Talk:1345

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 This article is part of WikiProject Years, an attempt to improve and standardize articles related to Years. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Good article 1345 was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on January 3, 2008.
January 30, 2008 Good article nominee Not listed

Contents

[edit] Question: Why is this article different...?

...from other year articles?

Answer: A group of editors decided it would be interesting to try to get a random year article to FA status. This is what we've cooked up so far. Hopefully it catches on... Wrad (talk) 07:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

02-Jan-2008: Another alternate format - I just spotted this article, at random, while checking on the current diversity of the yearly articles. Almost "everyone" wants the yearly articles to be something different, but this is the first essay-style approach I have seen. There was a philosophy behind the timeline-style articles: each year was a condensed, month-oriented collection of bullets to tie a year, by wikilinks, to hundreds of related articles: the concept was to put each year "in a nutshell", with the bias being date-fragmentation (since a year is already "year-fragmentation"): not the major wars or diseases or volcanoes or inventions, but the dates ruled the article structure. We didn't even state, "Galileo died, having smuggled the basis documents of modern physics out to the world," rather just listed "Galileo" under deaths, by date. This is continued below under Comparison of year formats. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for clueing me in on the history of the year article debate. Here's my position: Date fragmentation is not possible in articles dealing with older history. We don't know the exact dates for much in 1345 or other, older articles because they just aren't there. We do know, however, what month, what general time of year, or what exact year they happened in. Requiring the same sort of timeline for older year articles as for modern ones would increase western bias, because we only know exact dates for western things. The "Unknown date" section would be littered with events in Asia in a very jumbled and unprofessional form that would only make sense in prose. Prose is the best way to do all year articles, in my opinion, but it is especially necessary for older year articles. If almost everyone wants something different, then this, to my mind, is the solution: Feature the prose prominently on the main year page, and move the timeline to another page. Let the change be gradual. We can sacrifice a little consistency for quality. Start with older articles and then we can worry about whether or not to do the same to newer ones.
I hope you understand what I mean. You just can't separate year articles this old into months without creating a mess, but you can still easily separate them by years. I'm not sure how far back you'd have to go before decade separation is required, but after researching this, I'm very confident that the 14th century can handle individual year articles. Any further back, though, and we'll just have to experiment a bit and find out. I really don't know. Wrad (talk) 22:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison of year formats

02-Jan-2008: Another year that had strayed was article "1905" which drifted to Einstein's Annus Mirabilis, and of course "1940"-"1945" were almost hijacked by WWII writers. However, switching into essay-style now is like changing "herds of horses" (in "mid-ocean"). Meanwhile, there are many people who actively update the year-articles as bullet events in the timeline-style. I have been very careful not to upset those timeline people, since they contribute hundreds of facts to Wikipedia every month. I recommend creating article "1345_analysis" to support an essay-style article; however, "1340s_analysis" might be better, as suggested below. We have a lot of problems with event-bias about wars and kings, with little about earthquakes or hurricanes for indigenous tribes, or scientific advancement crushed by other events. Probably the best approach would be to create 500 articles first, in the form "13xx_analysis" and then let people compare those 500 articles, before changing the year-article format. Changing just 200 years into another format would be insignificant effort to the year-timeline editors, who actively deal with thousands of articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
We have an article already called 1345 timeline which can please the timeline crowd, who seem at the moment to be much too busy with more modern articles to deal with incredibly poor middle ages ones (I don't blame them). It seems odd to me for a poor-quality timeline article be put out on the front lines in favor of this much better one just because "that's the way we've always done it and it would be hard to change." I think this article is a much better fit for 1345 space and will do the wiki credit. As for bias: If someone puts it in, we'll take it out. It's that simple. You don't decide not to create an article because someone might put bias in it. If we did that, wikipedia would never have been created! I don't expect this whole thing to change overnight, but I do think that someday this is the way many year articles will be written. Wrad (talk) 18:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's what I think: When I look at a year article on Wikipedia, I'm bombarded by a bulleted list of disjointed events, and it's hard to figure out what's going on. It's nice to have a written summary that takes into account what happened before and after the event occured. I can't really tell what was going on in one year if I only read snippets of information. I think having the year article in essay form helps me to better see the "big picture". Instead of seeing just a list of events, I can see, really see, what was happening that year, in every part of the world.

