before, so I think whether it is fringe or not it probably qualifies as notable enough for an article, given the likes of Fawn Brodie using its principles. And from what little I remember of the subject, the page is generally accurate. In all honesty, though, I'm more familiar with Psychohistory (fictional), which probably won't surprise anybody. Regarding the latter, I honestly don't know one way or another, but the psychology wikia has an article on it. I think Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychology would probably know more about that subject than we would, and I see you've notified them as well. I hope someone responds on the subject there, as I myself can't tell from a web search whether it's notable enough to have a separate article or not. John Carter (talk) 15:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

My concern is not so much with the notability of "psychohistory" as such - I know that it is a theory or method often taught in history courses. My concern is whether this article accurately represents that ehory or method that is used by professional historians and taught in university courses ... or whether the article violates NPOV, or focuses on a fringe view or version of psychohistory, or provides an inaccurate account of the field. By the way, I have left a similar query on the psychology page. BUT: I asked psychology friends/colleagues of mine if they have heard of psychohistory and aside from specific books by freud and Erikson (i.e., in relation to the people cited in this article) the answer was no. On the other hans, I had friends who were history majors in college who told me that one of the views they studied was psychohistory. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

History sections of the Lists of basic topics

Please look at the history sections of these lists, and complete them. (Linky can speed this up significantly):

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 10:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there a tag for "This article needs a history section"?

I keep running into articles missing history on the topic. Is there a tag for this? If so, please point me to it!

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 10:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

{{WikiProject History}} is our tag. I will open a subpage where such articles can be listed since tagging them seems rather pointless. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about the issue again a category might be a better approach. I would like to consult my fellow coordinator, but he seems not inclined to respond yet. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I think he means {{histinfo}}. John Carter (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I like the idea of a category — Category:Articles lacking a History section, that would be easier to use than a subpage.--Phoenix -wiki 14:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Needing help

My article Prehistoric medicine has been selected as a Start grade article, but there is a mention on the discussion page of it being upgraded to a B-status, but there is also a criteria thingy-majigy that I don't know what to do with; it says add it to the template call..? Could someone experienced in this field (or just more experienced than I am) please help me sort this out. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Look here. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Family tree/template

There are several articles about various members of the Birley family, most of whom are descended from Richard Birley (1743 - 1812), merchant.^[1] I would like to link them together using some form of family tree/template. Can anyone point me to where I can find something that I can use as a model? Thanks for any help. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 09:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Hm. I regret that I know not of any already existing template. But if someone with the coding wizardry skills were to create one, I think it'd be of huge help. LordAmeth (talk) 08:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Use Template:Familytree. You can see its implementation at House of Hador. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice - I have now completed the initial version of the Birley family tree at Template:Birley family. Cheers. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 09:38, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Schools DVD

Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_CD_Selection/additions_and_updates#History where the proposed changes going from the 2007 Schools DVD to the 2008 one are listed. Theren't aren't many changes or updates listed even though History is one of the biggest sections (see http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/index/subject.History.htm) in part because we don't really have a history buff helping with the project. Any advice would be very welcome. --BozMo talk 15:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

coordinator elections

We have almost a hundred members now and a very well organized page. It is time to organize the election of 3 coordinators. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Candidates can sign up here. Voting will start on 1 March 2008 and end on 31 March 2008. The 3 candidates with most votes will be elected as new coordinators. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:50, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Was this election proposed anywhere? I believe an undertaking like this should be discussed first rather than simply being implemented out of the blue. I don't believe this project needs an election for this. It's overly formal. The current coordinators were self-selected, and that works just fine until someone objects, and nobody has. I support self-selection, and applaud the current coordinators for stepping forward to run the project. But please, don't over-coordinate. :) The Transhumanist 20:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, unless there were others who also sought the post and it proved to be the case that there were more people interested in being coordinators than were necessary. Having said that, I think some discussion as to how many coordinators there should be might not be a bad idea. John Carter (talk) 20:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

What do coordinators do exactly? Their description on the project page shouldn't scare anyone off. Newcomers may not realize that WikiProject pages are subject to direct editing and consensus-building like any other page. The Transhumanist 21:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Basically, they do what the coordinators of WP:MILHIST do. I'm virtually certain that that is the model being followed here. They basically get stuck with the jobs that Kirill and the other coordinators do over there. Basically, they're I guess advisors as required and more or less responsible for the regular functioning of the project. I think. More or less. John Carter (talk) 23:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Transhumanist makes a good point; I'm surprised I failed to think of it that way on my own... But in the end, I'm happy with whichever outcome. LordAmeth (talk) 02:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I wrote an essay on what it is exactly that coordinators do, it here, if anyone wants to read it. Essentially, its like being the teachers assistant in a pre-k class: you are agreeing to help cleanup the toys, pickup the left over juice cups, read the stories, and just generally be avaliable to help the teacher with what ever he or she may need. There really isn't anything special about the position, but when dealing with dozens (or in our case, over 700) screaming children its nice for our contributers to know that there are a few people whom they can run to for help should they need it. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe - but whoever they end up being - this revamped project also needs individuals who can very clearly indicate to all and sundry where the boundaries of this new era of the history project begins and ends. And I also suspect they will need to have the diplomatic skills to help and create a good understanding of what the new history project is doing. Specially where members of existing projects seeing history in their projects being linked or looked at - might have some not very clear ideas of what exactly is going on. In anthropological terms - cultural brokers Satu Suro 02:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

My fellow coordinator isn't very active any more, so I decided to set up the vote for this project deserves some good coordinators. Wandalstouring (talk) 05:02, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

To all who had not yet time to read what the project's page says about coordinators:

The project coordinators are generally responsible for maintaining all of the procedural and administrative aspects of the project, and serve as the designated points-of-contact for procedural issues. They are not, however, endowed with any special executive powers.

Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) and Wandalstouring (talk · contribs) are the current coordinators of this project due to the extremely small membership. There will hopefully be an election when the project is large enough.

I hope that answers all questions. Even after I flogged out all inactive members and multiple members we are 71 active participants. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:50, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Well maybe discussion about coordinators isnt the place for this - the general status and standard of historical information right across wikipedia appears to suggest that there are significant numbers of individuals who have neither any access to historical information - web based or not, or any understanding of its importance to give credence to a large number of smaller articles that dont lie in the FA/GA ambit. I would encourage any would be or extant coordinators to pick up the pieces of the smaller fallen by the wayside histinfo project and any other attempts at improving hist context - and utilise anything or do anything that might encourage contributors/editors to actually consider historical context of their subject/article/information - perhaps asking for something more than has been accepted above - but there is a potentially missionary role to be included in the job description Satu Suro 12:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not that active any more. I got this project back up running after it had gone inactive and organised banners, templates etc. If there is an election I might run, though I feel I can now be more of an asset in the mainspace.--Phoenix -wiki 13:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

No candidates to vote for and I'm no longer interested in being a coordinator or member. Wished my retreat could have left behind a well organized project, but it's impossible with this project. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that I think a lot of people aren't yet necessarily convinced that elections are required for coordinators for this project, as there hasn't yet been a lot to coordinate. And, certainly right now, it would probably involve getting input from all the other extant history projects to help get some input from them as well. I do certainly think that this project, and any number of others, could use a list "contact men" which could be contacted regarding the project, but, as it stands, the scope is still so poorly defined that I don't think anyone necessarily knows what is going to be dealt with. Having said that, I probably wouldn't mind myself being listed as a "contact man", but don't myself think that I would necessarily be at least right now able to devote sufficient time to this project in particular to take a more official "coordinator" position. If anyone else thinks that they might be able to function as a "contact person", though, I think that perhaps having them list themselves as such might help rather a lot. John Carter (talk) 16:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

American Revolution GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "World History-Americas" articles. I have reviewed American Revolution and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributors of the article along with other task forces/WikiProjects. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

FAC

Hello. I have nominated an article, Huldrych Zwingli for FAC and I would like to ask if people here could comment, review, and vote. The reason I am posting this message here is that I would like to avoid canvassing, so I am leaving this message on Wikiprojects that are related to, but not directly associated with the topic. This concerns a historic figure. Thanks and please vote (Oppose or Support). --RelHistBuff (talk) 09:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

== Propose reactivation of continental task forces ==

I propose that the previously created continental task forces of this project be formally reinstated, with the exception of the European task force, which has significant overlap with the Wikipedia:WikiProject European history. Also, there is a question about placing a proposed project regarding 1848, currently at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Revolutions of 1848 as a subproject of this project. Comments? John Carter (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well our membership has significantly increased though I sill don't know if it's large enough to warrant this.

It may not be so much a matter of membership as scope. A lot of editors I think will be interested only in the history of only a few areas, and this will allow them to focus on the content they consider relevant. John Carter (talk) 20:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but it may be better to create national task forces whenever we gain interested in a specific country, might be more efffective.--Phoenix -wiki 18:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, actually. There certainly wouldn't be any objections to create sub task forces, like both Military history and Former countries already do. Personally, I see the reestablishment of the continental groups as being one of the first steps in that direction. John Carter (talk) 20:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. In that case it would be better to restore them rather than create new ones. Coul you do that?--Phoenix -wiki 08:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

1100s discussion

There's a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years#Requested moves about what the 1100s, 1200s etc. should mean. Articles like 1100s currently form part of the series on decades; however it is proposed that they should be about centuries, in line with usage. Since the discussion is not generating a whole lot of new light at the moment, contributions would be welcome.--Kotniski (talk) 16:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Arthur Bryant

Arthur Bryant was a historian, particularly of England. I know next to nothing about him (or historiography); I merely read in something about Wotton House that he preceded John Gielgud as resident of a pavilion, with the implication that he was well known. I went to the page about him, which looks very wrong. Comments on the talk page seem to agree, but I can't judge offhand and I don't have the time to check (e.g. by looking him up in the Dictionary of National Biography or whatever the OUP monster is called). Can somebody knowledgable take a look? (Crossposted to Wikiproject England.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a short version of that work which I am using to expand the article now. The subject certainly appears to have embraced ideas which we would now call unpopular, but I do tend to think that the existing structure is far less than acceptable. I'll try to add the other information from the source tomorrow. I personally do consider the volume of quotations to have at the least WP:Undue weight problems, and will probably try to trim the amount of them considerably. Unfortunately, I don't know that much offhand about the subject myself, so that's probably about all I will be able to do unassisted. With any luck, someone who has more direct knowledge of the subject will help as well. John Carter (talk) 01:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Museums

Would it be worth adding Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums to related wikiprojects? It's a new project but has obvious links with this one in improving the coverage of museums & artifacts etc.— Rod ^talk 10:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, added--193.120.116.177 (talk) 08:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Coordination

Well it appers there's been a little panic during Wandalstouring's and I's recent inactivity. Well I think I'm ready to reassume the position, though JohnCarter is already a coordinator in all but name. I've been doing a lot of mainspace work btw, hope to get History of timekeeping devices to FA soemtime in the future.--Phoenix -wiki 08:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Burr-Hamilton duel

Burr-Hamilton duel is right on the thin edge of being GA, and it looks like there's enough meat there to build an FA from. A good project for anyone who's interested. Ling.Nut (talk) 05:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

POV in history-related articles that have been recovered from public domain encyclopedias

I have found a tremendous amount of POV in articles relating to history that have been copied from encyclopedias in the public domain. We need an effort to eradicate POV assertions from those entries. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, I've gone through a lot of articles about Egypt ripping out obvious copyvio, not from encyclopedias but from all sorts of places (this was by one editor which made it easier). I'm just now looking at Romulus and Remus trying to figure out if this [2] is a copy of Wikipedia or the other way around. There are some other new articles which have sprung up fully polished that I also wonder about. Maybe we should make a list?--Doug Weller (talk) 17:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Add any articles you find with POV problems that are related to history to the to do list at the top of the page above. That'll help get at least some attention to them. John Carter (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

garbage heap of history

Someone is actually trying to throw the garbage heap of history onto the garbage heap of history. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vital articles

Any editor with a broad knowledge of history is invited to take a look at Wikipedia:Vital articles and offer suggestions on how to improve the list of 1000 vital Wikipedia articles, as well as on the process of choosing them. It suffers from a severe lack of attention and POV editing. — goethean ॐ 01:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Historical revisionism relevant to this project

There is an ongoing discussion regarding Historical revisionism at Talk:Historical revisionism, also relevant are the articles on Historical revisionism (negationism) and Denialism. Paul foord (talk) 14:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Kennedy assassinations

Do members here feel that articles such as Robert F. Kennedy assassination actually fall under the purview of this project. It is currently listed as a biographical article, but I'm not certain that this is appropriate in of itself Fritzpoll (talk) 23:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added the banners for US presidential elections and US history, which are probably appropriate in this case. John Carter (talk) 23:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much Fritzpoll (talk) 23:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

History vs. genealogy

I have written an essay titled History vs. genealogy, dealing with what I believe to be one of the great problems with how history is dealt with on Wikipedia. I would very much appreciate comments. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 16:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for "child project" status

WikiProject Ancient Germanic studies was proposed for creation as a potential "child project" of WikiProject History. The proposal received enough signatures, and the project has been set up. We would like to list WikiProject History as our "parent project", and have WikiProject Ancient Germanic studies listed as a "child project" of WikiProject History. Thanks. —Aryaman (talk) 01:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyone know anything about 13th century Europe? - was the Battle of Grobnik field a battle or just a 19th century poem?

