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Currently a difficult task due to the lack of consensus in the greater community over an accurate chronology, but definitely something to keep coming back to
In the meanwhile: it’s a good policy to have a survey of dates from sources in articles about time periods; for smaller mentions (ex. at the start of “Atenism under Akhenaten” here: “Amenhotep IV, the son of Amenhotep III, was crowned king c. 1353 BC.”) circa is your best friend
Discussion
Creating a separate article for Predynastic Egypt from Prehistoric Egypt starting with the Badarian culture where many overviews begin
Data sorting
Looking through sources for quotes and data that can be added to relevant articles
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Janet French (April 5, 2021). "Academic finds segments of Alberta draft curriculum lifted without credit". CBC News. Retrieved April 7, 2021. All of the information the curriculum lists for Grade 2 students to learn about the Silk Road, including the years it was active, matches information in the first three paragraphs of Wikipedia's entry on the subject as the page appeared on Monday.
The thrust of the piece is that the Silk Road is an "academic myth" that has been promulgated since the late 19th century (and no earlier); that in reality it was marginal and even minimal at least until the time of the Mongol conquests; and that before this, Europe's overwhelmingly important trade connection (eg in the time of the Roman empire) was between Rome and India by sea, not China by land -- that right up until the 14th century trade contacts with China were second-hand and minimal.
I see that there is a paragraph on this (in the section "Name" (permalink)), but the article should probably present and discuss mroe of this at greater length with more prominence: it is not just the name that is being criticised. Jheald (talk) 13:05, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm currently reading 'Reimagining the Silk Roads' and recent research is leaning more towards redefining the term instead of giving up the term. Something can be added about this as well. Chufud (talk) 01:32, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Rewriting the "History" section based chronology instead of civilizations, time period or subregions
I'm thinking of doing that (and of course others to do the same). The way it's set up currently, role of different civilizations during other periods is highly diminished. China's role is basically limited to 'inception' of routes and then Tang dynasty, even though there is so much more to be said about other periods.
Also, there is no subsection on Indian subcontinent and SEA, which arguably were the dominant routes pre-Mongol era
Sasanians also played a very important role, especially in maritime routes, post China's disunity period. Their mention is also in passing
I suggest making subheadings based on key events. Crude examples - "Trading of horses on steppe nomads' markets", "Rome to India 'Spice route' in 1st century", "Spread of Buddhism", "Period of disunity in China", "Development of SEA trading in 3rd-4th century" etc
These subsections will not just talk about the local history but all trade routes, as their effect was almost worldwide
The chronology-based approach makes sense in principle. The current civilisation-based structure does create gaps where the same period gets covered multiple times from different angles, which makes it harder to follow what was actually happening at any given time. A chronological spine with civilisations brought in where relevant would read more naturally. The main challenge would be deciding where major transitions fall -- the Mongol consolidation, the shift to maritime trade -- but those are well-documented enough to anchor a restructured timeline. If you draft a section and post it here for comment before making changes, that would be a good way to get input early. Bohosquare1 (talk) 11:11, 24 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Chufud Where you refer to "SEA" (more than once) are you using an unexplained acronym or do you just mean the sea? I'm not at all being sarcastic. I just can't understand your comment without knowing what you meant. ~2026-34943-45 (talk) 09:49, 14 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Images not captioned properly when scrolling them.
I see this everywhere, but this article is the worst example I've seen so far, after many years of reading Wikipedia very heavily. When scrolling the images, around half of them, and maybe more, have no caption at all (when viwed that way), or are only captioned in a non-English language. This is incredibly frustrating!
Why are the captions so different in the 2 "places"? When scrolled through all at once, the captions are very often missing entirely for most of the images, or they are in foreign languages, so they may as well not be there. That causes problems.
I like to view all the images and maps first, so that when reading the articles I don't have to interrupt my reading, over and over, to look at the pictures and maps. Many of the pictures deserve to be studied, and most especially any maps, because I need to ascertain exactly where the place is that the article refers to. So if I must view the images while reading the article, in order to see the captions, the interuptions to me (and to others I assume) are not just a fleeting thing. I keep on losing my place in the article, if I'm forced to read picture captions and study the images and maps. I have to back up every time, and reacquaint myself with the idea being discussed. It's a major inconvenience.
And don't say "Well, just scroll the images within the articles then." It doesn't work that way. You miss half of them, and have to redo it a few times, by which time you become pretty annoyed that Wikipedia can't just get it right.
If I've broached this issue in the wrong place, please excuse me. There are also other problems regarding images on Wikipedia that are nearly ubiquitous, but they don't create as much of a problem here, in this article, so I have just focused on this one issue. If you try scrolling through the images all at once, you will see exactly what I mean. Why are the captions not applied in the same way to both places? They are totally absent in many cases, if not most.
If you think I should ask this somewhere else, please say so. I'm a bit of a newbie to this, but I do want to help, and maybe I can learn how to fix that problem.
level-3 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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