That said, I also think the timelines and lists of births and deaths are very interesting as well. I think we should keep them as separate articles, as Wrad proposed. -Tea and crumpets (t c) 00:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Milhist stuff

Per your request at Milhist, I'll try to read it again in depth later but the thing that jumped out was Alfonso XI of Castile attacking Granada in the intro but Gibraltar in the body. By 1345, the Emirate of Granada was already an autonomous Castilian client state. Al-Andalus gives background. I'd personally use Moorish in place of Muslim in this context, as the religious divide was much smaller than people imagine. --ROGER DAVIES talk 20:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Wrad (talk) 20:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1340s?

How different would this article actually be from a similarly fleshed-out 1344 or 1346? A major part of the discussion is background-type material that would apply equally to the world a couple of years behind or ahead. So, I'm not sure one can reasonably discuss historical trends on such a short timescale of only one year. Maybe it doesn't make sense to try for Featured Article with 1345, but instead to expand this to cover the 1340s. Then, 1345 could be molded to a Featured List candidate, and just catalog every significant event of that year, without attempting a historical summary. Anyway, I do admire the extensive research that's gone into this. Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 07:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, if all year articles are done like this one, they would be too similar. All year articles have been just a list of events, births and deaths so far, and I've liked it. Decades however are long enough to be different every time and to have a longer article, containing more backround material. And, this would make a great 1340s article. H2ppyme (talk) 10:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
This article would be quite a bit different from nearby year articles. If you endeavored to do serious research on 1346, you would find that it had plenty to offer and would be quite a bit different from 1345. Different events happen every year. This article doesn't even come close to covering all the events that would be covered in 1344 or 1346, much less the 1340s. It will cover even less of those as we do more research and narrow it further. When we were researching this article, we stumbled across many things which occurred in 1346 and didn't even mention them since the article is about 1345. Once the quality of the article improves, references to other years should decrease and be included only as they provide context for this particular year.
I'm absolutely shocked that you like the way year articles have been so long. They're nothing more than a set of fragmented, western-centric lists of jumbled information. No one could ever hope to decipher what actually happened in that year. No context is provided. I feel pretty strongly about the sad state of year articles, that's the entire reason we wrote this article. Wrad (talk) 16:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Quite. 1345 doesn't, um, happen every year. --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I might just flesh out 1346 a bit just to prove my point. That was an exciting year. The Black Plague hit the Golden Horde, who then threw the diseased over Genoese defenses in one of the most effective cases of biological warfare ever, infecting the first Europeans with what would be a devastating epidemic. The Chagatai Khanate finally fell. Ibn Battuta visited China, forever changing the Islamic world map in the same way Marco Polo had done for European maps. The list goes on and on. I'm not sure at what point year articles would not be possible to write, but I'm confident 14th century ones well within reach. Wrad (talk) 22:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think to have a real article, we need more than just a cataloging of events (no matter how well-written), that happened in one particular year. We need a discussion of worldwide trends over a period of time, and history just didn't move that fast in the 14th century (or arguably even today). I know that notability hasn't traditionally been applied to the year articles, but I think if we look at it objectively the years as such are not encyclopedically notable; people often write books on particular centuries, and occasionally on particular decades, but, outside of microhistory approaches, never on particular years (excepting a couple of choice recent ones like 1945). What I think you've really tried to communicate in this article is the world of 1345; which as I see it is substantially really the world of the 1340s, and I think that by constraining a treatment of such information like this to one particular year we'll only be overemphasizing individually-dated events over historical trends. Which is not to say that the conventional approaches to the individual year articles are a good approach — what we need for these in my opinion is a thoroughly-organized topical listing, replacing or in addition to the timeline, something that could be of the caliber to make Featured List.--Pharos (talk) 05:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That really doesn't make any sense to me. How would a World of the 1340s article be any better than this article by your logic? You could make the same arguments there as you're making here. Are there any books or articles out there with the title The 1340s or such like? I doubt it. Most of them would bear the title The Late Middle Ages and would cover a couple of centuries. Luckily, that's not really how you determine notability, otherwise there would be a lot fewer articles on wikipedia. On the other hand, an article with 40 refs and counting has a pretty well proved notability in just about anybody's book.
There are a huge number of facts, information, articles, etc. about the year 1345, events in the year 1345. Yes, in some places, this article reads like a World of 1345 article. However, this article is not finished yet. (It's not even a week old!) That is why it reads like a world of 1345 in some places. In other places, it clearly is an article about events in 1345. The article will read more and more like the latter as it improves. Keep in mind though that with year articles, as with any other article, context must and will be included.
