Talk:20th century/Archive 3

message: This article needs major cleanup. It is our article on the 20th century, an extremely important topic, and it begins with a rambling paragraph about whether 1900 or 2000 should be considered part according to various opinions and ISO definitions?? And it peters out in endless lists of names? The "20th c. vs. 1900s" cruft deserves a footnote at best. The lists should be exported to various list articles. What we want here is a description of the nature of the 20th century in fluent prose, not cruft. dab (ᛏ) 09:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you want to edit The 20th century in review? --Sean Brunnock 11:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And then there's Survey of the 20th century. Why are these articles different from each other? Xaxafrad 05:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: cleanup

message: I think Xaxafrad makes a good point. Why can't all three articles be condensed and merged into one article under a common name and the titles of the other two articles turned into redirects to the new article? It might cause less confusion for someone researching on the site. GordonJTaylor 03:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Three into one

message: I updated the "Wars and politics" section yesterday (while not logged in, because of laziness), and today someone has removed it completely, with no word of explanation.  Yesterday I also restored a big chunk of quite reasonable text (though I also edited it somewhat) that had been deleted a few days ago, and put it under the "General" and "See also" sections, which I created. I'm restoring the "Wars and politics" section, unless someone makes a good argument why it shouldn't be there. Teemu Leisti 00:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was section "Wars and politics" deleted? 

message: I would like to place an external link to an online history portal that I believe offers added-value to wikipedia's history enthusiasts. This portal, http://www.saecularis.com, offers a good selection of history books, DVDs and posters that can be purchased online.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anasl001 (talk • contribs) 15:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Spammity spam, spammity spam... Groupthink (talk) 01:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  external links

message: I see no mention of 20th Century literature. Hemingway, Kerouac, Steinbeck, et cetera.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.176.249.232 (talk) 21:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Literature

message: The image :Image:Miles-davis-in-a-silent-way.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
:* That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
:* That this article is linked to from the image description page.
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --07:17, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:Miles-davis-in-a-silent-way.jpg

message: This article has a number of images but, without exception, they all deal with the western world. It would be good to have at least one or two pictures representing events / significant people from Asia, Africa, Oceania and/or Latin America. The 20th century was a time of tremendous change in all those regions. Perhaps we can have a little brainstorming and select the most appropriate images. My first idea was to include an image of a prominent 20th century independence leader, to illustrate the section on decolonisation. Aridd (talk) 12:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illustrations 

message: Per WP:SS, this article is just too long. A WP article doesn't need to have a "summary" (aside from the intro); it should be a summary. Also, the "major events" section in this article seems to be a conglomeration of information that can be found in other articles (such as Vietnam War). So, per WP:SS (and WP:BB), I'm thinking of cutting out all the text from this section, and simply leaving it with wikilinks to relevant articles. These links, along with the sections currently named "summary" and "developments in brief," should be enough for a decent, succinct article. Any thoughts? Cosmic Latte (talk) 00:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your premise.  An alternative solution would be to create "X in the 20th century" sub-articles, e.g., "War in the 20th century", "Technological developments in the 20th century", etc.  Either would be fine with me. Groupthink (talk) 06:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I guess you guys are right. Teemu Leisti (talk) 00:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would like to suggest that the summary be limited to a certain number of words as a way of challenging editors (ourselves) to be succinct.  It seems to me that extraordinary brevity is whole point of a page like this: give the reader a broad over view of the century and a lot of links to take them to articles about other interesting stuff.  Personally, I like the number 100.  One hundred words look like three paragraphs and fills up about half my screen.  I also think the lists of events and people should be limited to 100, there are other pages with longer lists.  On this page, I think less is more. -ErinHowarth (talk) 07:42, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Length

