Talk:State leaders by year

SEE ARCHIVE: Talk:State leaders by year/Archive
See also: Wikipedia talk: WikiProject Leaders by year

Format

So, I disagree with a lot of Ugen64's suggestions (see above). At any rate, I don't particularly care about the name, but I think Jiang's probably right that things will get very cluttered if we try to include all incumbents on this page. john 16:34, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the 2003 format to the 1816 format. The divisions by geography make sense, and would be particularly helpful for 1816; just having all the German states listed together would make the whole page alot easier to manage. I also think heads of state and heads of government might as well be listed together. On the 1816 page the non-heads of state are grouped at the bottom, even though the list above doesn't even mention limiting the entires to "heads of state". I'd also be in favor of reversing the order of the 2003 page, putting national leaders at the top and leaders of international organizations at the bottom. I think anyone looking at the article would likely be more interested in national leaders than who's running the International Maritime Organization. But maybe that's just me. -R. fiend

If we do have the HoS and HoG on the same page (as it seems we are going to), they should be listed together. -- Jonel 15:59, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I think both of those are good ideas. What I do think, however, is that we need to figure out how to format colonies. I think that putting them with the colonizing country's entry would quickly become unwieldy (especially for something like the British Empire), but I'm not sure what would be the best way to do it. Any ideas? john 23:21, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Do we even want colonies? Is a colonial governor much more important than a state governor or provincial premier? Perhaps they should be sent to a separate sub-list, similar to 2003 Canadian incumbents. - SimonP 16:52, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

I just made some changes in the 1816 list. Mostly I incorporated the non-heads of state into the main list, which I believe there was somewhat of a consensus to do. I'd like to see the entire list done more along the lines of the 2003 list. Are there any strong objections? We also do need to have a consensus on colonies. I wouldn't mind leaving them out, or having a link to a separate page (for example under "United Kingdom", after it lists Prime Minister and Monarch, it could have a link to its colonial leaders for that year). Others may object. I do think we need a specific format before we expand these entries to other years. My vote is for the 2003 format, perhaps with minor changes. -R. fiend

I like the idea of a separate page. 1816 British Empire incumbents, or something. john 18:20, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Good, but perhaps we can have the colonial governors for every nation's colonies on a single page. If we're going to have a page for for the British Empire we're going to need one for every nation that has even a single colony, which I think would be sort of a waste. So how about under every such nation there are links that all go to the same page, like Colonial leaders in 1816 or something? -R. fiend

That probably works. john 21:43, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I quite like the bolding of country names as was done on List of state leaders in 1939. It makes things much clearer. - SimonP 02:37, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

Now that I've seen it, I like it too. -- Jonel 02:55, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Do we want the separate North and South Americas (2003) or the single category (1816)? -- Jonel 03:27, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think we need a fixed standard. In the years before the Caribbean states gained their independence one entry should be fine, while afterwards it is probably better to split them up. - SimonP 03:43, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

That sounds like a good way to do it. -- Jonel 03:56, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Specifics

Sovereign Military Order of Malta

What are we doing with this bunch? They aren't a sovereign state, as they have no territory. However, their current placement as a Catholic Church is erroneous, as they are an order rather than a church (we probably need a subhead for Catholic lay orders for the time when there were lots of orders like this). I'd move it, but I'm not really sure where to put it. Ideas? -- Jonel 02:18, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Sovereign Military Order could go with countries, I think. They have sovereignty over their headquarters building in Rome and over embassies in various countries. john 02:46, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Didn't know that they actually had sovereignty over their headquarters building, or that they had embassies at all. In light of that, I suppose we should count them as a state. -- Jonel 03:16, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

China

What is our policy going to be on the China/Taiwan issue? Officially, Taiwan is still part of China (at least, according to the UN and something like 179 out of 182 countries). We need to both a) maintain NPOV and b) reflect the current situation. Please check the 2003 list for both my original placement and Jiang's suggestion, then talk about those or make a new suggestion of your own. -- Jonel 01:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Chinese)#Political_NPOV

The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are de facto separate sovereign states, but claim each others' territory just like how North and South Korea claim each other's territory. Since the ROC has all the characteristics of a sovereign state (until the 1970s was recognized by most countries as one), we ought to regard it as such.

