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A fact from The 1619 Project appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 September 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that The New York Times's The 1619 Project, which aims to re-examine slavery in the United States, was developed in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center for use in schools? A record of the entry may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Recent additions/2019/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The 1619 Project.

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Generally negative reviews from historians

"and generally negative reviews from historians" - I think a consensus can be reached upon this statement. Gordon Wood, Richard Carwardine, James McPherson, Victoria Bynum, James Oakes, and now Leslie M. Harris have all come out criticizing the 1619 Project. Can we name any historian specifically who has spoken in such detail as these? Who are in approval of the 1619 project? It should be noted, that it appears that Kevin Kruse is the only actual historian listed in the section titled "August 14 magazine issue".

If none can be named, then it's not any one person's opinion, and a case could be made that it would be increasing accuracy if the wiki article replaced the word "general" and instead said "and only negative reviews from historians". The phrase "The project received mixed reception from scholars, political pundits, journalists, politicians, and generally negative reviews from historians." accurately describes the accolades/criticism sections in summary form that follow it. Currently the accolades section is 150 words long. The criticism section is over 600, and that's only including the sections quoting historians. Progressingamerica (talk) 04:19, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

agreed 100%–and also think the Project should be described as "controversial" in the introduction, since controversy has been its most notable feature, especially in terms of the secondary-source coverage. Tambourine60 (talk) 07:08, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

agree with both "generally negative" and "controversial" in the lead. Numbersinstitute (talk) 15:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Also agree with both "generally negative" and "controversial" in the lead. BudJillett (talk) 23:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

It's been nearly four months now, and I am still yet unaware of any historian not connected with the NY Times who has a positive review contrary to Wood, Carwardine, McPherson, Bynum, Oakes, and Harris. This remains a one-sided rebuke. Progressingamerica (talk) 05:05, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Progressingamerica, are you saying you want the sentence in the "Receptions" section moved to the article's lede? I'm not opposed, I'm just trying to divine your exact intentions so maybe it can be put to a vote. Maybe draft the exact change(s) you're proposing, post them here, and ask for a consensus vote? BudJillett (talk) 15:15, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Before the Pulitzer Prize, I agreed, but the Pulitzer committee had a historian on it, Steven Hahn, Professor of History, New York University. I don't know the internal workings of the committee, but I doubt they'd give a prize to a history project if there were objections from the only historian on the committee, so Hahn most likely counts as a positive review of the project. The current lede seems ok to me, but "controversial" is fair, and other improvements are always possible, so I'd welcome alternate language in this talk section. Numbersinstitute (talk) 17:17, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Hahn's presence on the committee for a history project as the only historian on that committee comprised of 17 people is probably the larger story. That is a little less than six percent. Why weren't all 17 people historians? This is very strange. In any case, do you have a link for his review? What did Hahn write/say?

I would also like to note that one person of the committee was someone from the NY Times itself. During the analysis/judgement do you know if Gail Collins recused herself or is this a slight case of nepotism? If the NY Times was enabled to review its own work through the Pulitzer board, that's quite significant if it resulted in poisoning the well. Progressingamerica (talk) 09:11, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It would be inaccurate to describe the letter sent by Wood, Wilentz, and others as a "negative review". They took issue with one sentence of the introductory essay of the entire issue related to the Revolution. And, while they were critical of viewing everything in American History through the lens of slavery, do believe slavery should be in the foreground of the historiography.

Also, Eric Foner has said positive things about the "1619 Project". Dsa605 (talk) 22:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

It looks like David Waldstreicher might be a historian who has written a review that's more positive of the 1619 Project. But he may be someone who was consulted by the authors of the project, so there is some question in this regard as to if he can be considered a truely independent voice. Progressingamerica (talk) 21:04, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

If no RS positive takes from historians are found, I would still shy away from 'only' because it seems omniscient and just leave it unqualified as "negative reviews". ЄlєvєN єvєN||иэvэ иэvэlэ 20:29, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Please mark this as generally negative or controversial of a project. It’s revisionist history. StupidFrik (talk) 09:16, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Edit 2020-01-20: consensus was reached months ago. Users keep reverting this. DenverCoder9 (talk) 00:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

To demonstrate consensus you would need An uninvolved closer, an RfC, or a poll. There is no such consensus, as you concede by citing the rejection of your preferred text by several different editors. The ONUS and the BURDEN are on you. SPECIFICO talk 01:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Since you're challenging the previous consensus, the onus is on you to establish a new consensus. The sources support the characterization, "generally negative reactions from historians". -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This discussion is ancient and had few contributors; it doesn't represent sufficient consensus to change a longstanding part of the lead. Furthermore, the cited sources simply don't support the proposed change - the WSJ and the piece by Friedersdorf are opinion-pieces, not usable for such sweeping statements of fact, while one of the Atlantic pieces says The reaction to the project was not universally enthusiastic and goes on to present opinions as split (and both Atlantic pieces are from in its Ideas section, which lean more towards opinion.) It also fails to adequately summarize the article, which presents voices on both sides and does not make such sweeping claims about its reception. If you're convinced there's a clear consensus for this change, start an RFC, but I'm not seeing it among editors on this talk page as a whole. --Aquillion (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the "criticism and debate" description is okay, though it's quite a charitable interpretation of the body of the article. The overwhelming majority of commentary by historians has been negative, as is documented in the body of the article. which presents voices on both sides: one side is far larger than the other. We document the public letter by Gordon Wood (basically the unofficial dean of American Revolutionary history), James McPherson (basically the dean of American Civil War history), Victoria Bynum, James Oakes (his new book on the Constitution and slavery was positively reviewed by Gordon Wood in the NY Times, of all places) and Sean Wilentz, as well as their separate criticisms aired in other fora (interviews, essays). We document the public letter by 12 Civil War historians. We document the criticisms by other prominent historians, such as Clayborne Carson and Richard Carwardine. We note that the NY Times' "clarification" was prompted by a warning by a Harvard political scientist that she would go public with her criticisms if they didn't issue a correction. Even the more positive reactions are mostly conflicted: Leslie Harris, who helped fact-check the project and who overall supports the goals of the project, says that the NY Times ignored her when she told them a central claim (about slavery and the Revolution) was false. This is all discussed in the body of the article. Given all this, the "criticism and debate" description is really downplaying the negative reactions. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The onus is on you to show a new consensus. Most historians were obviously critical not just of the project's cavalier disregard for facts, but were critical of specific inaccuracies and the conclusions the project drew. DenverCoder9 (talk) 03:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It's very hard to argue that the consensus is anything but negative when key facts from the projects original message were wrong. (And all parties admitted that they were wrong.) DenverCoder9 (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Consensus has not been reached on the talk page between contributors for the edits to be made as @User:SPECIFICO and @User:Aquillion have made reference to. Edits reverted to previous state. Donkeypeep (talk) 05:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

You are reverting to a new edit. I have reverted to the older edit. DenverCoder9 (talk) 05:09, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Further, consensus doesn't always need a vote. I recommend reading up on consensus: "Consensus is a normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Misplaced Pages. Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus." See WP:Consensus. Note that this edit stood for months, accepted by many independent editors.

The edit as it stands represents the last time consensus was achieved. Please do not add your own edit simply because you do not like it.

As a better approach, I recommend addressing the substaintial claim: a vast majority of historians believe that the project, as original published, was inaccurate.

Further, it is not WP:SYNTH for us to draw our own conclusions on this talk page. A core claim of the original project was that slavery was the motivating reason for the colonists. Even the projects opponents accept that this is wrong. DenverCoder9 (talk) 05:34, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand how WP:Consensus works. If you scroll down on that page a little more, then you can note that "when agreement cannot be reached through editing alone, the consensus-forming process becomes more explicit: editors open a section on the associated talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion." Your edits which changed "The project has sparked criticism and debate among prominent historians and political commentators" to "The project has received generally negative reviews from historians and mixed reception from political commentators" lasted less than two weeks before starting an edit war.

Lasting a week and a half is very very very far from what most editors would establish as consensus on Misplaced Pages. The previous statement had been there for four months.

In this instance, three out of the four articles cited to support the claim are opinion pieces, two from the same source, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ Opinion notably fails NPOV). In all of the articles, there lacks the statements to support the claim that there is "generally negative reviews". WSJ Opinion has notably been criticized by its own newsroom for in the WSJ's words, a "lack of fact-checking and apparent disregard for evidence" — this is notably backed up by sources from a variety of news outlets. Therefore having WSJ Opinion comprising 50 percent of the sourcing for this top-line claim is truly absurd and completely breaks WP:RSOPINION.

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/31/18135

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/a-wall-street-journal-columnist-said-joe-biden-was-part-of-hunters-business-deal-hours-later-its-news-reporters-said-the-opposite/2020/10/23/c4f9689a-1532-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-06-22/mike-pence-says-america-winning-fight-against-covid-19

In fact in the only cited news piece by The Atlantic, it notes historians which refused to sign the letter by the four publicly dissenting historians. The article itself covers debate among historians but does not come to a conclusion that could possibly be extrapolated to mean "generally negative reviews" from historians as an assessment of the entire professional field.

It's not difficult to likewise find four sources from historians which greatly praise the 1619 Project. Better sourcing is required to make the declarative claim that the project has "received broad criticism from historians" which implies the project has been broadly criticised by those in the profession assessed as a whole — which none of the cited news articles claim. Donkeypeep (talk) 09:16, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Note that the historians interviewed by Adam Serwer for The Atlantic who declined to sign the letter said that they also had misgivings about the 1619 Project, including about its factual accuracy:

This was a recurrent theme among historians I spoke with who had seen the letter but declined to sign it. While they may have agreed with some of the factual objections in the letter or had other reservations of their own, several told me they thought the letter was an unnecessary escalation.

-Thucydides411 (talk) 15:13, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

How does that make the point that reviews were generally negative? Turning "historians I spoke with who had seen the letter but declined to sign it” into just “historians” is a blatant distortion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Those historians who declined to sign were also critical of the project, as described in Serwer's piece. These are people who by and large did not publicly review the project. They told Serwer that they had misgivings about the project and agreed that it contained factual errors, but they said that they did not feel comfortable publicly airing those criticisms for various reasons. Those historians who chose to publicly comment on the project (including probably the most widely respected historians of the American Revolution and Civil War alive today, Wood and McPherson) were largely critical of it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:44, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes but how do you get from there to a generalized statement about all historians? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Which statement about all historians? -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I think what's relevant is that The Atlantic piece doesn't assess what the mood of the entire professional field of historians is on the project. It's clearly covering the debate that existed between no more than a dozen historians who were consternating around that letter. That's far from what could be used to justify the statement "generally negative reviews from historians". To justify that statement, you'd need broad consensus between multiple (ideally relatively neutral) sources referring to that as fact, or a survey of some kind. There's thousands of historians who would be able to comment on the 1619 Project, the cited sources provide very little to justify that they have broadly have given negative reviews. Donkeypeep (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The issue isn't what historians who haven't commented think. We can't possibly know that (though those that Serwer spoke to had misgivings of the project and largely agreed with the factual criticisms expressed in the 5 historians' letter), and the text in question makes no claim about that.

The issue is what historians who have commented have said - and the published reactions of historians have been overwhelmingly critical. There's the letter of the 5 historians, the letter of the 12 Civil War historians, the numerous interviews with historians (such as Wood, McPherson, Carwardine, Bynum, Carson and Oakes), the essays written by historians, and comments made by historians to various outlets (Barbara Fields, for example, has called the project "tendentious and ignorant history"). The few reactions that one could possibly construe as somewhat positive are still quite critical of the project: Leslie Harris, who served as a fact-checker for the project, severely criticized the project's depiction of slavery in colonial times and its claim about the causes of the revolution, which the Times included despite Harris' warning that it was incorrect.

These reactions are very well documented (they're already sourced throughout the article), and they justify the statement that reactions by historians have been generally critical. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:45, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

You would need a tertiary source for any such conclusion. Not your personal name checking survey. That is WP–101. SPECIFICO talk 08:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The lede is supposed to summarize the body. There are plenty of secondary sources documenting the broadly negative reactions from historians, including Serwer's piece, which calls agreement with Wilentz et al's factual objections and reservations about the project a "recurrent theme", even among historians who had not signed the letter by Wilentz et al. I'm summarizing the sources, not "name checking" (which is just a needlessly dismissive way of referring to "checking what historians who have gone on the record have said"). -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:45, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

See above: Ter-ti-a-ry. Tertiary summation. As editors we don't cherry pick. SPECIFICO talk 16:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

There's the 1619 Project, the criticisms of it, and the articles about the criticisms. All three categories of sources are cited throughout this article. Serwer's piece, for example, is an article about the criticisms of the project. The sourcing for the claim that most published reactions by historians have been negative is strong. I'm not wedded to any particular wording, but I am pointing out that there's good sourcing for this claim. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

What good sourcing? We don’t appear to have *any* sources which make a definitive statement about all historians (or even all historians in the United States) and we cant do WP:SYNTH. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:07, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

That's convenient, since neither the article nor anybody here has said anything about all historians. We're only discussing those historians who have commented on the 1619 Project. Those comments have been largely negative. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:40, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Is that statement (if true) relevant to the reader in the second paragraph of the introduction to the article? IMO, it's not useful information unless you have information about historians as a body — which as mentioned prior requires a tertiary source of some kind.

The reason why the statement isn't actually useful to the reader is because it'll be read by people who don't have experience with debates over history as whether *historians endorse the project or not* — which quite clearly has not been established. You're treating this like a political debate where those engaged will seek out and receive media coverage, when this clearly can't be treated the same as a political debate. Donkeypeep (talk) 06:13, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Having some factual objections about the letter does not mean they have an overall negative view of the Project. For example, Painter said, "“I felt that if I signed on to that, I would be signing on to the white guy's attack of something that has given a lot of black journalists and writers a chance to speak up in a really big way. So I support the 1619 Project as kind of a cultural event,” Painter said. “For Sean and his colleagues, true history is how they would write it. And I feel like he was asking me to choose sides, and my side is 1619's side, not his side, in a world in which there are only those two sides.”" I would not call that a negative reception/review. Dsa605 (talk) 22:07, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Based on the weight of coverage, the criticism by historians and the ensuing controversy is the most notable aspect of the project. That's why it's in the 2nd paragraph of the lede.

