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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 94.2.198.12 (talk) at 22:36, 13 April 2015 (→‎Converting to a timeline). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Comments

This is Nat bs, most of the inventions in the individual webpages were done post-1707, i.e. they were all British. It seems a bit of nationalist-racist-ignorant agenda to not have a collective page of all British inventions, all those invented after 1707. I don't mind having a separate Scottish, English and Welsh page, but it just stinks of the kinda small-minded cave-troll mind of some Scot nats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.124.4 (talk) 11:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is massively disorganised. Utter chaos. We really ought to have some kind of standard for what counts as an invention, rather than just listing things which are vaguely on the topic of British innovation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.26.44 (talk) 20:35, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Invention of the metric system

I removed from the article the claim that a Brit, John Wilkins, was the inventor of the earliest concept of a Metric system as such an exceptional claim naturally requires robust evidence (see WP:EXCEPTIONAL) - here it had no evidence at all. MeasureIT (talk) 23:19, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see that the claim has been reinstated, this time "supported" by a citation in which the only relevent reference is a direct quote from the website of UKMA, a self-proclaimed single-issue pressure group fighting for metrication in the UK. The reference does not even claim that Wilkins was the inventor of the earliest concept of a Metric system, so the claim in the article actually remains unsupported. MeasureIT (talk) 12:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now added an "irrelevant citation" tag to the reference as the cite (even with a quotation) does not address the issue of lack of support for the claim to be the inventor of the earliest concept of a metric system. If I am wrong, please explain why. Anyway, please engage in this discussion rather than reverting. MeasureIT (talk) 16:09, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the reference again, I see that the cited quote ("The key principles … were proposed by Dr. John Wilkins") is a direct quotation from this page on the website of the UK Metric Association (and attributed in the referenced publication to them). In turn, UKMA (a single-issue metrication pressure group), credit the late Pat Naughtin with drawing attention to the work of John Wilkins. The credibility of Pat Naughtin's work is currently the subject of another talk page discussion at Talk:History of the metric system in the "Reference to the work of Pat Naughtin" section. MeasureIT (talk) 16:24, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have now removed it from the article again as I believe the current consensus at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#That Englishman John Wilkins invented the metric system is that we cannot reliably support a claim that Wilkins invented this. MeasureIT (talk) 22:57, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some more on the source being used: not only is it just quoting from the UKMA, but it misattributes the quote, citing it as though it came directly from Wilkins. A bit of looking into the International Journal of Applied Science and Technology shows that it's published by the Centre for Promoting Ideas - who are themselves accused of being a "predatory" or fraudulent publisher, and of lying about the editors of their journals: see the Times Higher Education, The Australian, or this letter to Viewpoint. I agree that a claim this significant requires solid sourcing - and a dodgy-looking paper put out by a dubious publisher doesn't fit that. Ergative rlt (talk) 02:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
MeasuteIT wrote I see that the claim has been reinstated, this time "supported" by a citation in which the only relevent reference is a direct quote from the website of UKMA, a self-proclaimed single-issue pressure group fighting for metrication in the UK. Has he read every other citation in this article. If then, then he cannot substantiate his statement. For example, did he click onto the reference "Naughton (2009)"? He obviously didn't, because if he did he would have seen that Naughton's article contained much more than did the [article]. Did MeasureIT actually look at the UKMA artcile? I ask this question because its URL has changed. In short, would MeasureIT please stop telling "porkies". Martinvl (talk) 07:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The reference you used to support the Wilkins claim cited "(Wilkins, 1668)" and "(UK Metric Association, 2011)". It gave no url. I used Google to find "was first adopted in revolutionary France, the underlying ideas also came from England" and found this UKMA page. Now retract your allegation that I lied. Also did you see Ergative's message above casting doubt on that source too? MeasureIT (talk) 07:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have checked the article. At about 07:30 on 31 December I added a citation tio the artcile. MeasureIT posted his comment about the UKMA at 12:15 that day. Later in the day I substituted the earlier citation for a better one which effectively nullifed MeasureIT's comments about the UKMA. I therefore retract any allegation that he might have lied, but I must place on recrod that after I changed the citation, his comment ceased to have any meaning. Martinvl (talk) 10:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Covering British Inventions in the most productive way

