Wikipedia talk:WikiProject European history

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[edit] EU History

Hi, I'm currently working on a new EU History page. The current one is just a history of enlargement and although I am expanding its content, there are two problems still facing it. Firstly, it is all very political, mentions of things like terrorist attacks or other major events outside of the development of the EU's organisation are missing. Secondly there is no Europe-wide history page to organise that which happened outside the EU during this time.

I hope that the members of this project can help to rectify this, by ensuring that the developing new page has sufficient mentions or links to other major events. All comments and contributions are much appreciated. See: User:JLogan/DraftEUHistory - J Logan t/c: 11:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: WikiProject Europe

I was noting down the related projects for Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union and number of small European projects as I was going round. How do you guys feel about a parent "WIkiProject Europe" to link together as many European projects at the top (not merge, unless some fell the need to)? It could help discussion and cooperation between projects and possibly reduce overheads for the smaller ones. In addition for areas with no project of their own. Where a project has few members or is inactive, a common peer-assessment could help them move forward.

Ideas? For central discussion, see WIkiproject EU talk page 193.11.208.247 12:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject History

WikiProject History now has a European task force. I am considering merging this project with that task force if no one objects--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 13:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I object to anything hasty, let's talk about the best way to do this first before deprecating this project.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, a complete merge is a bit much but this project is a little...remote and inactive. Turning this into WikiProject History task force might attract more members--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 18:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
All you have to do is treat it like a task force, just make the task force page a redirect to the project, in the same way that Military History does things, with joint task forces with the geographic projects. Alternatively, you just treat it as a sub project. There's no real difference, except the project already exists, has an established page, and has active members. The project certainly does not seem "remote" by which I think you mean it deals with a very specific topic. European history is a very broad topic. And I don't see it as being particularly inactive.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the deprecation tags, there is no consensus.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm okay with the merger — doesn't affect me much either way, I just think it's important to have a group for doing that sort of thing. —Ryan McDaniel 20:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

Clearly there should be a relationship between the Wikipedia:WikiProject_History and this Project. This project should probably merge with Project_History/European_task_force. But the information on this Project page should be largely preserved in the result rather than deprecating this project. The larger question is whether this should ultimately be a project or a task force. Understanding the analogy to WP:MILHIST, that had a somewhat different evolution. This is a bit more forced. There is a current proposal for a WikiProject US History and an existing and active Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australian_history, as well as several regional and country specific history projects with less to no activity. The Project History page seems to indicate an intent to do this same thing to every region. If so, a much broader discussion is in order. One alternative would be to have the Task force page redirect to here. Another would be to simply list this as a subproject of the Project History and treat this more like the Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of life where there are many levels of sub projects which take some of their guidelines from higher level projects and do other, more topic specific things, independently. Whether a task force or a project, this project's parentage is really shared between the embryonic History project and Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

    • Based on discussion at the Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject History, geographic task forces appear to have been abandoned for the time being and this proposal seems to no longer have relevance. That project seems to be pursuing a formal parent/child relationship with other history projects rather than trying to incorporate them into the overall parent as task forces. Therefore, I'm removing the merge tags.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] collaboration of the history projects

Hi, I'm newly appointed coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject History. I was coordinator of the Wikipedia: WikiProject Military History before. My scope is to improve the cooperation among the different history projects andf use the synergy of a common infrastructure to improve article quality. One idea would be to merge small project into a larger wikiproject history with a common infrastructure and the small projects continuing independently as task forces of this project. What are your suggestions? Greetings Wandalstouring 15:13, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Generally agreed, though discussion in each instance is most necessary.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I think the scope of WP:HIST is so broad as to make it a mite unwieldy ... I think EuroHist is at the right level that, if we breathe some life into it, we'd be more effective unconsolidated. Of course, some coordination and cooperation between the projects would be wonderful, but I don't think there's a great benefit to being absorbed. - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 23:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Afterthought -- or were you talking about merging smaller projects into this one, as with the suggestion below re: Polish history? If so, I wholeheartedly agree and think that's exactly what this project needs. - Revolving Bugbear Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 23:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it was just a general question. Merging this one into History was sort of canned, at least for a while, after an aborted attempt to simply deprecate it and create a task force prior to Wandalstouring becoming involved. I think the question here is more "What are our thoughts on how we might all cooperate". Though not being the one asking I'm not sure. As the one who jumped up and down and yelled when the deprecation was attempted, and I wasn't even a member yet, I definitely agree with you.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I looked around and the same message appears to have been posted on other more active projects.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger with WikiProject History of Poland