It sounds to me like you're saying we should discount the many prominent historians who have come out to publicly criticize the project, because there might be others who silently agree with it. The proposed sentences we're discussing simply say that reactions have been generally negative. I think it's pretty clear that that refers only to historians who have publicly weighed in one way or another, and not to every historian on Earth. If you're worried that people might interpret the statement to refer to all historians everywhere, whether or not they have said anything about the 1619 Project, then it's possible to modify the statement to be more explicit, by including words like "published" or "public". -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:05, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't have the time to read all the words above right now but as a historian let me just say that there have been criticisms of the 1619 Project by a number of notable historians. Plenty of other historians have either no major issues with the initiative or are outright in favor of it. If a survey or some such is necessary, then so be it, but critiques have received wide media attention for obvious reasons (at least in part because that's how news works and what it is). So plenty of historians support the project but that's not being covered in the media because "historian so-and-so says they generally agree with the project and support it" is not a particularly compelling news story, or newsworthy at all. But then this leads to a lopsided perception by the public about what historians in toto think about the project. Cjslaby (talk) 18:38, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The flipside of that is that many historians are privately heavily critical of the 1619 Project, but do not say so publicly. But that's neither here nor there. Gordon Wood, James McPherson, James Oakes and other critics are widely acknowledged as some of the most significant historians in their respective fields. The published criticisms by them and other historians have been extensive, but there's been comparatively little published in defense of the project by historians. That's the situation, and we have to document it objectively. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:55, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I said this below but it applies equally here: how many historians do you think there are? I'm not saying the voices of the critics, especially given who some of them are, don't matter or should not be covered as such. But the problem comes in how the criticism gets reported vis-a-vis reception from historians more generally. Hence, again, the question of how many historians there are. I'm asking seriously. Because if there are one hundred historians and these handful of acclaimed people speak up, we can say 10-15% of historians, including some of the most decorated, have expressed concerns about the project. But there are thousands of historians. This "widely acknowledged as some of the most significant historians in their respective fields" is misleading. Again, see my comments below. The main issue here with the credentialing then becomes what specific expertise these critics bring to the table. There are hundreds perhaps even thousands of historians just of the Civil War and American Revolution. Such a historian doesn't have equal expertise in every aspect of those events and time periods. These historians have their axes to grind and they're certainly more than welcome to do so. But if the goal here is to represent how the 1619 Project has been received by historians in general, I believe it is inaccurate to take this handful of criticisms by some decorated and well known by the public figures and then say that overall the 1619 Project has received lots of criticism from historians. I'm a working historian. I couldn't possibly claim to know all working historians today, or even a meaningful fraction. But from the colleagues I do know and the conversations I'm a part of and paying attention to, there are many, many historians who are supportive of the 1619 Project or at the very least generally not critical of it. It seems to me that this reality is missing in the coverage here. Cjslaby (talk) 19:33, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

It would be extremely unusual for a sizable percentage of historians to make a statement on any single historical subject. That is the nature of things. Yes, there may be hundreds of historians of the American Revolution, but there are not many who have won the Bancroft Prize and a Pulitzer Prize in history, and there's only one who wrote The Creation of the American Republic. In 2011, the New York Times described Wood in this way:

Gordon S. Wood is more than an American historian. He is almost an American institution. Of all the many teachers and writers of history in this Republic, few are held in such high esteem.

I'm saying this not to glorify Wood, but just to note that he's an extremely significant historian of the revolutionary era. Whatever you think of his work, one cannot evaluate the significance of his statement by saying that he's just one of 12,000 members of the American Historical Association.

Most importantly, we can only go on what has actually been published on the 1619 Project. A series of highly respected historians have published critical reactions and/or given critical interviews. The positive reactions published by historians have been comparatively few. On Misplaced Pages, we're obviously not in a position to judge what your colleagues say privately. We can only go by what's actually been published. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:01, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, this isn't about Wood, or at the very least it's not about his scholarship (of which I personally happen to be a fan). It's about how and why others invoke him (and the handful of others) that they are invoking as part of this conversation about the 1619 Project. I certainly agree that Wood is not just some historian, or even just some historian of the Revolutionary era. But even there, I think the issues I raise still stand. And even if we go by what I think is a misguided set of metrics, Alan Taylor has received the same awards as Wood, is far more engaged with the field today, and, I would contend, has had a more significant impact on the field in, say, the past twenty-five years. But again, this isn't about Wood per se. It's about how history is done. Citing a book from 1969 (!) is not helping make the case that Wood is particularly attuned to or equipped to handle the relevant historical issues raised by the 1619 Project, which are far more a part of the field of history today than when Wood was most engaged with it.

I'm not sure what exactly "we can only go by what has actually been published" means. Surely if the WSWS material merits so much attention then other online comments from historians should also count. The article itself quotes Twitter, too, which means that a full and fully honest representation of what historians actually think about the 1619 Project requires far more engagement than just quoting a handful of critics that received the majority of (mainstream) media attention (because of their status and because media itself amplified the coverage); this of course means work for anyone editing this page, but it's work that should be done, rather than just saying "well, this is the stuff most widely covered." The goal, I hope, of any Misplaced Pages page ought to be to represent as best as possible what's actually true, not just report what's easiest to report based on the media and sources most easily available to whomever happens to be editing a page on any given day. Again, I realize this means work, it means going looking for the assessments of as many historians as possible, but I think and hope this is the high standard that we'd all want to support. Cjslaby (talk) 21:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The article only mentions Twitter three times, and it only does so when media coverage mentioned specific Tweets. The first two mentions of Twitter come in the section, "Unannounced revision of initial claims", and the tweets mentioned were discussed by a piece in the Washington Post. The first Tweet is given in order to describe how the controversy over the revisions developed, while the second Tweet is given in order to describe Nikole Hannah-Jones' response to the controversy. The third mention of Twitter has to do with Trump. As we all know, President Trump had a habit of announcing government policy by Tweet, and his Tweet about the 1619 Project made the news. That's why it's included in this article. I'm just going through this to point out that this article does not cover random reactions to the 1619 Project from Twitter. Twitter is mentioned sparingly, and only when specific Tweets were discussed in secondary sources.

Here's what I mean by, "we can only go by what has actually been published": there have been various interviews given by historians, and various articles written by historians for different magazines and newspapers. Editors here have made an attempt to summarize those reactions. You have said that these reactions do not match your personal experience of talking to your colleagues. Be that as it may, on Misplaced Pages, high-quality published sources are what matter. Absent published sources, we really can't know what your colleagues privately think. This gets to Misplaced Pages's core policy of verifiability, which states, content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:01, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Again, though, this hinges on what counts as "published sources." From what you're saying, it seems tweets don't or shouldn't count. I recognize that Misplaced Pages prioritizes secondary sources. There are numerous problems with that here, though. One is the claim of what historians generally think about the 1619 Project. If part of the goal of this page is to elucidate that, then certainly we must consider (verified/verifiable) statements by historians from a variety of publicly available sources, such as blog posts or even tweets. There are, as I say, multiple issues tied up in this. Much of the cited negative criticism of the project is coming from senior historians, including people who are fully retired; this means they have both the senior and/or career status to attract and get media attention, as well as the time and resources to do that, and/or to partake in all the efforts involved in the criticism of the project. Associate and assistant professors, historians working in museums or other settings, etc., who are otherwise also perfectly reasonable people to assess the project, are quite busy with their own work. Also, there will be more scholarly assessments of the 1619 Project, the kinds of things that get published in peer-reviewed academic journals. Perhaps some already exist. I'm sure some have been in the works. But these things take time (sometimes years), and with the added factor of the pandemic work for many historians, especially things that are not especially urgent, like an assessment of the 1619 Project, is moving at an even slower pace. So again, I believe it's possible, and even likely, that what's said as being reported in the media (and then re-reported here) is not an accurate statement of what historians in toto think. Also, to clarify something: when I mention my own sense of this, I'm mostly not talking about private conversations. I'm talking about things that I've read or seen and are publicly available, like what historians have said on Twitter, blogs, and the like. See also, for example, this write up on an event hosted by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture: https://blog.oieahc.wm.edu/the-new-york-times-1619-project-and-the-omohundro-institute/ I maintain that this page can and should do a better job of trying to actually ascertain what historians in toto think about the 1619 Project, rather than just repeating and summarizing what's been most widely reported in the largest media outlets and the sites of loudest criticism. Cjslaby (talk) 13:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

You're asking for us to do original research into primary sources. We're not going to search through Twitter threads in order to counterbalance, for example, a published interview by a Bancroft- and Pulitzer-prize winning historian that has been widely discussed in secondary sources. If it's really true that historians by and large have a positive view of the 1619 Project, that will eventually be reflected in the published secondary literature. However, right now, looking at the secondary literature, the reaction by historians (yes - including highly respected, senior figures in the field) appears to be largely critical. If that changes in the future, the article can be updated. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Cjslaby, I think @Cjslaby: makes excellent points. Stating "and generally negative reviews from historians" is potentially supportable if it's a direct quote from a reputable, relevant published academic article and not significantly challenged, but when added, it appears to be in Misplaced Pages's voice. That would be a strong statement which would require among other things, knowing how many historians there are, knowing how many historians have relevant expertise in the area (sounds challenging), and knowing the views of enough of them to draw such a conclusion. That would be origianl research, not remotely qualifying for the exception WP:CALC. I support the removal. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:24, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with these blanket characterizations of the project being negative or perceived as historically inaccurate. There are a few minor responsible suggestions, and a concerted effort very concerted effort among conservatives to debunk this history that cannot be viewed without considering the cultural context. America has strong roots in white supremacist culture that predate our nations founding and it is natural that people born in that culture would find this material controversial. That doesn’t make it, on balance, wrong or inaccurate, even if one thread can be picked at. Similarly, the strong negative push here seems politically motivated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.53.131.214 (talk • contribs)

We need to summarize criticisms using secondary sources when available.

Almost the entire criticism section relies on WP:PRIMARY sourcing that fails to put the comments in any sort of context. We mention this piece (which summarizes the historical debate and provides broader context in a more even-handed manner) in the further reading section, but we don't actually use it anywhere - we ought to be citing it more and interviews with the World Socialist Web Site less. Similarly, we are giving massively WP:UNDUE weight to the World Socialist Web Site as a source - as the Atlantic piece says, they went aggressively out of their way to find critics (and most of the people they approached refused to sign their letter, which means the critics they found aren't representative.) They can and should be mentioned, but we need the proper context, explaining where they're coming from and why, and we need to avoid giving excessive weight to one comparatively-niche publication. --Aquillion (talk) 18:22, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Fair points. I'd be careful of drawing conclusions such as "and most of the people they approached refused to sign their letter, which means the critics they found aren't representative." For two reasons: One, the Atlantic piece states, "given the stature of the historians involved, the letter is a serious challenge to the credibility of the 1619 Project." So, the piece's author implies a great respect for these historians. And two, it's very difficult to get anybody to sign onto anything these days if it risks their being labeled as racist merely for sticking to their convictions of historical accuracy. So four top historians signing on, in this instance, is significant given the risks they face. I do agree the Atlantic piece should be cited more, however. BudJillett (talk) 21:16, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

The criticisms are not WP:PRIMARY sources. The definition of primary says: "An account of a traffic incident written by a witness is a primary source of information about the event; similarly, a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. Historical documents such as diaries are primary sources." The historians' criticisms are WP:SECONDARY sources: "analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis". The point of the criticisms is that these mainstream historians synthesize American history differently from the essayists in The 1619 Project. That's why the criticisms need to be in the article, to keep it WP:NEUTRAL.

Among the 1619 essayists, only Kruse and Muhammad are historians. Most of the others are journalists; they provide strong writing to support their views, but Misplaced Pages takes no position on whether either journalists or historians are right. WP:WEIGHT says: "articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint ... should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained." Numbersinstitute (talk) 22:52, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Aquillion:, @Numbersinstitute: I see no proposals for specific changes to the main article yet, though I think the discussion as far as care and direction has been beneficial. If either of you, or any other editor(s), draft a proposal for insertion, please ping me and I'll gladly weigh in on it for consensus purposes. BudJillett (talk) 23:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

they went aggressively out of their way to find critics: The best known historian of the American Revolution, Gordon Wood, and the best known historian of the American Civil War, James McPherson, both criticized the 1619 Project. Just for reference, Gordon Wood and James McPherson wrote the volumes in the Oxford History of the United States on the early republic and the Civil War, respectively (the former volume was nominated for the Pulitzer for History, the latter won it). Gordon Wood has won both the Bancroft Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for history, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential historians of the American Revolution in the post-war era. It looks like the World Socialist Web Site just contacted the most prominent historians in the field of early United States history, and interviewed them. The claim that they went aggressively out of their way to cherry-pick historians is really not tenable. Beyond Wood and McPherson, there are several other highly prominent historians who were interviewed, including Richard Carwardine (Oxford University, specializing on the American Civil War), Sean Wilentz (Princeton, specializing in the American Revolution, and another Bancroft Prize winner) and James Oakes (CUNY, specializing in the abolition of slavery in the US).