I'd like to know if anyone can help with Battle of Grobnik field - 2 of us have now searched (see the Talk Page) and come to the conclusion that there probably was no such battle, just a 19th century poem. I'm probably going to take it to AfD unless someone can convince me it was real. Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 17:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject Croatia would probably know better about the alleged battle. But I myself might question deleting it, as it does seem to have been the subject of the epic poem; it's probably notable as a work of fiction, even if it isn't historically accurate. John Carter (talk) 19:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The editor who created it will do his best to stop that from happening. And there are no English language sources for the poem either that I can find. Thanks for the suggestions about other projects. --Doug Weller (talk) 19:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorting out priorities

Is there a reason why the History of Sheffield merits the same level of importance as the History of China and the Maya Civilization? There doesn't seem to be, so unless anyone objects (and I'm fairly certain nobody will), I will set about lowering the article's Importance to something more appropriate. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 12:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Aztec/Maya/Inca

The names of the articles about these civilisations are confusing to me. There is an article Incas, Aztec and Maya civilization. I think that it should be harmonized to Inca, Aztec and Maya or Incas, Aztecs and Mayas, or Inca civilization, Aztec civilization and Maya civilization, but not the way it is now. Any ideas? LYKANTROP 21:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I am quite keen on Inca civilization, Aztec civilization and Maya civilization however I do feel that for many people having to spell civilization out every time they want to look at the page is going to be differcult and unless we have loads of redirects they will keep on missing what they are looking for. I think that Incas, Aztecs and Mayas is probably the best choice if you take my point about civilization becasue Aztec suggests that they weren't plural becsaue you have one Aztec, many Aztecs. Anyway those are my thoughts. The Quill (talk) 07:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Seconf for "X civilization". Thats got a nice ring to it. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

As "X civilization" seems to be the favourite choice (I know only two people have said it but hey we need to vote on something) I propose a vote supporting "X civilization" being used for the presaid civilizations. If you support the ammendament please write agree if you don't please write disagree either way the vote goes explanation should be given about why it was chosen. The Quill (talk) 08:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree for foresaid reasons above.The Quill (talk) 08:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree as per The Quill. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - This is a tough one. I can see having separate the terms Incas, Aztecs, and Mayas to describe those specific ethnic groups, and Inca civilization, Aztec civilization, and Maya civilization to describe those historical societies. But I can also see not wanting to repeat "civilization" when describing all three. Maybe a phrase like "indigenous Mesoamerican civilizations" or "classical Mesoamerican civilizations" could be used as a collective term to describe all three when such is desired? John Carter (talk) 15:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - We aren't talking about how to group them as a compined group but just how to name them. If you wanted to you colud chuck in Ancient Greek Civilization. The Quill (talk) 15:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - A couple of things. First, the Incas were not located in Mesoamerica but in the Andes so they are not a "Mesoamerican civilization". Second, in the case of the Incas we currently have two articles Incas and Inca Empire. It seems to me it would be a good idea to merge both under Inca civilization. --Victor12 (talk) 15:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Comment - I reacon we should to. If we do this then I say that both Aztec and Maya pages are also named Aztec Civilization and Maya Civilization accordinly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Quill (talk • contribs) 16:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I agree with renaming Incas to Inca civilization, Aztec to Aztec civilization, and Maya civilization is already. But Inca Empire can not be merged with Incas (later Inca civilization) because they are two diferent things. See this example. Ancient Rome is a "parallel" to Inca civilization and Roman Empire is a "parallel" to Inca Empire. A "disambiguation" page can be made for Inca:

Inca or Incas may refer to:

Inca civilization (xxth century BC – yyth century AD)
- Kingdom of Cusco (1197 to 1438)
- Inca Empire (1438 to 1533)
- Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (16th-century)
- etc. LYKANTROP 00:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester needs cites

Article on Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (favorite of Elizabeth I of England) has been tagged "This article needs additional citations for verification" since June 2007 (actually has no inline cites). -- Writtenonsand (talk) 19:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Was Roosevelt able to ignore the Neutrality acts?

Our article about the Neutrality acts basically states that the acts only applied when the president found that a state of war existed between two nations; by refusing to issue such a finding, Roosevelt was able to avoid hurting allied nations. However I found that the current Encyclopaedia Britannica gives a very different account, and never mentions this option. The details are at Talk:Neutrality Acts#Was Roosevelt free to ignore the Neutrality acts?. Maybe an expert could look into this. Thanks and cheers, AxelBoldt (talk) 03:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Restyle

Does anybody have any objections to be restyling the project page so that it looks more current? The Quill (talk) 08:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I hope everybody likes the restyling I gave the page I just thought it needed to be a bit more modern. Any complaints or problems with the new design should be placed here and not on my talk page if a problem arrises. The Quill (talk) 09:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Also I think that to comlete the new look we need to replace our logo. While it is very nice it just doesn't look proffesional enough. I think that we should stick with the time/clock theme but I can't find many images on wikipedia to help us out so far I can only find

which isn't that great. I will try to construct my own clock image but if anybody has anyother logo suggestions once agai please place them here. Thanks. The Quill (talk) 09:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The old image on the banner was chosen as being an indication of history, being the first page of a very old historical document. There was an earlier idea of using the image already used by Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design, but having two groups use the same image would be confusing. Which is unfortuante, because it is a great image. Maybe an image showing both a clock and a bookshelf might be best. John Carter (talk) 13:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't want the image of the prject to look modern! I'd like it to look, well, historical.--Doug Weller (talk) 08:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I understand what you mean but I'm not sure are you saying you want an old image or the you want an image which is modern which shows something lookin old?The Quill (talk) 14:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Woah woah woah, a portal look is not good IMO. I like the new grey/silver colour, but it was like this before and it wasn't nice. I'm going to return it to the other format, but i'll keep the cahnges I think.--Phoenix -wiki 21:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if the image is old, but it needs to show something looking old (IMHO). Doug Weller (talk) 18:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Any particular suggestions? John Carter (talk) 18:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, there's been a bit of an edit war regarding the style. We'lll just leave it as it is for now, and discuss here. I'm strongly against the new look, because I think it looks rather unproffesional, and also makes us look like a portal, which we aren't. If most of you like it though, we'll leave it, what ae your opinions?--Phoenix -wiki 10:34, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for finnally writing in the talk page instead of vandalising the page. Sorry but this sectioion is only for improving and fixing problems with the project page which your comlaint isn't. I you have issues with the new style make another section becuase at the moment like you said you seem to be the only one with any objections against the new style. The Quill (talk) 15:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Dude, you asked if there was any objections in this section, so I replied in this section. Accusations of vandalism are a personal attack. I was the coordinator and re-creator of this project, but gave that up due to my recent inactivity. The status quo is maintaiend untill discussion is finished, which means discuss it here.--Phoenix -wiki 17:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Phoenix-wiki here myself. I find the section format to offer disadvantages if one section is notably longer than other, and this project will have some very long sections. I would be open to other identifier images, though, if anyone could come up with any. John Carter (talk) 19:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

indentured servitude

Requesting an initial assessment of this article. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 01:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Coordination

Well, due to my recent inactivity I had to give up coordinatorship a while ago. I'm still not active enough to do it, and don't think I will be as active as I used to be any more. John Carter, you indicated a willingness to do this, are you still interested? We can change the page to say taht if you are.--Phoenix -wiki 17:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The work with the new WP:GEOBOT, if and when that discussion is over, and being elected coordinator of Christianity, will limit my time, but I'd be willing to do "co-", work, if you would be willing to help watch things when I get lost somewhere else for a few days on other tasks. John Carter (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Request a few eyes to help gauge significance

Hello.

Could I request a few editors to take a look at the NPOV noticeboard and comment as to whether non-1939 start dates for World War II have enough support to be considered a significant minority or not? Thanks. Oberiko (talk) 17:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Redesign

Right, you asked me to create a new topic, which is what I'm doing. As far as thge colours go, I like it, but the portal layout isn't very efficient IMO, and looks unproffesional. As for the image, I was thinking about some of these which I found on the commons. I'd like to hear opnions about them:

Of the four, I think the one on the left work best, as horseback riders or their equivalents tend to be fairly universal in the world, and it does seem to indicate a nebulous "historical" period. John Carter (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah okay. I'll implement that then if there are no objections.--Phoenix -wiki 20:23, 12 June 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) 23:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Papers of the Continental Congress

I'm working on the Belton flintlock article, and the only known documentation of it is the correspondence between Belton and the Continental Congress. I found Congress' side of things in Journals of the Continental Congress from May of 1777, but the footnotes say that Belton's letters are in the Papers of the Continental Congress. I can't seem to find those online, and I'm not near a good library. Here's what I need:

Letter from Belton, April 11: Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 41, I, folio 123
Letter from Belton, May 7: Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 78, I, folio 175
Letter from Belton, May 8: Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 78, I, folio 182

These appear to be available in some libraries on microfilm; if anyone is interested in giving me a hand, I'd appreciate it. scot (talk) 01:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics

This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist 10:03, 4 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) 21:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Years

This WikiProject is having a revival and is trying to determine the direction it will be heading in the future. Questions are being asked, and exciting things are coming in the future that could impact this project, including the bringing of 1345 and other year articles to GA and even FA status. Please consider joining this project and improving year articles on wikipedia. Wrad (talk) 20:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

That's outrageous!

I've heard religious toleration guaranteed to Quebec after La Conquête called one of the "outrageous acts" leading to the American Revolution. If anybody can source it, would you include it at La Conquête? Thanks. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 14:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 946 articles are assigned to this project, of which 413, or 43.7%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Re-assessment of articles, where?

I am just wondering where can I request a reassessment of one of my articles, Prehistoric medicine, because there seems to be no obvious place to ask? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 11:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merger with WikiProject World History

Wikipedia:WikiProject World History has seen no activity since April. Propose that, given the overlap of the scope of the groups, that project be integrated into this one, either as a separate subproject or possibly merged directly into the project itself. John Carter (talk) 00:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I support this merger. Atleast, until such time there is activity to call for a split. J. D. Redding 19:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

How long should we wait till a merger is done? J. D. Redding 13:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I fully support this merger. Whenever you have the time we can go through with it, and i'll leave the nature of the merger at your discretion (John Carter). Rucha58 00:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for standard infobox for History of [country] templates

In my travels around Wikipedia, I've noticed that there is an almost complete lack of cohesion among the "History of [country]" navbox templates that organize articles about history by country (see, for example, France, Serbia, the Netherlands, Canada, among many). I began to go through a few templates, re-coding them, but then I realized that it would be much easier to create a meta-template. I have created one on a subpage, User:Mr. Absurd/History, but I'd like some feedback and discussion before I go ahead with it, to both improve the template and hopefully obtain consensus.

There seem to be two basic types of these infoboxes — those that contain a small number of articles, grouped in one main list (like Belarus), and those with a large number of articles, in several subgroups (like Germany). The proposed template accounts for both of these types. Basically, each article in the list will go under a |data# = parameter, and subgroup headers will go under |header#=. However, if an article has no subgroup headers, a parameter called |bold = yes triggers the template to bold these links and increase the line-height slightly, while |bold = no (or the absence of |bold) will leave the article links at a normal weight, and with a smaller line-height to account for a large number of articles. (These two basic "types" can be seen on the right).

So what do you think? Do you support the idea? hate it? have questions? want to suggest something? Please reply! Your comments and criticism will help this to succeed. (Also, I need a name — I was thinking Template:Infobox Country history or Template:Infobox History of country, but I'm not sure if they really follow naming conventions). Thank you! Mr. Absurd (talk) 04:51, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:History of country or even better Template:Country history. I like the latter here as it's the easiest to type in ... JIMO. J. D. Redding 17:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I like it, I just hope people are not going to follow your example with those massive coa's/flags. Also, make the section headers thinner I think, the point of these is to be as minimalist as possible. As for the name - naming conventions are overrated, just dump it somewhere and people will use it from there unless you've really messed up, in which case it can be moved with two clicks. :) +Hexagon1 ^(t) 07:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I followed your advice about the section headers — they're now the same size as the list and a little thinner. Though I personally like the image large, I've made them smaller, because I see the need for the infobox to be, as you said, as minimal as possible. Mr. Absurd (talk) 23:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I like it. Agree with Hexagon1 that the bold heds should be a little smaller. Also be prepared for wailing and gnashing of teeth from people who think their wee flags actually convey important info. I'm interested in how this template, or something similar, might be applied to e.g. the Creek Nation, which has an absurd "ethnic group" infobox on its page. That flag really has to go as well. It seems to be completely imaginary. -- ℜob ℂ. alias ⒶⓁⒶⓇⓄⒷ 11:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right. If we have to use images, I personally don't really like using flags — I like COAs or satellite images (though that really only works for islands, like Ireland). Especially because some flags only correlate to a small part of the country's history, like Canada's, which was only established in 1967 — on a historical level, it doesn't really relate very well. Mr. Absurd (talk) 23:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Just put an option in to display an image ... that way the flag, symbol, ect. can be displayed ...