The above Project is currently inactive. I believe it would make sense to merge that project into this one. If that would mean that there might be established a "History of Poland" task force of this project, I think that might be reasonable and acceptable. John Carter 14:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Subject to hearing something from a participant in Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Poland that it is not actually inactive, I would concur. I take it the actual procedure you propose would be to move the project page to Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Task Force Poland or something of that nature, yes? In the next couple of days I'll try to get to notifying some of the members of that project, if you haven't already, and also commenting at Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland as it should probably be a joint task force.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
On further review, there is no Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland, it's just a redirect to Portal:Poland.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
The page of the portal it links to is the Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board. I'm told by those who've been around longer that such notice boards were the precursors to the existing WikiProjects. I also see that that page has it's own assessment statistics page, which probably means that they decided to not create a separate WikiProject per se and just keep everything on the existing notice board page. It can probably be seen as being a project for these purposes though. It'd help if they had a sidebar to permit easier linking, though. Oh well. John Carter 16:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
As a member I attest it is inactive. How would this merger be accomplished? I'd oppose redirecting, as it has some still-useful tools and/or historical discussions of interest, and will one day be revived (once we get more editors interested in Polish history). PS. Due to low levels of activity on various projects Poland-related editors are primarily centered around WP:PWNB, indeed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 18:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
What would basically happen is that the page would be moved to a subpage of this project, probably Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Polish history task force or something similar, and that the EH project's banner would probably provide separate assessment in time for the work group, when the banner gets worked on. John Carter 18:21, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and because in form it would be a move, rather than a merger, the talk would just come right along with it and it would have no affect on page histories, just page locations. The real value is in the direct coordination by a more active project and the lack of any impression by members of this project that Poland was taken care of by its own project and could be ignored, in other words, the Poland pages would still get taken care of, even if no members of the Poland task force were around. Additionally, when a project is inactive, it's often because of too small a scope, this project would involve editors with an interest in the history various parts of Europe, including Poland, (and some would undoubtedly be interested in Europe as a whole) thereby drawing from a larger base of potential editors. By having a task force, those who wanted to specialize in just Poland would still have a place to discuss and coordinate Polish history without so much "noise" but those who wanted to generalize would be able to see more easily what was going on in Poland as well.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 06:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Can we do this and add a parameter to our banner for the task force? Like a "|Poland = yes" parameter? Could such a parameter add be used in concert with WikiProject Eastern Europe as well?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

There has been only one comment from the Polish History Project and it was not what I would call an objection. Considering the inactive status of that project, I don't think there is a consensus issue. Let's just do this. John's proposed title: Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Polish history task force is long, but it's consistent with the way WP:MILHIST names their task forces. What do you say?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Polish task force would be a better name. The fact that the project if European history obviously means it's about history and it would be easier to find--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 18:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree, my only concern being that if it were to become a joint task force with a geographic or country project the name could become ambiguous.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:13, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. We wouldn't want to give the impression that we were creating a task force/work group for a country, but rather for the history of the country, and that would seem to require the inclusion of the word "history" in the name. -- John Carter (talk) 21:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I suppose, do it then, include the "history"--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 21:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Y Done at least the mechanics of the move have been completed, redirects checked, etc, got rid of the merge tags. Now we need to restructure the task force page so it doesn't reference itself as a project. How do we deal with members of the old project/new TF who aren't members of the main project? Also, I have not updated any lists, such as at WP:COUNCIL yet. I will make sure this change is also noted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Eastern Europe.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
  • So, should I add WP:EH to the WP:HIST banner or are we going to have our own? I can make one if it's the latter. Either way, we'll need to start assessing some articles--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 14:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Project Overhall

