Talk:Human history/Archive 1

message: NPOV Issue?
I'm still kind of new to the idea of contributing/critiquing articles so I figure I'll just raise this point instead of tagging NPOV myself, but the section on the 20th Century states that the Soviet Union collapsed due to US military spending. This is not only very America-centric in that it ignores the contributions of Mikhail Gorbachev, John Paul II, et al. and the importance of the Solidarity movement in Poland in bringing down Soviet communism, but it is also considered a rather right-wing point of view even in the United States insofar as it focuses on the oftentimes controversial policies of the Reagan Administration. I would be open to editing the article to rememdy this but am reluctant to do so without some guidance, partly due to my inexperience and partly because I don't want to create an NPOV issue tilted towards my own ideas... ThirtyOneKnots 4:24. 14 Dec 2005 (UTC)
*The reality was that the people in communistic countries knew that they were far poorer then the people in the west. They had a complete mistrust in their leadership. The leaders of the Soviet Union knew that their economy was decreasing and that they couldn't apply all the new technologies from the west. The advance of the computer was a great concern for them. A demand both among the elite as the population for change grew in large parts of Eastern Europe. Before Gorbachev, government and society were already changing in Poland and Hungary. The American military was an important element for the Soviet elite. The Soviet Union couldn't maintain its military anymore, while the United States was repadly modernizing its army using computer technologies. I'm not an expert, so i don't know how important the military was for the collapse.--Daanschr 09:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Old talk

message: If you're going to try to write a history of the ENTIRE world, it has to be more comprehensive than this.  Also, each section deserves its own article.  Personally, I think such a history in one article is foolish. Superm401 05:25, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
I think the article is simply meant as a very general             overview. The history of the world obviously can't be completely covered even many, many volumes; this article should simply be 
something to point others in the right direction.CancerOfJuly
:What's important is to have one article that links to all of the various historical-overview articles of interest.  When this article gets too long (and when all the anachronisms have been moved to their correct section, and we figure out what the chronological limits of each section are), at that point we can worry about breaking this up into smaller articles. --Eric Forste 22:11, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to encourage us to keep this a nice, short, comprehensive overview. Not everybody wants to read a 20,000 word article. But neither should it simply be a list of available history articles. I think that it is pretty good now and with further tweaking (but not necessarily a lot more text) it'll be fine. Cheers, -Willmcw 22:32, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)
----
"The Europeans also had horses, steel, and guns that allowed them to overpower and slaughter the American people."  Slaughter seems a little general.  As I recall (and what a glance at Native American seems to suggest), the French in Québec didn't really do anything but trade with the original inhabitants for furs, and the North American English tried to avoid them in general- at least for the first century or so that they were there.--BillyL 21:13, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

text: I expect the above remark was principally about the very early history of Spanish colonization. By the way, I noticed that Guptas were showing up in the classical empires section, and Mauryas in the later age of kingdoms section, along with a few other anachronisms, which I tried to tidy up after checking the referenced articles.  I also moved the paragraph on India in the age of kingdoms section so that it would adjacent to the rest of the discussion of Eurasian history in that period. --Eric Forste 22:08, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The shortest World History might include a line about the "present". "The capitalism socio-economics system domains the world with its power centers at the G-8 goverments, very contrast in human development societies exist and a massive south->north human migration exists. The planet-dynamics is changing because of human activities. Human race social and economics contrast and enviroment problems are the main challenges of human kind, etc..." lets discuss about. --GengisKanhg (my talk) 13:54, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Incompleteness

message: Several related articles are currently nominated to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Help improve Spice trade, History, History of chemistry, Hannibal, John III of Portugal, History of the Balkans, History of Minnesota and Constantinople and vote for one or more of these articles on WP:IDRIVE. --Fenice 19:42, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement drive

