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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)

• Delete Fails WP:V. Selfstudier (talk) 14:46, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
• Delete 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)

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

• 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)
• 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)

• 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)

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