The content of this article was copied and pasted from List of English inventions and discoveries and List of Scottish inventions and discoveries in September 2011. While this may have been in good faith, it has not produced the desired result. Editors' efforts are now divided across two articles (British/English or British/Scottish etc) on any one topic. This reduces the interaction between editors and reduces the quality of the articles available to readers. The English/Scottish articles are the primary pages because they have more page views, more pages link to them (122/334 respectively compared with 30 for this page) and were established earlier. This article was originally set up to describe how the lists of British inventions are organised across a number of articles.

To bring editors and readers together in one article, I propose we remove the content from this article and focus on the English/Scottish articles with links to those articles here. The rationale for this is to generate the most collaboration and produce the best quality articles. There have been a number of edits this week by User:BanterChanelle, but prior to this, editing has been slow with only a proportion being improvements. The edits that are improvements would be available in the history and would need to be transferred to the English/Scottish/etc articles which would generate the collaboration and improvement proposed. I am happy to help with this. This page would go back to its original purpose of describing how the lists of British inventions are organised (and the recently added list of Top 10 British inventions could stay here as well). Whizz40 (talk) 05:46, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wales? Northern Ireland? Rob984 (talk) 09:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The same rationale applies, editors/readers on Welsh inventors are better covered at List of Welsh inventors. If needed, List of Welsh inventions and discoveries and List of Northern Irish inventions and discoveries could be created and linked from this article. Almost all of this article is a copy and paste from the England and Scotland articles which will inevitably lead to growing conflicts between articles over time. The proposal is to revert this article to its original purpose as a description of the way the lists of British inventions are organised, bringing editors and readers together on a single relevant article. While this may not be a perfect solution, the reason for proposing/supporting the change is believing it will lead to better quality articles in the future. Whizz40 (talk) 11:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@BanterChanelle what are your thoughts and would you be able to make the same edits you made on this article to one of the existing English, Scottish or Welsh articles linked above? Whizz40 (talk) 22:13, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 22 March 2015

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure)  — Amakuru (talk) 10:23, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Lists of British inventions → List of British inventions and discoveries – More complete and accurate article title, consistent with the content of the article and consistent with similar articles such as List of English inventions and discoveries and Scottish inventions and discoveries. Whizz40 (talk) 07:05, 22 March 2015 (UTC) Comment how about "List of Inventions British people like to commonly believe they invented" ? This list needs serious work to be accurate. Perhaps an asterisk next to every "british" invention that was invented somewhere else? On the whole though, linguistically I support the move, but the whole topic is disgustingly nationalistic tripe. ~ip user[reply]

