Portal talk:North American History/Archive 1

Faculty
Gabriel Spiro (The G), May 8, 2007

Staffing Possibilities
~Please note, this is a policy in discussion, there is no need for these titles as of now but we would like to discuss the possibilities of having them at a later point in time. Please comment below.The G 15:10, 14 July 2007 (UTC) SCHOOL OF AMERICAN HISTORY: FACULTY AND STAFF

Director: Graykidd 04:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Assistant Director: (POSITION AVAILABLE!)

Associate Director: (POSITION AVAILABLE!)

Lead Professor: (POSITION AVAILABLE!) Wikiversity participants to not adopt titles or appoint themselves to positions. Just edit the page. --JWSchmidt 15:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the aspect of adopting titles because that could lead others not to want to add... maybe it could be worded in a way that people can contact specific people if they have an issue. What is right now could also lead to office fighting... The G 17:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Many Wikiversity content development projects have a page section called "active participants" where people can list themselves if they are actively involved in creating learning resources for a particular subject. Such lists should provide a way for collaborators to briefly state their interests and quickly find each other. Unfortunately, many people add themselves to such lists and then never edit again. I wonder what these people imagine "active" means. --JWSchmidt 17:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, who qualifies for the Lead Professor? The person who writes the most, or edits the most? There needs to be guidelines if we plan to do this staffing thing. In addition (not that I'm trying to be in charge), why is Graykidd the director? I started the department and though I haven't been able to do much with it, but what has Graykidd done?The G 16:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * He's "the director" because he made the list. However, I am not certain that we should be adopting "directors" at this point, nor that, if we are, he should necessarily be the director.  If a director is desired, very specific criteria should be developed for selecting one.  With all respect, I feel that Graykidd's listing of these positions is premature.  The Jade Knight 07:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Adding to this Department Page
I know we have been told to be bold with this project, but I wanted to post this out here to put the feelers out on the general acceptability of things...

Who is deciding what exactly is of high priority to the department in terms of course requests, can we just add courses we would like to request? I would like to request someone develop of course on the American West. As a matter of fact I would like to see several courses. Courses such as The American West in WWII, or The 20th Century American West, or The Founding of the American West... I would offer to help develop or lead development of these courses. I hesitated to post them as requested courses, however, as there seems to be a lack of guidelines to adding courses to the schools... A little guidance would be appreciated. Westernhistoryus 05:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well you have the choice: to wait until replies here or add them or other choices I will not talk about now. I guess it is better to add the requests, because that increases the chances of the course being created, because newcomers don't read the talk pages first. Hope I could help ? Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  21:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

North American History
What would you think of merging this department with Canadian History and creating a Department of North American History (or even History of the Americas)? I'm thinking more broad departments might make more sense given the current limited participation at the school. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 04:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Its a good idea for now. I would leave it as Department of American History and give it purview over latin america too. Geo.plrd 04:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok. Would you mind importing the Canadian History Department over here and merging its contents with this Dep't?  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 19:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * no problem, I will start doing such. Geo.plrd 19:55, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Mèrcie (thanks)! The Jade Knight (d'viser) 19:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Category:American History
We have a naming problem: American History can mean History of the Americas, or History of the US. Currently (as of now), "Topic:American History" = History of the Americas, but "Category:American History" = History of the US. Either we should rename the category (a bit of a hassle, as every individual page must be changed), or we should rename this page (which would be much easier). I would support a move to "Topic:History of the Americas" to be more explicit and inclusive. This way "American History" could continue to mean "US History". The Jade Knight (d'viser) 04:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It could still be called the "Department of American History" for the sake of aesthetics, if "Department of the History of the Americas" or "Department of Pan-American History" sounds awkward. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 04:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I think Department of the History of the Americas sounds awkward. We have a problem in that the page can't be moved. A custodian needs to delete the page that is holding it up. Geo.plrd 18:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It would appear that Emesee created that page in preparation for this one. Oops.  Let me try something.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 18:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Nope. I've put the page up for speedy deletion.  If contested (unlikely), I'll put it up for deletion.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 18:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * 07:08, 9 October 2008 Mu301 (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "Topic:History of the Americas" ‎(per discussion at Topic talk:American history) --mikeu talk 11:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

A United States History category already existed and had been redirected to Category:American_History. I've gone ahead and did the work of moving categories and pages, and making United States History a subcategory of American History. --darklama 02:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, so "American History" is now clear of US History items, which are now in US History, a subcategory of American History? The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I just noticed a new issue: We have category "North American History", cat "American History", and cat "United States History".  It seems silly to have an "American History" category AND a "North American History".  I propose we rename this "The Department of North American History", move to Topic:North American History, make its category Category:North American History, and that way we can avoid all the confusion caused by generalizing "American" (which most people associate with the US anyway), and not have to deal with the headache of having to shift the area categorization system (right now, there's a category for each continent.  It would probably be ideal if there was a Department for each continent, as well).  Opinions?  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 06:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Evidently sub-pages can't be automatically moved with a page. 'sa pity.  They'll have to be moved manually.  But perhaps we'd better decide first if we'd prefer to see this at Topic:North American History, per my suggestion?  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 12:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The North American History category could always be removed or made a subcategory of the American History category. What should probably be decided here is if this topic wants to cover only North America history or history of both the North and South. Another option could be to remove American History altogether and break it down by country and using "United States" everywhere to avoid confusion. --dark[[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]]lama 13:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well we should can the North America category. Geo.plrd 15:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Currently, every continent has a category, and these categories are placed directly under Category:Historical Subjects by Area. If we had "History of the Americas" (or a general "American History") here, it would cover about twice as much area as the other categories.  My thoughts:
 * For consistency, it would actually make more sense to simply make this cover "North American History", and leave South American History and the Caribbean to create their own departments, all parallel.
 * A "North American History Department" is not nearly as awkward as "Department of the History of the Americas"; additionally, there isn't the problem with misunderstanding what is meant by "American History"—"North American History" is quite unambiguous.
 * The Department currently is only set up to cover North American history, anyway, and so to expand it would require a little further work anyway.
 * If we included American History, and made North American & South American History subcats, that would only make it more bothersome for people to find the relevant information they're looking for, for the most part.
 * So, how about it? The Jade Knight (d'viser) 20:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This might be a good idea. Can someone do a universal move (including subpages?)Geo.plrd 18:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It may have to be done by hand. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 05:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there no further objection? If not, I'll go ahead and do the move.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 21:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Feel free to proceed. Geo.plrd 01:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅. Subpages still need to be moved.  The Jade Knight (d'viser) 03:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

New Problem
Now we have only a slight problem: There is category:American History and category:United States History. One of these should be merged into the others; probably, for the sake of disambiguation, I'd merge AH into USH. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 07:48, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Naming
I believe that everyone currently contributing significantly to this Department prefers that it follow the proposed School policy of being in title caps. As such, I propose that it be returned to Topic:North American History per proposed policy. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 23:52, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Why was it changed? Please implement such changes immediately. Geo.plrd 05:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I have moved this back due to lack of discussion or consensus to make such a move. Geo.plrd 05:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Archive bot
Why not use Archivebot? The Jade Knight (d'viser) 04:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure! I will set this up shortly. Geoff Plourde 15:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Archives
Now you need to figure out where Archivebot is putting its archives... The Jade Knight (d'viser) 09:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed problem. Geoff Plourde 07:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)