Misplaced Pages

Latest revision as of 13:22, 28 July 2024

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. There is a clear consensus against an outright deletion of the page. Views are split between Keep and Revert to DAB. The choice between the two is an editorial one, not an administrative one. As such, it should be resolved like any other content dispute, on the Article's Talk page. Owen× ☎ 13:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Late modern period

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Late modern period (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This article was the subject of a disputed blank-and-redirect a few weeks ago, and the involved editors have been talking past each other since then. I have restored the text so it can be discussed here, which is what should have happened per WP:BLAR. Those in favor of the BLAR argue that the entire article is original research and non-neutral, as reliable sources do not meaningfully use the term "late modern period". Those against the BLAR argue that the term does have precedent in reliable sources and that past consensus has been to keep the article as it is. Though I was previously involved in the discussion, consider my nomination procedural rather than a strong stance one way or the other. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm pinging the participants of the discussion so they can weigh in here if they wish to do so. ActivelyDisinterested, Iskandar323, Nederlandse Leeuw, Peter Isotalo, Sm8900, SnowFire. Given the drawn out arguments around the BLAR, I ask that WP:BLUDGEON and WP:PEPPER be firmly applied at this AfD. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:18, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment / Keep. I largely disengaged to avoid the antipattern on Misplaced Pages of "having to state your opinion over and over again" for it to "count." Anyway, I would recommend that an AFD discussion avoid discussing what Peter Isotalo's main point is: whether sources use the term "Late modern period" and how often. (He thinks it's a made-up term, I think it's a rare term.) Maybe "Late modern period" is rare, but who cares. The content of this article should basically be World History, 1789–1945 and I do not care what it is called - file a WP:RM if desired. But an AFD is about deleting the content, and the idea that we can't have an article on this period of World History because an editor dislikes the name is entirely backwards. Even if, for the sake of argument, the "Late Modern period" is a completely made-up name, this period of history clearly happened, and it should be covered somewhere, somehow. If we somehow had the article on History of the United States (1789–1815) at Cucumber period of American history or some other eccentric name, then we'd fix that with a page move, not with a page blanking. SnowFire (talk) 13:45, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
• Delete(struck after reading Beland comments) Should be covered in the articles that already exist using terms that are actually used to describe historical periods. A list of things that happened between two random points in time is not notable, even if the things chosen to be in the list are. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:14, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't about the name of the article and arguments to such completely miss the point, the periodisation being used is made up. All the bits stuffed into the article to justify it should be covered elsewhere. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  Although events between 1789–1845 are notable individually the article that clumps them together doesn't inherit their notability. The article itself must show that it is notable, and there is nothing to show that the periodisation being used is notable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:27, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  There is also no valid reason to keep this article as a split of other articles, as all the text in this article could be combined into other articles without any size issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:32, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

  Revert to disambig and merge content per Beland as it solves the issue and is an alternative to deletion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm all for constructive compromises, but what exactly are we supposed to disambiguate from? "Late modern period" is just an obscure alternative to "modern period" that is hardly used.

  What other topics is it supposed to guide users to other than modern period? Peter 13:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  See Special:PermanentLink/920745392 which is what Beland is suggesting we revert to. It disambiguates modern era, modernity, late modernity, late modernism, and high-tech architecture (that last one seems questionable). – Joe (talk) 14:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  The prior disambiguation for Late Modernity / Late Modernism are valid as those are real terms, and readers search Late Modern looking for those subjects. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:40, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for the clarifications. Peter 15:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  To be clear the place for events from the period 1789–1945 is the Modern Era article, there is no need for a separate article and no justification for one. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Note that 1789 and 1945 aren't canonical cut-off points for the modern period. Contemporary history should be treated as a sub-article to the modern period, not it's chronological "sequel". Peter 13:55, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Delete Fails WP:V. Selfstudier (talk) 14:46, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
• Delete (first choice) per WP:V (per Selfstudier) and WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. None of the sources cited mentions "late modern period" anywhere (WP:FAIL), it's an "All about George"-type WP:COATRACK article, and a WP:REDUNDANTFORK of information in articles like 19th century, 20th century and 21st century that is much better organised in those articles (per ActivelyDisinterested). I've made quite some efforts to find WP:RS discussing periodisation in historiography, but the term "late modern period" is unfortunately only used in passing, and does not pass WP:GNG per WP:SIGCOV. If anything, in scholarly literature, "late modern period" refers to a developmental stage of the English language, not to a commonly-used historiographical time frame (unlike "early modern period", which is commonly used as a historiographical time frame, with a clear meaning: the years 1500 to 1800.) NLeeuw (talk) 17:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Revert to disambig and merge content (second choice): I've tried turning it into a disambig before, and supported it when this was done. I would find that an acceptable solution instead of outright deletion; the rationale of others here to Revert to disambig – especially Beland, who appears to be commanding a tentative majority right now – is somewhat persuasive. NLeeuw (talk) 06:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Is that an obscure cultural reference to the TV show All About George? -- Beland (talk) 07:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• Haha no. ;) It's a reference to Misplaced Pages:Coatrack articles#All About George.