message: My view is that technological advances and the taking over of innovations are more important then a countdown of empires that existed in history. Important developments are the agriculturalism, industrialism, and the evolvement of cities and states. This article could focus on how and where this developed and how it spread the world. Also the disintegration of states and dissapearance of knowledge could be described.
:Quite right. This article 'misses the point'. World history should emphasize common themes, technological, economic and structural changes. Ideally this article should be rewritten. RCSB 11:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think the 'Rise of Europe' began with the Portuguese and Spanish voyages, but with the Industrial Revolution. See here. 
Europe was not technologically advanced and couldn't conquer much territories in Africa and Asia, but the Europeans were everywhere, dominating the world seas. Maybe the title of this chapter could be: Worldwide European naval precense, or something like that.--Daanschr 19:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I wrote you a reply in 'Rise of Europe'. There I recommended Clive Ponting's World History - A New Perspective. I think any rewriting should follow Ponting's presentation. RCSB 18:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: More attention for civilization advances

message: I see there is an edit conflict. What i heard in class was that the Europe was conquered by agrarians, but that the former hunter-gatherers remained the main population, or that the hunter-gatherers took over the culture from the agrarians. There is the genetical evidence that 80% of the European DNA-pool is equivalent to the DNA of the hunter-gatherers. But the indo-european language groups came from outside, which suggests that the European hunter-gatherers were subdued. But again, i'm not an expert.--Daanschr 09:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  hunter-gatherers 