Welcome and thanks for joining. I'm trying to revamp the project and work out the ins and outs of collaboration with Wikipedia:WikiProject History. I'm also working on some of the Romanian and Transylvanian articles and Portal:Transylvania. Unfortunately, I've found that many if not all of the other members listed are inactive, at least with respect to the project. Please feel more than welcome to mark up the Project page with what you see is needed and let me know what you think we can do to further the project. Thanks again.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks on both counts.

I would love to help out with a little revamping. I'd be interested in hearing what your potential plans / goals are.

Cheers! - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 17:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

You thought of running for the post of coordinator there by any chance? I think you would probably be qualified. John Carter 18:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I apologize for my ambiguousness -- I was referring to a comment on my talk page about Wikiproject European History. I'm not aware of WP:EH having a coordination scheme, but maybe implementing one would be a good idea. - Revolving Bugbear 19:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, meant the coordinator for the History project, not the European history project. John Carter 19:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

What would you think about doing a serious overhaul of WP:EH to try and get the project running a little more coherently? I've started to outline some potential topics of discussion here. Cheers! - Revolving Bugbear 19:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  • This discussion involves at least three people and relates to Planning for this project, so I've moved it here. What about moving your sandbox work to Wikipedia:WikiProject European history/Strategy or "/Overhall" or something like that for discussion/cooperative work? --Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I was planning on doing so as soon as I was sure there was interest in doing this. Given your suggestion, I assume there is and will move it now. - Revolving Bugbear 21:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
The question about there being a EuroHist portal; I think there should be--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 18:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I would like to build one as well. Before that, though, we should get to some assessing / improving, I think. - Revolving Bugbear 15:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

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

[edit] Collaborations

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

[edit] advertising

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

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

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

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

[edit] Project scope?

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

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

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

[edit] A better main picture

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

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

  • I like it a lot better than the 1905 map. We'll need to update it everywhere though (userbox, project banner, etc.)--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, it's been updated it everywhere now. Martintg (talk) 17:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Much better, I think we are pretty much stuck with a map as anything else would tend to suggest something more specific (military, art, etc.). This map is much better than the 1905 map and the colors look better too (maybe just because there are fewer of them and they cover larger areas).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP Former countries

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

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

[edit] Strategy discussion

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

[edit] Historical Regions

Just to throw this into the mix, there are historical regions like Transylvania (this particular one has several separate articles devoted to it's history and a portal.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deep questions

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

[edit] Portal:European History?

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



[edit] Relation to other WikiProjects

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

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

[edit] Naming Conventions: Monarchs

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

[edit] Collaboration for February 2008?

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

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

A few ideas:

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

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

[edit] Task Force Transylvania?

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

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

[edit] collaboration of the month

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

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

Comments / changes / slapping more than welcome.

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

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

I

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

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

[edit] announcments

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

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

[edit] Aryan invasion theory (Europe)

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

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

[edit] AfDs needing expert attention

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

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

[edit] Merger

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

[edit] TaskForce Inquiry: Ancient Germanic Culture

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

[edit] Proposed task force

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

[edit] Another Proposed Taskforce

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

[edit] All good things come in threes

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

[edit] Possible task force?

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

[edit] Spotlight

Spotlight
An article covered by this WikiProject, 30 Years' War, is currently under the Spotlight. If you wish to help, please join the editors in #wikipedia-spotlight on the freenode IRC network where the project is coordinated. (See the IRC tutorial for help with IRC)

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