There's another critic who's not mentioned at all yet, Phil Magness. He's an economic historian who has criticized the 1619 Project's claims about the antebellum American economy and the development of capitalism. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:02, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Over on the Anthony Johnson talk page, there is argumentation, with secondary citations, about whether the people on board the 1619 ship were actually slaves IN AMERICA, the argument being that although they had been taken from Africa to be slaves, when the ship was diverted to its ultimate destination, things changed; and when they landed they were indentured servants; and in fact, all later became free by fulfilling their terms of indenture. I don't know if the secondary sources cited there address the Project; if not, while relevant, the material would, unfortunately, be Original Research (OR). Does any-one have the resources to check?67.209.133.169 (talk) 04:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree that Adam Serwer's article presents reactions from historians that is more comprehensive, contextual, and nuanced. Dsa605 (talk) 21:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Serious question asked seriously: how many historians do you all think there are? And, again, seriously asking: why does the general public knowing who a historian is relate to their appropriateness to evaluate a particular historical project or intervention? I'm not saying that Wood and McPherson and all the others aren't experts on what they're experts on, but to take just one example: 1. Gordon Wood is not the only historian who studies the Revolutionary era and 2. Being an expert on the Revolutionary era, as Wood has been, certainly does not mean he has equal expertise on every single aspect of the Revolutionary era; this has become more true over time as Wood has become less involved and less engaged with the field and as the field itself has grown and diversified, with an increasing diversity of topics and subjects covered and 3. As I said, Wood certainly has been an expert on the Revolutionary era but given his recent and current position in and involvement with the field (largely disengaged) invoking his career achievements and status is a way to sidestep this again crucial issue, which is whether he, among those with expertise in Revolutionary history, is best suited to evaluate a project such as this. I think this applies broadly. Of course the page should note the criticism, but how it describes that criticism and how it represents what the field of history more generally thinks are key. Cjslaby (talk) 19:10, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

We can't possibly know what every historian believes. We know what has been published. Gordon Wood is certainly not the only historian of the Revolutionary era, but he is one of the most prominent and widely respected, and he has actually stated his opinion on the 1619 Project - and that statement has then been widely discussed in the media. We can't write an article based on suppositions about what other historians who have not made any sort of public statement might believe. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:32, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

What does him being prominent and widely respected have to do with it? Or, rather, prominent to/for whom? And respected by whom? I'm not trying to tarnish the guy's reputation or otherwise impugn him. But I am very much confused at this idea that because an expert is generally known to the public that means the public is able to assess that expert's ability to assess something specific to the field in which they work. Again, Wood has done important work. For the most part, it's not really on the stuff that's at issue in the 1619 Project. Plus, Wood is (and has been for quite some time) disengaged from the field proper. I don't expect non-historians to know any of this necessarily, but then that's my point. People keep repeating Wood's career achievements as if they have specific bearing on his ability to evaluate the 1619 Project; of course he's able to evaluate it better than a random person on the street. The question is why should the public care about what Gordon Wood thinks about the 1619 Project any more or less than another historian of the Revolutionary era. And my point is that there are plenty of other historians of this time period who are far more engaged with the field today and who actually work on the areas most relevant to the 1619 Project. This isn't about Wood, though. It's about how the criticism coming from historians is understood and represented more generally, and as I'm saying, I think it's quite lopsided, inaccurate, and giving much more attention to a small group that has received relatively wide media attention compared with those historians who don't have particularly negative or strong feelings about the initiative. Is the goal of this Misplaced Pages page just to repeat the lopsidedness of media coverage, or is it to report what is true (i.e., that most historians probably either don't have a problem with it or don't have particularly strong feelings)? Cjslaby (talk) 19:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I believe the article covers the published reactions by historians to the 1619 Project fairly. If you believe that the published reactions by prominent historians do not reflect the private beliefs of most historians working in the field, that's not really something that Misplaced Pages can remedy. The answer to that would be for other historians of similar stature to Wood, McPherson, Oakes, Wilentz, Carwardine et al. to publicly support the project. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:37, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Defunding attempt

23 Jul 2020: "Senator Tom Cotton introduced the Saving American History Act of 2020, a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts." Not sure if worth mentioning until/unless it makes progress, just dropping it here as info. Schazjmd (talk) 22:36, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to merge 1776 Project article

"The 1776 Project" is a conservative response to the 1619 Project. The article about it was nominated for deletion. There was no consensus to delete, but the closer said a merge could be discussed elsewhere.

I don't think this is a subject that needs its own article. There is not much independent coverage of the project (most of the sources cited in the article are to the project itself, which was published in The Washington Examiner), and what independent sources there are are partisan. This makes it difficult to write a full, neutral article about the "1776 Project". Is there any objection to downsizing that article to a couple of sentences or so and moving it here? WanderingWanda (talk) 03:46, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

• Well, a great many editors have been working hard to flood this article with criticism, and it's already reached UNDUE status, so I'm going with no, let's not. Drmies (talk) 03:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• I would prefer a redirect with (say) two sentences in this article. Ed  04:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• That's a suspicious looking AFD, I am not sold on the outcome, NAC was a poor choice IMO. So, I have to ask, before we talk about merging, which multiple independent SIGCOVS are supposed to support content that's proposed be added to this article? There is one sentence already in this article; frankly I find that more than what's WP:DUE going by sources that I could (not) find on the topic. Usedtobecool ☎️ 13:50, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
• No. This article is about the NYT project and that other one is not sponsored by the project at all. To merge them you would have to say this article was not about a NYT publication, which it is. Actually, I think that other project was never a serious undertaking at all and was just expanded from some angry tweets in August 2019. Jane (talk) 07:15, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
• The 1776 Project isn't notable enough to merit its own article. Having it redirect to the "Political reaction" section of this article would make sense. — Red XIV 07:42, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• No. They are only partially related in theme, and run by two totally different organizations. DGG ( talk ) 18:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• The 1619 Project is separate and the two should not be merged. Progressingamerica (talk) 22:17, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• No. 1776 Project is too important an organization to merge into another article.Randomalphanumericstring (talk) 12:58, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• No, this page shouldn't cover the 1776 project beyond the current mention. Given the clear consensus, I'll now remove the merge-tag from both articles.
  I took a look at the AFD on the 1776 Project. That AFD is, at best, unreliable. It was largely poorly supported keep votes by new users. Two of those "keep" votes appealed to crystalball future Notability, which pretty much amount to WP:TOOSOON rationales to delete. It looks like all, or nearly all, of the available sources are either opinion or blogs (various GoogleNews hits) or talk shows (FOX talk shows are explicitly not RS and I assume that extends to the MSNBC talk show ref) or are the video-equivalent of a raw press release (c-span) or not-independent (Washington Examiner) or not reliable (Daily Signal resembles a news site but it's actually a front for Heritage Foundation). Alsee (talk) 07:52, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Background section

A while back I restored the "Background" section from what had turned into a bloated dogwhistle on how slavery is eternal (). As I said in my edit summary then, this article should focus on the background of the project itself, not relitigate the whole history of slavery or America (WP:SCOPE). Some of it has now been reverted by Kim9988 (). The current version of the background constitutes an original argument in wikivoice (a counter-argument to the subject of the article to be precise), and is completely unacceptable. I am bringing this here because I don't edit-war. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:28, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Glancing at the refs added with the new content in Background, several appear directly related to the project, but I think their points belong more correctly in the Reception section. Schazjmd (talk) 14:26, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Schazjmd, it doesn't matter if the factoids are taken from sources that discuss the topic or elsewhere. The arguments provided/synthesised there are not in the scope of that section, which should give the immediate background to the project, to put it in immediate context. The reception section is already and still too big relative to the topic, I fear (which may or may not be because no one has bothered to expand any other part of the article since it was done in the first week of creation). I am considering whether there should be a separate section or article discussing the veracity of certain claims of the project, or if certain more controversial essays of the project should have their own standalone articles already. But those are all separate issues. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 15:53, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

You're arguing because I agreed that it didn't belong in Background? (And yes, it does matter whether the sources directly discuss the project. If they don't, it's synthesis.) I'll leave you to it, unwatching. Schazjmd (talk) 16:01, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Schazjmd, no, I was agreeing, and bouncing additional ideas. All I wanted was to make clear that my concern is independent of whether the material comes off relevant, otherwise usable sources. The fact that you only mentioned it because it would otherwise, in your view, be synthesis, means you were also only adding a "by the way", and we never had any disagreement anywhere. You commented of your own volition but took offence when it was replied to, I don't know what I could have done better. It's a shame you'll be unwatching; I wish you the best with whatever else you will be doing instead. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:09, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: @Usedtobecool: I'm interested in the suggestion of a separate section to discuss the veracity of certain claims of the project. What else would you put there? It is important background that the project said it addresses "the beginning of American slavery." That needs to be said, and accompanied by a correction that this was not actually the beginning of American slavery. The correction is not an original argument; it's mainstream history. As noted above in a different context, WP:WEIGHT says: "articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint ... should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained." This was discussed earlier this year in Goals of 1619 Project. Kim9988 (talk) 17:22, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: @Usedtobecool: On 19 Sept 2020, Usedtobecool removed material on pre-1619 slavery from the Background section, so I put better sourced material in the Reaction from historians section. On 22 Sept Usedtobecool removed it from there. This material (A) is from reliable sources factually rebutting the 1619 project's view that slavery in America began in 1619. The material also (B) meets the demands of WP:WEIGHT to cover the majority view of historians that slavery in America began long before 1619. I'm open to where in the article to meet WP:WEIGHT's requirement that "the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it"? Kim9988 (talk) 19:04, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Kim9988,

• historians pointed out that-- This is WP:OR.
• Who is Susan Parker and why does she deserve the kind of prominence you've given her? And why are you presenting her claims that she made in an opinion piece as fact in Misplaced Pages's voice: "Florida historian Susan Parker had contacted the 1619 Project when it was organizing, several years before, and found they were aware of the longer history of American slavery, and chose not to cover it"?
• If there is a weight of high quality unbiased sources behind the claim that 1619 project's view of the history is a minority viewpoint and the majority viewpoint is something else, I can see how that would be due (Even then, it should be sufficient to point out that there was slavery before, I don't see any merit to listing every example from history from Puerto Rico to Florida to Native Americans). But so far, all I've seen are primary sources of the controversy each taking one side or the other. Counting available sources or academics on each side and arguing which is minor and which is major is WP:OR and is unacceptable.

NYT took the Anglocentric view of when America began and a few others pointed out that that was narrow-minded, that Eurocentric one would be better. That fails to be either an endorsement or a condemnation of the project in general and I don't see how it's relevant to the broader issues involving this topic, to be honest. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:10, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Removal of WSWS-related material

Direct links to the the interviews with historians in the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) and mention of the criticism of the 1619 Project by the WSWS were recently removed from the article: . As explained on my talk page (here), this removal was because the WSWS is a "clearly partisan website". First off, I'd like to remind everyone that Misplaced Pages allows citation of biased sources for the purpose of illustrating a particular point of view. See WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Many (if not all) of the sources we cite in the "Reception" section are biased. The questions are really:

1. Should we link directly to the interviews with the historians?
2. Is the role of the World Socialist Web Site in the debate notable enough for inclusion?

In answer to Question #1, I think that directly linking to the interviews is the most helpful thing to do for readers. Otherwise, a reader who wants to see what Gordon Wood said has to go looking themselves.

In answer to Question #2, I'll point out that many prominent secondary sources discuss the WSWS' criticisms of the 1619 Project and its role in interviewing the historians. Anyone who's followed the protracted debate over the 1619 Project is already aware of this, but I'll list some of these secondary sources:

• Elliot Kaufman in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
• Adam Serwer in The Atlantic
• Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic
• The editor of the American Historical Review
• A letter published by the American Historical Review in response to the editor
• David Waldstreicher in the Boston Review
• Katie Mettler in the Washington Post
• KC Johnson in City Journal

There are also lots of "right wing" (read: "mainstream conservative") sources that discuss the role of the WSWS, like the National Review, RealClear and the American Institute for Economic Research, but since it's been explained to me on my talk page that the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is already too "right-wing" to use as a source, I've refrained from linking to them here. I think it's clear enough from the above list that the WSWS' criticisms have been widely discussed in the media, and should be directly discussed in this article. Fundamentally, I don't think an important part of this debate should be removed from the article, simply because it comes from a socialist perspective, or because it's been promoted by conservatives. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

That is all very true, but this article is about the project. It's not about the WSWS or the current #BLM discussion or any other current debate about the history of US slavery. Various debates about the scholarship of this project are also about various members in those discussions. I do think more articles are needed that can be highlighted in a "See also" at the bottom of the page. I don't think we need to include those discussions in this article. Jane (talk) 07:07, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

The controversy surrounding the 1619 Project is highly notable, and should be discussed in detail here. It involves some of the most famous historians of the early United States, including Gordon Wood, James McPherson and Sean Wilentz; has been discussed at length in newspapers (the WSJ and WaPo), political magazines (The Atlantic, City Journal, Boston Review, Politico, Vox, and others), and historical journals (AHR); has involved an exchange of letters published in the NY Times itself and an official correction by the NY Times; and has generated comment by various prominent political figures. Since the WSWS played a large role in the criticism of the project (interviewing Wood, McPherson, Oakes, Bynum and several other prominent historians) and is itself discussed in many secondary articles about the controversy (see the above list, which is by no means exhaustive), it should be used as a reference and its criticism should be discussed. Even if some editors think that socialists and conservatives are beyond the pale, I see no justification in Misplaced Pages policy for limiting ourselves to solely citing liberal (in the American sense) commentators. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:16, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes I agree, but after reading a lot of that material and the various rebuttals, it boils down to a few themes that are not central to this project at all. I think you are right about notability and this was the reason for the 1776 project, but no one seems to get behind that because it was born in negativity. Since this project has taken on such a major role (after the fact) in light of the #BLM protests, I think it would probably be a good idea to put a "1619 project response" on the Misplaced Pages pages of all of all leading US history writers. Their personal takes really don't belong here. The legacy of this project is not worth giving more space than the project itself on its own page. That said, I also don't think this page should become the cliff notes for any student receiving this project on their curriculum going forward. I would hope they actually follow the current discourse as well. Jane (talk) 05:51, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

"it boils down to a few themes that are not central to this project at all": We can't just ignore the controversy surrounding the project because of your assessment of what is and is not central to the project.