Whether Taiwan is part of China depends on the definition of "China." Few would object to it being considered part of China if we defined it as Greater China, but most taiwanese would object if we defined it as the People's Republic of China.

I believed my change to the 2003 list was minor because I was just rearranging. While the Republic of China can be considered legally and officially to be part of China, Taiwan is its common name and someone looking for its president would naturally search under T. Most people dont even know that the government in Taipei is officially of the Republic of China, and someone looking for Taiwan might get confused. We don't have consistency on this issues, with the ROC listed under "c" in some places and under "t" at others.--Jia ng 03:01, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The naming conventions page suggests that we should not use the term Taiwan at all here and refer to that government solely as the Republic of China. I realize that would be confusing for some, but the official name of the state is Republic of China and the ROC constitution lays claim to the entirety of China including mainland. Therefore, the two should be under separate entries in our list, but both alphabetized under "c". -- Jonel 03:13, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why not something like "Taiwan: (see Republic of China)"? -Rwv37 03:18, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with "Taiwan (Republic of China)." Taiwan is the conventional short form for the Republic of China and the current government (since 2000) has been going around referring to it as such. It might offend some Blues, but given how the news media has all but ignored "Republic of China", we cant go too wrong. Whenever we refer to the ROC on wikipedia, we use either [[Republic of China]] on [[Taiwan]], [[Republic of China]] (Taiwan), [[Republic of China|Taiwan (ROC)]], or [[Republic of China|Taiwan]]. "Taiwan" is always included in some way. As long as we dont removed the reference and link to "Republic of China" completely, we should be fine.

The alphabetization is to facilitate finding an entry. Listing it under "C" won't help much. User:Rwv37's suggestion would work, but we would have to create an extra line in the page.--Jia ng 03:31, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ummah

Why does Ummah get a listing on (for example) the 2003 page, saying "Caliphate defunct since 1924"? Or to put it another way, if Ummah gets that listing, why doesn't everything else that is defunct get such a listing? I'm not advocating the latter - I'm bringing it up as a means of illustrating that the "Ummah" policy, applied fairly, seems untenable and unreasonable. -Rwv37 09:34, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

Deleted. There are a number of claims to the Caliphate, but since there is no one definite Caliph, the Ummah should not be listed. -- Jonel 15:59, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sovereign states with no clear incumbents

How about independent nations with no clear incumbents? For example, Vermont declared its independence in 1777 (and was not part of the USA), but it did not have a governor until 1778. Rather than just leave it off of the 1777 page, might it not be nicer to list something like "Vermont - Government by convention of citizens" or "Vermont - No clear head of state or government" or some such? -Rwv37 17:48, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

Independent (at the time) nations should always be listed. It would be best to find out who was in charge of government and list that, even if it is a group. -- Jonel 17:56, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I concur. For instance, France in 1793 had no clear head of state, so we should just say National Convention (1792-1795) I think for the US from 1776-1789, we should say "Congress", or whatever, rather than the president of Congress. john 18:03, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Continental Congress. But, please, NOT President of the United States in Congress Assembled. He was NOT the Head of State. RickK 03:16, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dependendcies

If we list colonies, we should list them separate from the independent state under different section heading. This way, people don't get confused and assume that certain colonies were independent.

What is the criteria for including a non-sovereign entity? --Jia ng 03:06, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think colonies, as such, should go on separate colonial pages, separate from the main page. On the other hand, I'm concerned about the kind of protectorates which had their own monarch, but were were under de facto foreign control. Or semi-sovereign rulers of areas theoretically part of the Ottoman Empire. john 02:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Is the Ottoman Empire situation similar to Germany in the late 1800s? If so, I could see that format being kept for the Ottomans. As for protectorates with their own monarch, I suppose the distinction is sovereignty. I'm thinking they'll probably end up on the colonial page, and we'll have to stretch 'colonial' to mean any dependency. -- Jonel 03:27, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Communists

We've been listing communist party leaders. Should we really be listing non-governmental positions? They not officially HoS nor HoG. --Jia ng 03:09, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

They should only be listed when they are at least de facto HoG. -- Jonel 03:14, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Communist party leaders of such countries were usually de facto head of government or head of state. I mean, should we really have a list of 1939, where the only soviet leaders listed are Kalinin and Molotov? Or in 1956, where we get Voroshilov and Bulganin, but no Khrushchev? Mao would be gone after 1959. And so forth. john 03:18, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Swiss

Why are you changing all the State leaders by year pages to show "seven member Swiss Federal Council" instead of the name of the president of the Swiss Confederation? Whatever the details of Swiss government, the name of the President of the Confederation (many of whom we even have articles about) is clearly more useful than the same thing for every year. john 07:55, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

The way some of the list are done sugggests he is the Head of State. I feel it's preferable to not list him(her) if not all members are listed. The later can be found with List of members of the Swiss Federal Council. -- User:Docu

So have no useful information about Switzerland, instead of having partial useful information.