Please see my arguments further up about why a timeline is absolutely unfeasible for older year articles such as 1345. I'd rather not repeat it all here. A topical list would be better, but not as good as prose. You wouldn't get any context and if you added context you might as well just make it prose. How would a topical list make it any better than the article is now, by your logic. It would still be "un-notable." It would still be "overemphasizing individually-dated events over historical trends". By your logic, we might as well just delete the whole load of year articles and be done with it. I don't see where you're drawing your lines. Where does notability end and begin for you? Where does an article become too "microhistorical" to be worthy of existence? Your definitions seem arbitrary to me. I'm sticking to the simple wiki-logic that if there are refs for it, it can have an article, that prose is usually preferred over lists, and that darn good information deserves a place on the internet. Wrad (talk) 06:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
A 'world of the 1340s'-type article could be about historically-identified trends rather than specific events. In other words, it could explain how the societies slowly shifted from the beginning of the decade to the end of the decade; there are no real trends that take place over an individual year. I don't doubt that there are a huge number of individual historical events that occurred in 1345, or indeed in any individual year going back at least twenty centuries. But I do doubt that there are many discernible months-long trends that have been covered in secondary sources. Many books have been written on every decade in the 20th century, and could I'm sure be written on all the many decades in earlier centuries as well if there was a market demand; for some specialized topics, there are indeed histories of a particular decade in the Middle Ages or even Classical Antiquity — and that is why the line needs be drawn there. I believe the year pages should be treated as lists because that is their natural level of their organization, just like the List of tallest buildings in Miami; and notability works differently for lists — we don't need a book on a particular building boom in Miami to know that the information on the heights of those buildings belongs together. I am not suggesting that any of this "darn good information" currently at 1345 be removed from Wikipedia; I am rather suggesting that it be reorganized. The first step to this would be to move this page to 1340s and expand it; while perhaps saving a few of more minor events for a reorganized 1345. Thus the decade article and year page would be useful for different purposes (the decade article on "the world" at this time and historical trends, the year page on a list of events organized topically), and both be structured accordingly.--Pharos (talk) 07:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I can definitely see that there should probably be some sort of semi-official project policy to differentiate between the content regarding trends, which would probably fit better in decade articles, than specific events, which would make most sense in the annual articles. Personally, seeing references to specific events relevant to developing trends would make perfect sense for inclusion, however. And, for what its worth, I think referring to the Bardi family banking bankruptcy collapse, as is done in Timetables of History might make some sense as well. John Carter (talk) 15:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It looks like some syntax went awry at the end, there, John. What were you trying to say? Wrad (talk) 19:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That happens to me a lot. There is a question as to how much information regarding multi-year trends should be included. It does make sense to me that specific, important events which are part of trends should be included in the annual articles. However, it makes more sense that the discussion of the trends should be discussed in the broader articles, decades, centuries, whatever. It might be a good idea for those involved to establish a guideline regarding how to include information relating to events which are parts of trends and the trends themselves. John Carter (talk) 18:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
That seems to be what's happening in my discussions with Wikid elsewhere on this page. I'm also developing a 1346 article which should reveal more about what make this type of year article tick. Things should sort out as we move along. Wrad (talk) 21:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Pharos. I don't mean to be rude, but it is obvious to me that you don't know much about the sources that are available out there about this decade. Just because there are books about decades in the 1900's most certainly does not mean there are any about the 1400s. Please stop speculating about what is out there and listen to someone who knows what is out there, or look for yourself. If there was a book or an article about the 1340s, I would have jumped on it. They aren't out there. Your way of organizing things is based on false information, and really isn't any better than the way things are in this article now at all.
I've already made my argument about why lists aren't a year's "natural level of organization." We aren't talking about buildings or bird species here, we're talking about events and their contexts. What's more, we're talking about events that we don't know the exact date for, so they can't be listed chronologically. It's not logical to list these things. How would you organize such a list? Alphabetically? By country or continent? How would that be any better? It just seems like it would be a huge, disorganized mess to me. Wrad (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the first year article of this type that we have made. Everyone in this discussion is just speculating on what other articles would be like. I'd say Wrad and I have a better idea of what they would be like, because we actually delved in, did the research, wrote the article, and made the maps. But we still don't know for sure how the 1344, 1346, and 1340s articles would turn out. I propose we make these articles into prose and see what happens. -Tea and crumpets (t c) 21:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The format of this article is amazing, Wrad, congratulations! I think this is the way the years articles should be organized, at least for earlier dates, recent years are split into very detailed articles anyway. --Tone 21:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. That's about how I feel. Wrad (talk) 21:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline used in 175,000 articles worldwide