It's good to improve the article but a quick google search immediately found a cite for one of the items you removed. Please add a citation needed tag before removing items from this article. Whizz40 (talk) 09:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I shall do that, though, honestly about all of these need a citation. How long do you leave a citation needed up for before deleting it as uncited research? ~ip user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.201.191.33 (talk) 13:24, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I support the need for accuracy and verification. I think an important principle is multiple editors should be able to contribute to reach a consensus. The challenge is asymmetrical, it's easy for an editor to remove items, but requires a lot more work to research and cite all of the items, it will take time for editors to come to this page and do this, articles take years to write and keep on improving; once the text is gone, editors may have lost the opportunity to do this. It's a huge body of knowledge, and no one editor would have all the knowledge. If you find a source that disproves something presented them absolutely go ahead and remove it. Otherwise an approach could be to research, cite and improve the article; rather than finding things that could be wrong and removing them, finding evidence to support the work already done to make the article better by adding things. Whizz40 (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's a very, very, very long thread at Talk:List of German inventions and discoveries#More missing German inventions and discoveries in list where many of the inherent problems with these lists was hashed out. I think there is the greatest potential for consensus if the criteria are loosened so that we don't make strong assertions as to what is an "invention" or partial invention or shared invention, and what is "truly" British or German or whatever. This can be done by following the example of List of American inventions which redirects to Timeline of United States inventions. New technology that is important and relevant to country X can go on the timeline, without having to worry about whether that technology is the sole invention of Country X, or an immigrant from X to Y, or whether it's a "true" invention or merely a refinement of an existing invention/discovery/design/etc. A timeline lets you tell a country's history of science and technology without having to play referee in nationalist flag-waving contests. A worthwhile project would be to build broad consensus to revise all these lists the same way into timelines. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:55, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Dennis. I agree it is possible and reasonable for these lists/timelines to overlap and indeed the areas of connection/cooperation or simultaneous development may be interesting and significant and so worth discussing in the article rather than glossing over or becoming a point of contention. In terms of the timeline format and the US articles in particular, I see there has been very similar debate on those articles (see eg Talk:Timeline of United States inventions and discoveries/Archive 2) to the discussions here and on the German article. I am more agnostic about the format, lists by topic could be easier for the reader to review and find things so both may have pros and cons. Please indicate whether you support the page move requested. Whizz40 (talk) 20:44, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support because it's a small step on the right direction. But I expect these lists to be an ongoing source of conflict until they're redefined. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:59, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, and agree with your idea that it is a worthwhile project to bring together editors to build consensus, define and improve these types of articles. Whizz40 (talk) 21:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Dennis, List of Irish inventions and discoveries and List of Australian inventions, and List of Swedish inventions are already formatted as timelines - we could start a discussion on those pages about moving the article to Timeline of... ? Portuguese discoveries is an article by time period, currently there is a link in the List section of the Inventions template (at the bottom of all these pages); in the template, we could move it and Portuguese inventions to the Timeline section of the template? Russia is already a timeline but appears in the template in both the List and Timeline sections, we could trim the duplication in the List section? I only checked the articles on the tempalte, there may be others out there. Whizz40 (talk) 06:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • provisionally Oppose any move not supported by regular/substantial contributors to the article. There are clearly a number of ways in which an article like this can go. Consider the parallel contents:
There are a variety of possibilities presented in Category:Lists of inventions or discoveries. I would suggest scrapping this RM and simply starting a thread by which editors might explore the possibilities. GregKaye 11:30, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Greg, I requested the move and have been contributing to the article prior to this. I think the article move is a small step in the right direction (as echoed by Dennis Bratland above). Once the move is done, there are a variety of ways this article can be improved as you say. Would you consider supporting the move request with this additional context? Whizz40 (talk) 14:49, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Whizz40 Thank you and, on this basis, I am quite happy to give the Rec (provisional) support. As I say, as an uninvolved editor, it seems that a number of solutions can work and remain of the view that this kind of thing should be left in the hands of editors like yourself who will make it work. The title you suggest has good consistency with other titles in the same category. GregKaye 15:21, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The suggested name is more precise, seen as there are a number of discoveries listed on the article page. The new name is also consistent with existing UK related articles on the matter. Alternatively we could split the article and name them discoveries and inventions respectively. Mbcap (talk) 00:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Request for deletion

While there is historical background to this article, I believe it should be deleted and started from whole cloth. Save it for a bit to use as a template, but many of the links are uncited, much of it is flat out wrong, and the whole thing is overly nationalistic. Further, it's in violation of wiki policy, to quote wikipedia itself...

"Wikipedia encompasses many lists of links to articles within Wikipedia that are used for internal organization or to describe a notable subject. In that sense, Wikipedia functions as an index or directory of its own content. However, Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed. Please see Wikipedia:Alternative outlets for alternatives. Wikipedia articles are not: Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). If you want to enter lists of quotations, put them into our sister project Wikiquote. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are relevant because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are permitted. (See Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Appropriate topics for lists for clarification.)"

