First news in the history of News is History. That means that just today we've added the History category to the site. You can browse the topics at opi.wiki/history. If you have any interesting ideas related to the topics of the past, go ahead and add a new topic to History. Don't forget to post your opinions to give a start to a great discussion.

added by ps
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Nov 3, 2015

I have a few questions, more or less related to history but I thought it would be better to ask over here.

1- What will be done with people/items who have been born in/represent countries that do not exist anymore or in regions which were not officially countries back when they were born? What do we do, as item creators, when we have to select the country they represent? Right now, the Aztec/Inca empires comes to my mind. Gaul too. East and West Germany were pretty much like North and South Korea today and when I create items, I see North and South Korea in the countries list, but not East and West Germany. Of course, I could just choose Germany as the country and do something similar with the others (ex: Mexico for the Aztec ), but it would not be 100% accurate historically speaking. :/ Besides, Korea once was one united country too... So what if some guy was born in unified Korea? Or what if he was born in the USSR and not current Russia?

2- What defines the history category? What I mean is that I'm having a hard time understanding the category as it is now... For example, let's say we talk about George Washington. Would he fit in US Politics or History? Or both? If Genghis Khan is created as an item, where would he belong? History? Countries & Travelling? Mongolian politics? :P

It's not really our problem, as users, since you are the one dealing with categories and all, but I was thinking about all this and I must admit I am kinda confused. What will actually fit ( or not ) in the history category? And how will you be able to draw the line between contemporary events and history? Ex: Would a discussion concerning Bill Clinton's presidency fit next to a discussion about Alexander the Great?

I might be totally wrong - and that's why I'm typing this and asking for clarifications, but at the moment, my opinion is that history shouldn't exist as a category because it adds the notion of time in your categories list, which was not there until now. They're almost all affected by it. If no line is drawn, almost everything can potentially fit in there... Right? It makes some things a little more complicated to my eyes.

I think, so far, all the discussions that we see in History could be fine elsewhere if History didn't exist.

3- It's a very very minor issue... And more or less related to the history category itself. Is it possible to add a "-" before the birth/death day of someone who was born B.C. example: opi.wiki/item/Aristotle?

Ex:
-384 --
-322 (62y.)

4- I know there is a "war" tag... But I think that, if you want to keep History and expand it, it would be a good idea to add warfare as a subcategory ( along with other sub-sub cats like medieval warfare, feudal japan ( samurai age ), etc. ). Right now, if I would create George S. Patton as an item, I have no idea where he would fit. Same for Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great whom I mentioned earlier.

You could also add war related items... Weapons ( various tanks, guns, etc. ), famous battles ( since I've seen items like opi.wiki/item/Klitschko_vs._Jennings, I'm pretty sure a D-Day item would fit in OpiWiki )...

It would also give some relief to the politics category.

5- Finally, what about people who might not have existed - but we're not quite 100% sure about it, like King Arthur?... And where would the Jesus Christ item fit? History? Religion? Both?... Some might say Sci-fi and fantasy? :P

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100
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1 vote,
Nov 4, 2015

1. It's not crucial to select the country, so if there is some uncertainty, just skip it. I think it's ok to choose Germany for East/West Germany, and the region/person-appropriate country for the Soviet Union.

2. It's not perfect, but that's how the system currently works – only one category can be selected for a topic. Some topics fit into more than one category, and in those cases it's up to a user to choose one (other users and moderators can of course correct it later, if needed). For the George Washington example, it depends on the topic. Anyway, if you'd choose Politics, you can also add a tag named "history".

I think History is useful. Not everyone interested in politics likes history as well, and vice versa. I don't think that for example Did Marco Polo reach China? would fit well into Politics or C&T.

3. I've just added this possibility. The year(s) must be negative and it should be working.

4 and 5. Don't worry about that too much. Just create items, rankings (and give your suggestions), or tags, and the headache will be a pleasure of a moderator. First you must think if there's any reasonable area an item could be rated at. As for Jesus, he would definitely go into Carpentry. (ok, or philosophy)

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