message: See #Graph of Singularity for discussion.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: * This poll was done with no discussion beforehand that a poll is the way to settle the issue. Polls can be abused. It's clear from previous communications on this page from many people that this is not an ambiguous issue, the graph is inappropriate for the article. The singularity is a fringe theory that has nothing to do with professional history. Singularity is a controversial theory and not "fact". Singluarity deals with future predicitions, cherry picking certain facts from history to support its pre-concieved notion of what will happen in the future. It is from a professional viewpoint not history at all. It simply does not belong in the article. --Stbalbach 14:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I agree with user Stbalbach that the theory of singularity can't be used to explane historical events. It doesn't explane backwardness like the extinsion of the dinosaurs, the ice ages and the middle ages. It could be that our future could one of stabilization or backwardness, allthough i think that the technological advance will continue.--Daanschr 17:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *There could be some info about the history of the earth. The world is not only the term for human world.--Daanschr 19:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *"And how should we vote about the way we should vote?" I see no reason to discuss the need to start a poll. The previous discussion was going nowhere, with what - 3 or 4 people repeating the same arguments - and lost in the middle of this talk, so I decided to start sth new to bring new voices. Yes, Singlularity is a controversial theory, but the data used for the graph come from non-fringe sources, like Britannica or American Museum of Natural History (all 13+ sources listed on image's page now). Usage of such data seems to provide for a fairly unbiased (NPOV) set of data. You are of course free to get more data and create an graph with even more data. Events on this graph illustrate which events are deemed by various scientists (or institutions) to be important in the world's history, and it seems very fitting to this article. That the graph seems to fit the singularity paradigm is not a valid reason for removing it from this article, especially as I cite my sources and you cite your own personal opinon. Please provide data that the graph is biased and untrue.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *The graph is cherry picking facts to support a pre-concieved universal idea of how history works, ignoring facts contrary to the theory. That it not history, it is philosophy. It is called inductive reasoning. Good history uses deductive reasoning, looking at all the facts. Inductive "theories" of history are inherintly popular and are sometimes called  metanarrative's or universal history. There are scores of them. If we include the singularity, we open the door to any number of other theories, such as the Hegelian dialectic, or Arnold J. Toynbee. This article is not about theories or philosophy of history, in particular it should not present a single theory as a fact! --Stbalbach 02:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So your POV is that any list of important events in the history of mankind would be subjective and thus inappopriate for this article, yes?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:44, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *I don't agree with stbalbach about the method of research of historians. Historians use both inductive and deductive reasoning, otherwise the subjects to be studied will be very small. An example of history mainly based on inductive reasoning is history of the world. The subject is so large, that you can't examine all the facts before coming to conclusions. I have critics on Piotrus as well. The problem with predicting the future is that you can't see all the factors that will influence the future. Good examples are the socialist failures of the last two centuries. I think that this article itself needs much improvement. Maybe we could discuss that instead of argueing about a graph.--Daanschr 15:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *I agree with Piotrus and Daanschr, I cannot imagine that historians do not use inductive thinking (or can you prove your claim by citing some source, Stbalbach?). If inductive thinking, or especially the method of forming a singularity, is controversial among historians, I suggest adding a paragraph that explains this issue. (And what's wrong with hegelian dialectic? )--Fenice 07:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *I think there is no controversy among historians about singularity. There are probably no historians (or only a few) who believe in it. I agree that the technological advance will 'probably' speed up, but the reality is that we don't know. There could be a third world war, or an enormous terrorist atack or some kind of natural disaster to prevend further modernization for a long period. Another possibility is that we can't solve some new technological problems, which means that we get stuck with what we have at this moment, or maybe a movement from within the society which blocks technological advance (examples: communism and christian or islamic fundamentalism). History should be about history and not about future.--Daanschr 08:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: **First and most important (and I am getting tired of repeating this) this graph makes no prediction about the future, it only illustrates the trend, and is using several different, verifiable and respectable sources. Whether the singularity can occur or not is not discussed in this graph, and is the topic that belings ore at Talk:Technological singularity, rather then here. I have not seen any reasons for its removal backed by any citation, and the chef remover, SimonP, haven't even posted here. I posted this talk on RfC over a week ago, and although few people replied, we have a 2:1 majority for using this graph in lead (granted, 6 votes are not much, but this is all we have). I am therefore restoring this graph, please don't remove it unless there is at least 2:1 opposition.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *Hegel was not critical enough about the language he used. See Deconstruction.--Daanschr 08:39, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: For starters, we have the American Museum of Natural History line of events there. Göran Burenhult is a Swedish archeologist. Donald Johanson is a paleoanthropologist. And presumbably the list by Britannica was compiled by some historians. True, they don't form a majority of querried scientists, and part of the graph is irrelevant (as we deal with human history only in the article), nonethless, I see no reason to call it a POV nonsense and majority of the graph does deal with human history so it is relevant.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The graph is as accurate as possible! The dates used are the dates used by the reputable sources stated.  Sure you can go ahead and argue that the steam engine was invented earlier... But wikipedia has to go with the academics.  Same thing with the early history, sure the dates may be different, but we have to go with those who know the subject best.  And it's a little far-fetched to assume all the dates were pre-thought out to match a sinister plan.  I don't see the logic in removing this.--sansvoix 06:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That said, what could the sinister plan be?  All this graph shows is that our definition of history is excelerating, if you will. Neat!  