Talk:Greatest Generation/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Clean up

"No generation born before or since has felt or been so Promethean, so godlike in its collective, world-bending power."

Wow. I don't know how to clean this article up, but I think it needs to be toned down and quotes sited. -Dr Haggis - Talk 23:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

That statememt is obviously lifted from Strauss and Howe and it should be either credited properly or else deleted.

Enough has been written, much of it original that blatant appropriations can be properly cited or else removed. One cannot write about generational history in the context in which this article is written without being under the influence of Strauss and Howe -- which is not a bad thing.

Nit: The Grumman Avenger (George Bush Sr's airplane) was a torpedo bomber, not a fighter plane.

NPOV dispute status considered

The article no longer has the style that would make a person unfamiliar with the subject to doubt it's adherence to the NPOV policy. How do you think about it? Should we remove the template from the article page, or is there such a reason for the dispute that I'm not aware of? I just brought this up, initially, altho not knowing much of anything about social studies or the history of the United States. Santtus

I re-read the article. It still seems to make some sweeping claims about the achievements and contribution of the generation that are unsubstantiated, opinionated and in a overall general tone not consistent with an article. I don't want to undermine the achievements of those who fought in WWII but this article needs less rhetoric and more reference.-Dr Haggis - Talk 05:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Article needs lots of work

This paragraph needs lots of work

But even this generation had its weaknesses. It too had its villains, the gutter racists, some gangsters, the McCarthyite exploiters of the Red Scare, and traitors including Axis Sally and the Rosenberg spy ring. Overseas, contemporaries of American GIs include the almost-innumerable British, French, Polish, and Russian heroes of the Second World War, but also many of the pathological types (major and minor war criminals, jack-booted thugs, and kamikaze pilots) of the Axis Powers who ensured the great human cost of the Second World War. Finally, some of the contemporaries in other lands became dictators like Ne Win, François Duvalier, Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet, and especially the rigid apparatchiks of most Communist states before those became brittle targets for revolutions in central and southeastern Europe in the late 1980s.

For all their rationality and success in other areas, GI achievements in literature (especially poetry) in the creation of art are comparatively slight. GIs created a bland, accessible, conformist, commercial culture that would itself face a reaction among youth.

All in all, they have more changed the course of American history since the American Revolution. They were the bulk of the soldiers on both sides of World War II; they created prosperity in both victors and vanquished countries after the war; they kept the Cold War from becoming a nuclear war; they presided over the de-colonization of the Third World and the weakening of institutional racism in America and South Africa as well as the almost complete demise of Marxism-Leninism. They also created a firm basis of progress in scientific achievements and in entrepreneurial success.

Bolded part especially. You cant say that the GI generation sucks at literature, and then go onto cite Langston Hughes, Kerouac, etc etc as members of a supposed literature-less generation. ALso lets get a lot of references in here.Copysan 04:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

John Wayne

While I am a great fan of John Wayne, he was NOT a WWII veteran and shouldn't be listed as such. He got a deferment initally for having a family.

63.150.225.16 20:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

John Wayne is still part of the G.I. generation even if he didn't enlist in the war. Haynsoul 22:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no G.I. Generation