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information)

I know there is a move discussion going on now, but this should just be changed straight away. ~ip user

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.201.191.33 (talk • contribs) 22:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi IP, I see there has been improvement to this article in the last few days already. What is really needed is more editors to work on it; I am working on improving sourcing as are other editors and your knowledge and assistance with this is welcome too. There are 252 references already, but much work to be done, agreed. Besides, there are many other list-class articles like this for several countries, some of which has been through the deletion discussions and resulted in Keep. The very fact that there is interest in these articles, and controversy, shows they serve a purpose; if there are common misconceptions about inventions being British, when there is more to it than simply that, then this article serves a purpose as a reference to address this in an informative and factual way. Therefore, my view is in favour of Removing the tag from this article instead of starting a deletion discussion. It would be more constructive for editors to spend their time sourcing, citing and improving this article to make it a useful reference for readers. After all, that is what Wikipedia is about. Whizz40 (talk) 06:41, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, There is plenty that can be fairly presented within topics such as Anti-British sentiment and a "Criticisms of .." article can be presented as needed. However, I even asked a question recently: Has ISIL done any good? We live in a negative world. Any genuine good that is done can be rightly lauded. GregKaye 11:43, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Non-committed The question to be asked I guess is still, is it easier to try to start from whole cloth on this, and try to make a timeline, or try to take this article and shape it into a timeline (in that case, we'd still need to change the article title). I've been trying to weed out the ones that are a.) not inventions at all, and b.) not british inventions. It seems a lot of things were just put in half-baked through the years, without citations or checking up. I see what Whizz is going similar. Maybe once it's pared down to things that are actually inventions, and British, it can become a technological timeline. If we made it innovations as well, it could re-include things that I removed (such as bedside manner from Florence Nightengale, useful, certainly, but not an invention). ~ip user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.201.191.33 (talk) 23:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
With regards the first question, I think it will be easier to start from the exisiting content and improve it, this also gives due consideration to past editors' contributions (where they are valid) in keeping with Wikipedia's approach. I think there are a number of notable British innovations and these being in the list already suggests other readers/editors think this way too; so I would include innovations in the definition. If other editors would like to work on coverting this into a timeline then I am coming around to the idea and would be happy to support and help with this. Dennis Bratland's comments above express the case for a timeline well and Greg Kaye seems to be thinking this way too. Whizz40 (talk) 10:14, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I guess a question is how should we proceed from here. If other editors agree, we could take an incremental approach. First, supporting the article move, requested above, to go ahead because it is a small step in the right direction and a no-regrets action. Then we can work on improving the article in the normal way. If we want to reorganise it into a timeline then we can add section headings eg by century and move the content, improving it as we go. Once progress is made, another move request can be made to Timeline of British inventions and discoveries (a redirect from List of British inventions and discoveries would be helpful anyway). IP 90, if you're ok with this, we could remove the AFD tag. Whizz40 (talk) 15:01, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It was really disruptive to have not waited for the move discussion above to have closed before starting a pseudo-deletion discussion. It's essentially forum shopping which in this case can lead to two contradictory consensus decisions. What's also disruptive is to have a started a meaningless, non-binding deletion thread. The place to discuss deletion is at WP:AfD. But then the briefest of glances at the valid reasons for deletions of articles will tell you that bad content is not a valid reason. We don't "start over". We simply fix the content. So yes, "work on the article in the normal way." That's what we all do here, to all the articles. Make them better. The user at 90.201.191.33 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) seems bent on turning everything into a battlefield and proposing bizarre solutions to every problem, maximizing conflict and ignoring Wikipedia's institutional knowledge of what works.