I don't know about you, but I didn't come to wikipedia to reinforce my current bubble of knowledge. This graph shows there are other ways to look at things.  Its not just history either, look at this un-orthodox dow jones graph:  But yes, as my source states, such examples should be used with caution, as not to mislead.--sansvoix 06:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: You say academics, but you don't answer the critics that no historians have been mentioned, who support this graph. These academics are academics, because they are good in math. What does that have to do with history? Another comment to the graph is that it is very unclear. I don't know what is meant by it. It shows dots of different colours referring to some modern names and institutes and then we have some kind of grid, which i can vaguely remember of from school. This graph is too much a  tech thi9ng, while most people in the world wouldn't understand it. I prefer the graph with key events.--Daanschr 09:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So unless somebody has a degree in history, he is not authoritative enough to be cited here? I am sorry, but those are not valid arguments. Not a single opponent of this graph has provided a single reference to back his POV. And I can't see how exponential function and graphs can be too complex. As a major of not-so-techy economics and sociology I say this is basic stuff (primary school in Poland), and English Wikipedia is not simple English Wikipedia.I prefer the graph with key events - isn't this the one?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text:  This is becoming to political for me. I'm out of here.--Daanschr 17:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Consider the caravel..stirrup...Green revolution...are overlooked... - oh, have you been able to actually get to the list of what those specific dots mean? If so, please let me know where I can find it so I can add it to the image description page. Many scholars today believe that scientific progress recessed during the Renaissance... - cite your sources, please. This is something not even mentioned in our current article, and I'd love to read about it. Renaissance#Critical_views has some statements, but most of them are unsourced. Even assuming they are true, I see no problem with this: our graph doesn't mind small declines, it is not a perfect exponential function, and so it can - and should - take in any bumps and twists. The creation of the steam engine is placed at exactly 1765, ignoring the decades of earlier versions and the subsequent long period of refinement... - as is explained in the image description (and in referenced, online articles by Modis), such dates were averaged from majority of sources. Apparently the average was in 1765 - not perfect, but this is what existing sources seem to agree upon, and we the graph is using specific years, not periods. Besides, even if you'd move it to 17th or 19th century, it wouldn't made any significant impact on the graph.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a brief mention of the Renaissance decline in this article, though not added by myself.  Pretty much any general work on the Renaissance or Renaissance science will present the regression idea, even if some scholars will go on to argue against it. One general text, Renaissance Europe by De Lamar Jensen states that "scholars have looked disdainfully at the entire Renaissance because it contributed so little to scientific knowledge." In terms of economics the backwardness paradigm was developed by Robert Sabatino Lopez. The graph also skips other periods widely considered to be regressive, such as the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, and even the present. Thomas Homer-Dixon, who has won far more popular and scholarly acceptance than any of the singularity advocates, has spent his entire career arguing that as the problems that face humanity are growing exponentially more complex progress is rapidly slowing. Consider that the number of patents issued in the United States per capita was slowly falling for many years, until very recently when the flood of very easy to receive software patents began. - SimonP 15:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And do you have any proof that 1) those omissions are there (given that we lack the exact descriptions of individual points), and 2) that they would skew the graph, even if they were there? Beacuse I think that given our current info those events may well be covered there as the graphs has points scattered enough to resemble some ups and downs in various periods, and even some 'downs' would not discredit this function from being exponential. I don't know if Thomas Homer-Dixon is so famous: Google test: "Thomas Homer-Dixon" 38k, "Ray Kurzweil 555k. But, I hear you say, Google may be biased towards popular science and away from 'serious' science? Ok, Google Schoolar test then: "Thomas Homer-Dixon" 74, "Ray Kuyrzweil 512. Last but not least, Kurzweil has presented Another graph, that seems to argue for a growing trend in patents. Yes, I agree, software patents did contribute substantially to the recent growth, but so what? It just another paradigm shift. You can as well deny that the human speed of travel has incresed, because you cannot count machine transportation, and actually our hunter-gatherer ancestors could run faster due on average ;p--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: You fail to grasp the problem I was raising with the steam engine example. It is not that the point chosen is wrong or inaccurate, it is that the very notion of picking a single point for each invention is a deeply erroneous idea. Almost all the developments, especially the biological ones, should be represented by long threads. - SimonP 15:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I stil fail to grasp it. Would a change from averaged points to long threads change something here? Citation, please.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I think that the fundamental problem with this graph (espeically if it was at the beginning of the article) is that it presents a understanding of history not accepted by the majority of historians, archaeologists, etc. I don't think it matters what we think about the graph (which illustrates Technological singularity very well), but it shouldn't be here until it is accepted by the majority of people working in the field, as we're meant to be reporting what other people think, not what our own personal POV's are. --G Rutter 19:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's also important to realize that this is just one of many possible charts we could have on this article, and each would be supported by a dedicated group of scholars and Wikipedians. We could have some nice graphs from Paul R. Ehrlich, Jared Diamond, or Thomas Malthus about how humanity has steadily been outstripping our resources and heading for collapse. I'm sure Francis Fukuyama has some nice graphs of the centuries long spread of liberalism, or if there are still any Marxist left we could have a graph of the "inevitable" evolution of human society to a socialist future. - SimonP 22:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: The graph needs more than a disclaimer, it needs an entire article. And it has one. There are dozens of ways of looking at world history, this graph represents just one theory. We report on what people do, not what we think they should do. Wikipedia is not a soapbox for pet theories. If you want, create an article about "history theories" - but see historiography first which allready lists a bunch, and Simons list above. --Stbalbach 23:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graph straw poll 