message: I believe that this article has great potential. However, I believe a few major changes could and should be made to this article. For example, the "developments in brief" section should be eliminated and integrated into the newly-renamed "summary" section. I already took the liberty of moving the mini-summary already in the "general" section to the intro, where it is better suited, and increasing the amount of info in the "summary" section to include some critical missing points (such as the United Nations and conflict in the Middle East).
Eventually I think that even the current summary and major events sections could be integrated. Both are very well-written, but I don't think that there's ultimately a need to include two different sections that essentially cover the same things (just one in more detail and one in less detail) and especially not a third section (the current "developments in brief" section). I think if other people helped me out with this (I think I'm going to do as much work on this as I can) and help from people in finding references (my specialty is in writing prose, not finding references), we could even make this a featured article eventually. It's ambitious, but I think the basics are there for it...honestly the biggest problem is referencing. Anybody want to help out? Anybody have any thoughts? Additional suggestions? bob rulz (talk) 10:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done a fair amount of work on this article, and am still looking over it now and then.  (I modified it a bit just now.)  So, I'll be willing to contribute.  Could you give an outline of what you think the structure should be, and what material should be moved or modified?  (Personally, I think the section on WW2 is too long; detailed descriptions like that belong in their own articles.) Teemu Leisti (talk) 22:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There's definitely the potential of a great article here; what is here is generally of pretty high quality. The World War II section is definitely much too long. I think we could slowly combine the various sections. The "developments in brief" section could be wrapped into the rest of the article fairly easily. It's essentially just a summary of a summary of the article. Eventually everything can be pared down into just one description divided into the separate sections needed, such as cultural and societal trends, major events, technological and scientific developments, etc. 1970s would be a good template for how to organize the article, although it has the potential to be a very good article if we work at it. bob rulz (talk) 06:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've not done anything about this yet, but on reading the new talk subsection "Length", I think they're right.  This is getting too long, and should be broken into subarticles. Teemu Leisti (talk) 00:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

text:  I changed the end of "The age of dictatorships";the Jews killed by Hitler were not all Ashkenazi (for example the Sephardi community of Salonica) so I opted for European Jews as a more accurate term, and the Great Purge (or Great Stalinian Terror) occurred no later in the 20th century, but in the 1930s, and affected many nationalities of the Soviet Union, not just the Russians Drepanopulos (talk)Drepanopulos (talk) 12:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewriting

message: "yet it had to accept a liberal democratic government imposed on it by the victors after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm."
This is wrong - the Weimar Republic was in no way imposed.  Anyone disagree? StevenWT (talk) 21:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post-WWI German Government 

message: Please participate in the following discussion pages and help us choose the best images for montages in the decade articles of the 20th century.
* Talk:1900s (decade)#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1910s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1920s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1930s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1940s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1950s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1960s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1970s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1980s#The selection of notable events in the montage
* Talk:1990s/Archives/2012#The selection of notable events in the montage
TheCuriousGnome (talk) 20:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help us choose the best images for the 20th century montages 

message: I have removed reference to Africans fighting for equal rights in Australia. Unless you didn't know Africans are only recent (21st Century) phenomanon in Australia and have only recently arrived. Little to almost no Africans (probably about 10-20) existed in Australia during the 20th century as a result of the White Australia policy. Africans arrived AFTER the civil rights movement therefore it should not be referenced.
You can however reference the Chinese fighting for equal rights in Australia as they already had large population centres and had began migrating 100 years earlier during the 19th Century.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.189.192.240 (talk) 06:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Africans in Australia?

message: Why is global warming featured here? It is not a proven theory, and most scientists agree the world has been cooling for the past 15 years.--Collingwood26 (talk) 07:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The vast majority of scientists in the field agree that global warming is a reality. I don't know where you get the idea that the "world has been cooling for the past 15 years"; probably from some global warming denialist website. There is always noise in the temperature curve, corresponding to minor influences, but the trend for the last hundred years or so has been a steadily increasing global average temperature. See, for instance, the first chart in Instrumental temperature record. For more information on the subject, see Global warming. --Teemu Leisti (talk) 22:18, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Global Warming?