I like the bold heads w/ the grey area ... just a personal preferences ... makes it easier too to see the 'group' of links ...

just a comment ... J. D. Redding 17:45, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

This is something I would have proposed a while ago if I had much programming experience. Overall, the template is good, I agree with the points above, I think a flag should be included, but smaller than the ones above. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 13:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It all sounds good to me. I apologize to say I have no real suggestions, comments, or criticism, at least not right now, but it's definitely a good idea. LordAmeth (talk) 14:47, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

agree with teh box. looks good. peace Nathraq (talk) 20:20, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a wonderful idea, as it will bring organization to this aspect of Wikipedia. Sorry that I have no suggestions or comments. Everything looks pretty good to me already! Good luck and happy editing! --Benedict of Constantinople (talk) 00:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I want you to see this template on Thai Wikipedia. It's the Template:Thailand history. I suggest you make the border of the box thinner like that template. Also, I think the header should be more outstanding like that template which has the brown bar on the top. Honestly, I like the table system more - it shows you if the two kingdom splits and compound together and what years (The years there are not Anno Domini - it's Buddhist era) --Passawuth (talk) 10:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

That is a lovely template, thanks for showing it to me. I'm not sure what you mean by "border of the box" though — could you elaborate? Also, about the brown bar on top, I disagree, because the series boxes are meant to be unobtrusive, unlike the typical infobox, which is directly related to the article (that's at least my opinion, anyway). As for the table system, I think it would only work in very specific instances — for the typical history series, there aren't really kingdom splits and joins that a table system would be used for. Mr. Absurd (talk) 18:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I've made a few changes to the headers — I removed the background entirely and bumped the font size up a bit. Is this better or worse? Mr. Absurd (talk) 18:33, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

It make no differences to my eyes. I've changed the template so I can elaborate to you more easily. Border of the infobox - that's where I lighten up. If the header couldn't have a bar, can it have a symbol/seal/coat of arms ? --Passawuth (talk) 05:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for showing me what you meant. However, that border colour is used throughout English Wikipedia — it's the colour used on every standard template, as well as Wikipedia itself (i.e., all the borders throughout the site). As such, I don't think we should be changing it. I'm confused what you mean about a symbol/seal/coat of arms; there's already a parameter for an image, as you can see in the examples above. Did you mean something more than that?

Also, I've reverted the change that Reddi made to the background colour — as said earlier, we're trying to be unobtrusive, and I think the colour is distracting and unnecessary (although I would be open to the suggestion if he provided a good reason). Mr. Absurd (talk) 23:59, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I was trying to get it the way it is now ... with the title highlighted a lil bit ./.. and withthe standard #f8eaba history color std ... sincerely, J. D. Redding

Oh, okay, that explains that then. Where else is this colour used? (I'm just curious, I don't recognize it). I still don't really like it (or think it's necessary) but I'll leave it and hopefully we can get some feedback from other users. In the meantime, I'm going to add a little padding to the header, as it's a bit squished as-is. Mr. Absurd (talk) 03:58, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I see where the colour is from now. I suppose it's better to keep it, then, for consistency. Mr. Absurd (talk) 04:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Never mind what I said. --Passawuth (talk) 10:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Update

After some tweaking, by myself and other users, the template has now been moved to Template:Country history and can be "enacted". I'm sure it will go through a bit of a rough patch as we have to convert a whole whack of very different templates, but hopefully it will eventually lead to a much more standardized set of articles. Thank you for all your support and positive comments! Any further suggestions can be directed at the template talk page. Mr. Absurd (talk) 04:17, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested move of Aztec and Inca

Please discuss this move here-- LYKANTROP ✉ 14:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Please, please, please...

I am working on the 2008/9 Schools Wikipedia, due out first week Sept, content fixed from ten days time. It is a big project and a popular one (the online 2007 version will overtake Citizendium on Alexa within a few months and there are more than a million offline users). We want to include a lot of portal pages but it would really help to have portal pages for curriculum topics so a teacher can look at all the relevant resources in one. A few exist but many do not. Ones like "the Tudors" "Medieval Britain" British History 1500-1750 and 1750-1900 etc (see http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/curriculum.htm for ideas) would improve the schools wikipedia no end and also bring teachers onto the main site. I don't have the skills or time to do any of these. Please could someone here have a go at some? --BozMo talk 09:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a run at a Medieval Britain Portal today. --Kaly99 (talk) 16:28, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

List of countries in chronological order of achieving statehood

Does anybody want to take a look at List of countries in chronological order of achieving statehood? It is full of dubious countries and other errors. For example, it says that Bohemia, not the Czech Republic, became independent on January 1, 1993 from Czechoslovakia. (An IP keeps changing that one back.) Thanks, Phlegm Rooster (talk) 17:38, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Founding of Japan

On the list of countries in chronological order of achieving statehood, the date given for the founding of Japan, 660 BC, is the traditional date derived from Japanese legend. But in actual historical fact, the Yamato state which would evolve into a unified, coordinated country did not emerge until many centuries later. Whether that date is 538, when the capital was founded at Asuka, 710 when the capital was founded at Nara, or earlier in the Kofun period, is certainly a matter of debate. Many scholars of Japanese history would likely argue that there was no country of "Japan" until 1868. But in any case, whatever date we may choose, it's certainly not 660 BC, as that's simply completely historically inaccurate, going back to a period during the Jomon period before there was any organized government or society of any kind beyond small chiefdoms, extended family clan villages, or something to that effect. Please see discussion at Talk:List of countries in chronological order of achieving statehood, and respond there, not here. Thank you. LordAmeth (talk) 01:45, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date-autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional, after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages of using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

(1) In-house only

(a) It works only for the WP "elite".
(b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
(c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

(2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

(a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

(3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

(a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
(b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
(c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

(4) Typos and misunderstood coding

(a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
(b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
(c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

(5) Edit-mode clutter

(a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

(6) Limited application

(a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
(b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors, and the consensus for change is overwhelming. I seek in-principle consensus here for the removal of date autoformatting from the main text of articles related to this WikiProject, using a script; such a move would also be sensitive to local objections on any article talk page. The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links.

You may wish to peruse the following capped text to compare two examples, with and without date autoformatting. The DA is set at international style—the one pertaining in this particular article—to show all WPians how the blue dates are displayed to visitors. MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted, analogous to our highly successful guidelines for the use of varieties of English. The choice of style is audited during the running of the script to ensure that it is appropriate to the article (i.e., consistent, and country-related where appropriate).

Two examples for comparison

EXAMPLE 1 Original

Marshal Suchet had received orders from Napoleon to commence operations on 14 June; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the Valais and in Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), and close them against the Austrians. On 15 June, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from Montmeilian, as far as Geneva; which he invested. Thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of Meillerie and St. Maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the Austrian columns from the Valais. At Meillerie the French were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the Austrian right column, on 21 June. By means of forced marches the whole of this column, which Baron Frimont himself accompanied, reached the Arve on 27 June.^[2] The left column, under Count Bubna, crossed Mount Cenis on 24 June and 25 June. On 28 June, the column was sharply opposed by the French at Conflans; of which place, however, the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession.^[3]

To secure the passage of the river Arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on 27 June, to Bonneville, on its left; but the French, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. In the mean time, however, the Austrians gained possession of the passage at Carrouge; by which means the French were placed under the necessity of evacuating Bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the Arve. The Austrian column now passed Geneva, and drove the French from the heights of Grand Saconex and from St. Genix. On 29 June, this part of the Austrian army moved towards the Jura; and, on 21 July, it ...

DA-free

Marshal Suchet had received orders from Napoleon to commence operations on 14 June; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the Valais and in Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), and close them against the Austrians. On 15 June, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from Montmeilian, as far as Geneva; which he invested. Thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of Meillerie and St. Maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the Austrian columns from the Valais. At Meillerie the French were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the Austrian right column, on 21 June. By means of forced marches the whole of this column, which Baron Frimont himself accompanied, reached the Arve on 27 June.^[2] The left column, under Count Bubna, crossed Mount Cenis on 24 and 25 June. On 28 June, the column was sharply opposed by the French at Conflans; of which place, however, the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession.^[3]

To secure the passage of the river Arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on 27 June, to Bonneville, on its left; but the French, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. In the mean time, however, the Austrians gained possession of the passage at Carrouge; by which means the French were placed under the necessity of evacuating Bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the Arve. The Austrian column now passed Geneva, and drove the French from the heights of Grand Saconex and from St. Genix. On 29 June, this part of the Austrian army moved towards the Jura; and, on 21 July, it ...

EXAMPLE 2 Original

On 5 July the main body of the Bavarian Army reached Chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during 6 June. On this day, its advanced posts communicated, by Epernay, with the Prussian Army. On 7 July Prince Wrede received intelligence of the Convention of Paris, and at the same time, directions to move towards the Loire. On 8 July Lieutenant General Czernitscheff fell in with the French between St. Prix and Montmirail; and drove him across the Morin, towards the Seine. Previously to the arrival of the IV (Bavarian) Corps at Château-Thierry; the French garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. On 10 July, the Bavarian Army took up a position between the Seine and the Marne; and Prince Wrede's Headquarters were at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.

DA-free

On 5 July the main body of the Bavarian Army reached Chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during 6 June. On this day, its advanced posts communicated, by Epernay, with the Prussian Army. On 7 July Prince Wrede received intelligence of the Convention of Paris, and at the same time, directions to move towards the Loire. On 8 July Lieutenant General Czernitscheff fell in with the French between St. Prix and Montmirail; and drove him across the Morin, towards the Seine. Previously to the arrival of the IV (Bavarian) Corps at Château-Thierry; the French garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. On 10 July, the Bavarian Army took up a position between the Seine and the Marne; and Prince Wrede's Headquarters were at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.

I look forward to your feedback. Tony (talk) 07:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

A survey that takes place on a user's talk page (User:Tony1/Support for the removal of date autoformatting) instead of on the relevant guidline talk page is not much of an indicator of anything.

At the moment there is a specific discussion if autoformatting should be removed from Julian dates as it has been argued that the ISO option in users preferences means that to link Julian dates (as used for all British Irish and American articles and biographies before 1752) is misleading. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Gregorian calendar --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the place, but let me throw in my $0.05 (blame inflation ;) ). I prefer the linked dates, because they let interested readers (of which I am occasionally one) look immediately at other events on the given date. I consider that useful (if not of earth-shattering importance). I also don't see great clutter added by the extra blue links on dates here. (These are not the most-cluttered examples I've seen.) I don't think linking dates, in general, is a big issue to clutter or confusion, nor to de-emphasizing important links; isn't the whole idea of having links to enable impulsive jumps to new pages? Yes, I know, also to important related or clarifying content, but I don't know how many times I've been reading something & clicked just to see what the related subject was, including dates & years. FWIW. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 16:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Pulitzer Prize winning history books

I am not sure how active this project is, but if someone or even the project, is looking for something to do, Wikipedia's coverage of Pulitzer Prize winning history books is poor at best. These are some of the most important historical works of all time and we are lacking even basic articles on the majority of them. I created an article today on a book I have read. It would be good if everyone could just read through the list and if you have read a book create an article, even a stub. Every little bit helps. KnightLago (talk) 02:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

British-India Holocaust

This new article looks rather POV-ridden to me, and apears to exaggerate the death toll and, possibly, the extent of British responsibility (especially the comparisons to the Nazis and Stalin). It isn't at all in line with the article on this topic (Great Famine of 1876–78) and seems unessessary and possibly should be considered a POV-fork of that article. Can this be saved, or should it be nominated for deletion? Nick Dowling (talk) 11:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems like it should be deleted, as the subject is already covered by the "Great Famine" article. If we wanted to incorporate a little more into the Great Famine article about accusations against the British, that could be alright. But the "Holocaust" article as it stands is both redundant, and founded upon a biased view of the event - the very fact that the word "Holocaust" is used is evidence of that. LordAmeth (talk) 17:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've nominated it for AfD. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/British-India Holocaust. LordAmeth (talk) 18:01, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Nick Dowling (talk) 12:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Two major issues

Hello,

I feel I am being bullied from editing at two articles: Norse colonization of the Americas, and the telescope article. The telescope article isn't that much of a problem, but I am concerned over the Norse colonization of the Americas. I recently made a very ?good? addition to the article but it has been reverted. I don't understand. They will probably say it was because of a POV. I don't understand: the new additions were as "nice" as I could have put them. I am half-native American, but I feel I shouldn't try and degrade people so I wanted to be fair. Is my newest edit there in good graces??? I actually really respect the Germans and I think that they're strong. Guderian would often ride with his troops in the lead tank (at the expense of his staff's pleas). InternetHero (talk) 21:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

At a glance, the edits here are unsourced, of poor grammar or punctuation, & change the meaning to no discernible cause or benefit. I'd revert, too.

This move was ill-advised, IMO; a mention of radiotelescopes in the history is necessary to complete the progression before turning to types. This more properly belongs in a history of optics; a brief summary, as before was changed, is more apt. And "made monumental advances" is POV & OT for the telescope. I'd revert that, too. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 21:46, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, O.K. My edit was on the left, though. I added a lot of info, and it wasn't unsourced... Critism taken. InternetHero (talk) 21:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

These claims are unsourced AFAIK. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 22:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to put a citation on every freakin sentence... I don't understand the grammar part. IMHO, this sentence is of poor quality: "All four of Erik the Red's children were to visit the North American continent, his sons Leif, Thorvald and Thorstein and their sister Freydis. One of the sons, Thorvald , died there."

I changed it to this: "All four of Erik the Red's children were to visit the North American continent: his sons Leif, Thorvald, and Thorstein as well as their half-sister Freydis. Unfortunately, Thorvald died while attempting to explore the lands there." (forgot a comma)

Absolutely no offence, but do you know what grammar is? Its the sequencing of clauses and punctuation. I'm actually very good with the sequencing of time. Look here for more info on grammar (I got best answer). InternetHero (talk) 21:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

When you change "in force" to "with a force", I wonder why; that's a change in meaning. Call it something other than grammar if you prefer.