message: I removed the reference to Ohalo II because it's clear in the cited article by Weiss et al that the cereal grains there are harvested from the wild, not sown. They say explicitly "In sum, the plant remains from Ohalo II prove that broad-spectrum foraging was a strategy for plant collecting as well as for hunting in the UP"
Removed text: Recent findings of considerable quantities of grains in the Ohalo II paleolithic site in modern Israel seem to suggest that cereals had been intentionally sown (without the agriculture-associated additional caretaking activities like fertilization, land clearance, etc.) since 21,000 BC (PNAS 101 p. 9551-9555). Mark Nesbitt 21:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes to Agriculture section

message: I have modified this text:If the operative definition of agriculture includes large-scale intensive cultivation of land, mono-cropping, organised irrigation, and use of a specialised labour force, the title "inventors of agriculture" would fall to the Sumerians, starting ca. 5,500 BC. because the operative definition of agriculture is in fact the husbandry of domesticated plants (and animals). Agriculture started in the Middle East c. 10,000 years ago, well before the Sumerians. The novel aspects of Sumerian agriculture are irrigation and (increased) labour specialisation, so I have reworded to include these.Mark Nesbitt 13:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sumerians

message: I added a section on the historiography of world history.  Not being a world history specialist, its cursory, but probably acceptable for the purposes of an encyclopedia article (I hit the big four points: predisiciplinary world history sucked, Marx made teleography credible, Braudel did important stuff, most current work is thematic).  I'm actually seriously troubled that few if any wikihistory pages have historiographies. Fifelfoo 02:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does this belong at World History, which describes the methodology of world history, rather than in this article which is explicitly a narrative history? Would suggest moving your text but adding a sentence or two in History of the World to make it clear that the historiography is dealt with in the companion article World History. This would also make it clearer why there are two articles with similar names and how they differ. Mark Nesbitt 10:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: World History is a distinct field of history that emerged in the 1980s, it is not the right article for a broad historiography. --Stbalbach 14:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I want this section to be changed. I don't agree with the information and the it is outdated. Voltaire and Hegel had history designs which weren't creationist, so writing history from a non-creationist POV started before Karl Marx and Fernand Braudel. I miss modern historians and sociologists like Wallenstein, Barington Moore and Pommeranz. I want to have it focused on the present debate in world history. A special historiography can be made at the end of the article, but if Karl Marx and Fernand Braudel are put there, then it should be explaned why they belong to this article with a special focus on possible disadvantages. Problem is that i have too little time.--Daanschr 13:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the current historiography section has some interesting perspectives but misses a lot. See also Universal History.  --Stbalbach 14:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New historiography section 

