Talk:Song dynasty

Draft:Southern Song

There is a draft at Draft:Southern Song being reviewed. Since there is an article on Northern Song, a separate article seems appropriate, but should be discussed first. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that it seems reasonable to have a separate article on that era. — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:32, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe this structure would be inappropriate. This article already has a well-developed summary style structure, with good and featured subarticles

• History of the Song dynasty
• Culture of the Song dynasty
• Society of the Song dynasty
• Economy of the Song dynasty
• Science and technology of the Song dynasty
• Architecture of the Song dynasty

This structure is appropriate because, as acknowledged by the relevant sections of the draft, the culture, economy, technology, etc, of the Song developed continuously through the dynasty, and it makes sense to have articles covering each of those developments. A factoring based on the north and south periods might make sense for the History subarticle, but not for the other subarticles or the dynasty article as a whole. A parallel north-south structure would amount to a content fork.

The Northern Song Dynasty article is a poor model, as it has less detail than the "Northern Song" subsection of the History section of this article, and is almost entirely unreferenced. Kanguole 12:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Kanguole that the north/south articles shouldn't remain with the current existence of the "history" article. There's probably some material that could be moved to the history article as it stands though from the respective north/south pages, so I suggest merging the north/south histories into the main history page. Sam-2727 (talk) 03:18, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

As the main editor/creator of these articles and nominator of their Featured Topic, I'm going to stay neutral on this since I have no strong feelings about it either way, but I would firmly suggest you add a lead image to your draft article on the Southern Song dynasty, preferably a map so that the reader can easily understand the topic, the time period, and the territorial extent of Song dynastic control over southern China in that period. For that matter the Northern Song dynasty article could use a map as a lead image as well. Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:45, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Support split in theory, if the articles can become details enough in their own right. I believe these are two topics worth mentioning in their own articles.--Prisencolin (talk) 00:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Support, the draft looks really solid so far, I think this would be worthwhile. Aza24 (talk) 01:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Support I see no problem in principle with a Southern Song article. The main article can stay as it is (no content needs to be removed from the Southern Song section), but the Southern Song article can deal with the topic in greater details. Creating a new article on Southern Song need not affect the main article or any of the other sub-articles. Furthermore, history books often refer to the Southern Song as a distinct period, therefore it warrants its own article on its history. Hzh (talk) 13:12, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment Aside from adding a worthwhile WP:Lead image like a map showing the territory of the Southern Song dynasty at its height, your draft article is far from complete without better sources, preferably English language sources as this is an English online encyclopedia. You seem to have primarily Chinese language sources and there are too few sources cited in your draft. You need to expand both the quality and number of sources cited in the article if it is to be acceptable material even for "Good" level status. Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:49, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Support The draft article seems to be a translation from Chinese Wikipedia. It's a start that can be expanded upon with additional English language sources for corroboration later on.Hanbud (talk)

Inaccurate in what it says about compasses

It says that this dynasty saw "the first discernment of true north using a compass." However, though there was a kind of compass invented in this dynasty, that statement is incorrect in two different ways. First, it was not the first compass used to tell north and south, as crude compasses were first used over a thousand years beforehand (though likely also first invented in China), but those consisted simply of a lodestone on a string or floating in water, and rather than being used for navigation were used for divination or mysticism purposes. Secondly, they were magnetic compasses, and thus tell the direction of magnetic north, not true north (it would be a lot more accurate if it just said "north" instead of "true north".) A different kind of compass that tells true north instead of magnetic (the gyrocompass) wasn't invented until the late 19th century and made into practical use until the early 20th (and weren't Chinese inventions either).--108.86.123.251 (talk) 07:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

If you read further in the article, this is clarified and completely justified: "Shen Kuo was the first to discern magnetic declination of true north while experimenting with a compass." This is backed up by sources such as Peter Mohn (2003) cited in this instance. The sinologist Nathan Sivin (1995: p. 22) even discusses this at length. He specifies that Shen Kuo used suspended magnetic needles to discover magnetic declination towards the north pole, with "the improved meridian determined by Shen's [astronomical] measurement of the distance between the pole star and true north". Similar discoveries of magnetic declination were made in Europe by around the mid 15th century as evidenced by sundials from Germany. Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Isn’t a compass defined to be an instrument that is used to show cardinal directions? I don’t think non-navigational magnetic devices really count as compasses.

Also, I suppose that roughly knowing the direction of magnetic north is a discernment of true north. It would be equally reasonable to have north in the text instead of true north though. — MarkH₂₁^talk 08:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

If that's the case, then maybe the phrase "discernment of true north using a compass" should end with "combined with astronomical measurements."—MiguelMunoz (talk) 20:54, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Edit To Be Made

is this dynasty in the "A.D", "B.C" or "C.E" time period? that is information that should be inserted into the sidebar and readings. Ihasabucket8950 (talk) 05:57, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Very much AD - it begins in 960 AD - I think there's a limit as to how long one needs to go on spelling this out. If in doubt, the dates count up not down. Johnbod (talk) 06:18, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for the Clarification. Ihasabucket8950 (talk) 06:26, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Dates used

For us dummies, a conversion or explanation of CE would be desirable, or at least a reference to such an explanation. Abairheart (talk) 15:56, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Edit not remove information

@kanguole based on WP:COPYWITHIN and WP:PRESERVE. The added sentences can remain, why don't you help phrasing the information in a way that's acceptable and cohesive instead of removing it, which was counter-productive. Merzostin (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, given that the paragraph discusses the number of populations, it fits nicely as another figure based information (Economy and Population were always interconnected) Merzostin (talk) 16:58, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

It's poorly written and not a summary of the article. If you want to preserve it, add a better version to the body of the article. And take note that four editors have objected the addition of this poorly written piece of info in the lead. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 17:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I only did so because it felt lacking, since the majority of the paragraph only talked about population numbers but barely describe the economy of Song Dynasty which is arguably way more important Merzostin (talk) 17:45, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem with copy-and-paste is not so much copyright, which you could have fixed by attributing it in your edit summary, but that you take a piece of text that was written to fit in one context and put it somewhere very different, where it does not fit. In this case, the Economy of the Song dynasty article is a detailed article on that topic, which is summarized by a 5-paragraph section in this article, alongside many other aspects of the dynasty. This article in turn is summarized in the lead section (which is already on the long side). One would expect that a piece of text taken out of the body of the Economy article would be written at a much greater level of detail than is appropriate for the lead of this overview article. Kanguole 21:54, 20 April 2024 (UTC)