message: The foregoing discussion might usefully be focused more narrowly on the two systems for labeling years that are in most common use today.  The traditional labeling 2 BC, 1 BC, 1 AD, 2 AD was standardized in England by the Venerable Bede in the 8th Century and popularized in Europe by Charlemagne.  As explained in articles such as Millennium, Year zero, Proleptic Gregorian calendar, etc. there is another more modern system also in common use which labels those four years -1, 0, 1, 2.
Wikipedia articles that mention either of these systems generally mention both (and in some cases their many less commonly encountered variants resulting from minor adjustments to dates).  For no apparent reason this series of articles on centuries has taken a hard line on the illegitimacy of the modern system, as illustrated by edits like this.
There are a number of factors militating against this hard line on the modern labeling.
# It's an ISO standard.
# It's the one preferred by a great many software packages (the article Proleptic Gregorian calendar cites MySQL, SQLite, PHP, CIM, Delphi, Python, and COBOL as examples).
# It's the one used by astronomers.
# It provides for fractional years such as 0.75 meaning 3 months before the start of 1 AD and 0.25 meaning 3 months after the start of 1 BC.
#  It's the one implicit in the common acceptance by the public of 2000 as the start of the new century and millennium; as mentioned here the Australian press derided Prime Minister John Howard as "party pooper of the century" for favoring a 2001 celebration.
#  It's more convenient, e.g. the century of a year is given by its first two digits.
#  It's consistent with all modern conventions about age and birthdays when one takes Jesus's first logical birthday (whatever his actual first birthday) to be January 1 in the year 1 AD.  (So Jesus celebrates his n-th birthday on January 1 of n AD and is n years old throughout n AD.  Moreover his logical age was 3 months in 0.25 AD.)
# Its legitimacy is acknowledged by almost all relevant Wikipedia articles except this series on centuries.  That makes this series the one that's out of step with the rest of Wikipedia.
Arguing that the modern labeling should not even be mentioned in this and the other articles about centuries is at about the level of what differentiates sects of the same religion from one another.  People can get quite heated about the illegitimacy of all other sects than their own.  This in turn serves to undermine the credibility of Wikipedia: people can and do cite the first sentence of this article, "The 20th century was the period between January 1, 1901, and December 31, 2000" as proof of the illegitimacy of the modern labeling when this is obvious nonsense. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 20:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Bede and modern labeling systems 

message: I've been thinking for a while now that Timeline of modern history should redirect to Timeline of early modern history, since "modern history" begins in ~1500, and that its contents should be split into a timeline for this article, just like the one for 19th century,  18th century, etc, and 21st century. Serendipodous 21:51, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Timeline

message: "Despots such as Kim Jong-il of North Korea continued to lead their nations toward the development of nuclear weapons."
[Explanatory note] The label: despot has a pejorative connotation of tyrant, oppressor and dictator. The label of despot may be apt, but the label distracts the reader from the main topic: nuclear arms proliferation. The word despot implies that only dictators would have the power to lead their people into and arms race toward a the security of the balance of power.] 
[Revised text] Heads of state, such as Kim Jong-il of North Korea and various democratic governments in India, Pakistan, South Africa and Israel continue to lead their nations toward the development of nuclear weapons. Some international agencies and NGO watchdogs suspect other states of opaque nuclear arms development.
--David Faubion (talk) 23:15, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Israel, India and Pakistan all went nuclear before the 20th century ended. Serendipodous 08:53, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: correction

message: The article requires:
* lists to be converted to referenced text;
* all claims to be cited;
* any remaining editorial opinions to be removed or replaced with cited quotations.  Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Evensteven (talk) 22:27, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: To do

message: A new source, at the end of the fourth introductory paragraph. The last sentence of that paragraph makes the extraordinary claim that violence worldwide has decreased since 1945. Is this really what the source states? There should be a page number at least, in order to check the reference. To me, the claim also seems inflated or questionable if not downright wrong, and I'm wondering if the source is talking about violence due to war, or due to war by major powers, rather than violence itself. I think this needs some verification. Evensteven (talk) 23:01, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about "The Better Angels of Our Nature" 

message: "The 20th century was a century that began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000." - Haha, no shit?
:What's your question exactly? Information being obvious is generally no reason to leave it out. Also, to how many readers and even editors this information is not obvious, as evidenced by attempts to change it. Gap9551 (talk) 19:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about obviousness 

message: The "Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I (as of 1923)" doesn't show the partition of Ireland (prior to WW1 entirely part of the United Kingdom) into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. 86.162.48.216 (talk) 18:35, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I (as of 1923). 

message: An IP has been removing "was a century" from the lead as being obvious.  I think it appropriate, at least, to have the word century linked in the lead.  Comments?  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "century" 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on 20th century. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151218012125/http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/lists/mostrecent.htm to http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/lists/mostrecent.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090206151355/http://mdah.state.ms.us/pubs/bilbo.pdf to http://mdah.state.ms.us/pubs/bilbo.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120206080625/http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Old.html to http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Old.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Is the climate change model image necessary at the beginning of the article? It seems out of place with no context.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:478B:EB00:4C1A:5E6E:BA2C:2BFC (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed it. Seems a bit strange and the description in the frame doesn't really explain how this is particularly an issue to this century compared to say the 21st century, could be argued that human-cause climate change could span multiple centuries. Also doesn't have a lot of paragraph context around it. --Kuzwa (talk) 04:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate Change model image 