message: One can imagine that alot of folks from around the world read this article, and I believe the Era notations are confusing and inconsistent. Some portions of the article refer to BC, and some to BCE and CE. Because of the mixed opinions of Wikipedians, I think it would be best to edit the site to refer to year prior to 1 as with BC, and to years after and including 1 as with CE (eg.- 200 BC but 200 CE). Also, a note should be included at the bottom of the page referring to what CE means, or a link to Common era should be supplied with CE, because many around the world who use the Gregorian calendar still do not undersant BCE and CE. Any objections? PatrickA 20:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Due to the absence of rebuttal, I am enforcing my above reccomended changes. If you read this article and disagree with the changes, revert them and provide an explanation here. Darwiner111 22:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have preferred to stick with either BC/AD or BCE/CE for consistency. You were concerned about confusion and consistency and I don't see how mixing these together helps; now users have to be familiar with both notations to understand the document. I don't really mind which is used, though BCE/CE seems to be gaining prevelence in newer material. darkliighttalk 22:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for your input. I will replace CE with AD for consistency per your comment. Although you say BCE and CE are being used more in newer documents, not everyone knows they exist and to insert them could be considered POV because we would be promoting a new system. Using the currently accepted system is better. PatrickA 22:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: After reading your user page I don't think you were acting with a NPOV. If a consensus is necessary, per Knowledge Seeker, i'll vote for BCE/CE. darkliighttalk 07:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I've also noticed tht BCE and CE are becoming the new norm. They're also a bit more neutral. But I don't really mind either way. - Pyro19 06:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't matter too much to me either way. In this case, User:PatrickA/User:Darwiner111 (the same user, as should be obvious from above), is correct, in my opinion. The article was originally written using BC, not BCE, although a consensus for change on the talk page could override that, of course. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I would welcome the new universal convention, using BCE and CE.  logologist|Talk 07:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The general guideline that has emerged is similar to the solution to the American/British English difference. There has been a lot of impassioned argument both for using BC/AD and BCE/CE, with both sides making very good arguments. Current practice is to be consistent within an article, using whatever format was originally used. Since this article was originally writted with "BC", PatrickA/Darwiner111 was correct to change the BCEs and CEs for consistency. It would not be appropriate, however, to edit a different article that used BCE/CE and change them to BC/AD. Even if an article were originally written in one style, if the article's editors decide on the talk page that there is good reason to change to the other style, that of course is completely acceptable as well. Some feel that BCE/CE is more appropriate for scientific or non-Christian topics. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm in favour of BC/AD.--Daanschr 16:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Or maybe not, since it appears User:PatrickA and User:Jordain were both sockpuppets of User:Darwiner111. Oh well.--Alhutch 07:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As the original creator of this article, I really don't care if my BC/AD is replaced with BEC/CE. In fact I usually use BCE/CE myself. - SimonP 14:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's how it stands right now, so I guess we might as well just leave it.--Alhutch 14:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the only thing I do really care about is avoiding another pointless edit war. - SimonP 14:39, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not seeking to be argumentative or overly dramatic.  With that said... the "original format" argument seems not only empty, but un-Wikipedian, as does the "intent of the original author".  The whole point of a dynamic encyclopedia is to be bold and make changes because you believe they ought to be made.  "Because it was that way before" isn't really an amazingly compelling argument, is it?  Otherwise we'd devolve into a strict WP:Wait for advice from Jimbo policy 'round here.  I know, I know, this has been argued in circles and to a virtual stand-still before, but that doesn't seem to me to be a really great reason to pre-emptively stand still.  I suppose Wikipedia can't decide how to consistently spell "color" ("colour"?), so perhaps this one also simply needs to be filed in the "no consensus possible" drawer.  But that's insanely frustrating to me.  (I, for the record, am a BCE/CE proponent, but am with SimonP in avoiding reversion lunacy here.)  Phew, I'm done. JDoorjam     Talk 01:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I, too, was confused by the Stone Ages chronologies.  Perhaps someone conversant with those periods could review them.  logologist|Talk 02:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Era Proposal 

message: I made some new chapters. The text still needs much work.--Daanschr 16:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New chapters 

message: I want to get rid of too much focusing on Europe. I think that 'Age of Discovery', which i changed into 'mercantile dominance of Europe' should be merged with 'Rise of Europe'.--Daanschr 16:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. There is too much Eurocentrism. --Revolución (talk) 01:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too much focus on Europe 

message: This article is divided topically, rather than chronologically. Most "history of [x]" articles are the opposite. Was this form decided, or has it just happened? Would there be any point in creating a sister article documenting the history of the world chronologically? --Oldak Quill 18:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it seems obvious to me that this article needs to be split into subarticles. I think we can should have both topical and chronological overview, then detailed articles for both. Besides, the current sectioning seems to be a confusing mix of both - 'the worst of both worlds', I am afraid.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think detailed articles for the chronology already exist as 1st century and whatnot. But yes, I agree with this approach. --Oldak Quill 20:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm in favour of quality. At the moment, the article is still a mess. Maybe a complete startover is needed. I'm not an expert in the present approach of the academic world of world history. I have the idea that it is mainly topically and doesn't give an overview. World historians make comparisons between regions in the world in long distances of time.--Daanschr 13:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A difficult one... at the moment the page reads like 1066 and all that, i.e. an inaccurate and selective precis of memorable bits of the history of the world. But to do something topical or regional needs areal gift for synthesis. Unless we have a budding Jared Diamond or Felipe Fernández-Armesto in our midst, I'm a bit at a loss to know what to do. Mark Nesbitt 21:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Topical rather than chronological 

message: The term "parasites" implies a negative value judgment. The very broad incidence of cities on the other hand suggests they offered substantial value to their societies, for example as markets and sites of specialized expertise. The relationship appears symbiotic.RRGLASG 17:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parasitic Cities 