NLeeuw (talk) 14:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• Keep. SnowFire is the only reasonable user so far in this discussion. This is not an article about the term "Late modern period" or how often it is used. The name can change, but we need an overview article for historical changes since the Industrial Revolution. Dimadick (talk) 11:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
• Revert to disambig and merge content. Apparently I dumped all this content here while breaking up Modern history, which is now a redirect to Modern era, and it now seems to overlap too many other articles. The parent article of this topic is now Human history. (I'm assuming this period is for the whole world, because by 1800 it became interconnected, and that this is not supposed to be a period in History of Western civilization?) It uses the terms "modern period" for 1800-present and makes Modern era the detail article for that period. Modern era says "The modern period is today more often used for events from the 19th century until today." If that's all supported by recent reliable sources, then the thing to do is merge this article into that one, following WP:COMMONNAME. Perhaps Template:Human history could also then use adjusting to put "early modern period" outside "modern period"?

Because so much happened from 1800-1945, I'm not averse to making Modern era mostly about terminology and cross-century themes identified by historians, and moving actual semi-detailed historical overviews to century articles. Centuries are a weirdly arbitrary way to chop up the history of the world, but we're going to be doing that in those articles regardless. It's a bit weird to have an article that summaries the 1800s and half the 1900s but then also 19th century and 20th century, at similar levels of detail. I would leave that sort of editorial decision up to the implementer(s) of the merge (or a post-merge discussion), but if that happens, then Human history should probably be refactored to follow century boundaries. I'll at least link to century articles for 1800+ from there.

In any event, Late modern period used to be a disambiguation page (see Special:diff/920745392) so it should probably go back to being something like that, and not completely deleted. -- Beland (talk) 07:31, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Early modern period contradicts Modern era, and says the former is part of the latter. Is that because it's using an older definition? It sounds right because of the names; did an editor just make an assumption? How do we resolve this? -- Beland (talk) 07:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

We have serious systemtic problems regarding the scope and use of sources in our history articles. The problem is that we're treating history as a topic where any editor can define their their own article with the scope of "history from year X to Y" and then fill it with whatever content they want.

We need to start taking periodization seriously and not just consider it a convenient way of defining "overview articles" that are defined as year X to Y without any justification. With the exception of wars and other well-defined events, historians don't actually split history down to the exact year. In this context, the ones that are being "weirdly arbitrary" regarding history are us Wikipedians. Peter 14:15, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. NLeeuw (talk) 14:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

In the broader sense (rarely applied anymore), the early modern period is part of the modern period/era. In the strict sense (more commonly applied), the early modern period/era preceded the modern period/era, and the conventional demarcation between the two is the year 1800. According to the Nipperdey paper, "early modern period" as a term was coined in order to emphasise the "non-modernity" of European (and North American) society before 1800 (more broadly speaking, before the French and Industrial Revolutions). NLeeuw (talk) 14:19, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