What is we did it like

Switzerland -
- President of the Confederation so and so, President of the Swiss Confederation (year)

? The page lists people who aren't heads of state, anyway, and the President of the Confederation seems to fulfill some of the responsibilities of a head of state - at least as much as, say, the various Communist states' "Presidents of the Council of State" or what not. john 08:07, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the ideal format, but this version of 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=List_of_state_leaders_in_2003&oldid=3399468) or the addition I just made to 1939 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=List_of_state_leaders_in_1939&diff=3411682&oldid=3403048)] may be reasonable. I'm not sure about earlier years though. -- User:Docu

It's time to stop with this nonsense of listing the seven members everywhere. What do you think "President of the Confederation" means? Obviously he is the head of the state. A primus inter pares is still a primus. --Wik 08:34, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

It's indeed preferable not to list them everywhere (afterall, it's even one more than San Marino), maybe we'd better list none and refer to the detailed list. If it's really obvious, maybe you want to edit the related articles. You could quote the CIA as reference. BTW what's the translation for "pares"? -- User:Docu

primus inter pares means "first among equals". At any rate, if the President of the Swiss Confederation is not the Head of State, then what is he? My understanding is that his special responsibilities as president are entirely of the "Head of State" variety. He "undertakes special representational duties," says his article. How is this different from what the King of Sweden does? john 17:57, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

The usual theory in the related articles is that he is not (Head of State). As for the King of Sweden, I'm not sure to whom he is equal. Anyways, for the purpose of the otherwise useful list, it may be easier to just copy the usual Factbook fields and avoid debates. If you want to list just one person, the President of the Confederation is ok. -- User:Docu

</From User talk:Docu>

Page Locations

Suggestions that have been made:

Heads of state in XXXX - overly limiting
XXXX incumbents - vague, questionable grammar
List of national leaders in XXXX - nation is an awkward term
List of governmental leaders in XXXX - long, vague
List of heads of state and government in XXXX- long
List of state leaders in XXXX - vague

Can we just decide where the hell we're going to put this stuff? I'm sick of all these pages being constantly moved around. john 19:02, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Are there any objections to settling on a "list of governmental leaders" series, a separate "list of religious leaders" series, and after 1950 a "list of international organization leaders" series? Can we start moving pages, creating index pages, and linking from the year articles using these titles? - SimonP 19:21, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

Why not "List of heads of state and government"? "Governmental leaders" is a lot more vague. john 21:42, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I would accept that, but what about just "List of state leaders?" Brevity is a good thing. - SimonP 23:01, Apr 25, 2004 (UTC)

My only concern with that is ignorant people not knowing the distinction between "state" as used in international politcs and "state" as the U.S. states. But I do think that that title is the best one I've seen.

Yes, that's fine, and better than governmental leaders, which implies that, say, foreign ministers should be included. john 23:27, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead and move it.

I highly dislike the format used at 2004 incumbents. Listing it by position held instead of country makes it really hard to find stuff. We should go by the format used at 2003 incumbents. --Jia ng 23:52, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We REALLY need consistency here. It seems "incumbents" has been rejected as a title, but now our 2 prototypes are "List of state leaders..." and "List of government leaders...". Can we agree to one and change all years to that title, before we have to deal with even more alternate titles appearing? And Jiang is right, the 2004 page should be changed to the format of the 2003 and 1816 pages, which I think are finally just about formatted the same (excpt for the titles). -R. fiend

Considering that people who are interested in this list ought to know enough to realize that 'state' has the sovereign entity meaning, I would say "List of state leaders in XXXX" should be what we go with. So, is there any objection to the tripartite pages?:

List of state leaders in XXXX
List of religious leaders in XXXX
List of international organization leaders in XXXX

-- Jonel 01:17, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree. - SimonP 01:47, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)

There are still quite a few "heads of state" pages (1871-79, 1904, 1913, 1914, etc.), should these be moved to "List of state leaders in XXXX" and expanded, or are we still doing separate "heads of state" pages? I think they should be moved, for reasons that have been discussed previously. Objections? -R. fiend

They should be moved. -- Jonel 20:28, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Consensus

Does anyone have any objections to using List of state leaders in 2003 (and the other two 2003 lists) as a template? If so, please note them. If not, I will begin using it to create more year pages tomorrow. -- Jonel 03:35, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is some redundancy in the current format:

Guinea
- President - Lansana Conté, President of Guinea (1984-present)
- Prime Minister - Lamine Sidimé, Prime Minister of Guinea (1999-2004)

Why list the positions twice? The following will do:

Guinea
- Lansana Conté, President of Guinea (1984-present)
- Lamine Sidimé, Prime Minister of Guinea (1999-2004)

--Jia ng 03:39, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The redundancy is due to multiple people consecutively holding the offices - Without it, transitions of power could be confusing. I'm open to suggestions on how to fix that. -- Jonel 03:54, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Also, ideally the official titles that appear after the names will be links:

Guinea
- President - Lansana Conté, President of Guinea (1984-present)
- Prime Minister - Lamine Sidimé, Prime Minister of Guinea (1999-2004)

Having the positions stated first also makes it easier to read. And in some cases the two titles may be worded differently, for example Ireland: Prime Minister - so-and-so, An Taoiseach. In this case I don't think a little redundancy is a bad thing. -R. fiend

I'd suggest that generic titles go in the first part, and the specific, official titles go in the second spot, assuming they're different.

WikiProject:Leaders by year?

Should we start a WikiProject for this? john 02:50, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds good. This is certainly just as ambitious as anything else on the WikiProjects page, and it would be nice to have a solid format placed somewhere. -- Jonel 03:21, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've created it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Leaders by year. So far, I've mostly put the format we've agreed upon in out discussions here. john 03:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

System of Creation

Would anyone object to, say, going back chronologically and completing this project country by country (so I would do China for every year one time, then someone may do England etc.) - rather than specific years. I feel this could be far more efficient - thus putting the project up sooner. If anyone does agree to this - I would recomemnd working back chronologically, so as to ocmplete the most current years sooner - China would be a good start as it has such a long history. --OldakQuill 18:46, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'd be up for doing this. I think Jonel has been going (forward) chronologically). China from 1912-1949 can be quite complicated though, especially during the period (1918?-1928) when there are two different regimes calling themselves the "Republic of China". I'd say that up to 1928 the "Warlord" Republic in the north should get top billing, but that the Nationalist regime should be mentioned too...at any rate, I can do Britain, France, and Germany, at least.

Yes, we should list all contending governments as long as they controlled some land. Both the Taliban and United Front are listed at the 2001 article...

The Japanese puppet government in China during WW2 should be added too. --Jia ng 00:46, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I think the only problem with doing it country by country rather than by year is that its very easy to overlook minor counties; pages may appear complete after several people have gone over them, while some minor entities no one thought of slip through the cracks. But it probably is more efficient. I have no strong objections to either way of doing it. And there will be many difficult and complicated situations, as mentioned above; I think we need to deal with them on a case by case basis. Unfortunately, no one thought of Wikipedia entries when establishing governments and running nations. -R. fiend 01:00, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good point - but for this reason, I have been using "List of countries" to fill in entries... capitals and hence systematic. The same problems could occur with year by year constructs.--OldakQuill 08:20, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Nineteenth century but Twentieth Century

Someone must know whether "Xth Century" is an exception to our rule about caps in headings... Robin Patterson 00:35, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Tiny pedantic point