"I don't want to put a citation on every freakin sentence" Well, if you're going to make claims, they need sources (or you risk having it deleted without warning). I don't see sources. If it's somebody else's claim, {{fact}} tag it, & I'll withdraw my complaint over it. (Others might disagree.) TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 22:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Fine, I'll tag every sentence. As for grammar, look here: Talk-page. InternetHero (talk) 22:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

History and FA

Maybe this is my subject view but I think that number of featured articles about general history topics is small. We have a lot specific topics (small chronological periods or events) but I think that is more important to have articles like History of Puerto Rico or History of Philipines. Also we can make some good or featured article about some historian (maybe Arnold J. Toynbee)--Vojvodae ist 17:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm with you 100%. One difficulty in getting "History of…" articles to FA status is that they tend to attract lots of little drive-by additions by casual editors who know (or believe) one fact about the subject. Then there are quaint antiquarian additions that suddenly shift the tone of an article from balanced neutrality to dozy yarn-spinning. And of course, in some cases you get editors with political or nationalist missions that they feel they must champion. Ideally, every "History of…" article should have a small squad of guardian historians to knit it up again when it unravels. (The history of my home state is perhaps one of the most desperate cases.)

I have my eye on Holy Roman Empire — a major historical article which is regularly beset by oddball Germanic mystics, paranoids who see a Nazi behind every item from German history, and people with an obscure grudge against the Eastern Church. Three other Wikipedias (German, Spanish, and Russian) have produced FAs on the Holy Roman Empire, so I'd like to see us borrow heavily from them. I can help with the German, and less so with the Spanish. Anyone interested? -- ℜob C. alias ⒶⓁⒶⓇⓄⒷ 18:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

American Founding Fathers

On Founding Fathers of the United States, I added Richard Montgomery. I am not sure if he should be listed there, but give me your opinions.-Red4tribe (talk) 20:57, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Re-Assessment of the Cold War article

Hello...the Cold War article is up for FAC, but there is a critique that this wikiproject has an interest in the article, and has rated it a B. I'd like to request a reassessment, but am unsure of how to make this request. What is necessary to make the request for reassessment? Thanks! Hires an editor (talk) 19:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Templates for timelines

I have created {{timeline-item}} which (with {{timeline-start}} and {{timeline-end}}) generate a definition list for a series of dated events, each being wrapped in an hCalendar microformat, with the date generated by {{Start date}}. The example on the template's documentation is taken from Iraq disarmament crisis timeline 2001–2003.

{{timeline-links}} can optionally be added to a page, to pass its hCalendar events (generated by the aforesaid templates, or others) to external timeline-generating and other hCalendar-using websites.

I'd be grateful for constructive suggestions for improvements; and as to where there templates might be best employed. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy Mabbett; Andy Mabbett's contributions 21:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Bush Doctrine background

A consensus forming input is needed on Talk:Bush Doctrine#Bush Doctrine background. Please include your Wikipedian view there. Thanks. Scierguy (talk) 17:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for 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 22:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Modern era and modern history

I just joined this project after noticing an issue that could use some attention from project members. The articles modern era and modern history attempt to cover the same topic, but are kept separate. I proposed a merger and started a thread over at Talk:Modern era#Merge.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Mercantilism

Mercantilism 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. -- SRE.K.A~~nnoyomous~~.L.24_[c] 05:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

College football history

The Wikipedia College Football Project has been diligently working on historical articles pertaining to college football -- and through this, we are finding some interesting facts! Samuel Colgate, Jr. once was the head coach at Colgate University, Andrew Frank Schoeppel was head coach at Fort Hays State University and then became governor of Kansas, and several other neat facts! Would your project like to be made aware of these historical figures by placing your project tag on the article talk pages?--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Historical event list - new template

Folks,

I have put together a new template {{event list}} designed to allow a 1, 2, 3 or more column table of key events to be added to an article describing events over time. The template allows the easy addition of date stamped events, and the easy addition or insertion or removal of events as the article evolves over time without editors having to worry about table syntax, adjusting and balancing rows or columns, etc.

Peet Ern (talk) 10:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Monroe Doctrine

Can somebody check out the string of recent edits to Monroe Doctrine? Thanks, Grsz ¹¹ ^→Review! 04:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany

The article Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany is within WikiProject History. It is a featured article. I am desperately seeking more regular contributors who are willing to contribute positively to the article for further improvement and suggestions. Thanks. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:32, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Friendly Notice of an Article for Deletion

The article Paul LaVinn is being considered for deletion. You may participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul LaVinn.

This notice is intended to make editors aware of the discussion and to help make Wikipedia a better place, not to influence the discussion in question in any way. Please notify the discussion group that you came to the group from this notice. If you feel this notice is a violation of Wikipedia:Canvassing please let the posting editor know.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:35, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

On assessment

How can I have my article assessed by the Wikiproject History? Thanks.--Pampi1010 (talk) 08:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Kingdom of Mysore FAR

I have nominated Kingdom of Mysore for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Since the Kingdom of Mysore was a historical region, feedback from historians will be very helpful. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Kingdom of Humanity

Help needed on the above article, on a very obscure putative micronation in the Spratly Islands. I came to it from the reliable sources noticeboard and have commented on sources, but more help would be useful. It is a history article, but many of the sources that mention it (always in passing) are texts in international law. I would prefer history sources only to be used, but would very much welcome any comments. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

History of Mumbai

History of Mumbai, a recently listed GA, has been listed for a Peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/History of Mumbai/archive2. Comments, Suggestions are welcomed. Thanks, Kensplanet^T _C 09:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Chinese imperialism → Territorial expansions in the history of China

Chinese imperialism article has just come up at WP:RM for renaming. 76.66.198.171 (talk) 12:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

History of Mumbai at FAC

History of Mumbai is currently at FAC at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Mumbai. Comments, Suggestions are welcomed. Thanks, Kensplanet^T _C 12:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page.
Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project.
No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work.

Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:56, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for Input

I just created a post on the medical project page: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Medicalization. I would like to request editors with an orientation towards history to come to this page and give their input. I'm concerned about what I see as a medicalization of many general-interest pages on wikipedia. Many of these topics already have very well-written historical material in the page, but it is not featured prominently in the introduction, and is instead downplayed and the emphasis placed on specialized medical and scientific terminology. I would like to get a debate going about general policy of how to handle situations like this. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Cazort (talk) 03:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is more a message for the History of Science Wikiproject. The history of medical conditions is not always easily covered in the introduction, but most good medical articles have a historical angle in the introduction. JFW | T@lk 11:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Rating error?

I notice that the aticle History of Iran is rated mid-importance and History of New Zealand is rated top-importance. This seems odd to me. I would think that the "History of" countries articles would all be of about equal importance. --Ong saluri (talk) 07:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Telescope history

Hi. Does the history section for the invention of the talk:telescope only rely on the most "mass-scale" telescope inventors, or does the lenses, mathematical equations, and prototypes to be included as well? Thanks.

New taskforce

There is currently a new taskforce being setted up at WP:GLASS within the WikiProject Physics. However, it seems to me that it should at the same time also be within the WikiProject History, based on the category Glass history and the article Glass itself. In the category Glass history there is just one good article so far (Hebron glass) and there are many in need of attention. Is there any opposition to adding a link to the new taskforce on the WikiProject History page? Do you have other suggestion or ideas? You are very welcome to contribute. Thanks...--Afluegel (talk) 07:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion

If you are familiar with the medieval Islamic history, Please share your opinion in Talk:Samanids#Title, about the title of the page, the infobox and the lead. Alefbe (talk) 03:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Need help placing portraits

Hi all. Recently about 3000 high-resolution, high-quality portraits of famous English people (mostly 16-19th century nobility) were added to Commons in Commons:National Portrait Gallery, London. The most difficult part of integrating these images into Wikipedia is finding appropriate articles to add them to and inserting them appropriately. For the ones I'm not sure about, I use {{announce-image}} to notify users on the talk page. I've already done this with a great many of them (roughly from the beginning up through Henry Brouncker in alphabetical order) but I need help to do the rest. Please assist me in placing these images here and on other-language Wikipedias. Thank you! Dcoetzee 10:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Vladimir I of Kiev

Hello. It would appear that the current name of this article is contested. I'd like to ask an administrator knowledgeable in the article topic (Kievan Rus'; especially English language literature on it) to visit the page and make an assessment of the resulting discussion to determine the validity of the concern raised. --Illythr (talk) 14:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Does your WikiProject care about talk pages of redirects?

Does your project care about what happens to the talk pages of articles that have been replaced with redirects? If so, please provide your input at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Thanks, Matt (talk) 01:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:09, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Request for people who have copies of any of the following publications.

Abbate, Janet. Inventing the Internet. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999.
Campbell-Kelly, Martin; Aspray, William. Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: BasicBooks, 1996.
Graham, Ian S. The HTML Sourcebook: The Complete Guide to HTML. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1995.
Krol, Ed. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet, 1987.
Krol, Ed. Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog. O'Reilly & Associates, 1992.
Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks, September, 1991.

These texts were used as references in the creation of the History of the Internet article. However, they were added to the article at a time when there was no accepted system of inline citation, and there is no link between the references and what they are cited to support. This leaves some parts of the article apparently uncited, but supposedly supported by these texts.

Can someone with these texts please read over the article, and identify the sections and statements that are supported by these texts.

Thanks in advance. --Barberio (talk) 20:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Roman historian

Hello, anyone who is knowledgeable on Roman historians care to chime in on this discussion: Talk:Pugnaces_Britanniae#Gratius_Falsius Thank you Green Squares (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Style for names in historical articles.

When dealing with foreign place names where the place has essentially remained the same place, but either the name, or the romanization of the name, have changed, how should the article deal with it? I'm talking about Bombay vs Mumbai or Peking vs Beijing, not Gaul vs France.

For example, an article on modern Bombay or modern India might use the name "Mumbai", but then what should an article on the East India Company use? An article on the 2008 Olympics would obviously say "Beijing", but what about an article on the Boxer Rebellion? An editor recently asked a question about this on the discussion page for the Treaty of Shimonoseki. I started to answer that we generally use the historical names, but it occurred to me that we were consistently using "Taiwan", not "Formosa" to refer to the country. We don't really seem to have any rule that is applied consistently, and I was unsuccessful finding anything in the Manual of Style. What is the convention? Readin (talk) 00:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what's standard on WP, if there is a convention that most follow, or what, but as for myself, in cases of romanization issues (e.g. Peking vs Beijing), I just use the most modern form, while in cases of an actual name change (e.g. Edo vs Tokyo) I use the appropriate historical name, and put something like "today, Tokyo" or "modern day Tokyo" in parentheses on the first mention.

For the most part, I think, as far as I know, that this is the standard in academic writing, at least academic writing on Japan. There are some funny exceptions - there is ongoing debate as to what exactly Heian-kyő, aka Kyő, aka Keishi aka Miyako aka Meaco aka Kyoto was called in various periods, and so Kyoto is often used anachronistically to apply to any/all time periods after a certain point. I don't know the politics behind the change from Formosa to Taiwan, so I won't comment on that, but things like Peking->Beijing, Yedo vs Edo, Napa or Napha vs Naha, I would almost always use the modern version of the romanization, but not an anachronistically different name. LordAmeth (talk) 10:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Naming conventions for Anglo-Saxon peoples

I've created a category Category:Peoples of Anglo-Saxon England to bring together all of the groupings, sub-groupings, kingdoms, tribes, clans etc of Anglo-Saxon England, and one of the things that this has revealed is a degree of inconsistency in how they are named in article title. Ought the following different ways of titling articles on essentially equivalent subjects to be harmonised and, if so, are there any existing conventions that could be brought to bear?

Middle Angles vs Kingdom of the East Angles
Wessex vs Kingdom of Essex vs South Saxons
Magonsæte vs Tomsaete vs Pecsaetan

JimmyGuano (talk) 16:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

History of the University of Florida

The History of the University of Florida article was just recently created, and could use a major expansion. NorwalkJames (talk) 16:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Expulsion of Jesuits from South America

User:Truthkeeper88 who is copy-editing the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos article asked a question concerning the reason for the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish America in 1767 on this talk page. Quoting from there: From what I can tell the sequence of events was: 1. Political tension between Portugal and Spain over control of the region; 2. the general expulsion of all Jesuits from Spanish territories in 1767. Is that correct? Was the political tension prior to the general expulsion, and was it a cause of the general expulsion? Since I am unsure of the answer to these questions I am looking for help from the History WikiProject. Thanks bamse (talk) 22:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Korean history at Joseon Dynasty

Joseon Dynasty has been protected over a dispute on how to characterize the state of Joseon: was it fully sovereign, a vassal state of China, or somewhere in between? Your comments at Talk:Joseon Dynasty, particularly references to scholarly sources, would be welcome. Jpatokal (talk) 15:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of "History of the Earth"

This review is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Sweeps, a project devoted to re-reviewing Good Articles listed before August 26, 2007. History of the Earth has been reassessed, see discussion, and will be placed on hold until issues can be addressed. If an editor does not express interest in addressing these issues within seven days, the article will be delisted.--ErgoSum•talk•trib 17:56, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated History of Arizona for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:31, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I ask for your help

Dear Colleagues, I ask for your help on two issues:

Do you know any serious works about history of American, British mail or mail from other countries, or affecting the subject? If possible, please give some references.
How would you have done a review article about the history of mail from UK, USA or any other country, correct in terms of methodology of historical science and balanced in content, if such a task was set before you? What would the approximate structure of the work, which would be used periodization and what about the ratio of the material would be grouped on different aspects of the mail (the organization of work, postal routes, forms of postal stationery, signs, postage stamps, post in the culture, etc.).