03-Jan-2007: The prior article format, as article "1345" listing events, births, deaths (etc.) appears to be the way much of the world's other-language Wikipedias treat slicing each year of time. As I said, slicing each year-article into months and days is a natural progression of slicing time to be a single "year" for an article. The viewpoint of focusing on each year, as a separate article, generates the perspective of a year-by-year timeline, where each year then contains month-by-month timeline entries. That obvious approach to structuring a year as a set of months seems to be favored worldwide, with the typical recent history of 2,500 year-articles each structured as a timeline in over 70 languages of the other-language wikipedias. I was mistaken to say the new essay-style format is "changing herds of horses in mid-ocean" -- the difficulty of changing timelines to essay-style format is more like "changing from ship to canoe in the middle of a hurricane". Those 175,000 (70 * 2500) other-language timeline articles have a momentum of their own, as linked to the current format of English timeline articles. Note: I have used 70 languages as a conservative estimate, since WP has over 200 languages = 200 * 2500, or potentially more than 500,000 thousand (half a million) other-language timeline articles linked to English Wikipedia. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Good grief. None of that matters if people acknowledge that this way of doing it is better, which is what has happened. You could make the same ridiculous argument for color articles. Almost all color articles worldwide are lame lists as well (Take a look at White and its many translations), but doesn't make the GA Green an less worthy of existence. I acknowledge that it's hard, but it's better. I see that you have not acknowledged my argument above, pointing out the problems of slicing older year articles into dates and months. That is key here. That format simply doesn't work for older articles. Wikipedia is hard to create, to change, to fix... It always has been. Every article on wikipedia started as a lame list of something, but they got better. Everything doesn't have to change overnight, and as your own user page says, we shouldn't quash quality in the name of consistency. Please read my arguments to what you said earlier on this page. Your whole argument here gives me the feeling you somehow didn't see it. Lists are, too often, what naturally happens on wikipedia when no one wants to take responsibility for the page and people just glide through and randomly stick whatever info they have into the article. See References to Hamlet, see any year article, color article, or number article out there. That's exactly what's happening, and its hurting the wiki. Wrad (talk) 19:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fantastic

I really hope you guys don't get discouraged by the naysayers above. This article is a great start, and certainly popped out on DYK. It's got a bit of a ways to go for Featured quality, but it's definitely within reach. It might be worth creating an adjacent year article, as mentioned above, just to show that years within a decade can be substantially differentiated, but whatever your next project is, I eagerly await its results :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 22:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. Whatever I do next will be closely related to this. I think this is definitely an area of wikipedia that could use some experimentation and improvement. Wrad (talk) 22:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, this is a refreshing new approach, and much more informative than a simple list. Good work! Modest Genius talk 02:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I admire the new look featured in this year article. A number of different topics are covered quite comprehensively, which is a remarkable contrast to the boring (and incomplete) lists featured in other year articles. Nishkid64 (talk) 03:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Outstanding work, a great achievement. Ceoil (talk) 10:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Just a random comment from a passer-by, as I happened to stumble on this. I think this is a great idea, doing the years this way, for it presents a wealth of useful information in context. I'm thinking of adopting the same approach for the Years in Music articles (e.g. 1591 in music) where without some sort of prose write-up the lists of facts are meaningless to a non-specialist. Good work all; it really shows how much innovation and imagination can still be brought to Wikipedia. Antandrus (talk) 14:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a wonderful idea! Wrad (talk) 23:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hmmm

I was a sceptic when I came here from DYK, but I'm warming to it, and I certainly approve of experimentation and being bold. I agree that the 1345 timeline is of little use: it adds little to Category:1345.

Some thoughts: I only wikify dates for autolocalisation, and never wikify years in dates. I am convinced there is zero utility in doing so. I have never clicked through from a wikified year to the year in question (until now...I'm a sucker for DYK). So I ask, who is going to arrive at this article? I would guess, someone looking for a bird's eye view of history before homing in synchronically or skimming along diachronically. So I think this article's usefulness (if any) will only become apparent when 1346 and 1344 and 1340s are similarly revamped; some material will probably need to be moved from here to one of those as appropriate.

One thing that I definitely dislike is the use of images not closely related to 1345: the post-classical Mayan structure, and the maps: Byzantine Empire in 1328, Mali Empire ca. 1350; and will there be a Europe in 1346 map to track the nice Europe in 1345 one? jnestorius(talk) 00:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on a 1346 article in my userspace since demand is so high. You can count on a new map. A lot of things will sort out as other articles are expanded. I like your idea of a "bird's eye view". I like to call it a "snapshot", although that may be a bit modern considering the subject matter :) . The byzantine and other not-so-1345 maps will have to wait a bit to be fixed. They're kind of "holders" while we wait for new maps to be made. By the way, you can thank User:Tea and crumpets for all 1345-related maps. Looks like hard work to me! Wrad (talk) 00:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

At first I didn't like the "different" article, but I saw how much information there really is, I have started to like this. I also found a tiny problem with the regions here: how about moving the Baltics from Eastern Europe to Northern Europe. It is not proper to put Estonia and Byzantium in the same region. Since this is will propably come up more in the future, you should first define the main regions, to make the articles alike. Also, I noticed that some of the maps (I really liked the events' map) have very sharp colours and others quite soft. If there is any way of making the maps more similar to each other (so that 1346 Europe would look the same), please consider it, because there are so many years and writing articles for all of them is such a huge project. And ongoing wars and other major events should be brought out of the text more clearly. H2ppyme (talk) 16:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

With the maps, I kind of feel the same way. We worked with what we had. There was a Europe in 1328 map and we just altered it a bit and put it here, but for Asia we had to make a whole new map, thus the difference. I changed the Baltic thing a little. You're right, Sweden isn't in Eastern Europe. Wrad (talk) 18:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I know this a very late comment, but I like this article too. Way back when I was a new Wikipedian I used to like to expand the year lists; I only ever got up to 600, but I always thought something like this would be a good idea. I don't know if it's possible, or even useful, to do the same for the surrounding years (1344 and 1346 in most parts of the world aren't going to be any different, as far as we know, from 1345), and I don't know how jarring it would be to have one random year (or a bunch of random years) as detailed articles and the rest as bare lists, but still, it's a good idea and quite an accomplishment. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Post-Classical

It will be hard to top "The year 1345 was a year in the 14th century, in the midst of a period in world history often referred to as the Late Middle Ages, or, more broadly, the Post-Classical Era." The Post-Classical Era! Too bad this got onto Wikipedia's Main Page. Nobody's ever read any history, I guess... --Wetman (talk) 01:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
That sentence is correct. The Post-Classical Era is between 500 and 1500, roughly. Please be a bit more polite and check your facts. Wrad (talk) 01:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Are there any sources to indicate how widely used that term is? Catchpole (talk) 09:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Try typing it in on google or google books for a start. It represents the time period between the Romans and the Rennaisance when Classical ideas were no longer around in Europe. I'm starting to wonder if it's too broad for this article, though. Wrad (talk) 10:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I took it out. Even though it is correct, it is just to broad a period for a year article, in my mind. Wrad (talk) 10:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Months are omitted in some sources

03-Jan-2008: The concern about "no months in earlier years" is simply due to limited sources. As you know, the astronomer of Cleopatra VII, Sosigenes, helped Julius Caesar create a 12-month calendar, circa 48 BC, which evolved over about 10 years. Records state that Cleopatra died the last day of August (then 6th month "Sextilius" ) now dated 30 BC, in Egypt, but as dated with the Julian calendar. I formerly feared that no months or days were recorded for ancient historical events, but I realized, time after time, that modern people were omitting the dates, perhaps due to calendar shifts, and simply saying "1345" (or such) to simplify the event reported. I understand the frustration of omitted months in sources, but archaeologists/etc. are finding pinpointed dates all the time: just recently, underwater exploration (of shipwrecks) confirmed that the oldest colonial settlement in the mainland U.S. was at Pensacola, Florida (older than St. Augustine) circa August 1559, but famine, fighting, and 2 hurricanes decimated the colonists who then returned to Cuba or Vera Cruz. Probably, coastal hurricanes (long before Katrina flooded and leveled Mississippi) are a major reason the U.S. did not remain a Spanish nation: enormous Spanish settlements and convoys were lost over the decades. However, the dates of many such hurricanes have been determined, as well as the date Spain decided to abandon the U.S. Gulf coast. The precise month/day of many events have been retro-determined, such as by astronomers comparing eclipses and full moons (etc.) or connecting news of other famous events of the time. It is not a failure of recorded history that young Wikipedia editors do not have all the dates, or even define (today) the uber-famous Roman month "Sextilius" known well to linguist Cleopatra. Wikipedia is simply hollow in many, many areas ("string grammar" or "Bill Gates fostering computer viruses"). I appreciate how your group is adding sourced information, but insisting on redefining the article named "1345" is the main issue, as others have recommended, while replacing the list "1340s" would be 100 times less contentious (and become a truly remarkable featured article). Meanwhile many precise months/days will be revealed, and if the crypt of Antonius and Kleopatra is found, the precise manner and hour of her death might be revealed, as well as tracking their children who were adopted into Roman society, over 1,370 years before 1345. Don't be frustrated that months/days are not precisely known today: archaeologists have just begun. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I notice that all your examples are from western sources. You are absolutely right about western events, but that is not where the problem lies. I have plenty of dates for western sources, but not for eastern ones. I hope that these dates are uncovered as well. From what you say they might be sooner than I think, but since I'm on wikipedia and I have to cite my sources, I can't really rely on what might be, which leaves me to realize the fact that a chronological list doesn't work on older year articles.
I'm puzzled by your hint that this article is contentious. I only count two, maybe three people here who are significantly opposed to this change in the face of overwhelming support on this talk page, on my talk page, on the WikiProject Years talk page... Sheesh, I even see one on your talk page! I know this isn't a vote, but a consensus of Wikipedians really seems to agree that it's time for a change and the old list style just doesn't do the job! To be honest, I feel that a minority of people would have opposed even if I had changed a century or decade article in a similar way. But, also similarly, the majority would have been wildly enthusiastic. Wrad (talk) 03:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA nom

I don't think this article has enough refs to be a GA yet, but maybe by the time someone comes around to review it it will be ready. It is pretty close. Wrad (talk) 21:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably not for a FA, but a GA should not be a problem, I think... --Tone 22:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Wow, great job on this year article! It's the best I've ever seen. I put a lot of work into 11th century, but I never really thought of contributing more than a few lines to single years. Incredible work, I hope this pans out for you and becomes at least a GA.--Pericles of AthensTalk 03:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A word on the map

I have not yet read through this article in its new shape, but having read the discussions, I cannot really say if I like it or not. I think I'm mostly for it, but I also guess it needs time to sink in. However, that was not what I wanted to point out.