The who concept really is junk. The idea that everyone born from such time to such time shares a set of values is preposterous. Why not point out the majority of the Whites in this cohort were eager supporters of Jim Crow? Why not point out that these people helped to drive White flight to the burbs, defunding of social services for non-Whites, and tolerated violent suppression of gays? I mean, that can all be said. But instead we have an article dedicated to putting a giant smiley face on a generation. I'm sorry, but this cutey-wootsie tripe doesn't belong on Wikipedia. People can put it on their blogs or something. --Dylanfly 16:37, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Under the pillars we work under, truthfullness comes only secondary to documenting the conceptions that people believe in and have been well established. I share most of the same worries as you do, but I also find it interesting that different generations might have consistent qualities that are regular within themselves and different from other generations. As much as I believe this whole G.I. Generation idea is just one man's POV, I have seen the references and believe that the concept is well documented and notable. That, I think, merits its inclusion in the wikipedia. Oh, and btw. Personally I believe in truthfulness as #1, other ideas being distant second, if anything. Santtus 20:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that something doesn't have to be right or true to be on wikipedia per se. Leprechaun, for example. However, this is a whole different category of entry: this purports to objectively describe a generation; without evidence that the idea is in common use. I've never heard a single person in my life utter the phrase "GI generation," despite having a family filled with veterans and seniors. This phrase is a marketing concept which can help to sell people golf clubs. The very title shows extreme bias: after all, WOMEN were not GIs. It's a terribly slanted view of a generation... and then to claim that this entire generation believes such and such is just absurd. Think of 10 people of this supposed generation and you'll find contradictions all over the place. This isn't a deserving fiction, like a dragon, this is a farce. --Dylanfly 20:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hm. The article lacks secondary sources.. even tho I had seen someone refer to the primary material. Without secondary sources, notability can't be established.. Quick google shows test shows 28,000 hits on phrase "g.i. generation", and a quick browsing through few of the links suggests that the term has gained at least a measure of acceptance. For example, [1] [2] [3] Acceptance doesn't qualify as notability, tho. Santtus 00:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Greatest Generation which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:46, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

this redirect page was recently converted into an article on the demographic cohort

From glancing over this talk page, the history here seems unclear. To attempt to clarify things, recently this page was a redirect page to The Greatest Generation. Per talk page discussion on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Greatest_Generation#Requested_move_26_November_2016 this page for the G.I. Generation page was converted into an article on the demographic cohort of people, while The Greatest Generation article was restored to it's apparent original focus, which was Tom Brokaw's book and term. This was done instead of moving either page and to preserve both pages as separate topics, one about a demographic cohort, and the other about a book and term.--DynaGirl (talk) 16:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

unreferenced notable people section

I've added the unreferenced template to the notable people section. As wikipedia editors, we shouldn't decide who are the notable people of this generation, based on personal opinions. We should rely on reliable sources. This is harder with older generations, but there are multiple books written about the WWII generation and Strauss & Howe and others have written multiple books about the older generations and make reference to many notable people and I will try to add references as I go through these books. Please do not remove this tag unless the issue is resolved.--DynaGirl (talk) 17:38, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Untitled

This article seems to be heavily POV. Someone more knowledgeable should really tone the style down. The invention of the atomic bomb is attributed to G.I.Generation and used as evidence for the power of that group, although the one who participated in the project belong to great number of other groups, as well. The whole idea could be described as misleading as best, and the the generation being discribed as god-like is just over-the-top. Santtus 17:20, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone went overboard writing this. While WWII veterans and their generation did great things they could hardly be described as godlike. Shall I look through the history and see if I can find an author and ask them to readjust? --Darxide 14:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

By all means. This is not my area of expertice, but finding some good writers would be a start. Santtus 20:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

John Steinbeck. Ralph Ellison. Langston Hughes. Joseph Heller. Eudora Welty. Lillian Hellmann. Howard Fast. Some good sci-fi (one of the few areas in which GIs did well in literature): Robert Heinlein. Isaac Asimov. Ray Bradbury. Rod Serling. Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek). Much of the creativity went into screenplays, so give credit where it is due to the likes of Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner, Jr. Does anyone want to recognize the screenplay as a great literary field? Then GIs may be redeemed for cultural achievements.

But much mass-market schlock best forgotten -- Harold Robbins, Jacqueline Suzanne. Practically no poetry. GIs were better marketers and teachers than creators. --66.231.41.57 18:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It should also be noted that Superman was an artistic response to give hope to a disillusioned generation that grew up during the Great Depression. He was not meant to be a symbol of American domination.--Damae 06:20, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Actually I'm concerned it's closely lifted from Strauss and Howe's book. The bias it exhibits is due to their assertion that there are generational archetypes, so they were making their case that this generation fits archetypal norms. Even in that way it is missing the boat: The Strauss and Howe theory considers this type of generation a "Civic" generation, and asserts that it's characterized by being group-oriented. So, this way of viewing things would have the G.I's carrying out, under the direction of the previous generation, the idealistic directives of two generations before. The point they were making is there's something like a generational "set-up" that has momentum building by the confrontational Idealist generation (the Missionaries in this case) and the intermediate Reactive generation (the Lost) are honed to be extremely pragmatic and therefore good leaders for the civics when they are in fact called upon socially to execute, with heroism. It's because of this -- again, as per this theory -- that other generations appreciate them. (P.S. Note that the Depression-era kids were actually the following generation, the Silents.)