I'd like to hear different views. On the real article from the Wikipedia please do not rely (as Wikipedia itself for itself - not a reliable source). Thanks in advance. Oleg (Scorpion-811), administrator of ru-wiki. --Scorpion-811 (talk) 10:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

What's missing from Outline of history?

Also, here's a relevant discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

The Transhumanist 00:58, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Call for editors to join African history Wikiproject

Any editors with a specific interest in African history are welcome to check out a new project proposal: African history. This is not meant as a substitute for the Africa Wikiproject. Instead it would rank 'Africa' as a parent project. But it would concentrate on history. Click here for more details: African history. Ackees (talk) 15:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Spanish Empire & Discovery of America

I found that many if not most of history sections in articles about Central and South America locations use "European Discovery", "European Settlement" and "First Europeans". I believe that should be changed to Spanish in most cases and some other nationalities in others. Is there a reason why that should not be the case? Thanks for guidance. -->))))º>^(talk) 16:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

History sections of math articles

This thread on uses of primary source in the history sections of Math articles (at WP:WPM, of course) may benefit from input from participants in this WikiProject, especially from someone that may have a background/interest in the history of Science/Math/Logic. Pcap ping 13:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Date discussion impacting historical dates

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) concerning whether or not dates in the format YYYY-MM-DD should be accepted in Wikipedia articles, and if they are, whether they should be considered to be ISO 8601 dates. ISO 8601 dates are always Gregorian dates, and agreement must be formed among those exchanging information if years before 1583 are to be used. Perhaps members of this project will know if such dates are ever used in historical publications, and if so, are all old dates converted to the Gregorian calendar? Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). --Jc3s5h (talk) 19:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Persian Empire

Please note that there is an editwar occuring at Persian Empire, with content shifting from being a 60k article, a redirect, or a disambiguation page. Previous to the 2 month long edit war, the article was a 60k article. As this article appears to be within the scope of your wikiproject, I thought I'd let you know.

76.66.197.30 (talk) 00:23, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Request for peer review

Hi, I'm thinking of submitting 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramla as a featured-article candidate. Before I do, I'm looking for good editors with backgrounds in history who'd be willing to review the article to judge whether there are factual errors, glaring omissions of key facts, points of view, or sources, and whether, overall, it is a fair summary of events. Any help with that would be much appreciated. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing policies

I'd like to draw your attention to the conflict between the B-class sourcing criteria which points to Wikipedia:MILMOS#SOURCES and the contents of the essay at Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples. I am intending to revise the Reliable source example essay to point directly at Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples and then to deal with lesser sources (tertiary sources, non historian produced secondaries of academic and non-academic quality in press, non press sources, primary sources). Fifelfoo (talk) 12:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Aboriginal peoples history C/E Assistance requested please

The high importance article Aboriginal peoples in Canada needs some grammar and copy editing assistance to pass GA. Would like to enjoin collaboration on how can the article be improved to meet the points brought forward? Thank you.SriMesh | talk 22:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing

Can some people here please look at the sourcing in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mandell Creighton/archive1 on the British Historian Mandell Creighton. I have some concerns. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Popular pages

I have requested a list of popular pages for this project at [3]. --Ysangkok (talk) 15:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Membership list

Anyone have any complaints if I drop people with red-links (especially contribs); and maybe re-organize the list? -- Mjquinn_id (talk) 19:08, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Origin of the word cavalier

"Cavalier derives from the Spanish word caballeros" (strike)

"Shakespeare used the word cavaleros to describe an overbearing swashbuckler or swaggering gallant in Henry IV, Part 2, in which Shallow says "I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London." (strike)

"Cavalier derives from the French word chevalier, itself originating in the Vulgar Latin word caballarius, meaning horseman." (add)

The majority of English words relating to law and war are loan words from French. This was imposed on the English after they were conquered in 1066. For many centuries the language of the court was French. (just a comment)

Jeremiahta (talk) 04:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)jeremiahta 11/26/2009Jeremiahta (talk) 04:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You make it sound like they were colonized by France, like as if England was Vietnam. England after 1066 was ruled by Normans, not by "the French". French was the court language because it was seen as the most refined, cultured language of the time. Russia would adopt French as the language of the court as well for a time in the 17th-18th centuries. I don't think anything was "imposed on the English" in the sense of an imperial power imposing things upon its colonies - the language evolved naturally, as languages do, as the result of Norman influence. LordAmeth (talk) 19:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject History to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject History/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Social equality

The current article at Affirmative Action is fully about social equality with various phrases such as "positive action" redirecting there. I have suggested moving to and merging with Social equality and both are part of this project. It shouldn't require much change to either articles basis so I could do it but please go ahead and chime in at it on Talk:Affirmative_action#Social_equality or Talk:Social_equality#Affirmative_Action ~ R.T.G 08:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Both articles are rather pathetically US centric in ideological, theoretical, academic and disciplinary aspects. Neither represents a valid review of relevant literatures, and neither is written in appropriate encyclopedic or summary style. "Social equality"'s explicit exclusion of the socialist movement is somewhere between laughable and pathetic. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that discussion is going to go on Talk:Social_equality#Affirmative_Action. There is already a dispute so if anyone thinks that it is or isn't social equality please chime in there. ~ R.T.G 22:21, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Open Discussion

Project participans might be interested in the following discussion. As a Third Opinion commenter on the subject I shall not make additional comments regarding the present discussion in the interest of remaining neutral. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Economic history of China (pre-1911) FAC

I believe this is of interest to the wikiproject.Teeninvestor (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

This project

Has a major deficiency in project management:

unassessed articles [4] ( 6,000 + )
category page tagging [5] (not even 200 done with a very weird skew/undue towards years in South Africa) - any particular - reason? Satu Suro 14:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

New category Category:Bison hunting

I've formed a new category to collect all the articles (and new subcats) dealing with the hunting of bison (primarily American buffalo). Since bison hunting is 99% a historical issue, and closely tied into the history of Western Expansion in the United States, I've tagged it for this project. I'd appreciate any input on building the category, and also as to whether it should be re-named, as though the American buffalo is technically a bison, it is far better-known by the term "buffalo", and labeling the category "Bison hunting" might hurt more than it helps. Alternately, folks could try and add a few pages on hunting European bison (wisent, etc) to round it out. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Pop culture history

Does this article have any redeeming features: Pop culture history, 1920-present? I'm thinking of nominating it for deletion as it is so poorly put together. The article creator removed the maintenance tags. Fences&Windows 03:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Carl Warburg

RATING REQUIRED. I have recently originated and expanded an article on Carl Warburg. I have added to the WikiHistory project. Please can the project review this article and give it a quality rating. Thanks. --Roland Sparkes (talk) 11:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

'Warburg Tincture'

Query: does the article Warburg's Tincture, a medical history article, come under the remit of the WikiProject History?--Roland Sparkes (talk) 11:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

List of states

I want to discuss the section headings in the series of articles titled List of state leaders by year. I am not exactly sure if this is the right place. But anyway...In some years, the section heads are categorized according to continents: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe etc. But in most years there is also a section of Middle East and North Africa which is highly ambiguous eg., where is Iran in Asia, or in Middle East ? where is Sudan in Africa, or in North Africa ? This results in inconsistent categorization of states. For example, Byzantine Empire is in Middle East in 1157 and in Europe in 1176. (Believe me no notable change in territory of Byzantine Empire between 1157 and 1176.) I think the categorization of these series of articles should be standardized; only the continent and nothing else. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 14:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Nazi Germany

An editor is asserting that this page is not neutral because "the sources come from the Allies", and has made the following changes:[6]. As this editor has elsewhere called laws against Holocaust denial "thought crime" and made edits to Gas chamber to suggest that the use of gas chambers by the Nazis was claimed by "the Allies and Jewish sources", I request that editors assess this claim and these edits. Fences&Windows 21:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Any kind of criminal punishment for just saying something is a thought crime, whether it is holocaust denial, Communism denial, Capitalism denial, Islam denial, Christianity denial and whatever denial. We don't have double-standards. These kind of criminal punishments are EXACTLY thought crimes and restriction of free speech. Otherwise why only these THOUGHT CRIMES apply to some European countries and not i.e. to the United States?--Professional Assassin (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What on earth is Capitalism denial? Saying Capitalism doesn't exist? O_o Could you make a lucid. relevant point please? Hohum (talk) 01:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Mythologization of history

Could someone cleanup and add references or merge Mythologization of history please. It is currently unreferenced and seems to be original research. If anyone thinks it is not worth keeping I'll tag it for deletion, I want to it to be read by some expert eyes before I make any hasty edits. Thanks Mattg82 (talk) 02:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

New article: Timothy Brook (historian)

I've created a basic article for Timothy Brook, together with a couple of recent books.

Many articles mention or cite Timothy Brook. These may now be linked to Timothy Brook (historian). Many thanks. Esowteric+Talk 15:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Have been through the articles and linked to "Timothy Brook", but have left most citation authorlinks alone. Esowteric+Talk 17:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest to keep only selected papers and all books. It look like as some kind of bibliography. Best wishes, --Vojvodae please be free to write :) 18:31, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks: I'll strip out the later parts of the bibliography. Esowteric+Talk 18:36, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Early U.S. woman state legislators

When doing research for writing articles for United States Women's History Month, I found this list of potential articles.

List of early women elected to United States state legislatures. I'm working on the ones of Kentucky and New York now. Any one else want to help by checking to see which ones are missing from Wikipedia? FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I created a temporary list to work off of to work on these articles.

User talk:FloNight/List of the first United States female state legislators‎ FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 22:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Jacob Frank now a mascot for Wikipedia sister project Wikiversity

Hi, I'm developing Jacob Frank (an 18th-century European Jew who developed a religious movement called Frankism) as a mascot for Wikipedia's sister project Wikiversity. Wikiversity aims to be an online open school and university, and was also created to host original research. Because of its nature, it's open to educational resources in almost any format. Wikiversity's mascots appear on User talk pages when new Users are welcomed. In my opinion, the Wikiversity mascots could be used more fully as an opportunity to teach. The previously developed Wikiversity mascots lack intrinsic educational value. For example, they include a jack-o-lantern, a goat and twin babies not noticeably tied to anything else. In contrast, Jacob Frank is tied to a chapter of history that is relatively little-known and is probably interesting to some people who might not have heard of him beforehand. I'm also hoping to use his professed ignorance in real life and his doctrine of "purification through transgression" to introduce the Wikiversity policies of "Be bold" and "Ignore all rules" (Wikipedia has very similar policies with the same names). I would appreciate your going over to Wikiversity to provide feedback on the pages about the mascot: v:User:JacobFrank and v:Template:JacobFrank. The Template is left on new Users' talk pages; the Userpage is linked from the template and provides more information about Jacob Frank. Also, any ideas for other Wikiversity mascots? Thanks. --AFriedman (talk) 04:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Catholic Church RfC

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Catholic Church has opened to decide which of several versions of the article has consensus, and how best to develop it. Input is welcome. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 00:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Stephens City, Virginia History

Hello, I am needing some help and am not sure which board to go to. I am needing help writing a condensed version of the History of Stephens City, Virginia. I have tried and seriously failed. I am trying to get the Stephens City, Virginia article up to Good Article status and the reviewers have said that the current history section, while very good, is just too darned long. So my plan is to move the longer history section to History of Stephens City, Virginia and have a condensed version on the Stephens City, Virginia page. I typically write radio station articles, so town/city history isn't my forté. I tried asking for help at WP:CITIES, but that talk page hasn't seen any edits since March 24th. I requested the help of a couple editors from WP:CITIES, but they didn't do much writing either. Is there anyone who could help on this? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 02:27, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Capitalisation of ancient

In an attempt to get a project wide consensus and WP:MOS standard I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Capitalis(z)ation_of_ancient - eg the correct form of "Pottery of A/ancient Greece". Please contribute if possible.77.86.119.83 (talk) 21:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC on Christ myth theory

There is a dispute as to whether Christ myth theory—an article about the theory that Jesus may not have existed as an historical figure—ought to be included in the "pseudohistory" category. Input would be appreciated. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The Invention of the Jewish People

This is an article on a controversial book by a historian. I do not have any major problem with the article, or its contents. But thinking about it, I have problems with the structure that divides reactions to the book into "praise" versus "criticisms." I have come here because I think this is an isue most professional historians have had to address one way or another. Professional historians try to follow professional standards of scholarship, and judge one another's work according to these standards of scholarship. But we all know that Americans love reading books on American history; English love reading about English history, Greeks love reading about greek history and so on - and if someone writes a book that seriously challenges one's national self-image, that person can be subjct to tremendous criticism, even death threats. My point is that history books are often written (or published) with different interests or motives, and are judged by people with radically different interests an criteria.

Sections on "praise and criticism" - and I think this is true for many history books - often muddle this divide, the divide between people who judge a work purely on scholarchip grounds and people who judge it for other reasons.