I recommend not feeding the troll, who is destined to be blocked from editing, and sticking to ordinary research, citation, and editing of verifiable facts. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi [User:[Dennis Bratland]],I don't know if it was disruptive, I feel that this article shouldn't continue as it is, it should be turned into a timeline. As it stands, it violates the policy that "Wikipedia is not a collection of lists" as well as being poorly sourced. I am attempting to check some of the links for accuracy. I nominated the article for deletion for those reasons, alas, as I'm not an autoconfirmed user I used the appropriate method of listing it as such, and then putting it on the talk page of the article with my rationale, when then, a helpful autoconfirmed user was to put it up on the AfD board for there to be a discussion, (incidentally, what you chastised me both on my talk page and here for not doing...I was following procedure). I'm not sure what of this is destined to get me blocked, having an opinion on an article, soundly based on policy, or trying to check sources of an article?

Anyways, I still think this should be turned into a timeline and this article as it stands should be deleted, but I really don't want to work with people like this. Cheers ~~ip user 90.201.191.33 (talk) 08:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The appropraite method is to create an account if you want to nominate articles for deletion. It says that right there in the instructions you ignored. This is no such policy "Wikipedia is not a collection of lists" and it's not a valid reason for deletion. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:33, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The other appropriate method, as it says right there in the policy, is to put your rationale on the talk page, and ask for an autoconfirmed user to mark it for the AfD board, as I did. Also, the policy I was referencing is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information ~~ ip user 90.201.191.33 (talk) 22:13, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Converting to a timeline

Continuing the discussions above about converting this article to a timeline. As Dennis Bratland said, "A timeline lets you tell a country's history of science and technology", other editors commented on this becoming a timeline as well. Adding innovations back into the timeline was suggested and, since they are already in the list, past editors would likely agree; Dennis' experience with other articles like this is that there is "greatest potential for consensus if the criteria are loosened so that we don't make strong assertions as to what is an invention or partial invention or shared invention, and what is truly British or German or whatever. ... New technology that is important and relevant to country X can go on the timeline, without having to worry about whether that technology is the sole invention of Country X, or an immigrant from X to Y, or whether it's a true invention or merely a refinement of an existing invention/discovery/design/etc." So we could covert this list into a Timeline of British innovation and discovery, similar to Timeline of Russian innovation. If other editors have views on this or would like to work together on improving the article please jump in. Whizz40 (talk) 09:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, why not. Propose a move and redefinition of the list. If it flies then go ahead and move the list for Germany and then France and then all the rest. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so how do we get started? This is what I was getting at before I left (Sorry, was on holiday!), do we just add onto this as time goes, or try to start anew whole cloth? ipuser 94.2.198.12 (talk) 22:36, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2 April 2015

List of British inventions and discoveries → Timeline of British innovation and discovery – As discussed on the Talk page, propose converting this list to a timeline inclusive of innovations. Whizz40 (talk) 05:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support: a timeline seems a much better way of presenting this article. I do however think that an alteration of the proposed title to: Timeline of British innovations and discoveries would sound more natural. Ebonelm (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is also a Timeline of Russian innovation but I don't see any articles with the title Timeline of X innovations.... Google search results for Timeline "innovation and discovery" are 13.1 million while the results for Timeline "innovations and discoveries" are less than 1 million. Overall, I think there is greatest chance for consensus with Timeline of British innovation and discovery. I'll change the request back to the original. Whizz40 (talk) 04:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Whizz40, sorry to have to re-raise the case for innovations and discoveries but actually nearly all the current pages use the plural including: Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, England, Scotland, Germany, Indonesia, basically every page currently listed on Template:Inventions. I would recommend that you once again change back to the plural. The bigger issue is probably going to be the choice to use 'innovation/s' rather than 'invention/s'. Ebonelm (talk) 09:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This definition has been discussed in a previous move request and subsequent discussions on the talk page. There are no binding constraints from other articles on this article and neither would this article create binding constraints on others. The precedent which this title gives most weight to is the previous editing that created the article, which is inclusive of innovations, and the purpose of this move request is to see if there is consensus for converting the list to a timeline including the innovations, which I am happy to work on. Whizz40 (talk) 11:56, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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