PS: This is the Nipperdey paper: Nipperdey, Justus (6 July 2022). "Inventing "Early Modern" Europe: Fashioning a New Historical Period in American Historiography 1880–1945". Journal of Early Modern History. 27 (3). Brill: 199–223. doi:10.1163/15700658-bja10051. ISSN 1385-3783. Retrieved 25 June 2024. It's one of very few WP:RS which actually mentions "late modern" (late-modern) as a potential (but rarely-used) historiographic time frame, but only once, and in passing (p. 212). The variation later modern actually seems more common (it is used 6 times in this paper: pp. 204, 216, 219, 220, 221, 222), but nobody agrees on the meaning and scope of later modern either. Nevertheless, this paper is extremely useful as a Begriffsgeschichte of the term "early modern". I can recommend anyone interested in this subject to read this paper. NLeeuw (talk) 06:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• This process circumvents WP:OR and WP:N. This article was without support in reliable sources for years. Due warning was given on the talkpage and people had almost a year to provide sources. Textbook case of simply redirecting and this has been supported by at least two users. The situation is crystal-clear with editors consistently failing to provide source that define a "late modern period", but still trying to argue in favor of keeping the article because of personal preference. And now this AfD is being used to keep the issue alive. Rather than forcing the article to live up to perfectly normal policy standards, the issue is being put to a vote where lack of consensus would mean the article is kept. This is a purely bureaucratic maneuver with no benefit to the project. Peter 10:31, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree; I think that nom is following the proper procedure as indicated, and we could probably best resolve the situation by participating in this process. NLeeuw (talk) 14:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Agree to disagree. I think it's a very clear case of where the verifiability of article content is being judged more on the number of edits and personal opinions rather than core policy. If enough people pile on here, they can overturn WP:V and WP:OR, and that's basically the same as voting on facts.

  With that said, I'm in favor of creating a disambiguation page. Peter 09:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Note: Peter Isotalo has been systematically removing incoming links to this article, so if the result here is keep then that will need to be repaired. – Joe (talk) 11:02, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
• :I believe Joe has an axe to grind with anyone who supports academic historiography, or at least the aspects of it that he personally disagrees with. The way he characterizes my editing in articles that misleadingly use the fringe terminology "late modern" is in my view simply not good faith.
• :Someone's simply annoyed for their POV being challenged and is acting accordingly. Peter 12:30, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  A remarkable belief. I'm sure you've got plenty of evidence for it. – Joe (talk) 12:32, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Treat this as content issue rather than trying to throw shade on my behavior simply for disagreeing. Your comments here appear to be an attempt to escalate this issue into something other than a dispute over either content or procedure. Peter 12:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm merely noting that you removed a bunch of incoming links that would usually be left in place until the AfD is closed. – Joe (talk) 12:51, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  You're making my edits seems suspicious even though I'm trying to use perfectly correct and normal periodization terminology. If I had simply deleted information, sure, but I've been changing links to refer to the modern period, which is perfectly normal and standard terminology. Peter 13:32, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Let's focus on the contents and the relevant policies and guidelines, folks. :) NLeeuw (talk) 14:23, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• Merge to modern era then disambiguate per Beland. I agree with Selfstudier that we should should have an overview article for the period 1800–1945 and what we call it is irrelevant; Peter Isotalo is also not doing his argument any favours with the battleground behaviour and edit warring in lieu of discussion. However, as Beland points out we already have that overview article at modern era, so we should merge the content (back) there to avoid a WP:CFORK. Retaining a disambiguation page also seems sensible because, even if "late modern period" is not a widely-accepted historiographical concept, it's used in many other articles and is a plausible search term. – Joe (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  This would be my second choice. (During previous discussions this was my first choice, but attempts to implement it and reach consensus unfortunately did not succeed). I could get behind this option if the article is not deleted (first choice). NLeeuw (talk) 14:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  So to clarify, you'd prefer it be left as a red link? – Joe (talk) 15:56, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, as long as we can find no sensible content for it, we should just delete it altogether.

  A DP with possible meanings might help people to find what they're looking for, but I've already tried that, and we couldn't agree on that. But maybe we can reach agreement now, so it's still a second choice for me. NLeeuw (talk) 06:21, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Keep more-or-less (I think) as per Dimadick and SnowFire. It is a known term but also "late" is a good adjective to connect to any "period/ age/ era" in history articles. Editors can and should make those decisions about how to break topics up even when publications do not. Debates about how to break up topics can of course require discussions about ORs, but such discussions should be done case by case. (Bulk editing should STOP.) Debates about "correct" periods and OR are pointless and legalistic and will go in circles.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:09, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  We debated this at some length over at talk:late modern period and had no problems proving it was an uncommon term. What you're arguing for here is that WP:NAME and WP:OR doesn't apply to historical articles as long as enough editors think they know better. Peter 14:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I share Peter's concerns here. WP:OR must apply to periodisation, as difficult as that might sometimes be for editors (myself included). Because if don't base ourselves on WP:RS, Misplaced Pages will produce pseudohistory. NLeeuw (talk) 14:36, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree. The discussions on other articles such as World history have to a large extent been a one man show and Peter has been very unconvincing, and increasingly pushy. Peter is demanding that various usages which have been found are not relevant. Editors have to find examples "late modern period" I think editors on other articles aren't convinced this is important, and did not expect these bulk edits and article deletion proposals. In contrast, here on this page Peter is pretending that there is an obvious consensus decided elsewhere, and pushing things along that way. The fact is that we sometimes need a term to describe "later" modern events in many articles, as opposed to earlier ones, and just deleting words in bulk edits (e.g. what Peter has done on Low Countries is clearly making articles unclear, to prove some sort of point. Whether or not "Late modern period" is a common term or not, we can't let an editor start deleting all usages of the two words "late modern"?? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:35, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Andrew, your line of reasoning here is mostly based that you dislike me for being adamant. You're being overtly hostile towards me. Peter 17:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  That's an inappropriate response. You are apparently trying to give the impression we've had a lot of prior discussion but we haven't. I am simply observing that you seem to be trying to steamroll through a big network of bulk edits using misleading, pushy remarks about discussions "elsewhere" which have supposedly proven your case. I have not seen you give any convincing argumentation or sourcing. It has been a couple of arguments against specific sources people have brought, or specific little internet searches, and a lot of insults and insinuations. There is just how it seems to me. It is clear that the terms late and modern are frequently found together referring to the same basic period or era or age, and it also clear that editors are free to break up articles in original (or uncommon) ways, using normal English adjectives like "late". I should add that of course your case may be relevant in some specific cases, but these will generally need specific solutions such as rewordings rather than simple deletions. I am very concerned with the whole rapid bulk editing approach.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  Let's focus on the contents and the relevant policies and guidelines, folks. :) NLeeuw (talk) 06:17, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

  Indeed. But that means confronting the WP:IDNHT aspect of this whole discussion. Peter keeps writing as if this term, and this division of history whatever you call it, has been made-up on Misplaced Pages, and apparently he proved it somewhere. However, that clearly isn't true. Historians don't all agree on their exact definitions of periods, and for that reason we can't let our history articles be too obsessed with the differences, but the idea that there is a new era starting approximately with the French revolution is clearly very common. Deleting all mention of that seems strange to me, and not something demanded by policy. What problem are we solving here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:38, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

  It's a classic Misplaced Pages problem. Maybe it's different with historians, but in archaeology my impression has always been that Wikipedians care way more about the precise definition of periods and other concepts than the researchers that actually define and use them. These labels are all means to an end – it's not surprising if we find that our end of writing a general-purpose encyclopaedia requires a slightly different set of labels from those used by historians writing research papers. – Joe (talk) 08:19, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

• Revert to disambiguation The material attempting to define "late modern period" as a historiographical term is poorly sourced. The topic of "world history, 1800-1945" is covered better at multiple other articles discussed above. I don't see a clear way to redirect to modern era; there are similar terms (late modernism in art history) that have to be disambiguated as well. Walsh90210 (talk) 16:34, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
  • • Yes, very typically for WP, we have lots and lots and lots of articles about aspects of "world history, 1800-1945", but do we have an overview pulling (and linking) them all together? I don't think so. Nineteenth century only goes about a quarter of the way. Johnbod (talk) 18:07, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

      But we already have modern era which is defined as everything after c. 1800 by most historians today. Except it's been mostly treated as "world history events after 1500 and/or 1800". What would be improved by creating numerous variants on the formula "X history year Y to Z"?