I wrote a section on the talk page here raising this issue. I'd appreciate it if any of you who get what I am talking about would read the article - it is pretty short - and consider commenting. This is not so big a deal as to call for an RfC. I would just like the views of historians who work in other parts of the world to comment, as they could comment more dispassionately and represent "history" as a scholarly field. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed infobox

There are a lot of articles on important historial roads and trails, ranging from ancient history to relatively recent areas. There doesn't seem to be any particular infobox template for these and it seems worthwhile to create one. Any objection to creating a template:infobox historical road that looks like the adjacent? --Mcorazao (talk) 16:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Why is {{Infobox road}} not suitable? Could it be made so, with the addition of new parameters? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, that infobox isn't particularly designed for this purpose. There is no field to indicate the significance of the road, which is important for a historical system. The "established"/"decommissioned" fields can't be used for many historical roads. To begin with even if an ancient road was officially commissioned and decommissioned the dates of those occurrences may not be known though the period in which the road was used is still be important. Apart from that many old roads were never "officially" established so such designations would be meaningless. I suppose that infobox could be extended but in my mind a unique infobox with a different look and feel seems worthwhile (for the same reason that there is template:infobox former country and template:infobox country). --Mcorazao (talk) 17:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Mind you, it would be worth clarifying that this infobox should not be used for modern roads that have been simply been decommissioned (e.g. U.S. Route 66). It should be reserved for roads created by old civilizations (e.g. Appian Way) or trail systems before the 20th century that had major historical impact (e.g. Chisolm Trail).--Mcorazao (talk) 18:05, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

It's generally not a good idea to create new infoboxes when minor changes to existing infoboxes will suffice. I urge you to consider that option. Also, there's no need to have white space alongside the sample infobox on this page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:25, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Not sure how to respond:

Are you suggesting that template:infobox former country and template:infobox country should be merged?
How do you define minor?
I don't know what "white space alongside the sample infobox" refers to.

--Mcorazao (talk) 19:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. If you have an actual proposal for a revised Infobox Road, please provide it. --Mcorazao (talk) 20:12, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this needs to be created either. There are four things here not supported by infobox road, all of which would be easy additions. First, historical significance, which is better suited to prose anyways and I would oppose adding. The second and third are the highest and lowest points, which is relevant on some trails but not most. For historic trails that followed a coastline, for example, it's doubtful this would provide useful information. However, I have no problem with adding those parameters to infobox road, there are some modern roads that could use those parameters. Finally, is the website, which I would be staunchly opposed to adding. First, there is no official website for all but a few roads (most of those are privately owned toll roads anyways), second, parameters such as this have a history of being abused, being cluttered with links to promotional websites.Dave (talk) 21:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

? Huh? How did you come up with these "four things" as being key. Whether or not the infobox contains the high/low points is a trivial detail. Is this an attempt at a straw man? As far as omitting the significance, again are you suggesting removing the similar fields from template:infobox person, template:infobox historical event, and template:infobox Historic Site? This would be a strange piece of information to omit from a summary of something historical. Again, though, are you proposing merging template:infobox former country and template:infobox country, template:infobox hiking trail and template: infobox road, template: infobox news event and template: infobox historical event, etc., etc.? --Mcorazao (talk) 03:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

To toss in my $0.02, I will run down the information from your example with my comments:

Name/Alternate name: already handled in Infobox Road (IR) now.
Map: likewise in IR.
Location: not directly handled in IR, but could be added similar to counties, cities, etc.
Significance: should be spelled out in the article prose. To summarize it as a detail in the infobox might unnecessarily downplay that significance. I'm not sure it's needed when that significance should be spelled out in sentence 1, and if not, sentence 2, of the lead paragraph.
Time period: could be added to appear in place of the formed/decommissioned information in IR
Termini: already handled in IR, along with major junctions. Junctions could be valuable additions for American Old West wagon trails that met other trails.
Length: already in IR
Elevations: could be handy to add to existing highways, like Interstate 70, which has the highest location on the Interstate Highway System
Website: should be in the External links section, doesn't need inclusion in the infobox.

There are proposals in the works that would overhaul the look of IR, but the development was stalled because the editors involved got busy during the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Now they are looking through how IR is used to make sure that the new template doesn't break any functionality. Imzadi 1979 → 04:14, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll ask a third time, are you proposing merging template:infobox former country and template:infobox country, template:infobox hiking trail and template: infobox road, template: infobox news event and template: infobox historical event? Additionally some of the other comments here could be applied to other infoboxes. Are you proposing a change to those? --Mcorazao (talk) 19:41, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

None of those questions are in any way relevant to your proposal. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

False statement. All Wikipedians should be striving for consistency across Wikipedia. If you are not willing to address the question of inconsistency then you are not taking the issue seriously. --Mcorazao (talk) 22:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

not false all; and you might want to find out the track record of the person you're addressing before you disparage them. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll answer for the first time personally, I'm not concerned with those other templates, just infobox road (IR). Even so, those other templates don't affect your proposal here. My comments are not meant to extend further than what I explicitly said, that IR could be extended with a few new parameters to provide the functionality, but not the exact format you seek in your proposal. Location (as an alternate to the counties/cities/parishes/rural municipalities parameters) could be added, and used like IR's little sibling {{infobox road small}} (IRS). As well, Time period could be added as an alternate to the formed/decommissioned space in IR and the elevation could be added under the length spot in both IR and IRS. I would oppose adding a website, as that should be left in the External links section, and the Historical significance is best spelled out in the article itself, preferably in the first or second sentences of the lead paragraph. Imzadi 1979 → 20:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The logic here escapes me. I suspect there is some other issue I am stumbling across that nobody wants to mention. Since it seems that continuing this discussion is going to be a waste of everyone's time I'll bow out. --Mcorazao (talk) 22:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm lost as well. It's just my opinion that with a few additions, we already have an infobox that would work very well for what you want. If you want to make your own, that's fine too, but really it's not necessary to do so. As for the mergers, well, you're the one that mentioned it, and I don't have any opinions on the concept of merging those infobox pairings together, except that the hiking trail and road infoboxes have too different of core purposes. I've only come here because of a posting at Template talk:Infobox road, and I offered my opinion as requested there. Since I don't normally edit outside of the US Roads highway project subject area much, any opinion I could offer wouldn't be as well informed as others. Imzadi 1979 → 22:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate at least that folks were willing to offer input. Thanks. --Mcorazao (talk) 23:56, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms could use some help

Hey everyone at WP History!!!! We just started a new history WikiProject dealing with Anglo-Saxon England between 410 and 1066. We really would like your help!!! Feel free to sign up on our Project page.

Also, Could someone help set up the 1.0 assessment stuff. Our savvy with bots, templates and stuff is rather limited (I am the most experienced editor in these issues, and the last time I tried, I made a goodly number of mistakes.) Thank you so much!!!

Sadads (talk) 18:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

We figured out the assessment stuff but are still looking for interested editors! Sadads (talk) 02:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Persecution of Ottoman Muslims and Turks 1821-1922

I would like to request assistance in evaluating the notability of the subject and its historical merits. The article is in its initial stages and clearly needs working on. I find that there is a substantial amount of information on the subject at hand but no stand-alone article in Wikipedia. Please feel free to join the article talk page. Link to the article's latest non-merged version. Thank you for your input! --Hittit (talk) 04:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

1421: The Year China Discovered the World

FYI, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World has been controversially merged into Gavin Menzies. An RfC has been opened on the issue, see Talk:1421: The Year China Discovered the World

70.29.208.247 (talk) 03:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Disasters on the Severn

There's an AfD that's going on which could probably do with the help of a history expert. The problem is that there's an article which looks at first glance to be informative and reliable, but the only contribution has taken all the material from, and linked and referenced the article too, a book and website he wrote himself of questionable reliability. My instinct is to merge any verified bits of information into River Severn, but you might have a better idea of how to proceed. Thanks Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 12:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

FLC National Treasures of Japan (archaeological materials)

I invite comments, questions and suggestions for the featured list candidacy of List of National Treasures of Japan (archaeological materials). The nomination page can be found here. bamse (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Missing history topics

I've updated my list of missing history topics - Skysmith (talk) 12:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Where might the activities of Wikipedia:WikiProject Piracy fit?Metabaronic (talk) 11:54, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Middle Ages only occurred in Europe and borders to Europe?

Looking at Template:Human_history, every era's link has some explanation of other parts of the world for each time period, except Middle Ages. The Middle Ages needs to be expanded on other parts of the world or it should be a subgroup of another category. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 16:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Piracy could use some help

In the absence of a "WikiProject Naval history" I've made Wikipedia:WikiProject Piracy a child of WikiProject History. This group has been inactive and is need of overhauling (or keelhauling if it doesn't get off the ground). Any input will be helpful, particularly if it strengthens ties to its new parent.Metabaronic (talk) 11:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Timeline help

Grand overall historical timelines:

are very incomplete and in need of major expansion. Help would be appreciated. Thank you. Serendi ^pod ous 09:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

"X Historians" Categories

Unusual place for me to be but I've been asked by a friend who has a historian bio page to point something out. The current categories (such as Category:English historians) are very ambiguous to non-Wikipedians as they leave the reader in the dark if these are people studying English history or if these are historians who are ethnically English. At the very least, the Category pages need some line stating that.

Secondly the complaint from him and his colleagues is that it's a somewhat unhelpful category and that an additional one would make more sense to the reader that sorts historians by their chosen field (such as Historians of English history for example) as someone looking into, say, French history, won't find a list helpful of all the historians from France but rather one listing all the pepople studying this matter.

Both points may have been debated before but I couldn't see anything at a quick glance so I thought I'd bring it up. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:43, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

History of painting

There is a disagreement on the History of painting talk page regarding the number of images within the article. I believe the majority of the 400 images need to be removed while other editors believe the article is fine as it is. Opinions appreciated. --auburnpilot talk 17:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Ongoing debate regarding Independant Order of Oddfellows

In the absence of activity at WikiProject Organisations, I am posting this request here. There is an ongoing debate [Talk:Independent Order of Odd Fellows|here] regarding the the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. This is a fraternal organisation established in 1819 as a breakaway from the Order of Oddfellows and is an oraganisation somewhat similar to the Freemasons. The debate involves the worth of including a list of regional grand lodges/jurisdictions in the article (or possibly broken out as a stand alone list) - the IOOF list is essentially the equivalent of General list of masonic Grand Lodges which has successfully survived two AfD attempts and is now existing quite happily. Ronz and a passing admin, JohnUniq, are arguing to get rid of it entirely, Pdfpdf and myself believe it is a worthwhile inclusion (noting that grand lodges are essentially headquarters for a large number of subordinate lodges). The debate is currently stagnating and has suffered from some personality conflicts which have distracted from the real issues. I think there is historic socio-cultural value in retaining the list and would appreciate it if some WikiProject History editors could drop by and offer further perspective on the relevance, or otherwise, of the list. Cheers AusTerrapin (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed redirect of Ritual decalogue to Covenant code

Please see my proposal here and comment/vote. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:44, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Migration Period & historiography

I hope to attract some attention here . I have written a comment on the introduction to 'Migration Period', and also tried to submit a rephrasing, which unfortunately got reverted . There are a few factual mistakes in the article, but the drift of the first introductory part is also to emphasize ethnonyms + the unqualified term 'migration' . So a propos historiography there is room for improvement . The comment is at the talk-page, and a draft is here -> User:Sechinsic/migration01 . Sechinsic (talk) 06:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

RfC on Christ myth theory page name

Comments would be appreciated at an RfC about the best title for the Christ myth theory. See the discussion here. The article is about the theory that Jesus of Nazareth did not, or probably did not, exist as an historical being. Should it be moved from Christ myth theory to, for example, Jesus myth theory? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:17, 7 August 2010 (UTC),

Request for Comment on ahnentafel (ancestry) templates: an open and shut case

The template to open ahnentafels (ancestry tables) (Template:ahnentafel top) was changed last May to open all such tables on first viewing with an option to "Hide". The previous situation had been the reverse (a title bar with a link to "Show").

(1) Editors can now change the first appearance of an ahnentafel by adding "|collapsed=yes" to "ahnentafel top" (see Template:Ahnentafel top/doc.)

(2) I'm now taking a survey to see how many editors (or the editors of how many articles) would prefer to keep this situation, and how many would prefer to change the default so that editors who wanted to display a full ahnentafel on first sight would have to add "collapsed=no".

Since over 2,500 articles (some of which would clearly benefit from one option and some from the other) use this template, a large sample of preferences would be very helpful in discussing which default to use.

Please indicate your preferences at Template talk:Ahnentafel top/Requested Comments 1. And let other editors know about this poll. Thanks. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

"Middle Ages" naming convention

I'm sure I'll get flamed for asking this but ...

In discussing another article an editor brought up the question of how the term Middle Ages (and by extension Medieval) should be used in Wikipedia. Essentially this is a question of consistency relating to geography (does the term Middle Ages by itself uniquely identify Latin Europe?). I'm sure this has probably gotten discussed before (has there been some resolution?). Though this term is most commonly used to refer to Latin Europe in literature, that usage is not unique. Some authors use the term to refer to other parts of Europe; some use it to include the Muslim world; some even use it to discuss the whole world (e.g. China in the Middle Ages). So the question is, when we use the term "Middle Ages" in Wikipedia, either in an article title or in the text, does that term uniquely identify Latin Europe or the term strictly referring to a time period? In other words if an article is talking about Europe in the Middle Ages, does it need to explicitly say Europe or does "Middle Ages" identify the geography (and by extension if an article is titled "foobar in the Middle Ages" is it reasonable to limit the topic to Latin Europe or does the title imply worldwide scope)?

I'm basically looking for guidance in terms of policy.