......

At the least, "Superman" is a generational icon, and arguably the most enduring cultural icon from a generation that is surprisingly weak in creating cultural icons, contrasted to what else they did. Just as noteworthy is the character's blandness, and the GI generation is not known for wild expression in art, literature, or music. Accessible? Sure -- as none since. "Superman" could be the basis of legends for centuries as some of the other contemporary comic-book heroes with dark sides cannot be remembered. "Superman" has no dark side.

It's worth remembering that the contemporaries of American GIs include those heroes of Britain and Russia who did their share to save their countries from the nazi onslaught -- but America's GI contemporaries in Germany included some of the jackbooted thugs and the bulk of the kamikaze pilots (among other pathological types) of Germany and Japan. Contemporaries of American GIs included major nazi war criminals like Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Adolf Eichmann, and Reinhard Heydrich as well as many of the horrible characters essential to leading innocent people to their doom or mistreating American (as well as British, Russian, Polish, etc.) GIs. Other contemporaries of American GIs became the rigid, hide-bound communists who either heated up the Cold War (Kim il-Sung) or created political and cultural morgues (Leonid Brezhnev, Erich Honecker, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Todor Zhivkov, Enver Hoxha) where they ruled with cults of personality that covered the hollowness of their personalities. The international scene is not so benign for this generation as it is for Americans.

American GIs seem to have done well at almost everything except at avoiding groupthink that ensured that if they committed to a folly (such as the Vietnam War) that they could not detach easily from the folly. Their collective personality was unsuited to the charismatic personalities that inspire others to overachieve as they did, and such may be the cause of their weakness. Superb workers and colleagues, they just weren't leaders by personality. Someone else (Missionaries) told them what to do, and someone else (the Lost) told them the tricks. There was something missing in the GI persona, and they themselves couldn't figure it out. It's also worth remembering that our GIs had the good fortune to have decent leaders from the older Missionaries and the pragmatic (if scourged of its worst tendencies) Lost. Had America had pathological leaders similar to those of the Axis powers, then GIs would have been the compliant followers of such types.

One symptom of the deficiency was the bland commerciality of GI culture, infamously exemplified in "easy listening" music was certain to get an equal-and-opposite reaction. It was accessible, but blatantly formulaic -- and ultimately empty. GIs created vast suburbs of conformist culture, likewise empty of individuality. Others would have to fill the void, and those would be the first generation (Boomers) to have had the security in childhood (a GI creation, to be sure) to ask questions for which adults had no answers. --66.231.41.57 18:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

This view discounts the fact that a huge number of jazz musicians were of the G.I. Generation. Bebop was the creation of musicians of this generation, and it certainly was not considered blandly conformist in its time.

I would like to point out that while this generation provided most of the labor for the great tasks of the World War II era, it was members of the previous generation who were the leaders at the time. The articles about the other generations are more analytical in comparison. Indeed, the tone of the article is far from neutral, and it seems to be mostly bombastic praise, without pointing enough concrete examples-- as though we already know what they did. Younger readers, and those born outside the cultures of the English speaking world world might not.

The so-called accomplishments of the GI generation are seen in an increasingly negative light as the years go by. It was this generation that through their worship of conformity and scientific progress devastated North America's (and to a smaller degree, Europe's)cities in the post World War II era (yes the era when they were at the height of their power, up to about 1980) by tearing down architectural masterpieces, destroying public transit, and building brutalistic freeways and shopping malls which ruined vital and diverse neighbourhoods and resulted in segregated, and for the most part uninspiring and ugly, urban environments. Much of the urban revival which Generation X and the following generations will undertake will be a deliberate reversal of the actions of the GI generation. --207.161.34.79 20:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

.......

GI achievements aren't so monolithic as they seem. One has, for example, the leadership that chose to buckle under (there was no moral alternative) to the demands of ethnic minorities to equal opportunity and the right to political participation; there were also the last gutter racists who either changed their ways toward the end of their lives (George Wallace, Strom Thurmond) or became symbols of racist infamy (Bull Connor, Byron de la Beckwith. The most destructive figure of GI politics aside from the leftover racists was surely Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of unusual recklessness. But a GI journalist, Edgar R. Murrow, exposed him.