      If someone thought High Middle Ages was twice as long as it ought to be, would you support a proposal to create history of Europe 1000-1150 and history of Europe 1150-1300 merely to bleed off "excess" prose? Peter 09:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

• Forgetting the current title, which seems untenable, we seem to have a gap for what might be titled World political history from 1815 to 1930 (or something similar) which should cover most of the existing content (of variable quality). Johnbod (talk) 18:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  There's long nineteenth century to add to the pile too, but I think modern era covers it best. – Joe (talk) 18:31, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Keep: Regardless of the name, there is cause to have a page covering the broad period of world history from the 1800s through to WWII, i.e. the period between early modern history and contemporary history. "Late modern history" is sometimes used and is perfectly logical in the context, but it doesn't really matter if it's "after-early modern history", "not-early modern history", "post-1800 but pre-contemporary history" or whatever other description people would like. I've personally found the "late modern history" page to be an extraordinarily useful division for breaking up page histories. Otherwise, the modern era is broken up into early modern history and '???' In any given history section, it makes very little sense to have early modern period and modern period alongside each other as sections, for reasons of incongruity and the fact that one is sort on some level, a child of the other. In such contexts, the early/late division is a pretty common sense one, beyond its sourced usage. Regardless, as a page here, I don't see why the period shouldn't be covered as a topic. There are marked differences between this period – French Revolution through to WWII – and the post-WWII period and onwards, not least an entirely new world order (even if it's breaking down these days). The current modern era page hardly does this period justice with its early modern period followed by clunky 19th century and 20th century divisions linked to those respective pages. There is something particularly coarse about treating the entire 20th century as a monolithic lump. The contemporary period break after WWII is useful if only to draw some sort of line between the highly distinct early and late 20th century. The question is what to call the period between the early modern period and the contemporary period if not the obvious extant term. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

We've got 19th century and 20th century for that. We really don't need to add our own home-made WP:REDUNDANTFORK cruft with arbitrary WP:OR beginnings and endings. NLeeuw (talk) 06:12, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

If you just read basic literature on the modern period, you'll notice that most modern histories define "modern period" as post c. 1800. A clean cut for "all" history at 1945 isn't really a thing either.

If we divide up historical periods according with the argument that it's "useful", we present a version of history that's based on personal preference and ease of editing. That would be a simplification for readers not through a fair summary, but by simply excluding that which feels inconvenient. Peter 09:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

You have not demonstrated that this term or concept were invented on WP. They clearly weren't.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:38, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

• Revert to disambig and merge content to modern era per Beland. An unnecessary WP:CFORK, and what we call the single article on the period is of lesser importance than having only one. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
• Comment reflecting on where the editors have moved on Human history it seems we the preferred term for the SAME concept, more or less, is going to be "long nineteenth century". Like "late modern" I think have seen the term but doubt many people will see it as an absolute standard that all historians would use and agree upon. It is important to look at other articles in this case because this article here seems to be a target for many others. So we move from one term to another. This is happening already in this one case. Is this a big improvement? Maybe this article should be merged with that one? Will be possible to use this solution in articles about specific countries and regions, which have also been impacted by this dispute? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:02, 24 July 2024 (UTC)
• Keep, but only if renamed to "European history, 1789-1945" or something similar to that. (No, it shouldn't be "World History", since 1789 isn't an important date for that.) Search google for "Europe history 1789-1945" and you will come up with all kinds of undergraduate survey classes - this is a period that we talk about as a unit, sometimes to 1914, sometimes to 1945. But it certainly isn't "late modern history", a term that is not used with any kind of precision. -- asilvering (talk) 01:08, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

  We'd have to remove all the material that's not about Europe, in that case. Based on a quick scan that's most of the current text. – Joe (talk) 20:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, we would. But the alternative as I see it is outright deletion, or turning it into some kind of dab page. -- asilvering (talk) 00:27, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  But I think the only point of keeping the article would be as world history. The lack of an obvious global start date doesn't exactly rule this out. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had implications for several continents, not least a new wave of imperial expansion. Johnbod (talk) 01:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

  I think then we're into the problems the deletion !voters are observing: that this isn't really "a thing". "Not early modern history, but also not contemporary history" isn't a defined field anywhere as far as I'm aware, and it doesn't make sense to shove a bunch of everything in all there together. I'm reminded of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/History of modern literature, where LEvalyn argued convincingly that although the topic seems "clearly notable," it only seems that way because the history of literature, broadly, is notable; the specific topic being questioned here, "modern literature" defined as "literature everywhere for the last 300 years" is one for which no sourcing actually exists: it is substantially broader than any actual field of study.. Reading that discussion again, I'll also quote myself, since that applies here as well: The topic exists inasmuch as we can describe its boundaries, but we can describe all kinds of bizarre and unhelpful boundaries - that doesn't make them encyclopedic, or useful subjects of a Misplaced Pages article. -- asilvering (talk) 03:18, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.