--Mcorazao (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Preemptive war

Hi, a discussion on the presentation of the Six-Day War at Preemptive war has been started in the talk page to the latter article. Please join in and comment. Thanks! Shoplifter (talk) 16:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

History of Canada

Was looking for a last fast look at the History of Canada article before i put it up for GA review. See if spelling is ok etc,,,Moxy (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

RfC on in-text attribution

Fresh eyes would be appreciated on an RfC about whether, in using in-text attribution for sources on the Historicity of Jesus, we should include whether that source is an ordained minister or similar. See Talk:Historicity_of_Jesus#RfC_on_in-text_attribution. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

requested article

Not sure where to put this since I don't see a page for it. WP surprisingly doesn't have a biography of the noted British historian Ralph Bennett (1911-2002).[7]

67.122.211.178 (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion Discussion

A deletion discussion for a page within the scope of your project, List of largest empires, has been created. You are welcome to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest empires (5th nomination). Qwyrxian (talk) 01:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Need a little help resolving an issue

I have created a new WikiProject related to history: WikiProject American Old West. We're discussing how much pop culture stuff (books, movies, TV shows, etc.) we should include in our scope. So my question is this: How much pop culture stuff is included in the scope of WikiProject History? The Utahraptor ^{My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions} 21:23, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I've thought about this issue in relation to Historical fiction and Historical novels. If you want your project to be a history project, then pop culture references would be a very minor part of it (see Annie Oakley for an example of an article, about a historical person, that includes a 'Pop culture' section). On the other hand, a project focused on American Old West mythology (or expanded to include both history and mythology) could include pop culture references as discrete articles. For instance, The Lone Ranger is not historical but definitely part of American Old West mythology. WCCasey (talk) 23:51, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Pop culture is something of a ideological issue: if you limit everything you will end up chopping out valuable info, if you set no guidelines on it then people will turn 2/3rds of the article into pop culture references. For our part we include pop culture material when the material is known to have had an impact on culture or to have been a part of a well reported or well documented cultural phenomena. The extent to which you can borrow from us depends a little on the material being discussed, as noted above alot of the material you will end up covering will be in the mythos range more so than the pop culture range, so I would suggest trying to determine how you will tell the two apart from each other first, then move from there. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair-use discussion about a Holocaust image

There's a discussion here at files for deletion about whether we can claim fair use for a particular image from the Holocaust. J Milburn began it as a discussion about just one this image, but the same issues apply to most of the others we use too. Fresh eyes would be appreciated. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 14:52, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

British Isles Meitheal

Hi all —

A while back the British Isles article underwent a peer review. Most of the suggestions coming out of it have been implemented and IMO the article is approaching GA standard. This is an article that had been dogged by POV issues and in-fighting amongst its editors so the achievement of getting it to the standard it is in admirable for all involved. However, one major sticking point is referencing, which are appallingly sparse. There is no way the article could achieve GA as it stands on account of the state of referencing.

The task of fixing it up isn't impossible. There are about 30 paragraphs that need referencing. With enough editors, we would only need to take two or thee paragraphs each to get the job done. To that end, I've set up a "meitheal" page. The idea is for anyone who is willing to help out to take a paragraph at a time and to references just that paragraph. If you can do more than one then great. Just come back and take another one.

The meitheal page is here: Talk:British Isles/Meitheal. If you're willing to help out, just dig in.

Thanks, --RA (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

History articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the History articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Dumont de Montigny

Can someone please assess this article about a French explorer of colonial Louisiana in the 18th century? It would be appreciated. Thanks, Jsayre64 (talk) 03:10, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk: Notability (people)#Proposed addition: Diarists and correspondents

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk: Notability (people)#Proposed addition: Diarists and correspondents. patsw (talk) 00:23, 1 October 2010 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Featured list candidate looking for comments

List of National Treasures of Japan (ancient documents) is currently a featured list candidate and looking for comments, questions or suggestions at the nomination page. Thanks. bamse (talk) 11:16, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

There's presently a disagreement at Talk:Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon concerning the 1939 tour of Canada and the US she undertook with her husband. Additional input would be appreciated. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 12:05, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Radhanite at FAR

I have nominated Radhanite for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Jan 1922 (talk) 19:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Input requested

I would like some input here, preferably from people engaged in the academic study of history, or at least with a good familiarity of said discipline. Over at Talk:Historicity of Jesus, I'm being confronted with the notion that a "historian of religion" is not really a "historian", but a "religious studies scholar". As a non-historian who is very familiar with the academic study of religion this idea confounds me greatly. It is my perspective that religious studies is not a discipline but an interdisciplinary field populated by scholars who ostensibly all focus on the same general subject matter but do so by way of other disciplines ... like history. Am I wrong about this? I'm not a historian personally so I'm willing to accept that maybe I am. Any input would be nice. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 17:05, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Followup -- My interlocutor says that for someone to be considered a historian they have to publish in a "general historical journal", cited by others who do and/or have an appointment in an academic department that has "history" as its name. Does anyone know what is meant by "general historical journal"? Also would that mean that historians of the ancient world who are in classics or archeology departments are not "historians" properly understood? Thanks again for any input here.Griswaldo (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Comparison of Wikipedia and other encyclopedias for accuracy, breadth, and depth in historical articles

Do you know this paper? If you want to read it, email me, I'll send you a copy. --Nemo 20:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Opinion request

A discussion is being held about acceptable historical references here, and opinions from members of this project would be most welcome. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Please help with FLC

Resolved

List of National Treasures of Japan (ancient documents) is currently a featured list candidate. It has so far received 3 support (and 0 oppose) votes. It needs a last look from someone before it can be promoted. I'd be very happy if somebody could have a look at it and leave comments, questions, suggestions and/or a vote ("support" or "oppose") on the nomination page. Otherwise it is in danger of failing. Thank you. bamse (talk) 20:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Need help on Almoravid dynasty and Almohad Caliphate

Hi, we need more opinions on the Talk Pages ([8], [9]) of the articles Almoravid dynasty and Almohad Caliphate, thanx to those who come to participate. Regards--Morisco (talk) 17:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Cradle of civilization

A discussion is being held at Talk:China and Talk:Cradle of civilization regarding a recent report about the writing system of China, its age and whether China is the world's oldest civilization. Input would be welcome.--The Taerkasten (talk) 11:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

We really need input at this discussion. This project doesn't seem to be active.--The Taerkasten (talk) 12:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

History by type for former countries - overkill?

I am quite fond of categories like military history, political history, and so on. But what about former countries? I just created, filling the gaps, the Category:Political history of the Ottoman Empire (noting that Category:Military history of the Ottoman Empire) so I could properly categorize some articles that were in the categories of Politics of the OE and History of the OE. But then a thought struck me: which part of the politics of the OE is not in its political history already? Which part of military of the OE is not part of its military history already? With continuing entities, the recent, continuing entities and events are outside the categorization realm of historical categories (as far as I understand it). But with historical entities, this logic fails, and this also renders the distinction between categories such as Politics of the OE and Political history of the OE moot. Am I wrong? Is there any justification for the Category:Political history of the Ottoman Empire? Should an article that is in the category Politics of the OE and History of the OE remain in them, or be reclassified into the Category:Political history of the Ottoman Empire ? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Dacia

WikiProject Dacia is looking for supporters, editors and collaborators for creating and better organizing information in articles related to Dacia and the history of Daco-Getae. If interested, PLEASE provide your support on the proposal page. Thanks!!--Codrinb (talk) 05:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

The article seems to dance around calling him an Annale historian. Is there genuine historiographic doubt about this, or just that the article isn't written as well as it could be? Our article on Annales School mentions him prominently, so one or other needs fixing. --Dweller (talk) 11:53, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Historians of religion and 'historians proper"

There is an ongoing discussion that needs expert input. There are editors claiming that historians of religion, unless employed by a department of history specifically, are not really "historians". The same is true, evidently, regarding ancient historians, who again, are do not have appointments in departments of history. The dispute arose when editors began to claim that Paula Fredriksen is not a proper "historian". I was under the impression that she was one of the most renowned living historians of ancient Christianity, but apparently I'm wrong because she is a "historian of religion" without an appointment in a department of history. Any input would be helpful. See Talk:Historicity_of_Jesus#NPOV_tag. Thanks greatly.Griswaldo (talk) 17:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Now I'm being told this - "I have taken a look at the AHA article and at the organization's homepage. They are not an association of professional historians. They even include students, school teachers, public historians, and about anyone else who would apply and pay the membership fees. That's it." Please help!Griswaldo (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a dangerous trend. Does that mean Gordon Prange or Clay Blair aren't historians? Or Keegan? Or Tony Preston? Or Ned Beach? Yoiks! TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Was the American Revolutionary War the only war Britain ever lost?

There is a discussion at Talk:American Revolutionary War#Only war Britain lost that may be of interest to project members. I can't imagine that this issue has not come up before. Any reliable sources on the issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 00:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Template: History of People's Republic of Poland

I have drafted a blueprint for a Template:History of People's Republic of Poland; you can find it in my sandbox. I'd like to have your opinion about the usefulness of it, the eventual reduction in the number of items or in an horizontal way. Generally speaking I think such a template would be useful, as I was striving today to make a sense between the different polish uprising during the cold war.--Dans (talk) 18:44, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Black Legend

An editing dispute at Talk:Black Legend (in which I am involved) requires extra eyes form people who know Spanish history and colonial history in general.·Maunus·ƛ· 20:15, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

File:EiserneVorhang.png

The abovementioned file is incorrect, as it represents neutral states (Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria) as being in the Western field, while correctly points out the autonomous position of Yugoslavia and Albania in the socialist field. The correct file to use would be the second one, which is nevertheless way less used. Can somebody please advise on how to proceed?--Dans (talk) 19:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you, especially taking in consideration that right map is ~~stated to be source for~~ derivation of left map which obviously is wrong and can mislead the readers. Unfortunately, I am not experienced enough to give you advice how to proceed.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears to me that the wrong map is the source of the correct one; but the substance does not change. I've alerted Commons village pump [10]--Dans (talk) 22:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you are again right.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 23:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

History of Germany

Rjensen (talk · contribs) has expanded the WP:FURTHERREADING section at the end of History of Germany until it now contains more than one hundred (100) publications—ten times what the community usually thinks is an acceptable size. Many of the publications are specific to short time periods. His stated purpose is to provide a directory of "the scholarship".

If editors here, who doubtless have more knowledge of the subject than I do, would please take a look to figure out what should stay, what should be moved to other articles, and what should simply be removed, I'd appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

BCE/CE over BC/AD

Hi

I ask considering it now seems common practice by professional historians and universities to use BCE/CE in favour over BC/AD, should Wikipedia hold a community wide poll to gain consensus if we should do the same i.e. a) community wide usage of only BCE/CE or b) the current status quo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.81.225 (talk) 19:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

{{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Planisme

Is this article a candidate for potential deletion, or else merging somewhere. Or is anyone able to reference/expand the article? Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Economic history of the Jews

This article started out with the title "Jews and money" and was almost simultaneously retitled Economic history of the Jews and put up for deletion. This sums up its problems in a nutshell: User:Mathsci/example. Here is the AfD page. Given its new title, the expertise of WP's historians would be welcome. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

"Revisionism" clarification in French Revolution Historiography

There are numerous references to different revisionist historians in the Historiography of the French Revolution (English) site, and these need to be further expanded on. As I mentioned on that article's discussion page, revisionism is a very broad term, used simply to, at a basic level, refer to reinterpretation, critical or otherwise, of a history or a historical event. It would be useful if several users contributed further to this article by elaborating on particular uses of the term 'revisionist' in this context, particularly pertaining to individual historians.

Furthermore, there is a slant towards featuring more English/American historians than French historians, on this specific page. The addition of other historians of French or otherwise European nationality would perhaps provide a fuller picture of French Revolution historiography over the last two centuries.Kfodderst (talk) 08:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Kadi / Qadi

The Qadi article concerns a judge, in islamic jurisprudence. However, after reading through a few sources, it seems that the kadı in the ottoman empire had quite a complex role which went beyond that of a judge; they were also involved in taxation and local administration &c. (This kind of feature-creep seems to have happened to several other elements of Ottoman officialdom which were inherited from conquered territories). At the moment, several Ottoman articles have piped links from Kadı to Qadi; I'm thinking of flattening those piped links and writing a new article devoted to the kadı-as-an-ottoman-official. Of course, the two articles could get appropriate hatnotes. Does that sound reasonable? Any comments/feedback from the WikiProject History community? bobrayner (talk) 16:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

a little help, please

I am trying to prevent a potential edit war at Española, New Mexico and am hoping that you have some guidelines that can just resolve the issue. Which is; (this is my version of the issue. There might be others) in the History section of the article, one editor thinks that since the city was really founded in the 1880s the section should start there. Another editor feels that the history from the 1600s, which both editors agree needs to be included, should be presented first. Can anyone help out? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

There is obviously a problem here, then, with differing levels of opinion in regards to its history. The best thing to do is to avoid WP:UNDUE and instead focus on what is so far historically backed up. There may need to be agreement, for instance, on a certain date or era, with a single section preceding under the general title of "Pre-1880", etc. or something of the sort. Presenting all its history under a large subtitle would help, with individual sections coming under this subtitle; this would simultaneously enable a chronological relating of the information, and thus solve this conflict. Kfodderst (talk) 06:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Marie Antoinette - Fraser Dependence

As pointed out on the Marie Antoinette discussion page, there is far too much dependence on Fraser's biography.

I have personally included some references to Lever (English-translated, so not entirely as weighty as the French version, but nonetheless, it holds) and even Hibbert, although the latter is somewhat debatable, and I am investigating personally a few points of contradiction brought up by his text. In any case, with that in mind:

Other sources available to be incorporated and consequently cited include: Louis and Antoinette by Vincent Cronin (who recently passed away, unfortunately), Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France by Evelyne Lever, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution & Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution by Nesta Webster, Memoirs of Marie Antoinette by Madame Campan herself, What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by Caroline Weber, and even from other books such as Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution and William Doyle's Oxford History of the French Revolution.