"I think it would probably be a good idea to put a "1619 project response" on the Misplaced Pages pages of all of all leading US history writers": That depends on how important criticism of the 1619 Project is to their overall careers and reception. That decision will have to be made on the pages of those historians. But here, the question is how to accurately and neutrally describe criticism by prominent historians, such as Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson and Sean Wilentz. Their (and others') criticisms are a major aspect of the public reception of the 1619 Project. Not discussing them in the article would be a violation of WP:NPOV - WP:WEIGHT and WP:BALASP, in particular. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:03, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The Twitterverse is not the general public, and I would wait to decide what the intended audience response is until the first group of students has gone through the curriculum and the teachers have weighed in with their feedback. It's an educational project sponsored by the Smithsonian. I am also not sure anymore what you are proposing exactly. Jane (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what Twitter or students have to do with any of this. I'm saying that criticism by leading historians of the United States, which has received a large amount of media coverage, should not be removed from the article or minimized. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:51, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Well lumping random criticism at the bottom for such a varied project doesn't help the reader. Properly sourced rebuttals of specific statements that are by leaders in their field are of course helpful. Each essay is on a different topic and by a different author, so I guess each essay could have its own summary paragraph and the specific criticism can be placed there. I think the poems and podcasts are hard to summarize but it's probably worth a try. Jane (talk) 15:43, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Giving an overview of the controversy helps the reader, and it's required by WP:NPOV. Some aspects of the project have been more controversial than others, and that's reflected in how the controversy is described. I've reorganized the "Reception" section to be chronological, and to better explain the back-and-forth between the New York Times and the five historians whose letter was published in the Times.

Properly sourced rebuttals of specific statements that are by leaders in their field are of course helpful. Each essay is on a different topic and by a different author, so I guess each essay could have its own summary paragraph and the specific criticism can be placed there. That might be possible, but I think the controversy has received enough coverage that it should be described in its own section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:17, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

• I pointed this out above, but to my reading the majority of those are opinion pieces. We should try and find higher-quality sources summarizing coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I boldly trimmed it and moved it to the politics section, which may even be too much. The WSWS U.S. affiliate Socialist_Equality_Party_(United_States) has zero ballot presence. The interviews with historians are relevant if the historians are individually cited, but not as a list of historians cited as an interview on WSWS – no reader cares that they were the ones doing the interview, they just care who the historian is. Finally, in future, the WSWS quote about race vs. class may not even be relevant to this article since that has been mainstream socialist ideology in every major political iteration since its beginning. It's almost on the level of quoting the Libertarian Party as saying "We believe in individual liberty." SamuelRiv (talk) 15:06, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Holy thread resurrection, Batman! I support your trim and move. The Friedersdorf piece lends a little weight to the WSWS coverage, but not much. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:10, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Ballot presence of the authors is not how we decide what weight to give to sources on Misplaced Pages (as far as I'm aware, the New York Times has no ballot presence either). Many sources discussed the publication venue of most of the interviews with the historians who commented on the 1619 Project. I listed several of them above, at the top of this section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:54, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

The line you restored reads like "WSWS published interviews with X." That's not about X or what X says, that's about WSWS. And nobody cares about WSWS, especially not in that section. If you want to add something about what the specific historians said, citing from those interviews, that's perfectly fine. But "This group did interviews" doesn't add anything relevant on its own. SamuelRiv (talk) 13:27, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

The sources care, as I demonstrated at the top of this section, which is why it's notable. We note that the 1619 Project was published by the New York Times, because the sources consider that relevant. The sources also consider it relevant that a bunch of prominent historians gave heavily critical interviews in a socialist publication, because that was a major aspect of the debate over the 1619 Project. The debate over the 1619 Project is just as notable as the project itself, given how many major historians have weighed in, how much secondary commentary it generated in other publications, the political fights over the project, etc. Where the bulk of the historical criticism occurred is relevant, particularly since so many articles comment specifically on that point.

As you noted in your first comment here, your removal of this material was WP:BOLD. I objected to that bold edit and restored the material, and explained my reasoning. The next step is discussion, per WP:BRD, not "revert again." I'd appreciate if you'd undo your latest revert and explain why you think that the venue of the historical debate is irrelevant, particularly given how many sources commented on that exact point. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:12, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

By the way, I would be in favor of removing the 2nd clause in this sentence:

Beginning in October 2019, the World Socialist Web Site, whose national affiliate the Socialist Equality Party has opposed a "shift from class to identity" on the American Left, published a series of interviews with prominent historians critical of the project, ...

The first clause is relevant, but we don't need an excursion on the politics of the outlet. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:17, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I added that clause, thought it was useful context because the "World Socialist Website" is not exactly a household name, and readers will be reasonably curious what this has to do with "socialism" at all. Pharos (talk) 16:24, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

If these interviews are so great, then the way to cite them is, "Bynum, historian, said blah blah blah." Not "Bynum was interviewed", or "Awesome interviews await if you click on this link!" And yes, at this point I am wondering whether people aren't just trying to promote WSWS. As to BRD, you also reverted moving it to the politics section and removing incorrect citations. But I don't get this hiccup – if you like these interviews then just cite them properly. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:31, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

You haven't actually addressed the fact that the venue of the interviews has been widely discussed in secondary sources. As I said above, the debate over the 1619 Project is one of the most notable aspects of the project (based on coverage, it's the most notable aspect, by a large margin). How the historical debate began is something that many sources comment on: a series of very well known historians (Gordon Wood is probably the most famous living historian of the American Revolution) gave interviews in a socialist publication. That raised eyebrows for two reasons: who was criticizing the 1619 Project, and where. I haven't yet seen any substantive argument for not mentioning the venue of the interviews. Talking about "ballot presence" is a complete non sequitur. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:13, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

The ballot presence goes to whether to print the WSWS/SEP political views, which was a different section that you already were open to move/remove. The argument we're having now is that the only thing you are writing about is the venue and dropping names. There is no connection made between those historians, their interviews, the larger debate, and the rest of the article. There might be if you click on each WSWS link, but that's not what we want the reader to do to get the proper context and flow in reading the article. To illustrate, this is how what the prose reads currently:

"Yesterday Albert Einstein was interviewed in the Washington Post. In other news ..."

It doesn't matter that the venue is WSWS, it doesn't matter if they interviewed Jesus-Allah-Buddha. You have to spell it out in the article what the connection is, from the previous paragraph, to the next paragraph. You have to write. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:38, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

The sources consider the venue important, as I demonstrated at the top of this talk-page section. If you're proposing that we explain in the text why the sources consider the venue important, that's reasonable.

If you look at the section under discussion ("Reception"), we actually note not just WSWS, but New York Review of Books, the Atlantic, The New York Times, Politico, and USA Today (and perhaps others I've missed). I find it curious that none of those other names are objectionable, but that somehow mentioning who interviewed the series of historians is objectionable. -Thucydides411 (talk) 07:28, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv: You still have not explained why you want to remove any mention of the World Socialist Website (WSWS) from the historical reception section. We mention the New York Review of Books, the Atlantic, Politico, USA Today and a few other outlets by name. However, if you followed the historical debate over the 1619 Project, you'll find that those other publications played a far smaller role than the WSWS. What kicked off the historical debate in the first place was a series of interviews published there. Prior to that, there was some criticism in a few conservative outlets, but no major historian had yet weighed in. Then there was a series of interviews in the WSWS with some of the most famous historians in their respective fields (including Wood and McPherson) that were sharply critical of the 1619 Project. As I demonstrated above, the WSWS' role in the historical debate has been extensively discussed in secondary sources. Yet for unclear reasons, you object solely to mention of the WSWS, but not to mention of Politico, the Atlantic, USA Today, and all the other publications.

I've tried to get you to explain why, specifically, you don't want mention of the WSWS, and why you're discounting the many secondary sources that discuss the WSWS' role in the historical debate, but your responses have been puzzling. You talk about electoral results, the Buddha, Albert Einstein - but not the sources or the timeline of the historical debate over the 1619 Project.

You've accused me of trying to WP:OWN this article, pointing to a few editors who have argued against inclusion of mention of the venue at which the historians were interviewed (but curiously, not against mention of any of the other outlets, such as Politico and the Atlantic). The latest editor who reverted me is a long-time stalker who for years has followed me around to various subjects, ranging from linguistics to American Revolutionary history to obscure proposed space telescopes, to revert my contributions, so I have my doubts about whether their motivations for reverting me here have to do with content. But I do want you and the other editors to explain your reasoning. Earlier on, when the 1619 Project article was more heavily trafficked, there was a consensus for inclusion of the material in question. I want you to explain why you disagree with this previous consensus, and why you object specifically to mention of the WSWS, but not Politico, the Atlantic, etc., which played a much smaller role in the historical debate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:28, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The difference between the WSWS and those other sources is that they are reliable and WSWS is not (they also largely appear to be used for attribution, which is an entirely different thing). Their role in the debate as attested by secondary sources should be covered using those sources, there is no compelling reasons to use them as a primary source here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

These are interviews with historians who are widely viewed as some of the foremost experts in their respective fields. Are you really arguing that we can't link to interviews with Gordon Wood and James McPherson, because you don't like the venue at which they were interviewed? We link to the NY Times' 1619 Project here (rightly so, in my opinion), even though its reliability, from a historical perspective, has been called into serious doubt. We can also link to interviews with historians who are widely viewed, by experts in the field, as far more authoritative (when it comes to historical matters) than the NY Times. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:09, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

That is literally how our reliability policy works. The problem with unreliable sources is that we can't be sure they're accurate, that applies just as much to an interview as anything else. If the interview is in for example the Daily Mail then it is for all intents and purposes useless to us unless the subject being interviewed is also an employee or owner of the Daily Mail which would open up the WP:ABOUTSELF window. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:22, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Are you claiming that the WSWS misquoted the historians or fabricated these interviews? Do you have any evidence at all of that? These interviews have been widely cited, and I've never seen an assertion in any other publication that they've been falsified. Gordon Wood himself has discussed his interview with the WSWS in other fora, and has never even hinted that he was misrepresented. This claim that the text of the interviews is dubious comes completely out of left field. To be honest, it sounds like you just don't like the source for whatever reason, and therefore don't want it to be mentioned, even though it's obviously highly relevant here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:03, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think they are claiming that the interviews were fabricated or misquoted, only that the source on its own is not necessarily reliable. You make a good point and I highly doubt there's evidence suggesting the interviews may be fake. Putting a binary classification on a given is erroneous, and I'd suggest for users to review that context matters and the definition of a source.

Looking at WSWS on its own, it's not the best source, but the creator or publisher of the work isn't the only criterion for determining reliability. The context is that several of the more lauded historians on American history were interviewed by WSWS regarding the 1619 Project. The piece of work itself is those interviews. Especially if statements made in future article edits are attributed to the historians, the interviews are not unreliable. While it's strange to those familiar with Wood, McPherson, and the other historians and their reputation as to why they interviewed with an organization such as WSWS, it doesn't discredit their statements and claims, especially given they are subject matter experts in this particular topic. With that said, there's better criticisms of the 1619 Project than seemingly controversial interviews, such as the following books which are worth considering.

• 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project by Peter Wood
• The 1619 Project: A Critique by Phillip Magness
• Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America by Mary Grabar Saucysalsa30 (talk) 09:30, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand the removals of the WSWS context, and I disagree with them. Yes, it is a relatively small publication with a particularly odd-sounding, stridently ideological masthead title, but it was by all accounts an important part of the public discourse on this subject.--Pharos (talk) 18:31, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The same notable commentators are covered from their NY Times letter. WSWS is a Trotskyite FRINGE organ. SPECIFICO talk 19:31, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm again asking you to stop stalking me on Misplaced Pages. How many random articles on completely different subjects have you now showed up at, with no previous editing history, and immediately reverted my edits? -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:24, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I made all my points in the comments above, but I will reiterate for effect. There is nothing wrong with talking about the historians and the debate, but you have to actually talk about them. I illustrate above with examples what you are doing instead. The prominent references to other sources in-text is problematic in this article as well, but as they are within sentences about the subject of the article, I generally don't revert other editors' stylistic choices. If you want to mention WSWS in-text, there is a way to do so correctly if you have been paying attention, and if you do so I will not revert it and would perhaps even defend it from selective reverts. But I'm not going to do your homework for you, because I'd rather see most in-text source naming removed (the exception is when the publisher name makes something an RS more than the author -- WSWS obviously does not have more credibility on commenting and publishing on history than the historians they hosted). SamuelRiv (talk) 18:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

If I'm rehashing points from above, it's because I don't think you've addressed them. One of the most notable aspects of the 1619 Project has been the historical debate it has generated. That debate occurred in a number of fora. One of those fora has been extensively commented on - probably moreso than any other forum, aside from the NY Times itself. That's partly because a series of extremely well known historians gave interviews there, which is what set off the historical debate in the first place. It's partly because some commentators and historians were surprised that a socialist publication was somehow the main venue for prominent historians who were critical of the 1619 Project. Removing the reference to the forum is actually removing one of the most notable / commented-on aspects of the historical debate.

You've said that you don't want to "do homework," but reverting because of a supposed lack of context, without specifying what additional context you want, is not particularly helpful. If you could propose something more concrete, I would appreciate that. There's a strong chance I may even agree with your proposed addition. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:41, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Since you're asking: I already illustrated the absurdity with a construction like "A resurrected Jesus gave an interview with the Tallahassee Times. In other news...". Here's an alternative construction: "Notable scientician Jesus said in a July interview with the Tallahassee Times that it felt great to be resurrected and everyone should do it. In other news...". Do you understand the difference? What part of that construction is most relevant to the reader? SamuelRiv (talk) 18:10, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

It would be much more helpful if you stopped talking about Jesus, the Buddha and Einstein, and instead discussed that actual text in question. We're talking about interviews with Wood, McPherson and other leading historians, who gave strongly critical interviews of the 1619 Project in the World Socialist Website in late 2019, sparking a larger historical debate over the project. How would you word that? -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting provable history

We have a huge problem on our hands here with this. It will likely mean that the background section and other parts of this article might need to be re-written, or else this could spill over in an ugly way into other wiki articles. A small but notable example(there are many) is the article about San Miguel de Gualdape, which states that 93 years prior in 1526: "The enslaved Africans brought by the settlers became the first documented instance of Black slavery in mainland North America and carried out the first slave rebellion there."

Someone could easily remove that line citing a reliable source, The New York Times, because there was no slavery of any kind prior to 1619, the "400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving in America". And if there was no slavery, there obviously couldn't have been a slave rebellion either. This is the whole premise of the project, it's exactly what they are saying every time you see the number 400. Here's one example:

Four hundred years after enslaved Africans were first brought to Virginia, most Americans still don't know the full story of slavery. The 1619 Project examines the legacy of slavery in America.

Here's another:

Since January, The Times Magazine has been working on an issue to mark the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving in America.

Another here: () uses very similar language to the first cited above.