African-American GI's include the first large contingent of the Black middle class, in part because of the Second World War that gave African-Americans the first opportunity to get lasting recognition as heroes (the Tuskegee airmen) and access to the benefits of the GI bill in education. Above all, the nationwide news medium of television that the likes of David Sarnoff and William Paley created allowed the most effective means of showing the plight of those left behind. Without the mass media that GIs created for commercial purposes, someone like Rosa Parks would have either deferred to white supremacy and yielded her seat or would have confronted the racist system and experienced harsh consequences without achieving any good.

This is a horribly US centric article

This article is a typical example of US centrism. The lead claims this is merely "the demographic cohort" of a certain era and does not restrict it to a particular country, but it's quite clear from the article that this is a US term that refers exclusively to a US context, and the entire body of the article continues in-universe with reference to an exclusively US context that is not relevant to any other country. --Tataral (talk) 13:45, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

The article even includes a US centric template "United States in World War II", and it's categorized in its entirety in Category:American people of World War II, so it's clear that it's specifically and only about the US. Otherwise there would be no reason not to include similar templates and categories about all the other countries. --Tataral (talk) 14:06, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I removed the template. Please feel free to expand the article to include more international information. The article is basically a stub with only a few paragraphs of referenced text. The Notable people section actually comprises most of the text (and it contains multiple notable figures who are not from the US). --DynaGirl (talk) 14:26, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I was uncomfortable when I found Karajan listed - I haven't looked further for Nazis or fellow-travellers (and Karajan is I think thought of as a fellow-traveller) but even if it be desirable to widen the scope of this article (which actually I don't think is necessary, as "G.I. Generation" is specific to the U.S.) I don't think it needs to be *that* wide. Petergroves (talk) 08:17, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

This cannot be a global article with the current name. Only the USA had GIs. HiLo48 (talk) 08:05, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Not specific to the US

This article is about the cohort of people born between approximately 1900-1920. It is not specific to the United States. It's a reference to the generation that came of age during WWII (this world war was also not specific to the United States). Perhaps the editor who keeps changing opening sentence to say limited to the US is getting confused with the term the Greatest Generation, a term coined by Tom Brokaw which is specific to the United States. Please note that the notable people section contains individuals from around the world. --DynaGirl (talk) 14:19, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

"G.I. Generation" (from a 1991 book titled something about "America's future") or "The Greatest Generation" are not terms that are used for any generation in any other country than the US. The whole article is written exclusively in-universe from an exclusively US-centric point of view, and that is what makes the article an article about a cohort in the US. I would welcome a broader article, with a more neutral/international/widely used descriptive title (such as "WWII generation"). Nobody in Germany, France, Italy, Croatia, Japan, China or Kenya calls people born in the early 20th century "The Greatest Generation" or the "G.I. Generation." A term like "The Greatest Generation" would just remind people outside the US of Donald Trump, and noone outside the US has even heard of the term "G.I. Generation." --Tataral (talk) 21:49, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I would not be opposed to moving article to WWII Generation, if sourcing can be located supporting this as a more common international term for this cohort, but the current sourcing seems to better support G.I. Generation. This term was coined by US historian, Neil Howe, but he discusses the term internationally and his work (and dates) have been added to by Australian demographers, who refer to Australian G.I.'s as Federation Generation, which is also discussed in the article--DynaGirl (talk) 02:18, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Nonsense. There has never been any such thing as an Australian GI. The term simply does not exist, except perhaps in the minds of some ill-informed Americans. One of the worst aspects of US-centrism is when Americans display their complete ignorance of how things work outside their own country while thinking and trying to act as if they do know. That post emphasises how specific the the US the article is. HiLo48 (talk) 08:03, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal discussion underway

Please discuss the proposed merger at Talk:The_Greatest_Generation#Merger_proposal. Thank you. Binksternet (talk) 18:36, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Ridiculous attempt to pretend Australians are Americans

There is a paragraph under the Definition heading that says....