These are of course only as a start - but there is really no excuse to be so heavily dependent on Fraser's biography, especially because that is very subjective, sympathetic and at times controversial. The article also doesn't make much of von Fersen, who is on the contrary very important, and I've dropped in him in several edits at several key points.

What also needs to be worked on is the heavy specificity of detail in some areas, and then the absence of any detail at all in others. Kfodderst (talk) 08:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Hildburghausen and Castle Eishausen Theories

These few incidents should be included into the Marie Thérèse of France article. Some references to aid writing a section for this: The Dark Count by Ludwig Bechstein, The Mystery of Hildburghausen by Brachvogel and Nevtelen Var (The Nameless Castle in English) by Jokai Mor for purporting the theory; in contrast, and a nice summary/overview, which dismantles the theory rather effectively, was done by Sophie Nagel in her book on Marie-Therese, Marie-Therese: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter. The inclusion should be done as soon as possible. I will be able to contribute as well, but maybe not immediately. If anyone has anymore references/sources or information, please mention them here so they can be included into the article. Kfodderst (talk) 08:36, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Middle Ages - bias towards European history

Why is the Middle Ages listed as a specific time period when that page talks nothing about the rest of the world. The page specifically talks about Europe and any associated Islamic nation that had conflict with. It's like the rest of the world does not exist. I check the other periods of time Earliest Recoreds, Antiquity, Early modern, Modern, & Contemporary, they talk about the rest of the world. I wrote once and the responces was it was the mark when the fall of Roman empire. When the Mongal empire fell, there is no specific period in history dedicated to that (and it affect more nations than the fall of Rome). So how is the Middle Ages dedicated to Europe. I find this very bias. So either there are more things happenning around the world or I feel this (Middle Ages) should be move to a sub-area of another time period. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 15:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

It's because - and the page itself says this - the Middle Ages was a period of time in Europe. Medieval redirects there, too: primarily, it refers to Europe. Kfodderst (talk) 07:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Article neutrality

Hello, I'd like to ask a couple of questions, if I may.

How do you ensure that a history article is neutral? Could you say that history articles are neutral enough that one can learn history from Wikipedia without much doubt?

Thanks! Ilias K., Greece 19:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpaniardGR (talk • contribs)

Basically, if it doesn't violate WP:UNDUE, in a Wikipedia sense. But really, if it provides a clear picture of all sides, with views held by the majority of historians, etc. You can also check by getting a Peer Review done, or even getting an Academic Peer Review. Kfodderst (talk) 07:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

India at FAR

I've nominated the India page for an FAR. Its History and Culture sections needs work. Please help improve it. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 13:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Culture.si - 2000+ free text articles

Culture.si This is a portal by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia with over 2000 articles about Slovene culture. The text is under the same license as Wikipedia; you have to atrivute the source. Just wanted to let you know about this. --U5K0 (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing culture: HISTORY-A appears to be stalled.

Hi, I normally review FAC and MILHIST-A. As a result of RS/N discussion I came here to see if this project's review culture was vital, fostering, rewarding, content improving and encyclopaedia improving. HISTORY-A reviews seem to be stalled as of 2009. Anyone know what happened? Fifelfoo (talk) 05:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't, and it's a bit of a puzzle ... a lot of great history articles pass through FAC, and I'd be happy to help, but as Gertrude Stein said, there's no "there there". Perhaps we ask the successful history-related wikiprojects if some kind of A-class review would be helpful for their goals? - Dank (push to talk) 12:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

FLC of List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: others)

Resolved

I invite comments, questions and suggestions for the featured list candidacy of List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: others). The nomination page can be found here. Thanks. bamse (talk) 00:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

It has been listed as Nominations urgently needing reviews, meaning that it is in danger of failing because of a lack of reviews. So far it has received one "support" vote (no "oppose") while three votes is considered to be the minimum for success. Hopefully a member of this wikiproject will have time for a review. You'd need to do the following: Check this list for these criteria and leave your comments (together with a "Support"/"Oppose" vote) here. Thanks a lot! bamse (talk) 21:05, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you help the newcomers with some easy tasks?

Hello,

I am working with the Account Creation Improvement Project (my latest report is here). Now I need your help to find some easy things for newcomers to do.

To guide the new users into working on the articles, we have created a step-by-step process that starts right after the new user has provided a username and a password. Here is the first step. If you click on "history", for instance, you go to a page where you are asked to state your skills. And based on your choice there, you go to a page that combines these two choices. Here is what it looks like if you choose copyediting.

Right now, that list of articles that needs copyediting in the field of history, has been created manually by a rather small set of users. That is not a scalable solution. Especially considering that these articles could very well be edited by the time we have created all the lists.

That's why my question to you in WikiProject history is if you could create four templates for each of the four skillsets: Copyediting, Research & Writing, Fact checking, and Organizing - and keep them updated? We could then transclude those templates in the account creation process.

This is probably one of the most efficient things you can do in this project. Yes, really! There are roughly 5-7000 new users - each day. Around 30% of them start to edit. So if only a sixth of them sees the history templates, that's around 250 potential new editors in your field - each day. Possibly more. And they want and need something easy to do. Some of them will continue to edit if they think that the tasks are fun and they are welcomed into the project.

So, what do you say about those templates?

I will gladly answer any questions you may have about this question or the project. Best wishes//Hannibal (talk) 16:22, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion about title of Canadian history article

People watching this page may be interested in contributing to the discussion at Talk:British Canada (1763–1867)#Request for comment about title. Cheers. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:21, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Boxer Rebellion at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard

There's a dispute about using Chinese scholarship relating to the Boxer Rebellion at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. Some third opinions from any editors who are familiar with this area, especially using non-English sources and balancing opposing/fringe POVs, or with Chinese history in particular, would be very helpful. Ocaasi^{t | c} 21:37, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject History, in danger of being labeled Historical?

Is WikiProject History in danger of being labeled Historical? This page is inactive and only retained for historical reference.

People are posting, people are trying to drum up some teamwork and collaboration to deal with the sprawling hellscape of weak articles in history, lord knows I've tried; but there isn't much going on here. WikiProject History's collaboration of the month is listed as October...possibly an October from the previous decade.

So much needs to be done, articles need improving, content forks need merging. Wikipedia's coverage of 19th century history and earlier, especially history outside of the United States, is in desperate need of attention, and it's much too daunting for one editor, even two or three.

Would anyone be interested in collaboration on the following?

Articles in need of improvement:

Boxer Rebellion - more references and historical context needed
Boxer Protocol
Shandong Problem - needs expansion with more sources
Qing dynasty
Racial equality - barely a stub!
Cuban War of Independence
Latin American Muslims
Blacks_in_Latin_America
Race and ethnicity in Latin America rambling footnotes should be...?
Mexican War of Independence
Afro-Mexicans in the Mexican War of Independence - in awful shape, a stub with no lead
Nicaraguan Revolution - fairly disorganized, with the relevant history of the conflict spread over multiple articles

Articles for creation: see list in my userspace for suggestions

Other editors are often telling me {{sofixit}} and this is my best effort... Please see this post as an opportunity for history article-collaboration, for rebirth of WikiProject History. --NickDupree (talk) 00:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Nick, many of these one could also ask at the corresponding country or region wikiproject talk page. For instance Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China seems more active, though I concede Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mexico looks pretty quiet...as does Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Latin America :/ Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:19, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

FLC of List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: Chinese books)

Resolved

Hi! I nominated List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: Chinese books) at featured list candidates and would be very happy if somebody could have a look at it, checking for these criteria and leaving questions/comments/suggestions and possibly a vote (support/oppose) on the nomination page. Thanks. bamse (talk) 19:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The article has been listed as Nominations urgently needing reviews, meaning that is in danger of failing the nomination because of a lack of reviews. Hopefully somebody will find the time to do a review of it. bamse (talk) 16:54, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Japanese books National Treasures

Hi! I nominated List of National Treasures of Japan (writings: Japanese books) at featured list candidates and would be very happy if somebody could have a look at it, checking for these criteria and leaving questions/comments/suggestions and possibly a vote (support/oppose) on the nomination page. Thanks. bamse (talk) 10:41, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC at Yeshu

We could really use some thoughtful and well-informed comments here. Thanks. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

China Clipper flight departure site

Comments are invited on the discussion page for subject article about California Historical Landmark #968 and alleged duplication of coverage in articles about historic aircraft using the site.Thewellman (talk) 15:53, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

RfC regarding Kingdom of Sardinia

RfC at Talk:Kingdom_of_Sardinia#Request_for_Comment_of_August_2011 regarding Italian/European history, particularly Kingdom of Sardinia and Piedmont-Sardinia. Any help would be appreciated. --Noleander (talk) 06:07, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

proposal regarding journal abbreviations

Colleagues -- Articles on academic journals often show a kind of official abbreviation like Soc. Sci. Hist. and J. Econ. Hist. and Technol. Cult. in the infobox. I've proposed that there also be space in the infobox for the abbreviations more commonly used in history and the social sciences like SSH and JEH and T&C. There is opposition to adding space for such acronyms, partly on the basis that they are not official and not informative. Your views are welcome at the proposal. -- Econterms (talk) 09:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC on identifiers

There is an RFC on the addition of identifier links to citations by bots. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Economic history of China before 1911

Please see Economic history of China before 1911, where there is a discussion on the economy of China over the last 2 millennia, and the accuracy of the description used in this article, China and Asia. See also Talk:China and Talk:Asia for related discussions.

70.24.244.20 (talk) 15:02, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Poll on ArbCom resolution - Ireland article names

There is a poll taking place here on whether or not to extend the ArbCombinding resolution, which says there may be no page move discussions for Ireland, Republic of Ireland or Ireland (disambiguation), for a further two years. Fmph (talk) 20:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Date System (BC/AD or BC/BCE)

Can anyone point me to the policy or consensus on how to mark historical dates depending on the technical context of the article? I can't seem to find it anywhere. Niluop (talk) 23:31, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

It's been discussed quite a lot over the years; what does WP:MOSNUM currently say? - Dank (push to talk) 23:49, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Dank. The policy currently states that neither is preferred over the other. I found some old discussions on the matter, but did not see any resolutions. Still, it appears that editors, even admins, feel strongly about making it one or the other. Niluop (talk) 01:33, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, many writers write "BC" but pronounce it "before the Christian era" these days ... so all the arguments about "BCE" have had the effect of making BC less biased. For "AD", you can often get away with writing nothing at all ... "in the year 43". - Dank (push to talk) 01:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Fall 2011 Photo Contest

WP:NRHP is having a Fall Photo Contest running from Oct. 21-Dec. 4, 2011. I'd like to encourage anybody who enjoys photography, and anybody who is interested in historic places to participate as a photographer, a sponsor, or both.

One way that an individual editor or a project can participate is to sponsor their own challenge. For example, somebody here might want to include a challenge such as "A barnstar will be awarded to the photographer who adds the most photos to the NRHP county lists of previously non-illustrated NRHP sites that are related to the War of 1812." To sponsor a challenge all you need to do is come up with an idea, post it on the contest page, and do the small bit of work needed to judge the winner(s).

Any and all contributions appreciated.

Smallbones (talk) 02:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to change a section title

There's a proposal to adjust one of the main section titles used in "Wikipedia's contents", which will affect the order in which the section titles are presented. See Portal talk:Contents#Proposal for main section title adjustment. The Transhumanist 02:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Open Ireland page move discussion

After a two-year ban imposed by Arbcom, a page move discussion for the Republic of Ireland can be entertained.

(Discuss)–Republic of Ireland →Ireland (republic)Kauffner (talk) 08:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Active

I am wondering if this WikiProject is currently active, as things seem to be moving rather slowly.

I am a member of WikiProject Military history, and wondered if this is equally busy. I was a little surprised to see that one of the A-class review requests dates back to 2009, but maybe the process was discontinued. Could anyone provide me with more information, as I am interested in becoming an active member of this project?

Thanks, DCItalk 21:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

History of scholarship

Hi! I'm a new page patroller and ran across this new page. It's in fairly bad shape right now and could use some TLC from experienced editors who also know something of the field. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the information currently contained in the a article could fit into other articles more appropriately. I can see how this could possibly warrant its own article but this is admittedly far from my area of expertise. I could use some more eyes on the article if any of you have time. If you have any advice for me, I'd appreciate it if you could leave it on my talk page or leave me a TB if you want to continue talking here as I'm not going to put this page on my watchlist. OlYeller21^Talktome 14:15, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Standardised succession table

Hello, I'm just here to advise of a standardised succession table I've recently created. See {{Succession table monarch}} for more info. Hope it comes in handy. Claret Ash 13:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Portuguese historians needed...

There is debate at Talk:Miguel, Crown Prince of Portugal about the reliability of sources, etc.

If any members of this project have knowledge about Portuguese 14th Century history, your input would be much appreciated. PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Naming Dispute over History of Pottery in the Southern Levant

Recently, the article History of Pottery in the Southern Levant was moved to History of Pottery in Palestine. It had been under the title History of Pottery in the Southern Levant for around 5 years, and it had been my understanding that this was in order to keep the article NPOV. I am currently in a dispute with the editor who moved the page on the article talk page and was wondering if anyone would be able to assist regarding the proper naming of the article. Thanks Drsmoo (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

^ "David and Linda Birley Genealogies". 2002-4. Retrieved 2007-08-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
^ ^a ^b Siborne, pp. 775,776
^ ^a ^b Siborne, p. 776

[birley-1] "David and Linda Birley Genealogies". 2002-4. Retrieved 2007-08-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

[Siborne-775-776-2] Siborne, pp. 775,776

[Siborne-776-3] Siborne, p. 776

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