If on the one hand, I could completely prove that this started in 1619 citing reliable sources; but then on the other hand, I could completely prove that this started prior to 1619 citing reliable sources, how can we write comprehensive and accurate wiki articles this way when now both hands are 100% correct with cites? I'll try to make a small fix to the background to start but we have a much larger issue here. Progressingamerica (talk) 21:11, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

The arrival of slaves in Spanish colonies in North America in the 16th Century and uncertainty about the status of the Africans who were brought to Virginia in 1619 are both tricky questions for this article. It's difficult to describe the 1619 Project succinctly and accurately, without simplifying or misrepresenting these issues. For example, the lede says:

The project was timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the Virginia colony in 1619

Yet the status of the Africans who arrived in Virginia in 1619 is not settled, and is the subject of a longstanding historiographical debate. There is a view that slavery did not exist in the colony in 1619, and that the institution of slavery only developed decades later, and there is indeed evidence that some Africans brought to the colony early on were treated as indentured servants, and later gained their freedom. There is another view that says that at least some Africans were essentially treated as slaves (lifetime indentured servitude), even if the legal framework of slavery did not yet exist. The problem is that the evidence is very patchy, and historians are trying to draw conclusions from quite indirect types of evidence.

In any case, I think we should try to find a way to modify the description in the lede to describe the intention of the NY Times (to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slaves in Virginia), without actually stating definitively that the people who arrived were treated as slaves (because this is a contentious issue among historians). It's a tricky thing to do. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's a contentious issue among historians anymore that the First Africans in Virginia were enslaved, though it was a few years ago. There seems to be pretty wide consensus now for this, quite unrelated to the 1619 Project.--Pharos (talk) 18:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we should try to modify the description to use the "intention" of the NY Times to make it accurate. We should describe what the Times said and note its accuracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Q746371 (talk • contribs) 17:06, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Article Protection.

Hey everyone, I am a somewhat inexperienced user and I don't know how the rules work. But because the 1619 Project is now being talked about on the news media and that the US President is talking about investigating it in public schools, shouldn't this page be protected in case of vandalism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MOADooAH1 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@MOADooAH1: While there has been a little bit of vandalism, I'm not sure it yet rises to the level of needing protection. I'm sure I'm not the only admin with this page on their watchlist. —C.Fred (talk) 20:49, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

If a problem arises here or anywhere else, you can post at Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection (or the short link WP:RFPP). However in most cases it's simple enough to just revert the occasional bad edit. We try to follow the philosophy that "Misplaced Pages is the Encyclopedia anyone can edit". If somebody tries to make their first edit, and they can't, we may permanently lose someone who could have become a valuable contributor. Therefore we try not to protect pages unless vandalism/junk-edits have already become a notable nuisance, or if we fear a more serious level of disruption. Alsee (talk) 08:34, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry for being late to reply, but thanks for the response. MOADooAH1 (talk) 19:35, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Typical Misplaced Pages bias

This article is extremely biased in favor of the cultural Marxist anti-American false history narrative put forward by the New York Times. Here we have someone from India who doesn't even speak English as a native language falsely claiming that correcting English grammatical errors makes me a "racist." Then he undoes my improvement to the article, falsely claiming that Breitbart is not a reliable source. On top of that some moderator locks the page down, claiming that I "vandalized" it. Breitbart is obviously far more reliable than the New York Times, a far-left propaganda newspaper that tells a completely false revisionist history account of the United States in order to further the Marxist agenda of destroying America. Funny that an Indian thinks he knows American history better than an American who actually has a History degree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shtikweals (talk • contribs) 09:21, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Would an admin please revdel this edit summary from the history of this highly visible article? Usedtobecool ☎️ 09:32, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Shtikweals if you are responsible for the edit linked above, perhaps you can see that the edit summary is racial.

Misplaced Pages has Policies and guidelines, including one on Reliable sources. Breitbart was specifically evaluated, and consensus of the editor community determined that Breitbart fails our Reliable Source criteria. If you aren't interested in our policies and guidelines, or uninterested in respecting our consensus issue resolution process, or if you are unable to avoid injecting race as you did in your comment above, you might be happier editing conservapedia.com instead. Alsee (talk) 12:02, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

FYI, I have revdeleted the summary in question. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 17:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:18, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Usedtobecool: Happy to be of assistance. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 17:50, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Alsee, I think "racial" was a bit mild. Drmies (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

76.80.94.226 (talk) 08:02, 11 February 2021 (UTC)This wiki article is edited by Marxists about a Marxist project (1619) by referencing a Marxist propaganda outlet, the NYT. Misplaced Pages needs to get out this ridiculous Marxist hall of mirrors that is sinister in intent.

Protecting slavery as a motivation for American Revolution

It seems that the majority of historians reject this as a primary motivation, but we should probably mention somewhere the two historical events that seem to be most often cited in support of this idea: Somerset v Stewart (1772) and Dunmore's Proclamation (1775).--Pharos (talk) 19:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

If we present a fringe view, we also have to present the mainstream view, and make it clear which is the mainstream view. I think that would take up too much space, though. People can click through to the sources and read what Silverstein wrote in defense of the project (he cited those two events), and how the various historians responded. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:52, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I do think there's some educational value in linking out to specific history, rather than just carefully summarizing who supports and opposes the idea. Perhaps we could even just link out to and further develop Slavery in the United States#Revolutionary era.--Pharos (talk) 22:34, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The NY Times already admitted this was a false narrative in their original publication. That's why they issued a correction, because it's an incorrect assertion. Additionally, Somerset and Dunmore's don't effectively support the idea. Progressingamerica (talk) 19:29, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

The project has sparked criticism and debate among prominent historians and political commentators

Shouldnt this just say debate? There are many historians that have praised it as well, but the lead doesnt say " The project has sparked praise, criticism and debate among prominent historians and political commentators" because that would just be stupid. So the wording should only say debate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:201:5F00:949A:785A:8B16:189C (talk) 14:04, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Because the most prominent reactions by historians, by far, have been largely negative. The series of interviews with critical historians and the critical letters (first from the five historians, then from the Civil War historians) have received a lot of media coverage. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:17, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Revision of the main point of the project at the NYT

Some media is reporting that the NYT has been quietly deleting material claiming the main point of the 1619 project is a new date for America's founding. You can find articles here and here. However, none of these sources are considered reliable (see WP:RSP). Can people find other confirming sources which would warrant inclusion? MonsieurD (talk) 14:17, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

• The only source *you* need is the NYT. Here is the Wayback machine for 31 August 2019:
  
  The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding
  
  Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20190831110024/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html XavierItzm (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

That would verge on WP:OR. Here is a source which I think is admissible. MonsieurD (talk) 14:01, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@MonsieurD: Where is the OR? All you have to do is cite the NYT claims, as archived on the archive.org, without further comment. It would be OR if any comment on the NYT's surreptitious later editing were made, but if you just cite what the NYT published in August 2019, there is no OR. XavierItzm (talk) 05:17, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Fine, do it and see if it sticks. MonsieurD (talk) 13:03, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

The Federalist is not a reliable source. I have removed it and one other source, but the section is supported by other sources too, so I did not change other text.--MattMauler (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

The NY Times itself recently published an opinion column that comments on the unannounced edits: . There's been enough commentary on these edits that they should be noted in the "Reception" section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:17, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: The NAS letter has been covered by the Washington Post () and in the opinion pages of the New York Times () and Wall Street Journal (). More broadly, the controversy over the unannounced edits to the project has elicited responses from the lead author of the 1619 Project, the editor of the NY Times Magazine, the executive editor of the NY Times () and the owner of the NY Times (), which is quite unusual. The issue has become notable enough that it should, at this point, be included in the lede.

Also, this addition is sourced to a tweet, which by itself is not notable. Nikole Hannah-Jones is quoted in the recent Washington Post article about the controversies surrounding the 1619 Project. A quote from that article could be selected. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

That Washington Post article is a long article about the entire project and barely mentions the NAS letter. To single out that one aspect of the article is classic WP:UNDUE. If you wish to substitute another relevant quote by Nikole Hannah-Jones, please do so. Gamaliel (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Coverage in the Washington Post, NY Times and WSJ makes the NAS letter pretty notable, in my opinion. The Washington Post goes over the entire controversy surrounding the 1619 Project, and it includes the NAS letter as part of that controversy. I think our Wiki article covers most of the other aspects of the controversy described by the Washington Post piece. The NAS letter prompted an Op-Ed in the NY Times that has sparked a lot of controversy, and which has now caused even the owner of the Times to comment. Back when it was just Quillette commenting on the revisions to the project, I didn't think that was notable enough for inclusion. But now that the NAS has issued its letter, the Washington Post, NY Times and WSJ have all published on the letter, and a wider controversy has ensued, which CNN and other media is reporting on, this story has clearly passed the threshold of DUE. It should be mentioned in some manner in the lede. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You mention coverage in the Washington Post, but what you don't mention is that the lead does not cover every aspect of what is mentioned in the Washington Post, nor should it. I also disagree with replacing a quote from NHJ with a poor paraphrase, that section is already heavily weighted towards detractors and replacing a strong statement with a paraphrase only furthers that skew. Gamaliel (talk) 15:01, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

If the text seems to focus heavily on criticism, that is because there has been a lot of coverage in reliable sources of criticism of the 1619 Project (See WP:BALANCE and WP:FALSEBALANCE). The Washington Post article focuses heavily on criticism of the 1619 Project, as do all of the articles I have seen that deal with the revisions. The revisions to the project have generated a lot of coverage and commentary, including by the most senior figures at the NY Times (CNN called the statement - later retracted - by the NY Times Writers' Guild an "extraordinary move": "1619 Project faces renewed criticism — this time from within The New York Times"). This controversy has developed into one of the most notable aspects of the project, and that should be reflected by in the lede by at least one sentence of coverage.

As for Nikole Hannah-Jones' quote, it's unacceptable to include an arbitrary quote selected from her Twitter feed. Whatever we include must come from a secondary source. I replaced her quote with a paraphrase from the Washington Post article. I wrote, , and that critics were interpreting her rhetorical flourishes too literally. The Washington Post wrote, Hannah-Jones, meanwhile, protested that critics were taking her own flourishes too literally. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:33, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Thucydides411. MonsieurD (talk) 13:21, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Your comment conflates criticism of the project with coverage of this insignificant letter. Obviously criticism belongs in the intro, but not every single aspect of the criticism does. A quote which directly addresses inaccurate claims extensively quoted from non-RS opinion pieces is certainly not arbitrary. Gamaliel (talk) 16:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Secondary coverage in the Washington Post and the opinion pages of the NY Times and Wall Street Journal indicates that the letter is not insignificant. I don't know what "inaccurate claims" or "non-RS" you're talking about. Perhaps you can clarify. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:58, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Quillette and NYT opinion columns. Why did you remove the CNN source? CNN is a secondary source, which is what you said your standard was. Gamaliel (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Quillette and NYT opinion columns are allowable with in-line attribution, especially because they have been referenced in secondary coverage in several other outlets. The quote from CNN appears to be from an on-air segment. Is that right? Is there any indication that this quote was notable? Has that interview been referenced in secondary coverage? We go by weight in secondary coverage, not by an idea of giving each side equal time. Stephens' column has been discussed in many secondary sources, which is why we have a quote from him. If you want to include a quote from Hannah-Jones, then there are a few in this Washington Post article and in this CNN article. Is there one you think should be included? -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:45, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

s/Alleged/Unannounced/ in "... revision of initial claims" heading

I've changed the heading "Alleged revision of initial claims" to "Unannounced revision of initial claims". It's more than alleged that these revisions were made: the sources linked in the section show visual evidence and the NYT has not contested that the revisions were made. What they are contesting is whether or not it was proper to make those changes without advertising their correction. With that understanding, it's an uncontested fact that the revision occurred, not merely an alleged claim whose truth needs to be verified. The controversy is about the lack of a notice. Tobor0 (talk) 18:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Controversial

The word "controversial" ought to be added to the article here: "The 1619 Project is an ongoing controversial initiative from........" link: link: link: link: link: link: link: link: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.134.98.50 (talk) 06:56, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

This was already discussed in "generally negative reviews" above. Q746371

EDIT: To be clear, there's consensus that this should be done. I've done it but there appears to be some vandalism. DenverCoder9 (talk) 15:47, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

There is absolutely no consensus to state, in the lede in Misplaced Pages's voice, that this is "controversial." We don't use that word in the lede of the 1776 Commission, and there is far more universality in the condemnation of that entity and its report. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I dislike inclusion of negative qualifiers like "controversial" into the first sentence of the lede of articles. While I think the 1619 Project clearly is controversial, including that label in the opening sentence is just gratuitous, and does not come across as neutral writing. The same goes for labeling the project "historical revisionism" in the first sentence. In short, I support your edit of the first sentence. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• I agree with NorthBySouthBaranof and Thucydides411, we shouldn’t be saying “controversial” in the first sentence and I don’t see the clear consenus that DenverCoder9 claims exists anywhere. Theres almost never an appropriate time to use that sort of language right at the beginning of the lead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

You need to go quite far back in the history of the talk page. DenverCoder9 (talk) 00:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Re "historical revisionism", see that section of the talk page. DenverCoder9 (talk) 00:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

EDIT 2020-01-18: there's been consensus on this. If you'd like to remove this from the lede, please achieve consensus on the talk page first. Consensus was achieved to keep it. DenverCoder9 (talk) 00:54, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Introduction Neutrality

Notice that the introduction discusses controversy, but every paragraph in the introductory section ends with a sentence positive to the project. This gives an impression of support for the project. Support among historians seems to be negative, or at least split. Given previous statements on this talk page about "and generally negative reviews from historians", and an absence of arguments against this proposal, I propose modifying the introduction section to be in line with historian's view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Q746371 (talk • contribs) 16:41, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The editors adding these positive statements usually use phrases like "In response, ...". Q746371

I would suggest that there is too much discussion of the controversy in the lede. The lede is not supposed to be the article; the lede is only supposed to be an introduction to the article. Nearly twice as much of the lede is about the controversy as is about the project itself; this is unbalanced. Much of this material should be moved to be the introductory paragraphs to the "reception" section. Skepticalgiraffe (talk) 19:40, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

A large fraction of the lede being reception isn't necessarily a problem. The general historical reception has been negative. Much of the content written about the 1619 project has been controversy.

I'm starting the BRD here, so let's leave it as is and discuss before modifying. DenverCoder9 (talk) 01:26, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Revisitionist

The adjective "revisionist" isn't negative. The project seeks to re-examine the history of the United States and reinterpret historical narratives. This fits squarely into the definition of Revisionism. Since I anticipate some editors may misinterpret this, I've created this talk page. If you disagree with the adjective, please comment before reverting.

The 1619 Project was already under the "See Also" of Historical Revisionism.

Q746371 (talk • contribs) 23:47, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Individual Assertions

A great deal of ink has been spilled about the accuracy of each of the claims made by the project. Toward that end, I've created a new section, "Motivations for the Revolution". I think it would be great if we created more sections like this. It would help to reader to understand the accuracy of each of the claims made by the project, rather than just that the review was "generally negative." DenverCoder9 (talk) 04:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

NAS Letter

NAS is a very significant organization with a considerable reputation. There may have been only 21 signatories, but they were very important. I think this is DUE. I don't think the number of signatories is relevant. DenverCoder9 (talk) 01:20, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

NAS is a partisan group with a considerable reputation for right-wing ideology, and 21 people signing a letter is literally nothing compared to the Pulitzer Prize board. At any rate, it does not belong in a section about awards. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Given coverage in the Washington Post (), and the opinion pages of the NY Times () and Wall Street Journal (), there's enough secondary coverage of the NAS letter that it's significant. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Then it needs to be in the correct section - the "Political responses" section. As our article on the group explains, NAS is a politically-conservative advocacy group. The argument of a single right-wing group doesn't merit equal placement and space with the decision of the Pulitzer Prize board - that would be clearly undue weight. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:05, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Weight is determined by secondary coverage. Yes, the NAS is conservative (which doesn't at all discredit their criticism), but their criticism has had significant secondary coverage. More broadly, the significant criticism of the Pulitzer Prize board's decision should be noted in the relevant section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:40, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

"Significant criticism" - you have cited a letter signed by a total of 21 people, members of a single right-wing advocacy group, which you have found brief (dismissive) mention of in a single Washington Post article, and two op-ed columns. Sorry, but that's just not "significant." Particularly given that there's been zero ongoing coverage and zero indication that anyone takes them seriously, or that the Pulitzer Prize board is actually considering doing so. "Angry conservatives are angry" is dog-bites-man stuff. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:48, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm noting the secondary coverage of that letter. The Washington Post's article summarizing the 1619 Project, for example, discusses the NAS letter (I didn't view it as "dismissive"). I don't know why the conservative nature of the NAS is disqualifying, any more than the very different political views of other critics (or supporters) of the project are disqualifying. What matters is that WaPo and other outlets found it important enough to report on. As for "ongoing coverage", there's a natural cycle of news coverage. "Ongoing coverage" of the 1619 Project as a whole has dropped off steeply. It peaks each time there's a new controversy, but we can't expect it to continue unabated. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:53, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Per WP:RSOPINION, opinion pieces are not usable to cite statements of fact, especially not such broad sweeping summaries of opinion; we could use those with in-line citations, if we avoid giving them WP:UNDUE weight, but we can't use them to assess weight like this ourselves, because the people writing them are expressing only their personal opinion on what aspects of the topic are important and are not generally subject to the fact-checking and accuracy constraints used for genuine reporting or academic writing. Any op-ed writer can dig up only scholars who agree with them and then argue that their opinions are the sole mainstream; but we require better sourcing than that. --Aquillion (talk) 19:11, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The National Association of Scholars is an advocacy group. They shouldn't be cited here at all, certainly not via the extremely weak sourcing being used to justify it above. The current suggestions rely far too much on a relatively tiny handful of opinion pieces citing a relatively tiny handful of people from a single advocacy group - this isn't WP:DUE for more than a single sentence somewhere in the body, at most, and even that will require in-line citations to the opinion pieces being used for it and an accurate description of the NAS as a conservative advocacy group every time anything from it is referenced per WP:RSOPINION. Advocacy groups and opinion pieces are terrible sources for something so controversial, especially when so many higher-quality sources exist. --Aquillion (talk) 19:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

We're not citing the NAS for statements of fact. We're noting a letter that they wrote (with attribution). That letter received significant secondary coverage, meaning that mention of it is DUE. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:38, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

But you're citing opinion pieces for statements of fact when you say that it received secondary coverage; that's using those opinion pieces to characterize the topic. It requires inline citations to do so and makes it less WP:DUE to give it the amount of weight I feel you're trying to give it here. Is it worth mentioning somewhere in the article? Sure. Is it a defining aspect of the topic? No. A handful of opinion pieces, mostly from within about a week or so of each other, citing a letter from an advocacy group doesn't require much weight; the one source outside of that timeframe and from someone that can reasonably be called an expert is mostly dismissive of the letter's importance and characterizes its authors as a handful of prominent historians who have offered sharp criticism of that publication’s purportedly revisionist narrative of the American story - hardly a ringing endorsement that the letter represents a broad swath of academia or is representative of the general reception the 1619 project received. --Aquillion (talk) 19:44, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't follow what you're saying. How is pointing to the existence of articles that discuss the letter the same as citing opinion pieces for statements of fact? Is it a defining aspect of the topic? No. I don't think anyone is arguing that it is. I'm just saying that it's significant enough that it should be noted. One sentence is sufficient. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of NYT Silverstein source

Objection 1 What Misplaced Pages says, in the apparent Misplaced Pages voice:

"despite documented anti-capitalist sentiment among many Southern slaveholders"

While the given source does indeed say this, another person in the same source says: " does not have to do with capitalism but with aristocratic plantation owners scoffing at small-scale family farms of the north."

Clearly a conflict here. Either change the wording out of the Misplaced Pages voice, or remove the sentence.

Objection 2 Misplaced Pages says:

"While agreeing to the importance of examining American slavery, they objected to the portrayal of slavery as a uniquely American phenomenon, to construing slavery as a capitalist venture despite documented anti-capitalist sentiment among many Southern slaveholders, and to presenting out-of-context quotes of a conversation between Abraham Lincoln and "five esteemed free black men." The following month, Times editor Jake Silverstein replied with notes from the research desk, concluding that the scholars had requested the inclusion of additional information, rather than corrections to existing information."

By declining to include mention of Silverstein's factual rebuttal, this strongly implies that Silverstein declined to give a factual rebuttable, and instead merely dismissed the factual objections as merely non-factual (which he did not do). The effect of painting Silvertein's response in a highly misleading light.

It would be like if we said: "James pointed out that John made a factual error. John responded by saying that James simply dislikes him personally", while failing to mention John also, in the same retort, rebutted the supposed factual error. Adding this important context is not WP:UNDUE, and and fact failing leaves the reader with a quite misleading version of events. Masebrock (talk) 06:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we should say "Silverstein concluded that the scholars had requested the inclusion of additional information, rather than corrections to existing information" and reference a source where Silverstein says "I do allow that some of the queries in your letter are of a more factual nature. Below is our research desk’s responses to those matters." It's just plainly inaccurate, per the source. Masebrock (talk) 06:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Your edits look fine to me. Of course, the historians strongly disagreed with the factual rebuttals, and the NY Times itself ended up softening one of the central claims that the historians objected to (about the causes of the American Revolution), but it is true that Silverstein did respond to some of the points made by the historians. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:39, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Unsupported partisan claim worded as fact

I call attention to this sentence in the Journalistic Reaction section

"Rich Lowry wrote that Hannah-Jones' lead essay leaves out unwelcome facts about slavery (e.g. Africans captured other Africans and then sold them to Europeans and Americans), smears the Revolution, distorts the Constitution, and misrepresents the founding era and Lincoln."

This claim "Africans captured other Africans and then sold them to Europeans and Americans" is a serious allegation and not common knowledge. It is preceded by "unwelcome facts" which implies that this claim is a fact. The only source provided for this sentence is the same National Review opinion piece written by Lowry. If this is true, then it needs to be backed up by a much stronger source than an opinion piece from a partisan source which "there is no consensus on the reliability of".

I have never seen any other source support the claim. Therefore, I propose the sentence to be changed to one of the following:

1. Rich Lowry wrote that Hannah-Jones' lead essay leaves out unwelcome facts about slavery (e.g. Africans allegedly captured other Africans and then sold them to Europeans and Americans)

2. Rich Lowry wrote that Hannah-Jones' lead essay leaves out unwelcome facts about slavery (e.g. Lowry claims Africans captured other Africans and then sold them to Europeans and Americans)

3. Rich Lowry wrote that Hannah-Jones' lead essay "leaves out unwelcome facts" about slavery (e.g. Africans captured other Africans and then sold them to Europeans and Americans)

4. If an independent source supports the claim, add it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.49.135.61 (talk) 02:55, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

1776 Project vs. 1776 Commission

The sentence about the 1776 Project has been repeatedly removed or merged into the "Political Reactions" section: . Some editors are confusing the 1776 Project (also known as "1776 Unites") with the similarly named, but completely different 1776 Commission (it doesn't help that the Washington Post confused the two in its article on the subject, mistakenly calling the commission's "1776 Report" the "1776 Project Report": ). The 1776 Project is a series of essays written by African American academics and journalists. The 1776 Commission was a commission created by the Trump Administration to promote "patriotic education". They aren't the same thing.

The latest removal of the sentence about the 1776 Project stated that it was undue. Here are a few references (including both positive and negative commentaries on it) to demonstrate that it is notable, in the context of the 1619 Project: Chronicle of Higher Education, WSJ, Jacobin, Politico. I think it's notable enough for a single sentence. The one thing I would change about the previous description of the 1776 Project / 1776 Unites is that I would specify that it is a politically conservative response to the 1619 Project. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Notability is not the applicable test. Please read the NPOV policy. SPECIFICO talk 14:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I didn't link to WP:N. I used the English word "notable". The relevant policy acronym is WP:DUE. Based on the above sources, one sentence about the 1776 Project is fully in line with DUE. -Thucydides411 (talk)

Further Reading

Misplaced Pages:Further reading has guidelines about what sorts of links should be included in "Further Reading" sections. Links should be topical and reliable, and the whole list should be balanced and limited.

I recently removed a link to Gerald Horne's book, The Counter-Revolution of 1776. I've been reverted, and the link has been added back in: . The book is arguably topical, because its thesis is similar to the 1619 Project's claim about the American Revolution and slavery. This thesis was the aspect of the Project that brought the heaviest criticism from historians, however, which brings us to the 2nd consideration: reliability. The thesis that the revolution was a counter-revolution meant to stave off abolitionism has basically no support among historians. To say that this thesis is "controversial" would be extremely charitable. For that reason, I don't think this book should be listed in the "Further Reading" section. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

"Controversial" does not automatically mean "fringe"; the topic-area of the 1619 project as a whole is controversial, so obviously any sources related to it would be controversial. We still have to cover the background of those controversial aspects - inclusion there, in this context, does not imply endorsement of the book's thesis, just the idea that reading about it is useful understanding the topic. We could possibly add clarifications stating what point of view a particular external link is included to represent (something I have seen done on similar articles). --Aquillion (talk) 19:04, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I wrote that "controversial" would be a charitable term to use. A blunter term would be WP:FRINGE. If we want to direct the reader towards materials that give a better understanding of the topic, then we should pick a mainstream historical work, and there are many that we could choose from. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:41, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

This source is one you presented above. It says:

• Historians would be justified to complain that the Times presents as a radical reorientation an interpretation that differs little from a long-term, if still incomplete, trend to move African American history to the center of the American narrative. I share my colleagues’ frustration that journalists occasionally draw on years of our unacknowledged research to publish under the banner of “Extra, extra, never been told before!”

And in covering that specific claim, the author says:

• Admittedly, at a minimum, her formulation seriously overstates the anti-slavery bona fides of the British Empire at the time, not to mention the universality of pro-slavery views in the colonies. Fair enough. So, then, what would suffice in its stead? “One of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence”? How about “some of the Patriots fought for independence in the knowledge that it would secure their investments in slavery”? Presumably at least some of the letter writers would find the following counter-formulation no less objectionable: “there were many reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence, but the preservation of slavery was not among them.” While Hannah-Jones may be guilty of overstatement, this is more a matter of emphasis than it is of a correct or incorrect interpretation.

In other words, it's not as fringe as you're making it out to be - it's a point that is reasonably debated in academia, even if some scholars overstate their case on it. --Aquillion (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The first quote you gave says nothing about the thesis that the Revolution was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery. It's talking rather nebulously about "reorientation" of history and what to put at "the center of the American narrative." The writer admits that the claim made by the 1619 Project is a "serious overstate", and then muses about what Hannah-Jones could have written instead. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:19, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Sure, but calling something an overstatement is a really, really far gap from calling the position fringe, especially given that they make clear that the converse statement would be similarly objectionable. It presents the subject as a valid topic of dispute and directly pushes back against the people trying to characterize it otherwise. --Aquillion (talk) 20:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, a couple of points. First, this comment "From the Editor's Desk" in the AHR was one of the very few somewhat positive historical reactions to the 1619 Project, and it's still very hesitant. Second, the AHR published a series of really scathing responses to the editor's comment: . I'll excerpt from Sean Wilentz' letter here:

After scorning the letter as unenlightening, you confess that some of its contentions about serious inaccuracies are in fact correct; but then you briskly excuse the errors as mere 'overstatement.' Is it overstatement to claim that the Americans in 1776 were perturbed by a rising outcry against the Atlantic slave trade in Britain? Is it overstatement to aver that the colonists, North and South, were driven to revolution because they feared that London was going to upend their economy by closing the Atlantic slave trade? No, these are simple falsehoods that require correction by the Times.

Instead it dwells on how 'peculiar' it is that African American historians who might have been critical of the 1619 Project, like Barbara Fields, were not interviewed. Barbara Fields, the scholar you single out as worth listening to, has written to the interviewers of her concerns that some of her students might be 'seduced by' the 1619 Project's 'tendentious and ignorant history.'

That last judgment, "tendentious and ignorant history", by a historian whom the AHR editor said should be consulted, really stings. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

One more thing: Lichtenstein writes, Admittedly, at a minimum, her formulation seriously overstates the anti-slavery bona fides of the British Empire at the time, not to mention the universality of pro-slavery views in the colonies (emphasis added). This is more than just a small overstatement. He's saying that at a minimum, it's a serious overstatement. The historians who replied to Lichtenstein, particularly Wilentz, took him to task for this, writing that "seriously overstates" is putting it too lightly, and that the claim is just plain false. Again, if we want to give readers further reading to deepen their knowledge of the subject, we should point them to mainstream material, not material that advances a thesis that is viewed as simply false by some of the most eminent historians of early America (such as Gordon Wood, Sean Wilentz and Barbara Fields). -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:57, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

No personal opinions, please. SPECIFICO talk 15:29, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I haven't given my personal opinion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:37, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

• For reference, here's some academic reviews. They don't all agree with everything in the book - again, if it's used as an external link, it would be to present a particular relevant point of view, not with the implication that it's axiomatically right about everything - but none of them treat it as anything remotely like WP:FRINGE. . Here is a bunch more. Again, it's a subject of heated debate in academia (not so much absolute right and wrong, but how much emphasis and weight is appropriate to give that as one of the causes), but it's not at all treated as a fringe perspective. --Aquillion (talk) 20:03, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The view that the Revolution was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery is absolutely WP:FRINGE. There's no real historical debate about it, because as Gordon Wood as correctly pointed out, there's no documentary evidence at all that British abolitionism (a very small movement at the time, and tightly interconnected with the larger abolitionist movement in the middle colonies and New England) motivated any of the colonists to oppose the Empire. This is the claim that even the NY Times' own fact-checker, Leslie Harris, told them to omit, and which they eventually felt compelled to "clarify". We should be pointing readers to mainstream historiography. If we specifically want a work about slavery during the colonial and Revolutionary era, then Edmund Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom is a much more standard work. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The view that the Revolution was motivated solely by a desire to preserve slavery is, perhaps (it's also a strawman in the sense that few people advocate it.) The belief that it was a factor in the revolution is absolutely mainstream - fringe perspectives do not have a huge number of reputable scholars discussing books about them supportively. Again, look at the massive list of reviews, sources and citations I found above for Horne, most of which are not at all treating him as fringe. It isn't sufficient for you to find scholars who disagree and say "well, these people criticize it, so it's WP:FRINGE"; additionally, since we're discussing Of course more standard sources exist, but this article is at least in part about that debate; the argument that it is nonstandard (ie. there is serious debate in academia about the extent to which it was a cause) is not at all sufficient to disregard the entire topic as fringe. Again, go over the roughly a hundred scholarly reviews about Horne's book above. There are plenty that don't entirely accept his thesis or who feel he needs more evidence (although there's also plenty that do broadly accept it), but he's not treated as fringe; he's a respected academic, not a random crank. You need to actually engage with that rather than citing the same handful of people disagreeing with that thesis again and again and again. --Aquillion (talk) 17:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The view that it played any major role in motivating the American Revolution is fringe, as evidenced by the massive response of historians to this very claim in the 1619 Project. I'm sorry, but when Gordon Wood and Sean Wilentz call the idea completely baseless and false (not merely overstated or exaggerated), you can't simply dismiss that. Gordon Wood is very widely viewed as the foremost expert on the political writings during the Revolution and its ideological origins, and when he says that not a single colonist expressed alarm that Britain was going to abolish slavery, that carries a lot of weight.

We have a choice of what to put in the "Further Reading" section. Right now, the choice has been made to put in a work that presents a thesis that's viewed as absolutely false by the leading experts on the subject. You argue that the source is not fringe, but why include it at all? I propose that we do one of two things: either we restrict the "Further Reading" section to books that are specifically about the 1619 Project, or we include a mainstream work on the Revolution. My preference is for the former, but if we want to direct readers to a book about the Revolution, we should pick something whose central thesis is not vehemently opposed by the leading experts on the subject. Baylin's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a fairly standard work (and it discusses slavery at some length), though there are other possible choices. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

This is a pretty devastating review of the book in Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, by J. Kent McGaughy. Addressing the central thesis of the book, McGaughy writes,

However, Horne's effort to establish a connection between slave resistance and the decision to declare American independence is unsupported by the evidence.

He continues,

Toward the end Horne's book devolves into a polemical justification for why his thesis must be true rather than a presentation of evidence that proves his thesis.

One of McGaughy's major criticisms of Horne is the lack of primary sourcing for his claims, and even worse, misrepresentation of sources:

Horne alters or misquotes sources, and far too often relies on primary sources cited in secondary works rather than referring to original documents.

McGaughy gives two clear examples in which quotations are seriously misrepresented, and then writes,

These are not the only citations that raised questions found in Horne's book, and this kind of recklessness undermines the credibility of his entire work.

Near the end of the review, McGaughy writes,

The careless and/or nonexistent citations in The Counter-Revolution of 1776 and Independence have a direct effect on determining the appropriate target audiences for both of these books. Horne seems to suggest in his conclusion that he hopes his book will lead to further study of this subject. If Horne wants to be a trailblazer, then he needs to leave a trail that others can follow—which represents the role citations are meant to play. Unfortunately, his poorly constructed and inaccurate citations make it difficult for anyone to follow up on his conclusions.

This criticism is very much along the same lines as Wood's criticism of the idea that the revolution was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery: it's simply unsupported by any primary documents. I just question why it is that "Further Reading" has to direct readers towards this particular work. Again, I think there are two ways forward. On the one hand, we could limit the "Further Reading" section to works that are directly about the 1619 Project. On the other hand, if we want to include additional reading about the American Revolution, we should include a mainstream work. There are many that we could choose from, but Bailyn's Ideological Origins is a standard work, and chapter VI of the book covers the issue of slavery in the revolution. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:45, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Relevance to the article

Correct me if I am wrong, but Horne's 2014 book did not predict that The New York Times and The New York Times magazine would few years later create the 1619 project. In other words, the book does not include even one word about the subject of this article, correct? If my assumption is wrong, why is it that the book is "further reading" material, but not used cited as an actual source about the subject? Politrukki (talk) 19:24, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

America vs North America vs United States

The 1619 Project has been the subject of significant criticism and with that in mind, we need to strive for more specific language as to what "America" means in the context of its usage. Here are three examples of some of the changes I am making:

"The 1619 Project was launched in August 2019 to commemorate "the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving" in North America."

The United States did not formally exist until July 4th, 1776. As such, this statement cannot refer to America the country. It must mean the landing on the continent of North America.

"The project dedicated an issue of the magazine to a re-examination of the legacy of slavery in the United States....."

This statement previously was not talking about the generic "America", which could potentially go as far south as Argentina? It was a reference to the country, the United States.

"the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in England's Virginia colony."

This one is likely the most important because America the country(The United States) was not founded until 1776, so then this wiki article must reflect that Virginia was one of the colonies of the British Empire. The article that is linked to says this:

"The first Africans in Virginia were a group of "20 and odd" captives originally from the Kingdom of Ndongo in modern Angola, who arrived in 1619 in the colony of Virginia. They had been part of a larger group heading to Mexico, and were taken after an attack on their Portuguese slave ship by English privateers. Their arrival is seen as a beginning of the history of slavery in Virginia and also as a starting point for African-American history, given that they were the first such group in mainland British America."

There are other instances of "America" in the article that I did not change, but at any point where they can be made more specific they should be.(except only perhaps to direct quotes) This specificity should help reduce some of the consistent controversy that has been seen. Progressingamerica (talk) 16:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

If this was some sort of horrible ambiguity that the readers were incapable of parsing you’d have a different name. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:42, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Replacing the Pilgrims

There's an undertone that I'm surprised hasn't made it into the article yet. In essence, The 1619 Project sets out to replace the story of the Pilgrims. Hannah-Jones has acknowledged the connection: "that we actually arrived here before the pilgrims", USA Today has acknowledged it: "the notion that their ancestors’ presence in America predated the 1620 arrival of the Pilgrims story was a mind-boggling revelation", Politico acknowledged it: "The New York Times’ 1619 Project excited tremendous controversy because it challenged established narratives that date the founding of America’s political development and character to 1620 or 1776.", and Senator Cotton also acknowledged this connection in his commentaries. Our national story beginning with the Pilgrims has been acknowledged both directly and indirectly for over 200 years basically since George Washington, and this should be at least (once) noted in the article. Progressingamerica (talk) 04:25, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

geez, and i thought communism and everything else happening these past 4 years was bad... now we have the revisionists running this project trying to rewrite the history of this nation and replace it with lies and misinformation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.126.24.47 (talk) 17:55, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

~3,000 more bytes about one response article which was already covered

@16AdityaG09: please justify the massively expanded use of a single low-quality source (an op-ed), that seems to be massively undue. The extended quotes are also out of the ordinary, its much too much. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:36, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Also just FYI you appear to fundamentally misunderstand what an op-ed is... Your edit summary assertion that "This is the NYT's own criticism of its own project” is simply untrue. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:42, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

"Within the New York Times" read this, to see why this article is important. Read this, this, this and this to see how this op-ed generated vast responses, even from the rest of the NYT editors themselves, multiple times. This column ranked top on the paper's most-emailed list for multiple days.

And frankly I didn't add any persuasions towards any point of view. I just quoted what he said. I am reversing the changes you did to that section. 16AdityaG09 (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

There are no statements that have been presented as facts. I put all the claims in quotes. 16AdityaG09 (talk) 15:06, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

• This is a new low even for this article. There is no way in hell that much text is DUE. I have reverted. Contested additions should not be reintroduced until a consensus for inclusion is found. So, please do not revert back before this has been talked through. Thanks! Usedtobecool ☎️ 15:30, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

The text that was added was too detailed. Bret Stephens' commentary was significant, generated a minor crisis in the NY Times that's been reported on elsewhere (see the articles that 16AdityaG09 links above), and prompted responses from a number of major figures at the Times. However, we don't have to recapitulate every argument from Bret Stephens' commentary. It should also be noted that Stephens' piece is already discussed in the "Unannounced revision of initial claims" section. I think that section is fine, but in the "Journalistic reaction" section, one more sentence summarizing Stephens' major historiographical criticisms (as opposed to his criticisms about journalistic practices) should be added. We don't need a detailed rundown, but one additional sentence would be due. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:55, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

I added everything that was already there, plus Stephens' major historiographical criticisms. 16AdityaG09 (talk) 09:04, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

@16AdityaG09: I don't think that's appropriate. Could you self-revert and then propose a shorter version of the text here? What you've added has way too much detail, and since the text has been disputed, adding it again could be viewed as edit-warring. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I just cut some parts. 16AdityaG09 (talk) 13:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

@16AdityaG09: The paragraph is still too long. Can you propose a paragraph consisting of three normal-length sentences? I don't think anything longer than that is warranted. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Thucydides411, Stephens is just not that significant a figure to merit a sea of their opinions. Why would we include the major historiographical criticisms of someone who isn't a historiographer? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Stephens' column did generate a large amount of press, and it was seen as significant that the NY Times allowed one of their columnists to criticize the 1619 Project so harshly. For that reason, his main historiographical criticisms should be briefly explained in the "Journalistic reaction" section. @16AdityaG09: Could you try to summarize Stephens' major historiographical criticisms in three or fewer normal-length sentences? Please post your proposal here before putting it into the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Response by Historians

This article rightly covers some of the negative response by historians to the 1619 Project (a project that journalist creator Nikole Hannah-Jones has herself pointed out is meant to be a work of journalism, not history). In reviewing what is said here about the response of historians and how exactly that is being framed, I as a historian have been somewhat disappointed to see what I would characterize as the lopsided media coverage of the negative criticism being reproduced here. Certainly, I agree, the negative coverage has been amplified in and by the media. That, however, does not mean that the criticism being covered is in any way necessarily representative of the field of history more generally. Given this reality, I am creating this new section in which to gather any additional statements by historians on the 1619 Project, from interviews and op-eds like those already cited, to any and all other forms of statement given by a historian or historians. The point here is not to gather solely positive (or even "neutral" appraisals) but rather to more thoroughly search for and represent what historians in toto think of the 1619 Project. From my own vantage, it seems that the majority of professional historians today do not have particularly strong criticisms of the project, and even if they do raise certain issues, they also take issue with the types of criticisms already cited in this article and overall support maintain support for the project. Whether this is accurate overall, though, remains to be seen and depends on the data. I will return to and update this section when and as I can. I welcome others to contribute as well. Thank you. Cjslaby (talk) 23:02, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

The criticisms cited on the article so far are open letters, interviews, and articles. Historians have published books dedicated to criticizing and picking apart the 1619 Project, which should be included. That may be more along the lines of the strong criticism you're looking for. A non-exhaustive few:

• 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project by Peter Wood
• The 1619 Project: A Critique by Phillip Magness
• Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America by Mary Grabar

I've started reading 1620 and it makes a detailed critique so far. I can't speak for the other two. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 09:07, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

OR? - tag and suggestion

Here I added a tag, and in the edit summary here I wondered a bit about having done that. It seems clear to me that a solution to this would be to use {{Cite tweet}} to cite Trump's tweet as a primary source. I would try to do that myself, but I'm not a t... ... er ... Twitter user. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:06, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Wtmitchell, I just removed the tag. Since it was added, the tweet itself has been added as a citation. The CNN source also verifies the sentence. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Who has alleged that NYT Magazine website was not revised?

With regards to subsection heading "Alleged revision of initial claims" (see this), has someone credibly asserted that The New York Times Magazine did not revise its website? For example The Washington Post, which is cited in the section, reports

the libertarian journal Quillette noticed that the Times had removed a phrase from the 1619 Project website describing the date as "our true founding." But no clarification was issued, leading critics to suggest the Times was trying to wipe clean its history without owning up to its mistakes.

The Post also reports that Jake Silverstein, the magazine's editor in chief, acknowledged that the website was doctored, but, to paraphrase, Silverstein denied that the doctoring was deceptive.

