Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC) [1].

---

List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events

List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured list candidates/List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events/archive1

Nominator(s): Freikorp (talk) 04:01, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

My second dynamic list to be nominated following my successful nomination of List of deaths from drug overdose and intoxication. I think this is a very valuable source of information, and the traffic statistics would agree. Generally 5,000 hits a day, and known to peak above 100,000 on the days of certain predictions. I'm very keen to get feedback on whether this article currently meets the criteria, or what I need to do to get it there. All in all I'm very happy with how much this article has been improved since I first adopted it in 2011 after seeing how bad it was then [2]. Freikorp (talk) 04:01, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment Featured lists no longer begin with "this list..." nor make any references to the list as they are considered tautological. Mattximus (talk) 14:14, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Reworded. Can't believe I overlooked that. Thanks for pointing it out. Freikorp (talk) 02:07, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Much better start, however I still caught "This list distinguishes..." which also needs similar rewording. Mattximus (talk) 22:40, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mattximus: I've addressed this as I'm not fussed about the issue either way, though I will mention that both my previous successful nominations contained something like what your mentioning now later in the lead. See List of people executed by lethal injection and List of deaths from drug overdose and intoxication. Freikorp (talk) 23:42, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh, those should be fixed as well, I can probably get around to fixing those up in the future. Mattximus (talk) 00:42, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Argento Surfer

"though maintain the centuries" - I think this would read better as "while maintaining the centuries"

"the end would be cause be the Last Judgement" - This is off. Is it supposed to be caused by?

Would it be feasible to add a column for the year the prediction was made? I think the interval between the prediction and the event would be interesting, although I understand many of the ancient ones might be tough to narrow down.

"or at least completely scorching it, " - this seems informal. I suggest "either scorching or swallowing Earth"

"duotrigintillion" - until I followed the link provided, I was 78% certain this was a made up word. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your comments Argento Surfer. I've made the three recommended copyedits. I'm not sure if you wanted me to change the 'duotrigintillion' issue or were just making a comment. I'd be happy to change it to Googol if you like. As for the column of predicted dates - this would certainly leave some fields blank as not all the dates of prediction are known (sources commenting on historical cases normally don't mention when the prediction was made) and some are complicated. As the lead states the majority of predictions are foreseen to occur within the lifetime of the person making them. I've made an effort to explain (directly or indirectly) in the prose when this is not the case. I.e "[Dixon] had also previously predicted the world would end on February 4, 1962". This lets the reader know that her 2020 prediction was most certainly not made in her lifetime. I might wait to see if anyone else thinks this is a good idea. Obviously it's going to take a lot of effort (and will leave many blank fields and approximations) and I'm not sure of how much interest it will be since the dates that are known will almost elusively be within a couple decades of the prediction's supposed occurence. Freikorp (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Duotrigintillion was just a comment. I'm not sure there's any easy way to express that number for everyone to understand easily.

I suspected the date of prediction would be tricky to add for many of them, and I'm satisfied with how it's noted in the description when non-standard. I support this nomination. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Prose and Reference Comments from Ceranthor

Prose

• "Predictions of apocalyptic events that would result in the extinction of humanity, a massive or total collapse of civilization, the destruction of the planet or even the entire universe, have been made since at least the beginning of the Common Era.[1]" - this is too long for a lead sentence. cut into two sentences

• I tried cutting in two, but I preferred how it read when I just shortened it. Is it acceptable now? If not, I'll go back to cutting in two.

• "Historically, it has been done for reasons such as diverting attention from actual crises like poverty and war, pushing political agendas, and promoting hatred of certain groups; antisemitism was a popular theme of apocalyptic predictions in medieval times.[5] " - while this last bit after the semicolon is important, it seems selective. Surely there were other marginalized groups associated with apocalyptic predictions besides Jews?

• Oh most definitely. The source only mentioned the antisemitism though. I'll start looking for a source that another group was been marginalised or would you rather just remove this mention?

• Found a new source and expanded accordingly Ceranthor. :) Freikorp (talk) 23:43, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• " making the uncertainty of our mortality more predictable, an innate human fascination with fear, comfort in seeing a form of order in the universe, personality traits of paranoia and powerlessness and a modern romanticism involved with end-times due to its portrayal in contemporary fiction.[4][6]" - too listy

• Removed a couple of the reasons. Hopefully it reads better now.

• "It is also argued that over the centuries" - passive voice

• Gah. I've always been bad at this. I've reworded it, but let me know if I've just done the same thing again.

• "In the UK in 2015, 23% of the general public believed the apocalypse was likely to occur in their lifetime, compared to 10% of experts from the Global Challenges Foundation." - again, why is just the UK's opinion mentioned here?

• That was the only source I found that gave a quantitative measurement of the difference in opinions between the general public and scientists. But I don't think we need more than one country to make this specific kind of comparison anyway. Happy to flesh this last paragraph out a little more in general though if you think that's necessary.

More comments forthcoming. ceranthor 15:25, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

References

• Ref 56 - Schwartz 1995, p. 87., 64 - Brady, 1983 & pages182–183., 72 - Schwartz 1995, p. 101., 93 - Thompson 1999, p. 121., 108 - Alnor 1999, p. 145., 112 - Darling 2012, p. xiv., 155 - Alnor 1999, p. 121., 157 - Schwartz 1995, p. 96., and 166 - Alnor 1999, p. 98. don't actually point to the proper reference.

• Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out. :) Freikorp (talk) 00:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Support - I still dislike the inclusion of just the US and UK at the end of the lead section. Otherwise, this seems ready. ceranthor 00:19, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Nergaal

• Scientific table is misleading. There won't be an explosion in year 500,000, but an event like that is likely to happen with a mean time of 500k yrs. Nergaal (talk) 17:13, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nergaal: Several of the scientific predictions fall into a similar category, predicting an event that is likely to happen within a time frame. I don't see a problem with including them. Are you suggesting we delete them all? I'm somewhat open to the idea, I'm just pointing out this issue isn't isolated. And just to clarify is this the only issue you see with the article? Would you support it otherwise? Freikorp (talk) 22:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

No, not delete them. Just find a way to list them without giving the impression to a casual reader that it will happen in the year 500,000 AD. Things like those predicted to happen in 2012 on the date of whatever are completely distinct from things that are predicted to happen based on the proton decay lifetime. Most people don't understand the difference, so don't let this list increase that confusion. Nergaal (talk) 22:33, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nergaal: I've reworded some of them; are you happy with the changes? Freikorp (talk) 13:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

I can't think off the top of my head for a good solution, but try to see if someone prone to looking for end-of-the-world dates would open this article, what sort of phrasing would be needed so he won't think that in the year 500k scientist X said the world will end. Nergaal (talk) 09:17, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Basically, if there is something like "an asteroid of size >X will likely hit Earth in the next Y years", are there any probabilities given for this, any likely ranges? Nergaal (talk) 09:21, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

It's giving the statistical probability of when it would be expected to occur. As in, within the next 500,000 years, statistically speaking, the Earth should be hit by an asteroid that is at least 1km in diameter. I don't see how we can make this any clearer to the reader than it already is, nor do I see the need for it to be made any clearer. Seems pretty straight forward to me. :) Freikorp (talk) 03:48, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Resolved comments from A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 16:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Comments Looks like a terrific piece of work. These are my comments. The lead image needs alt text. Also, I think its caption could do with being rewritten slightly – it seems odd to me that "The Last Judgment" doesn't link to either The Last Judgment (Memling) or Last Judgement. Perhaps something like "The Last Judgment by painter Hans Memling. In Christian belief, the Last Judgement is an apocalyptic event where God makes a final judgement of all people on Earth." would work. A lot of dates are written in "yyyy mmm dd" and "yyyy mmm" formats. MOS:DATEFORMAT specifically discourages these formats. Notes that are single, incomplete sentences (e.g. "Declared that the world.."; "Revised date from Stöffler..."; "Predicted that the Apocalypse..."; "Predicted the end of the world...") don't need terminating periods. Some links may be WP:OVERLINKED. For example, I don't think you need to wikilink Harold Camping or William Miller so frequently. Millennialism is wikilinked 15 times. Also per WP:OVERLINK, major geographical locations such as London don't need to be wikilinked. "20,000 Londoners". Per MOS:NUMNOTES, rewrite this as "Twenty thousand Londoners". That tag needs to be dealt with. Citations needs to occur in ascending order, e.g. [120][94] -> [94][120] Some online sources are missing access dates, e.g. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. There may be more. Oh, that's deliberate. I've previously been told at FAC its redundant to have an access date and an archived version of a website. I was told the archived version defeats the purpose of knowing when the site was last accessed. Ever since I was told this I've stopped adding accessdates to websites that I've archived, but I never bothered to remove them from the references I already added. I've removed them now so that it's consistent. Citation 81 and 91's dates are in dmy format. Wikilinks that already appear in the main body of the article (i.e. Armageddon, End time and Second Coming) don't need to be repeated in the See Also section. Speaking of the SA section, Apocalypse doesn't appear in the main body, but it certainly feels like it should. Perhaps "apocalyptic events" could link to it in the opening sentence? WP:ISBN suggests using 13-digit ISBNs where available. For the Grosso and Snow books, these would be 978-0-8356-0734-6 and 978-0-275-98052-8 respectively. Extra }s at the end of the Schwartz ref. Spaced hyphens ( - ) need to be spaced en dashes ( – ). "A list of apocalyptic predictions". Just "Apocalyptic predictions" would be fine. Consider adding a bullet point as well. Incidentally, my current open FLC is FHM's 100 Sexiest Women (UK). If you've got the time, I welcome any comments on it. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 11:11, 16 May 2018 (UTC) Thanks so much for your comments A Thousand Doors, it was extremely helpful. I'll be happy to review your nomination tomorrow after I finish addressing your last point. Freikorp (talk) 13:17, 16 May 2018 (UTC) I've fixed all the issues now A Thousand Doors. :) Freikorp (talk) 00:22, 17 May 2018 (UTC) Per MOS:QWQ, that "battle" in the 1914 Charles Taze Russell description really needs to be 'battle'. "Son of the former Prime Minister of Britain...". Per WP:EGG, this may be better written as, say, "Son of Spencer Perceval, the former Prime Minister of Britain..." or similar. As major geographical locations, India and Uganda don't need to be wikilinked. Herbert W. Armstrong and Edgar C. Whisenant also don't need to be wikilinked so close together. Per MOS:NBSP, stick some non-breaking spaces within million or billion numbers, i.e. 16 million -> 16 million, 27 million -> 27 million, etc. Similarly, 10:00 am -> 10:00 am "would occur on May 21, 2011" -> "would occur on May 21, 2011 "none of these events were". I believe that "none of these events was" is correct. The dates in the Date (CE) columns are in dmy format, while the dates in the Description columns are in mdy format. Either's fine, but they need to be consistent throughout the article. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 16:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC) Thanks so much again A Thousand Doors, this feedback has been helpful. I've made all the changes. Freikorp (talk) 23:39, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support Another great and unique list from User:Freikorp! A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 09:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Source review passed (minor: ISBNs were not formatted right, but I fixed that). I think the list is clear that the "500,000", etc. is statistical estimates, not exact dates. Promoting. --PresN 15:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.