"McCrindle Research expanded on Howe's work and uses the term Federation Generation to describe Australian members of the G.I. Generation, born between 1900-1924, "a time of peace when Australia finally secured nationhood" who came of age during The Great Depression and WWII and experienced post-war prosperity in midlife."

It is sourced to http://mccrindle.com.au/resources/whitepapers/McCrindle-Research_ABC-01_Generations-Defined_Mark-McCrindle.pdf

That paragraph is nonsensical. GI is a purely American term. It's one Australians neither admire nor respect, due to rivalry between Australian and US soldiers during WWII. As an Australian of mature years I have never heard of Australians being described as members of the GI Generation. The source does not exist. So we have no evidence of the claim in the sentence.

This is a completely US-centric article that some editors are desperately trying to make global, something it never can be with its purely American name. They should stop wasting their time. Just keep it as a US oriented article. No harm in that. HiLo48 (talk) 08:25, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Your personal opinion doesn't Trump reliable sources. Dead links are not invalid. I recall this link working when it was originally added to this and the other cohort articles, but either way here is an active link from Australia's McCrindle research which describes the Federation Generation in Australia: [4]

You have had two days. No source. We don't keep unsourced material in Wikipedia. And it's not just the lack of a source. It really is silly to write "Australian members of the G.I. Generation". There can logically be no such thing. So, two days? A week? A year? How long will you keep this unsourced nonsense in the article? HiLo48 (talk) 10:06, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Please see added reliable source. That link is active. I've also read the dead link source when it was added to multiple cohort articles. Your deletions have been reverted by two editors and your opinion does not override sources. Please stop deleting this. DynaGirl (talk) 12:34, 25 May 2018 (UTC) Add- I've tweaked "Australian members of G.I.Generation" to "Australian members of this cohort" for better accuracy. McCrindle makes clear Federation Generation is Australian term for this cohort. DynaGirl (talk) 13:34, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Stop telling me to stop deleting it!!!! I deleted it because it made no sense. Clearly you agree with this because you have now made some attempt to correct the problem. Because of its blatant US-centrism the article is still a very ugly one. The name alone makes this a problem almost impossible to fix. With that name it should be an article purely about the American cohort. Do Americans actually realise that "GI" is a purely American term, and that the rest of the world sees any mention of it as being something about America? It is perfectly acceptable to have an article about something exclusive to one country. The problem comes when it is expanded in ignorance to try to include other countries. HiLo48 (talk) 00:39, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to suggest a less US centric name for the cohort of people born approximately 1901-1924. Per sources this cohort is not limited to the US. "World War II generation" is one possibility that has received a little bit of reliable source coverage, but G.I. Generation was chosen because it has received significant reliable source coverage and Strauss & Howe who coined the term have discussed generations internationally. Also international researchers have expanded on Strauss & Howe’s work.DynaGirl (talk) 13:45, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

It still makes no sense to suggest or imply that "GI" can refer to non-Americans. In fact, many Australians of my parents' generation would have found it quite offensive to be included under such a heading. GIs were not highly respected here at all. Have you heard the expression 'Oversexed, overpaid and over here'? HiLo48 (talk) 01:52, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Just checked around the sourcing in a bit more detail. Four of the first five sentences in the article about the authors of the main source for the "GI" name highlight that they were Americans explicitly looking at the American situation. HiLo48 (talk) 06:54, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

GIs were American and not Australian or British or anything other "nationality" (exception made of binationals or other special cases). This expression can only apply to those that associated with the expression. There were similar generations in other countries but you cannot in all seriousness tag the same demographic with a purely country specific term. Why not talk about Amerindians as having experienced the reformation simply because some were alive at the time? Just because a source talks about other countries experiencing similar problems or benefits at the same time doesn't make them part of this country specific term. There have been terms that have originated in other countries but now go past borders such as baby boomer but there are not enough sources to show this is the case. It would like trying to include all of the forced conscripts from Nazi occupied countries during WWII into the article Malgré-nous just because a source says that there were other Malgré-nous in other countries. The term is country specific and as such should only deal with a generation from that country. Dom from Paris (talk) 08:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Can we please edit based on reliable sources instead of opinion and can we please not delete reliable sources that do not match personal opinion. I notice someone has deleted all the references from Australia's McCrindle research. They were active links -someone had added archive link to the one which was previously inactive. If the problem is the article name, consider starting a move discussion to a less U.S. Centric name, perhaps WWII Generation could work, but don't just delete non-U.S referenced content. DynaGirl (talk) 12:53, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

