Talk:2020s in history

Note re decade overviews articles
hi all. I have set up this set of categories, articles, and navboxes, as part of WikiProject History Contemporary History task force.

Please feel free to contact me any time, with any comments, ideas or questions. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

section titles
I like the idea of narrative history rather than disjointed chronological events. You may want to change "North America" to "North America and the Caribbean," "Mideast" to "Mideast and North Africa," and "Africa" to "Sub-Saharan Africa." There's a good argument for leaving "Mideast" and "Africa" as they are.Michael E Nolan (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks. I'm glad you like that idea. it is good to have your input and activity on these things, as always. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:45, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I think your ideas above about renaming the section heads is a good idea. I have now made some of these changes, so this is done. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

question re Africa section info
, hi! thanks for your edits on the Africa section. however, i need to ask you some questions. I saw your edits explaining the future prognosis and outlook for the region, based on analysis by some regional experts. It sounds very interesting. However, sorry, but i feel that a prognosis about the possible future outcomes, might take us just a bit outside of the actual article scope. I think the main focus is actual historical events that have already occurred. A regional outlook for the future can have some place, but I feel that it can't be the leading portion or the most visible portion of a section, in an article that pertains to history.

Is that okay? I really appreciate your insights on this. I hope you don't mind this question, because your editing on this entire area and group of articles has been awesome, substantial, and really valuable, for this whole topical area. however, in this one case, I felt that I do wish to ask you this.as you know, i'm planning to move this article into the mainspace fairly soon. this is a wholly new type of article that you and I have pioneered and built together. the decade of the 2020s will be the first decade that this type of article format can be updated on a current basis. i want to make sure we have a firm view of the topical focus, and the article parameters.

I appreciate if you could please provide some thoughts. Are you open to some modificiations? if so, can we please revise this somewhat, to mainly stick to or to focus upon some existing economic indicators, and some existing regional issues, and then maybe add a little future prognosis info, at the end of the section? I hope that's okay. I really appreciate your help. please feel free to let me know. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:22, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'm open to modifications—after all, this is a draft. I think it is useful to have some kind of introduction, but I'll admit what I wrote is a bit long. When I started looking into it, I found articles on things I had not considered, and I was concerned about neutrality. With so many different countries, it is hard to generalize. I'll take a look at what I wrote and cut it down. Michael E Nolan (talk) 17:37, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * , that sounds fine. I figured you'd be open to that. you've always been open to new ideas, new approaches, and all kinds of different views. I appreciate your help. thanks!!


 * By the way, once you've looked at it, if you feel like editing that section, or condensing it, as you allude to above, feel free to do so. if there's anything that you'd like me to do, feel free to let me know. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

✅ Michael E Nolan (talk) 18:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * that's terrific. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 22:51, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

some notes re new external links items
Hi. I like your idea re providing the links in the "External Links" section for external news sites. However, I see a different method to format this. I realize what you were trying to do by providing links, since I am very familiar with your active and energetic work here.

however, any newcomers to this article might slightly misinterpret or misconstrue your reasons for providing these links. some people here are very cautious or wary about providing links that appear to be a "link farm," even though I realize fully that that is not what you were trying to do.

So I have a simple yet different idea. How about grouping the news sites and pages that you provided by region? Once we do so, then that will fully convey that our only goal is to try to provide some helpful resources, to make it easier for any interested editors to continue with the highly commendable effort to provide real information in this article, and to provide complete data on various important events.

I hope that's okay. I plan to make this change within the next day or two. if you wish to make any edits, of course you are welcome to do so. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 02:35, 4 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I included the links because there was one link to the BBC and I think it is a good idea to provide balance and diversity. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else; I did want to make it clear that these were not arbitrarily selected. I'm not sure how the regional links would work; some sights are primarily regional, but others pride themselves on international coverage. Do you see an "external links" section for each region? Michael E Nolan (talk) 03:19, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi . those are excellent points. ok, so that is partly my point as well. I totally agree with you on diversity. so that's one reason for my suggestion. if we group news sources by region, then that heightens the feeling of diversity, and it lessens any feeling that we only care about West European sources. E.g., if we group BBC under Europe, then that means that we not including it simply because it is a giant news outlet that is more famous and prominent; rather we are including it simply because it represents one region, i.e. Europe.


 * so then based on that, we can then add news sources for Mideast, Asia, South America, etc etc etc, and it will be clear that our main goal is simply to provide representation for all world regions, in as evenhanded a manner as possible. So Al-Jazeera is for the Mideast, etc.


 * My reason for saying "by region," is because actually, I'd rather group them all by continent; however, I didn't want to rule out grouping them by region if that become necessary. however, anyway, I simply hope to have a section for Asia, for Europe, for North America, etc etc etc. I suppose that if we wanted to have one news source specifically to represent the 1 billion people of India, that's not so bad either.