There is a fault in the map "Europe in 1345" (carried over from the "Europe in 1328" map). Estonia is in red, indicating that it is part of Sweden, which is wrong. Estonia was conquered by Denmark in 1219 and remained Danish until 1346, when Denmark sold it to the Livonian Knights. It didn't become Swedish until 1561. Therefore, Estonia should (in both these maps) have the yellow colour that Denmark is in. There may be other such faults on these maps, but that is the one I (being Swedish) spot as obvious and think should be corrected. /Ludde23 Talk Contrib 22:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that as I was researching the 1346 article. Things get better as surrounding articles improve. I left a note with the editor who made the maps. I'd also encourage you to read the whole article before passing judgment. We had one editor up there who changed her mind after doing so. Wrad (talk) 23:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

This is a fascinating approach to the concept of articles about individual years, and I think it is an excellent article. Unfortunately, it is clear that swathes of this text are unreferenced. There need to be reliable references for every paragraphs and more on each direct quote, controversial fact or statistic. I know this seems a lot, but it is important, especially in a diverse summary article like this, to be clear where the information has come from. If you like, I can add {{Fact}} tags where I think they are needed. In addition to this major flaw, I have made some notes below.

  1. I don't like "who remains a famous figure in Indonesia." in the intro, its a bit like saying Henry VIII "remains a famous figure in England" or George Washington "remains a famous figure in North America", it seems to imply that a reader is bound to be unfamiliar with Indonesia in rather an unsubtle manner. I don't doubt that many people do not know who Gajah Mada is (I didn't), but this should be removed or at least rephrased.
  2. Africa and the Americas are totally ignored in the lead. I realise this is because there is less to say, but equal treatment is needed in this respect, even if its just a short sentance on each. The sections on Asia and Europe by contrast could use some trimming.
  3. "in fact waged his war" is poor prose.
  4. Section on Japan is very patchy and needs expansion. Did anything of note occur in the year?
  5. Prose in Hundred Years War section needs revising, I happen to know a bit about this topic and the information presented here, whilst accurate, is somewhat incoherent.
  6. "France was in the midst of an interesting period." is not encyclopedic, state what kind of period.
  7. "possibly involved in an assassination in 1345" is the caption in the picture of Joan, but this information is not clear from the text. That whole section is riddled with cliche and needs copyediting.
  8. When writing "Battle of . . ." always use a capital B.
  9. There are few links to the relevant people in "Anatolian peninsula", these need to link correctly to provide greater context.

There are other things I have missed I am sure, so I will provide seven days for the above changes to be made, in particular the sufficient referencing which is a must. I will check here or you can post on my talk page if you have any queries, need an extension or think the piece is ready for a re-review. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

That's about how I would have reviewed it. Unfortunately, I plan to fix up the 1346 article before coming back to this one, so I won't be back in seven days. I do plan to re-nominate this article once everything's fixed, though. Thanks for the help. Wrad (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for being honest about it. If no work is done on the article in a couple of days then I will fail it (giving others a chance to work on it). I'll leave the article on hold for the week enyway to see if others want to work on it, but if not, I will have to fail it. However, as I said, I am very impressed with the concept and when it is ready and renominated please drop me a line and I'd be happy to go over it again. --Jackyd101 (talk) 11:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Theres been no progress here for five days and it doesn't look like there will be soon. Thus I must regretfully fail this GA nomination. I really like this layout of a year page, and I would have liked to promote it, but there are just far too many problems right now. Hopefully this can be brought up to GA standard in the near future. Good work, and good luck.--Jackyd101 (talk) 09:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)