There are not enough sources to show that this term is generally applied anywhere else outside the US. I would suggest that you could create a section something like "Similar cohorts outside of the US" if you wish but please do not try and suggest that this term is applicable elsewhere in the world without sufficient sources. There is sufficient consensus now not to reinstate this text in the lead. If you wish to create an article WWII Generation there has to be sources to show this a thing or you may be accused of WP:SYNTHING sources. Dom from Paris (talk) 13:05, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

The intro describes that we are talking about a global generation, some who participated in WW2. If someone wants to separate out the Federation Generation into a subsequent paragraph in the body of the article that would be fine too. It also says we are talking about a "WW2" generation, people who fought in it, who were around the same age. The term G.I. might be defined as exclusively referring to Americans though. Need some more research on that. But we do refer to the "International peers" at the bottom of the page.2606:6000:6111:8E00:94D9:BE94:39A7:F7C2 (talk) 20:27, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Domdeparis, have you read the references? The references specifically link the Federation Generation terminology to the work of demographers Neil Howe and William Strauss who coined the term G.I. Generation and they describe Federation Generation as the Australian name for this birth years cohort, which includes people born between 1901-1924. I started an RfC to get more community input on this issue.DynaGirl (talk) 15:38, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Listing members of the generation is problematic

There will never be agreement on who should be in the list. It will create argument. It will lead to frequent updating of an article that, seriously, by now, should be quite stable. I strongly recommend not trying to list members of the generation. HiLo48 (talk) 00:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

We now have what appears to be an IP hopping editor, who simply won't discuss, persistently adding names to the article. More eyes needed please! HiLo48 (talk) 07:27, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I noticed that you've reverted different editors many times over the last few days. What is the problem with a sample of members that humanizes the "G.I. Generation". It's referenced so what is the issue aboutAboutbo2000 (talk) 00:25, 8 November 2018 (UTC)?

Reverting vandalism is never a problem with 3RR. Editing while ignoring a Talk page discussion is vandalism. HiLo48 (talk) 00:32, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

"Reverting vandalism is never a problem with 3RR." Says who? I have been banned a couple of times for reverting massive deletions of sourced content from articles, and restorations to unsourced versions. Dimadick (talk) 08:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

See WP:NOT3RR, Point 4. HiLo48 (talk) 09:07, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

You're correct on that point, but totally wrong that "Editing while ignoring a Talk page discussion is vandalism." Take a read of WP:Vandalism. In particular

For example, edit warring over how exactly to present encyclopedic content is not vandalism. Careful consideration may be required to differentiate between edits that are beneficial, edits that are detrimental but well-intentioned, and edits that are vandalism. If it is clear that the editor in question is intending to improve Wikipedia, those edits are not vandalism, even if they violate some other core policy of Wikipedia. Mislabeling good-faith edits as vandalism can be considered harmful; instead of calling such problems vandalism, use the appropriate terminology to make it easier to correct.

and

Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them about an editing issue, and repeatedly make changes against consensus. Edit warring is not vandalism and should not be dealt with as such. Dispute resolution may help. See also: Tendentious editing.

You could have easily been blocked for a 3RR violation. Calling something vandalism when it clearly wasn't is a bad sign as well. Nil Einne (talk) 07:00, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I would say only include those where a source has specifically said they are part of this generation otherwise the list is potentially enormous! There is no reason to george orwell in there a he wasn't americian, b he wasn't a conscript because "Orwell was declared "unfit for any kind of military service" by the Medical Board." It is ridiculous to include him. Dom from Paris (talk) 11:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree with requiring reliable sources for the notable members section, but checked the article and apparently George Orwell is reliably sourced. I don't think we should remove him based on a personal opinion that it's ridiculous to include him because he was deemed unfit for military service or based on his nationality and instead should edit based on reliable sources. DynaGirl (talk) 13:38, 20 November 2018 (UTC)