 * so that's my whole thinking on this. it sounds like we actually see this issue the same way. so I appreciate that. I will adopt some kind of geographical grouping now. since this is a draft, I may duplicate your entire list, and then group it differently, just to see how the revised product actually looks. you can feel free to send any comments. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * This sound good. I've personally been motivated to utilize Al Jazeera, allAfrica, and DW in addition to American and British news sites. (I've always used a lot of Mexican and Spanish sites because that's what my browser gives me, living in Mexico.) Michael E Nolan (talk) 23:45, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

China, Oceania
I've rewritten the sections on China and Oceania, adding links and citations. Michael E Nolan (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2020 (UTC) I also wrote about West Africa. Michael E Nolan (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * hm, that sounds great. thanks for all great work!! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:39, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

making the jump
Stand by. we are making the jump to article mainspace. all personnel, strap yourselves in. flight attendants, prepare for launch. --Sm8900 (talk) 01:56, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Options for article
Please note, if this article becomes too bulky or unwieldy at some point, then one there are several options to split it up a few ways, as shown below.
 * by Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere: e.g., 2020s in Western Hemisphere political history,
 * for convenience, the dividing line between the two hemispheres could be deemed to be the meridians for 160° and 20°, as this creates a more intuitive dividing line between the Americas on one side, and Eurasia and Africa on the other side.
 * by common convention for dividing the globe between the New World, i.e. the Americas and Oceania, and the Old World, i.e. Asia, Africa, and Europe, e.g. 2020s in New World political history
 * by landmass: 2020s in Eurasia political history, 2020s in the Americas political history
 * by continent, i.e. 2020s in Asia political history,
 * by region, eg 2020s in West Europe political history, 2020s in Central America political history,
 * Note: It is also possible to have a mix of articles by continent and by region; since the Mideast is given its own category in the article, separately from Asia or Africa, that is one option even if this article is divided up by continent.

for now, it can simply stay as it is. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 02:47, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * please note that the actual option that has now been utilized is to split the article into several smaller articles, by continent. --Sm8900 (talk) 03:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

What´s with the collapsible boxes on for the sections?
I haven't seen collapsible boxes used for the main body of text before. It's pretty ugly and hence distracting, and is gonna need a proper justification to stay up. It also prevents visual editing which is far more efficient.

Keepcalmandchill (talk) 06:44, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi there . I'm very glad to have you here, and to have your input on this article. re the collapsible boxes, those are excellent points. I put them there only because I was trying different methods to make it easier to add data to this article. however, your points are valid. we certainly don't need them right now. and if they interfere with editing, then there is no need to have them. i will remove them. thanks for your input! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:05, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Article scope
I think this article should be limited to issues of purely political significance, i.e. those concerning politicians and government. There is plenty written about things like the Australian bushfires or the coronavirus elsewhere; by the end of this decade the article will be massive if it tries to cover everything. In line with that, I would suggest renaming the article '2020s in politics and government'.Keepcalmandchill (talk) 06:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I do hear you; however, actually Wikipedia benefits if we do have an article that covers the broad scope of the decade in a narrative format. that is the reason that I have alkready suggested above that we can split this entire article by continent, if indeed it does become too bulky at some point. yes, we do have articles on those other topics, but the very nature of the word "encyclopedic" itself refers to the desire to provide entries that provide broad encyclopedic overviews of eras, countries, events, etc, of real political significance. any overview that we create here will only guide readers towards the narrower, more specific entries on those articles themselves. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Section for world events
I added a section for world events, with the hatnote below. right now, the main topic covered in this section is coronavirus. Obviously, other world topics and issues can be added there, if and when warranted. As one option, the section for world topics could be divided by specific year,or some time period such as "early 2020s," since perhaps a section with such a broad scope should have some other method of subdivision. By the way, sections for individual countries could also be divided further by time period, eg, "early 2020s," "late 2020s," if that became necessary; however, generally we have not done so in practice.


 * hatnote: Section for items of world significance. This section can be divided by time period; within each time period, there can be subsections for some topics. Even the most global issues are comprised of events in various specific countries; therefore, for any lengthy world topics that encompass multiple countries and regions, a sub-section for that specific topic might be advisable; however, this is not required for every topic covered here.

thanks.--Sm8900 (talk) 22:37, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Another option for article scope
Just a thought on this, another option might be to make this article into 2020-2025 in political history. or maybe even some smaller time period? if we are providing a genuinely beneficial service to Wikipedia, by providing an overview of this type, i.e. an overview for multiple countries, in a narrative format, then perhaps the simple usefulness of this article as a resource, means we don't have to take on the additional burden of trying to cover the entire decade in a single article. in other words, we could have articles for some fraction of the decade.

anyway, I think we can leave that question for later, and simply see how the article develops. after all it's only March 2020, so the decade is not even one year old yet; it is not even four months old yet. so that is just a thought for later. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
 * another thought; it turns out that actually, this article is not even that long. I added some collapsible boxes for the supplemental sections. it turns out that when you do that, it shows that the length of the article itself is actually quite reasonable for an article of this scope. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 21:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Due to the wide topical scope of this article, one possible option if this article becomes too voluminous is to split it into entries by hemisphere, or else by continent or global region, as follows: 2020s in world political history, 2020s in Asia and Oceania political history, 2020s in Mideast and North Africa political history, 2020s in sub-Saharan Africa political history, 2020s in Europe political history, 2020s in North America political history, 2020s in South America political history etc.


 * A second alternate option might be to narrow the chronological scope of this article; in other words, it could be renamed to 2020-2025 in political history.


 * Any such changes should not be done without obtaining clear consensus on this talk page. --Sm8900 (talk) 20:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in 2020s in political history
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of 2020s in political history's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "veconomist": From Coronavirus disease 2019:  From Black Monday (2020):  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 03:41, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks !! you're alright. we humans are grateful to you!!! cheers!!! --Sm8900 (talk) 19:34, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

inviation to edit
You are cordially invited to edit Draft:Mismanagement of the 2019-20 COVID-19 pandemic. Calmecac5 (talk) 20:38, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in 2020s in political history
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of 2020s in political history's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "auto": From 2020 Russian constitutional referendum:  From Brexit:  From Coronavirus disease 2019:  From George Floyd protests:  From Yemeni Civil War (2015–present): name="The Integration Of Southern Yemeni's in Aqap"></li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 14:59, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Need for excerpts
The big issue I see with this page is that many sections are basically copies (or sound as if they are copies) of leads to other pages. There's nothing wrong with that from a reader's point of view, but from an editing POV, this is going to be a pain to keep updated as world events evolve, and it'll draw attention/duplicate effort of keeping the pages themselves updated. We should be using Excerpts for many of these sections rather than copying and pasting, so that they will automatically sync with the main article and remain up-to-date with no additional effort needed here. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 20:02, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * , very interesting and worthy idea!! yes, the use of that template might absolutely benefit this article. of course, it depends on each item, but that method had not occured to me before now. i'm very glad I got your insights. this might very well help us to improve the whole structure of this entry. I will keep your great idea in mind. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 22:48, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * , putting this into use now. Keepcalmandchill (talk) 01:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * hi. how does this template work, exactly? sorry, but I'm not familiar with this. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ok, glad to see this templates being used in this article. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:20, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion to reduce article scope
I notice some comments in the edit history for this article, noting that we should try to limit this article from getting too big. I have a suggestion; we should have a separate article for listing election outcomes for specific countries. while this is valuable data, a single election is generally not notable enough in relation to overall history of the decade.

Therefore, I will be creating a new article, 2020s in electoral politics. this is where all news and data for election outcomes should go. I hope that's ok. please feel free to comment. thanks. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 14:24, 20 May 2021 (UTC)


 * That's all good, will be an easy way to cut down the article size. Keepcalmandchill (please ping in responses) (talk) 10:31, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
 * terrific, thanks. you can edit the article if you wish, at the link above. feel free any time. thanks. ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 13:51, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Notice of group resource
I would like to invite any interested editors here to join the task force for Contemporary History. One of our core goals is to highlight and promote the coverage of contemporary history as its own distinct area here at Wikipedia.

We differ from a simple effort to cover current events, in that we seek to provide the editing community with resources that would allow it to provide broad and comprehensive coverage of articles on contemporary history as a broad topical field, rather than simply on individual current events as they may occur.

to that end, we have set up articles such as 2020s in political history, which allow the whole editing community to adopt a broad scope in keeping wikipedia updated with broad historical trends, topics and events, as they occur, but also as they become relevant to the field of history overall. I hope that sounds helpful and worthwhile to you. you are welcome to join us in any way, or to offer any input or ideas that you may wish. we welcome your input. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 14:47, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

new segmentation for this article
hi everyone. we are hoping to split this article up, by its current major sections by continental regions. but in contrast to some earlier suggestions, we are also going to retain the article 2020s in political history, in order to cover topics of world importance.

one major reason for this action, is that each article by region will contain an initial section for history for each region as a whole, by chronology. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:52, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Galwanvalleyclash.jpg

name change
Hi all. This page has been renamed, to "2020s in history."

I originally created this page with the title "2020s in political history," because I thought that was general enough to encompass all general historical topics,  other than cultural history, sports history, etc etc.

with that said, I now realize that perhaps that title had been obscuring the full scope of this entry, somewhat. i appreciate everyone's help. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 18:41, 15 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I see the reasoning for the change. This article seems to cover major political events, much the same as 2010s in political history does for that decade already. Also how would the scope of '2020s in history' be different from the general 2020s article? Yeoutie (talk) 03:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * there was a major deletion of material by a different editor, because the material did not relate to politics and politicans; so therefore, even though "political history" refers to events affecting society as a whole, it seems like maybe the label "political" was not clear enough, and seemed to narrow the topical scope, for some people here.
 * also, as far as differences with 2020s, the existing structure itself of the article itself is a defining feature; however, to answer more explictly, 2020s is an umbrella type article, spanning many unrelated topical areas; it covers trends, sporting events, major cultural events, scenitific advances, etc etc which define the decade itself. 2020s in history is focused solely on historical events which occurred during the decade. Sm8900 (talk) 14:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)