message: Has anyone noticed the growth of this section during this discussion?  Given that WP has thousands of articles on notable people that were alive in the 20th century -- maybe tens of thousands.  I foresee no end to this; in a year's time, this list will be 90% of the article.  This is not helpful to our readers, and not helpful to WP as it consumes much of our editor's efforts.
This situation is unlike other centuries.  The fact that WP articles for other centuries have no limits to similar lists is irrelevant.
We need to establish some criteria for inclusion of people in this article.  In addition, that criteria must be exact and definite, or endless edit wars will ensue.  If no one can suggest such criteria, we should delete the list now for everyone's sake.  (If, later, we do agree on such a criteria, the list can be easily remade using the criteria.)
--A D Monroe III (talk) 22:24, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Significant people: discussion

message: This is a better place for the image that was originally removed from the lead. However, why exactly does this image need to be in the 20th century article as opposed to the 21st century? Based on the description it is demonstrating temperature predictions for the late 21st century which has nothing to do with the 20th... --Kuzwa (talk) 00:47, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed this picture, basically for these reasons. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:41, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global temperature image in environment section 

message: The Nobel Prize was established in 1901 and was prominently awarded to many of the most notable people of the 20th century. I feel it should be mentioned in the article somehow.  There's no obvious section for it though; science, literature, and peace are all in separate sections.  Any suggestions? power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Nobel Prize 

message: It seems odd to list nuclear power as a defining feature of the century so high up in the intro. The link doesn't include nuclear weapons, and with regard to energy production, there were other transformations during the 20th century. Sdkb (talk) 22:26, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear power 

message: The intro includes a sentence that says that the 20th century created a word where people are more united. It goes on to list concepts like international law, and institutions like the United Nations. Isn't this a limited view of unification? The 20th century also saw people unified as new nations, as oppressed populations, and in military defense blocs. There are more then those few too - my church held something called a unity walk. The current language seems to define unification in the terms of globalization. How could we better reword this sentence to encompass all the types of 20h century unification? 47.137.181.252 (talk) 02:22, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  More united 

message: Are there any conditions for how in culture and entertainment certain film stars/ filmmakers and music artists are applied?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:744A:E600:2467:2B2D:6B0B:8A5B (talk) 04:32, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  20th century culture and entertainment  

message: The 20th Century was an interestingng changing Point, from Bolt Action Rifles to Assault Rifles, Biplanes to Jets, etc MasterRedditz (talk) 10:41, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Change 

message: Dear IP,
please do not add unnecessary content, however, instead of re-adding, you may explain your points here. Thank You(KIENGIR (talk) 23:42, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP edit 

message: By what measure are Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Paul Robeson “among the most popular Hollywood stars of the 20th century?” Carptrash (talk) 20:40, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movie stars 

message: Someone has recently added a Significant people section.  No references. I alphabetized the different sections, but added or subtracted very few, if any, names. The first section, World leaders, activists, I arranged by country, just for a change of pace and, perhaps, make it easier to deal with.  So the first question is, is including such a section a fools errand? Secondly, how do we deal with because it is just a matter of time until Madonna appears on the "Spiritual leaders."  I mean, who could argue with that?  Is it worth trying to find references for something this subjective?  Anyone want to talk about it or do I just assume carte blanche and just have fun? Carptrash (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the key to moving on here is your statement "people I think are relevant." What we think is irrelevant.  My guess is that you don't really know who most of the people you added were.  I found the lists or lists online that you used to generate a good portion of your additions and some of those names are pretty minor players in the century. But this is what we need to do, talk about it.  It seemed clear to me that your edits ere good faith that is why I did not just remove them. Carptrash (talk) 15:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I just removed 
*Edward VII, British, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, also Emperor of India
*George V, British, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, also Emperor of India
*Edward VIII, British, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, also Emperor of India
*George VI, British, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, also Emperor of India
if we are to have all these kings, then why not the kings of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland . .... wait, Finland doesn't have a king, fine, so Belgium, Bulgaria etc, etc etc. If you want them back please present a discussion as to why they belong. Now I think I'll get rid of a few more, then we start in on American presidents. Carptrash (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

text: has reverted my removal.  Any thoughts? 97.125.232.133 (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

text: * There is no consensus for removal; the section is appropriate and should remain...Modernist (talk) 19:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: * Do you have any answers for how the list will not be arbitrary or a fools errand to create and maintain here? 97.125.232.133 (talk) 19:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Significant people section