Although the 21st century (and indeed the new millennium) were widely regarded to have commenced on January 1st, 2000, historically, and according to all of wikipedia's XXth century articles pre-21st century, the new century began on XX01, not XX00. That means the table of centuries in this article is incorrect. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:28, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quite true, and well spotted. It is a minor point, but as an encyclopedia we should be expected to get it right. Unfortunately that will mean a major overhaul of the entire format. If we're going to to a major revision, I have a suggestion for another major change, and that is a complete reversal, with the most recent years at the top and the distant ones at the bottom. I think this makes sense, as there is basically no solid beginning point of this list. Besides, people will probably be more interested in the past couple centuries than the years around 2500 BC (not that we're there yet, but it would be nice if eventually went back that far), so it makes sense to have the former at the top. That said, I don't especially feel like volunteering to rewrite everything. I don't suppose there's anyone that does? And I guess we should get a consensus on both these proposals first. -R. fiend 22:12, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with at leats the first point about millenia, but I'm not tottally sure of which way is the best one. Burrently I think that it's fine either way, but if we eventually get more years then it would be best if the most recent ones were at the top. Jeltz 20:10, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  - True, but we are getting more years added all the time. I was surpirsed how this list used to be stagnating around 1700 but recently quickly went back to the 13th century. The purpose of the list is to eventually and ideally list state leaders for all years back to, well, back to the time state leaders first existed. I think it would be easier to reverse the order sooner rather than later (it would have been much easier several months ago, but too late now; I shoul dhave mentioned it earlier). -R. fiend 21:28, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have a suggestion for the new order: User:Jeltz/test. What do you think? Any suggestions? Is this a change that people want? Jeltz 12:14, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Nice! I like it. If no one objects in a couple days go ahead and use it. -R. fiend 16:33, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead and use it! You'll never know if people would object unless you put it in a prominent, in-your-face context. :D And I'd suggest removing those bullets you have for every decade. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 19:43, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion it looks better without them. Jeltz 21:08, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Argghhhh!!!

Help!! It seems that the name of Iltutmish, sultan of India, is misspelled on every page from List of state leaders in 1211 to List of state leaders in 1236. I've changed a few of them already. But if each person changed just two of the pages, about 10 people or so would be able to change the entire thing. So please help!! -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 03:36, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

I fixed the rest of them. Jeltz 09:57, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks for your help. :) -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 13:10, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Colonial governors in 1211???

Does that any sense or is it just me? Shouldnt this be remove until the times that colonies actually existed ?[[User:Muriel Gottrop|muriel@pt]] 13:18, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By the way, i find this a bit pointless, but since its there, i'll add the portuguese kings to it. [[User:Muriel Gottrop|muriel@pt]] 13:19, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, it doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Likewise no international organizations from that era are coming to me either, but maybe I'm not thinking hard enough. -R. fiend 16:37, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Vote on Middle East

Please cast your vote at Wikipedia talk: WikiProject Leaders by year#Vote on Middle East on whether we should use "Middle East" as a separate heading! -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 02:53, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Different ways of doing this

There are two ways of working on this project:

Going by country. Pick a country that you know very well about, and add it for as many years as possible.
Going by year. Starting from a relatively "complete" year (let's say the 1103 page), and going forwards or backwards, keeping track of every single country in the list.

So far I've been going with option #1, because I have absolutely no confidence with my knowledge of the history of any country other than China, and I'm afraid that I'll mess something up. Just trying to add the rulers for Japan along with China has taken me forever as I struggle the learn the differences between the Emperor of Japan, the Shogun, the cloistered ruler, the Sessho and Kampaku, and keep track of the civil wars, rebellions, figureheads and de facto rulers, and all sorts of other complications. I can't imagine doing this for 50 countries at a time.

But now the thing is: I've realized that once we go with option #1, we end up with a lot of almost-empty articles, and it's extremely hard for someone to do #2, since they'll essentially be trying to work around the work that's already there. Adam Bishop, for example, has been trying to do the lists for 1104 and 1105 by copying from 1103. If 1104 and 1105 had been empty beforehand, it would've been relatively straightforward for him; but I've already gone through the 12th century with a motley collection of East Asian regimes, meaning that he'll have to end up splicing my stuff into the list. And that's a chore, especially if he has to do this repeatedly for every single page he updates.