message: possible items to add or expand:
* Polynesian/Pacific civilizations
* North and South American Pre-Columbian civilizations
* Arctic and sub-artic peoples of Europe, Asia and North America
* Korean civilization 
* Japanese civilization  
* SouthEast Asian states/civilizations
* Germanic tribes (by name) invading Roman empire 
* Asias steepe tribes (by name) invading Europe (East, Cental, South, West)
* South Asian states/civilizations
* religious states/empires: Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc
* sub-Saharan states/civilizations
thanks Hmains 18:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: expansion ideas

message: I have been trying to get this chronological, as well as others. I changed the titles of some sections,like "hunter-gatherers" --> Early humanity and "Agriculture" --> Development of agriculture but I am afraid I don't know what to do with all the extra information that doesn't fit into the time period. This may require a rewrite. --Revolución (talk) 22:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chronological 

message: The numbers and research shows Africa was where humans were first, I always thought it was in the Middle East. After skimming the article link, it does say that the Middle East is included in the "Africa is origin" statement. Anyone have extra info on this matter? 70.111.251.203 15:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Middle east probably saw the first cities. But the most popular theories of humans' origin (at least those that make Scientific American) will show maps that show a point of origin somewhere in southwest Africa. However, that is properly anthropology, not history.... --Alvestrand 15:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with above. My A World History and Oxford Atlas of World History agree that humanity arose in Africa, and there is pretty good evidence for that. Agriculture originated independently in several locations including the Middle East, where it was probably first, but the first civilization was almost certainly at Sumer in the Middle East. — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "almost certainly at Sumer" (!) __ and what; almost UNcertainly at Egypt?! La! :-) -- Maysara 14:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Africa, but where? 

message: The article has a section for religion and philosophy and I think that we should group its origins and development together in this section. So I think the Development of religion subsection within the Neolithic Period should be moved here. That should have the added benefit of making it easier to expand in the future too. Any thoughts? --darkliighttalk 04:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two religion sections? 

message: Greetings, history lovers. Inspired by your example, I have been working on a broad History of Earth, from the planet's formation to today. It is a rather daunting task, and I would appreciate any help or suggestions you could provide regarding the section on human history (or any other, for that matter). Please see Talk:History of Earth#Human history for more information. Thank you. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the debate was no consensus. —Nightstallion (?) 11:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting your help at [[History of Earth]] 

message: The page was moved from History of the world to "History of the World" earlier today without any discussion. Based on above, I moved it back. Please discuss if you feel this is in error. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's strange at all to capitalize the word "World". Just try Googling "history of the world"  and you will see how much world is capitalized in that phrase. --Revolución (talk) 22:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm...I just tried it, and I didn't actually find much capitalization. That is, there were several "History of the World"s, but that was when the phrase was a title, and usually (but not on Wikipedia), most words are capitalized. On Wikipedia, only proper nouns are capitalized, so "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" in most works becomes "Severe acute respiratory syndrome" on Wikipedia. We'd have to see a "history of the World" to show unambiguous intention to capitalize world, and I didn't see that on my cursory search at least, although there were several "history of the world"s showing lowercasing. And of course, as above, my dictionary at least doesn't capitalize world—does yours? Finally, the reason I moved the page back is that this was discussed only a couple sections ago and then moved—to then come and move it back without discussion or explanation here seems not to be the right course of action to me. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: :This straw poll is designed to get a better idea of editors' opinions and consensus on this issue. It is non-binding and informal, and should be used to organize and facilitate discussion.
:Feel free to vote and/or comment on all of the options which you have an opinion on: "support" and "oppose" votes are both acceptable, and you may vote on any number of the options, though only once for each option.
:If you have a new suggestion for a naming option, feel free to add it to the list.
;Keep article at History of the world
#Strong oppose. Highly ambiguous (most people who search for this term will probably really be looking for History of Earth), colloquial ("the world" in this meaning is an expression, not a literal term, and is not appropriate for an article title; book titles have lower standards than encyclopedia article titles, since they need to be eye-catching and dramatic more than accurate and clear), unencyclopedic. -Silence 22:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Straw poll

message: We've already had the discussion - see above.  Noisy | Talk 12:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion