Talk:Timelines of world history

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Please stop removing the external link.

There is nothing wrong with a hobby site. This one is one of the most complete and useful sites containing the timeline of world history in the entire web.

Wikipedia exists first and foremost for helping people find useful information, and not for somebody judging somebody else's hard and honest work to be "hobby" or not.

Don't forget that Wikipedia itself started out as a "hobby" site. If it would be for people like you, we would never have had Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs) 08:52, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, links to hobby sites are against Wikipedia rules. Serendi^podous 18:38, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Then give me the strict definition of a "hobby" site. And give me enough reason to believe that this specific "hobby" site provides wrong information. If not, I will escalate this issue to a higher authority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs) 01:14, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

See:WP:ELNO, specifically section 11. Serendi^podous 05:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Very well, that's exactly what I needed. So, "Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites". Guess, we can skip blogs and fansites. Let's focus on "personal web pages". Following the link, we get this Wikipedia's own definition:

"Personal web pages are World Wide Web pages created by an individual to contain content of a personal nature rather than on behalf of a company, organization or institution. "

The key words here are "to contain content of a personal nature". Let's read a little from the main page of EveryHistory.org:

"Bringing together daily life, history, art, music, literature, philosophy, religion, mythology, science, technology, world changing discoveries, important battles, great people and key events across centuries, countries and continents".

Hardly content of a personal nature, wouldn't you say ? And if I need to elaborate even further, a "personal web page" is a page about an individual: his/her resume, portfolio, works, thoughts, kids, pets, pictures, adventures while visiting uncle Leo, etc.

Homer, Horace, Alexander the Great, Roman Empire, Greek philosophers and the Great Wall of China does not exactly sound like a personal nature to me.

So here we are, using Wikipedia's own rules and definitions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs) 00:26, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

If a single person set it up to reflect his own interests and ideas, then yes, it is of a personal nature. Only if it were the product of a scholastic institution, with multiple, peer reviewed contributors and academically rigorous testing, could it be considered impartial. Serendi^podous 09:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you even take time to verify the contents of the site in question ? Can you point to a single wrong fact on the site ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs) 00:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

a) the truth of the material is not important. b) personal sites are prone to selection bias, regardless of the veracity of their material. Serendi^podous 06:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Here, on History of Art, see the external link: "History of Art: From Paleolithic Age to Contemporary Art" - all-art.org

This is another one of our sites (you can check it out by clicking on the link on the very bottom of the main page, it will lead to everyhistory.org). Same people, same server, not professional design, content is "not verified by academically rigorous testing". This link is in Wikipedia for years. To be consistent you have to remove it, don't you ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs) 00:07, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I am not responsible for every article on Wikipedia. I am responsible for this one. Serendi^podous 06:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

There are tons of external links to personal websites etc. scattered across Wikipedia, and all of them are against the rules. Their existence doesn't justify adding more links to personal pages, it just means that no one has noticed those particular links or bothered to remove them. The existence of one such link can't be used as a logical argument to retain a different one; that logic is called WP:OTHERSTUFF. By the way, why are you so extremely keen to get this external link on this page? Do you know that Wikipedia pages are tagged with meta:Nofollow tags, so adding an external link to a Wikipedia page does NOT increase your ranking on any search engine?Ling.Nut3 (talk) 13:01, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Again with this "personal pages" of yours... How many times can I explain that this page has nothing to do with personal ? There is a huge, huge difference between a "personal page" and a "page made by a person" (as opposed to made by an organization). It exists to help people to access more historical information than they can find anywhere else. I am aware that this link will not increase our SEO. But can you understand that with an enormous amount of time voluntarily invested in this site - which is just hard and honest work and has nothing to do with money or SEO - we want to help people to find our site. Can you assume a noble, not money-driven motive ? Isn't all of Wikipedia about this ? And, frankly, I am appalled by such a bureaucratic attitude in the most open, creative and decent site in the world. So, if you really want to know, this is the main reason of my insistence. In my view, this attitude is against everything Wikipedia stands for.

I will write to Jimmy Wales if I have to. I'm sure he'll support us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs)

• Mmmmm. OK. Slow down here. We are coming from one perspective, and you are coming from another, and we are not meeting in the middle. There are a very large number of things that you are not aware of, and those facts motivate our behavior.
• Mmm. Where to begin? The two main problems with private sites of any kind are reliable sourcing and licensing. Things we link to have to be the property of the folks who put it on the Net, and they have to be well sourced (not original research, etc). Looking at your website (which looks extremely nice, by the way), I see text about Charles Estienne copied straight from Wikipedia but not sourced, with no licensing info. Red flag. I see other text... where did it come from? I don't know. Red flag. It isn't sourced. By the way, who made that webpage? I don't know. I don't see an "About us" page or similar. Red flag. And even if there was an "About us" page or similar, the people who made that page would need to have some sort of acknowledged expertise... do I see something that says "I have acknowledged expertise"? No. Red flag. Where did all these images come from? Are they copyrighted? I don't know. Where did all this text come from? Is it copyrighted? I don't know. In short, all I see are red flags.
• This is not a bureaucratic perspective, it's an academic perspective. And finally, people write Wales all the time. He seldom if ever gets involved in content disputes of this nature, and if he did, well.. it would be to repeat what i am saying, in greater detail. I am very sorry. You really need to learn more about how academia (and by extension, Wikipedia) operates before you get angry at us. You just haven't crossed your t's and dotted your i's, and in fact, it is doubtful that the nature of the material on the website would ever let us link to it (legitimately).
• We are not picking on you. This stuff is normal. It is the right way to do things. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 01:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, obviously if you decided to prevent me from inserting this link, you can find many reasons to do it. No "About" page - what for ? We are not an organization, just a couple of people enthusiastic about free knowledge. We don't have thousands of volunteers like Wikipedia to produce contents, so we have to scan it. But you will be stunned by the amount of time required to organize all this material. Are the images copyrighted ? Of course not. Is the text licensed ? Of course not. We don't have any money to pay for any of these, it would be ridiculous to even think about it. (The sources should be mentioned though, I agree).

So yes, all these problems are very real. But - and this is critical - Wikipedia has nothing to do with this site. Wikipedia is not responsible for my content, just for its relevancy. That's why it is called an "external link". The link is absolutely, 100% relevant to the Wikipedia's page. I am sure people who follow it like it a lot. It's not a scam, not a vanity site, it's absolutely free, there is no hidden features to make people register, enter their data or pay us in any way. If those people don't like the fact that the information is not licensed, attributed or paid for, they are free to leave the site that very second. Again, it has nothing to do with Wikipedia. The role of Wikipedia is not to be involved in copyright disputes of external sites. Its role is to point people to the relevant contents which is obviously honest and not vanity or advertisement. The issues with contents itself is not Wikipedia's problem.

I just thought...at this point in our discussion it would be so much simpler for you guys just to say: "Dude, you know, we see your point. We see that you are honest and hard working people, and after all we are all here for the same goal - free flow of information. Go ahead." And this is the right way to do things. Otherwise - mark my words - Wikipedia will become just another nest of corporate idiocy, bureaucracy and copyright nightmare of the modern world. Because in our age and time nobody knows what copyright means anymore. And seeing that the best, largest and the freest source of knowledge in the human history tries to hold on to it with the iron hand - this makes me really, really sad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry to hear that we have let you down. It appears that your expectations and ours are not very well matched, and disappointment ensues. As for Wikipedia becoming "just another nest of corporate idiocy, bureaucracy and copyright nightmare of the modern world", well, it's very possible that that will happen. :-)

However, I'd like to ask you to try a thought experiment. Is it possible that you and your friend or friends could try working on Wikipedia rather than building your own website from scratch? Now THAT would be helping people out. Wikipedia is almost always in the top 3 Google hits for any topic. What that means in the real world is that people really do read our stuff'.. They read our stuff partially because we have no advertising (I actually think that's a big reason), and partially because it's easy to find, but also partially because over the years we have become more and more careful about sourcing our material, which makes us relatively more reliable than most other websites (see User:Ling.Nut/V-challenged). So if you're really, really eager to share free content with the world, and put it in a place where people will see and read it – come on aboard and join us! New hands are always welcome. Work here and be read by people all over the world!

Thanks for your hard work. I'm sorry that the guidelines we've built up over the years (and follow because they help others feel sure of our content) don't match well with your website . I hope we can all work together, coloring inside the lines laid down here by years of WP:CONSENSUS! Ling.Nut3 (talk) 12:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the invitation. The problem is English is not my (and others) native language (despite my decent command of it), so it would be difficult to write correctly. I was thinking about contributing in the non-English part though, why not. The other thing is that we have this vision of an all-inclusive encyclopedic version of human history which is now under construction. It's structured very differently comparing to Wikipedia, and I think it's also important to have this immersive experience of going year by year through history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catpad309440857 (talk • contribs) 03:35, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Machine Readable Version of Timeline?

The year pages are currently not very easily scrapable by software, which is a shame as there is a wealth of information here. Can this info be found in a format that's more easily processed by machines? I'm trying to scrape the info in each year page and enter it into a flashcard app. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.219.220 (talk) 05:04, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 27 July 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 00:37, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

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Timelines of world history → Timelines of the universe – This landing page covers human history plus the history before humans and the earth. World history in the title usually means Human history. I think the title should be changed to the universe so that it clarifies the subject. Interstellarity (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. Jack Frost (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, the already existing Timeline of the early universe (one of the timeline items) also fits the concept and theme of world history, as the Earth itself would not exist if the universe hadn't popped into being in a most peculiar way. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:38, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. The proposed title implies the history of more than just the Earth. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:36, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.