So, what does everyone think about this? -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 06:34, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I'm certainly with you in terms of reluctance to work on countries whose histories I'm not too familair with. There's plenty of confusion, partilarly as you go further back when things weren't always as clear and official as they tend to be now (not that that's always the case even now). For that reason I've been sticking to major European powers mostly, and I'm really not as knowledgable on all them as I'd like (the U.S. is also easy, bit was completed long ago). My overal M.O. was to pick a nation or two and do their monacrhs for one century. I was mostly working on the 18th and 19th, and got quite a bit done. I've been leaving out prime ministers and the like (as their turnover slowed down the easy copy and paste I was doing with the monarchs) but trying to come back and do them afterwards. I've been meaning to pick up where I left off with Spain; their tendency to have a minimum of 5 P.M.'s in a year was proving grueling work. I actually haven't even looked at these pages in a while, so I should probably check them out and see how their progressing.

Anyway, the country-by-country rather than year-by-year method sort of seems better to me. Having a couple dozen major countries spread out over hundreds of years seems more useful in the interim than a hundred coutnries cataloged for only a couple dozen years. (Though I certainly wouldn't discourage Adam from doing what he's doing.) I also find it's just plain easier, and, as you said, we can pick our areas of expertise. The disadvantage of this method is that it's easy to overlook minor countries, giving the appearance of completion on some pages, whereas if it's done by year, an oversight of an entire year would be easy to spot and rectify. -R. fiend 19:20, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I personally prefer doing it country by country but I suspect that it might be more effective to do many countries at once. One some years there are a myriad of small kingdoms (most of them which I ahve heard of). I have no idea if they were sovereign at that time. Jeltz 20:13, 2004 Dec 4 (UTC)

legendary / mythical rulers

Although this problem is still far from becoming critical, I think that as we work backwards in time we'll eventually run into rulers that may or may not have existed... e.g. Xia Dynasty kings of China, the pre-Yamato emperors of Japan, and so on and so forth. Since their very existences are disputed, what do we do with them? Also, what happens to kings that likely did exist but do not have clearly assigned dates? Many early kings fall into this category. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 00:43, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

That's a good question, and while I know nothing of the Xia Dynasty kings of China, nor the pre-Yamato emperors of Japan, I think we need to yield to experts in such subjects. There must be some sort of historical protocol for handling such things. As as Eurocentric westerner, I'm tempted to think of King Arthur, who is obviously so widely discredited that he shouldn't be included at all. At some point (clearly I have no idea exactly when) we might have to just say "prior to this time records or so unreliable that we cannot say who who was ruling", and leave it at that. That being said, I think we should try to sort of concentrate on having more complete listings for the more certain years (mostly the latter half of last millenium) before we worry too much about times that exist in the mythological records more than the historical ones. Of course, I should probably put my money where my mouth is. -R. fiend 00:53, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The fact remains that these leaders could have existed. I agree - when any leader on a particular page is significantly questionable a disclaimer should be added to the top "Due to the nature of historical records dating from this time, one or more leaders listed here may not have existed, or may not have served in the capacity described." For truly mythical leaders such as King Arthur (as distinct from questionable legendary rulers) it may be interesting to include a section at the bottom of pages listing Mythical rulers such as Arthur, etc. --Oldak Quill 17:42, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this is so difficult an issue. All we have to do is put some sort of mark (perhaps a *) after their name, to denote that the history is unclear, that their existence is disputed or unsure. The individual articles on these rulers should provide adequate further discussion into the issue. For mythical rulers where no information exists as to when they might have ruled, they have no place on a list of state leaders by year, and so they will not show up on the lists. Bantman 21:38, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

BCE vs. BC

I'm no partisan in the date format dispute, and I voted against making BCE mandatory. However I am annoyed by people switching to their preferred format without good reason. Originally this series used BCE (the first page created where this was an issue was List of state leaders in 500 BCE). Should we move them back? - SimonP 20:58, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

My own personal priorities for date formatting would be as follows (in order):
1. Internal consistency - If we have one article at XXXX in 500 BCE, they should all by YYYY in ZZ BCE.
2. Wikipedia consistency - These articles should use the same format as the general year articles, i.e. 500 BCE or 500 BC. (note - I haven't checked to see which of those is a redirect, because I really could care less)
3. Any other considerations.
-- Jonel | Speak 21:52, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This change was made in December last year [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=State_leaders_by_year&diff=9047211&oldid=8711519) and I believe that we have used BC since. I use Jonel's second priority as a reason for supporting the use of BC and also the reason that we use BC for the moment in this project. No reason to make a change that goes against the general wikipedia use (from what I have seen BC is more common than BCE). Jeltz talk 22:20, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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