Unless there is a serious dispute as to whether NYTM website was revised, Misplaced Pages should not describe this as an allegation, per WP:WIKIVOICE and MOS:ALLEGED. Politrukki (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I have WP:BOLDly retitled the section Revision of initial claims, removing the word Alleged. If therre is dispute regarding whether or not revisions were made, the section should probably be re-retitled something like Reported revision .... However, besides sources cited in the article re revisions of the NYT web page, see this and compare the current version of the target of the Official website link on the NYT website linked in the External links section of the article with the archived copy of the originally published version. Perhaps some rewriting is needed to shift the focus of this from the question of whether revisions have been made to changes in assertions made on the website (as described in cited RSs, of course). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Strenuously disagree. No non-opinion sources that I can see support the argument that it was revised. The positions of the NAS and the piece from Quillette can only be reported as opinion, not stated in Misplaced Pages voice as fact; the non-opinion coverage of them carefully only cites the argument that this represents a revision of the initial claims to those sources, and notes Nikole Hannah-Jones' and the Times' disagreement. Obviously we cannot take something that news sources describe in terms like critics claim and treat it as fact. This is an unequivocal BLP violation (in that the old wording unambiguously accuses Nikole Hannah-Jones, in the article voice, of something we have no BLP-quality sources supporting); do not restore it without a clear, non-opinion, high-quality source unambiguously that text. The entire section seems extremely WP:UNDUE (Quillette and the National Association of Scholars are not WP:RSes nor particularly significant sources; the only secondary non-opinion coverage is a single Washington Post article that only mentions them in passing and with self-evident he said / she said skepticism), so we should probably trim it down further. But in any case we cannot cover it in a way that implies that the opinions of Stephens, Quillette, and the National Association of Scholars are factual. --Aquillion (talk) 17:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Hannah-Jones does not stand accused of revising the web site. The New York Times Magazine is not a living person. Did you read any secondary sources before commenting? Politrukki (talk) 21:46, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

(from Wtmitchell) Aquillion, despite my bold edit here with which you express disagreement, this article is not a big deal with me and I would prefer not to be drawn into a discussion of these issues. Hopefully, a consensus can be reached on this quickly. I'll start by agreeing with the points made by Politrukki above. Beyond that, (1) I'm not sure from your disagreement comment whether or not you disagree with my assertion that the article was, in fact, revised. Do you dispute this? (2) I see here that the section at issue has been retiled Response since my edit but otherwise remains pretty much unchanged. Do you have other disagreements which we need to discuss? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:55, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Whether or not we think that what happened qualifies as a revision of initial claims, as you have suggested some people might believe, doesn't matter. What matters is what the sources say. None of the secondary sources in the article state so in the article voice; all that I see are some opinion pieces expressing that opinion, and some secondary sources stating that those people hold that opinion (carefully wording that interpretation of events in a way that avoids endorsing it, eg. critics claim.) If you disagree, point me to a quote in a source - other than Stephens, Quillette, and the National Association of Scholars, who are all WP:RSOPINION at best - that states so in the article voice. --Aquillion (talk) 05:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I apologize for doing this so abruptly, but I'm going to have to drop this because of the press of things outside of Misplaced Pages. I need to pay more attention to some current and upcoming demands in real life and I'm going to reduce my WP activity to allow that. Sorry. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:57, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

'Commemorate' wrong word?

I thought at first that commemorate was a bad choice of a word, but the NYT itself used it: "To commemorate this historic moment and its legacy, The New York Times Magazine has dedicated an entire issue and special broadsheet section, out this Sunday, to exploring the history of slavery and mapping the ways in which it has touched nearly every aspect of contemporary life in the United States." Yours, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 14:44, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Myth

Regarding that Politico article: Can we make sure that it is being quoted or paraphrased correctly? Thanks. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 20:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)\:

This followed on this un-revert. I've let it stand, though it is contrary to WP:BED..I think that it does need discussion to establish a consensus, though.

I'm of two minds about the term myth. It grates on me to see it used here, though I tend to think of it the other way when I see it in the Creation myth article. The National myth article says (among other things) , "National myths have been created and propagated by national intellectuals, who have used them as instruments of political mobilization on demographic bases such as ethnicity."; The supporting source cited there seems relevant, and is unrelated to the U.S. Aftr thinking about it, I think my concern here is over national myths (plural, and implying widely collective applicability) vs a (single) national myth, with specific support. The term appears in the first paragraph of the Project section of the article, and the Politico source cited in support there () is about one particular single bit of the national narrative of the U.S. and strikes me as being over-generalized here. That bit is contemporary with the focus of this article but I don't see any specific overlap in the Politico article with the focus of this article or the 1610 project. I'm hoping that more editors will weigh in here and establish a consensus on this. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:40, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

The Politico article explicitly says "The New York Times’ 1619 Project excited tremendous controversy because it challenged established narratives that date the founding of America’s political development and character to 1620 or 1776." A related concept is dominant narrative, I think perhaps both concepts are worth mentioning in this article.--Pharos (talk) 18:24, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I've corrected the indenting above, and it's clear that I somehow missed what you quoted from the Politico article -- my errors both there. As I read them now, I think the article assertion paraphrase of that bit of the Politico article is OK -- my opinion, for what that may be worth. 19:28, 23 August 2021 (UTC)Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill)

Virginia Pilot

Can’t see it in the UK, but “ 1619 Project recenters U.S. history on the African American ... erasure of Native Americans' story, writes Dawn Custalow in a guest column”

Native Americans still overlooked in debates about ..

26 Sept 2020 — Dawn Custalow, an English language learner teacher who lives in Roanoke, is a tribal member of the Mattaponi tribe whose reservation

That’s all I can see. Note it’s in the opinion section. Doug Weller talk 17:56, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

It's very good -- worth reading if you find it archived -- and completely non-notable, either with respect to the author or in secondary references. I did a literature search when I removed it, and if I had found a single good source of notable Native American or scholarly criticism vis a vis indigenous history of 1619 then I would have added it. I have no doubt it exists, since Hannah-Jones mentions it tangentially in some interview, but I couldn't find it published anywhere. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:23, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:51, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Criticism memory-holed because it appeared in socialist publication

As anyone who followed the debate over the 1619 Project is aware, the historical debate began when a series of extremely prominent historians, including two Pulitzer Prize winners (Gordon S. Wood and James M. McPherson, probably best known historians of the American Revolution and Civil War, respectively), gave critical interviews about the project in a socialist publication. This has been extremely widely commented on, as can be seen from this non-exhaustive list of sources:

• Elliot Kaufman in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
• Adam Serwer in The Atlantic
• Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic
• The editor of the American Historical Review
• A letter published by the American Historical Review in response to the editor
• David Waldstreicher in the Boston Review
• Katie Mettler in the Washington Post
• KC Johnson in City Journal

Recently, a few editors have removed all mention of these interviews or the publication where they were given from the "Reaction of historians" section. The reasons they give have been bizarre, including that socialist parties don't get large enough vote shares in the US to matter, as if that were a legitimate reason to delete any reference to interviews given by leading American historians in a socialist publication - interviews that have been heavily discussed in the secondary literature. With the removal of any reference to these interviews, one of the most notable phases in the historical debate (indeed, the events that kicked it off) has been simply memory-holed. I can't help but get the impression that this has been done for political reasons - namely, editors' personal dislike for the socialist publication that Gordon Wood, James McPherson and others were interviewed in. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:15, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The views of these critics have remained in the article, with RS sourcing. The only thing that's been removed is the Trotskyite FP:FRINGE reference. There is no consensus to add that kind of sourcing. SPECIFICO talk 17:23, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: How did you arrive at this article? Did you look through my contribution history and device to come here and revert my contributions? You've done this many times in the past with articles scattered across Misplaced Pages. This is called WP:STALKING, and it is a form on harassment. If you have an actual interested in a subject and just end up on the same page as me, that's one thing, but you repeatedly show up at pages on completely different (sometimes quite obscure) subjects, and immediately revert my contributions.

Here, you don't even appear to have engaged at all with the subject (i.e., you're just here to revert me, as at many other articles in the past), as you are calling interviews with leading American historians "fringe." These are probably some of the least fringe sources cited in this article - I would be much more worried about Op-Ed pieces in the popular press by non-historians than by an interview with a noted historian. The fact that an interview takes place in a socialist source, whose politics you object to, has no bearing on whether it is "fringe." If Gordon Wood or James McPherson give interviews on their areas of expertise, the source is not fringe. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:49, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

@SPECIFICO: You've also engaged in WP:STALKING towards me and it is one of the reasons why I briefly retired from WP. If you keep this up, I won't hesitate to start a discussion on WP:ANI. X-Editor (talk) 22:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

• City Journal is the in-house publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative-leaning think tank. It is absolutely not comparable to the others in quality and should not be weighted equally to them by including things that were only published there, especially not if we can cite the same broad opinion to higher-quality sources. --Aquillion (talk) 05:32, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Magness removal

I removed this because it seems like too much weight for an opinion piece from a magazine. Andre🚐 04:42, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

It's part of the WaPo citation. Read the WaPo article that's in the literal same paragraph. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

That's not how to do a secondary citation. You're putting the words of Quilette in the mouth of Washington Post. Andre🚐 04:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing any consensus for inclusion in the discussion above; it seems like it was quietly slipped back in after it failed to reach consensus the first few times, but Quillette is definitely not a source we can use unattributed and would be WP:UNDUE in general. I also have strenuous objections to the way Quillette was being used to try and slip something into the voice of the Washington Post, which is utterly inappropriate. I see no mention of Magness anywhere in the Washington Post piece; what WP:RS is this connection being cited to? Also, we were again citing multiple opinion pieces for statements of fact, something I'd thought was fixed a while ago. Anything stated in the article voice unattributed needs to be cited to a non-opinion WP:RS - even an opinion piece in the New York Times is still only WP:RSOPINION and can only be cited for the author's attributed opinions. Also also, City Journal is the in-house publication of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research; it's not a reliable source, either. A huge amount has been written on this topic - surely we can find better sources than these for any aspects that are significant. --Aquillion (talk) 05:19, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  (Personal attack removed) You're reverting to "unnamed critics." The WaPo article leaves not one critic unnamed. What is with this complete disregard for the accuracy of the content in your revision?

  How is it slipping something into the voice of WaPo when it's in the voice of Magness (who wrote a book on 1619, is credentialed to talk about this kind of history, is in major think tanks -- regardless of what you think of Quillette, which I agree does not would not otherwise give sufficient inherent reliability as a publication in itself) -- the fact that the same thing Magness writes is also cited in the WaPo article that is subsequently mentioned is just to say that WaPo also thinks he's worth mentioning. Did none of you read the Ellison WaPo piece? How is this putting words in the mouth of WaPo when we have one sentence saying what Magness says in the piece that WaPo cites (this is not the same as a secondary citation, nor is it intended to be), and in the next sentence we note that this is among several critics in a WaPo article talking about the same topic. There are a dozen ways to improve how this is presented, including consolidating into a single secondary citation. I don't see why removing everything and then blatantly mislabeling the WaPo article should be your choice. SamuelRiv (talk) 05:42, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  I went to the page and did a Ctrl+F Magness and I couldn't find any Magness in the article. The text in Wapo reads, "A writer for the Atlantic launched a massive Twitter thread noting all the times when Hannah-Jones had said, in essence, that 1619 was the nation’s true founding. That’s what prompted her social media self-purge, she told The Post, so her tweets could not be “weaponized.” Meanwhile, the libertarian journal Quillette noticed that the Times had removed a phrase from the 1619 Project website describing the date as “our true founding.” But no clarification was issued, leading critics to suggest the Times was trying to wipe clean its history without owning up to its mistakes." So the critics are "unnamed," they weren't named in the piece. Therefore, it would be an appropriate secondary citation to say Wapo referred to Quillette, but not that Wapo referred to Magness, since it didn't. Regardless, this is a trivial mention, and it should be left out entirely. There isn't consensus to include it. Andre🚐 06:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  This is a ridiculous interpretation. Ellison is referring to articles that are easily referenced by the reader, including directly linking to the Twitter thread in question which reveals the "unnamed" Atlantic writer's name. Calling these critics "unnamed" implies to the reader that their identities were hidden or kept anonymous, which is simply disingenuous. Ellison decided for whatever reason that Quillette would be a more relevant reference to the reader than Magness's name, which is a decision we probably all would disagree with. Friedersdorf's only background is as a writer for The Atlantic, so referencing only the latter is probably appropriate. In neither case is the critic "unnamed" except in some hyper-literal reading that, if written here, disinforms the reader.

  There are plenty of criticisms in the WaPo article, and the section (and article) needs a good amount of rewrite and update. Not disinformation. And none of this addresses whether Magness is an RS on his own merits, regardless of what you think of Quillette. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:21, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

  I changed it to "Critics cited by The Washington Post, such as Quillette magazine." Magness would be a partisan opinion. Andre🚐 16:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory

I've added the edit as well as a couple citations to bolster the fact that this is a largely debunked conspiracy theory. Any discussion is welcome. MasteredDegree (talk) 16:56, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Your sources are unreliable and clearly represent an extreme minority position. This article must follow the position of the majority of mainstream sources: this is journalism, not a conspiracy theory. MrOllie (talk) 17:00, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

This seems like more of your opinion and less of a factual statement. MasteredDegree (talk) 06:57, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Conspiracy theory

MasteredDegree keeps inserting the assertion that the subject is a conspiracy theory, referenced to a single opinion piece in City Journal, laundered through bunkhistory.org. This is clearly far short of the sourcing required to even be mentioned in the article at all without attribution to the author as an opinion, and has no business being in the lead at all. Acroterion (talk) 16:59, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I think you're confused. I have multiple citations. MasteredDegree (talk) 17:00, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

No, you have two copies of the same article reposted on different websites. MrOllie (talk) 17:02, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I've warned them about edit-warring. MD, I cask that you read WP:RS and pay attention to distinctions between opinion pieces in polemical sources, and evidence of consensus of broad scholarly and journalistic sources for establishing assertions in Misplaced Pages's voice. Acroterion (talk) 17:03, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

This is the perfect example of why there is a problem with Misplaced Pages.

Slavery?

The article calls the +-20 people slaves, but were they slaves or indentured servants? This pop site (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa9_rgwRiH8) says the latter. Does any-one have a good source one way or tother? 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:7DA3:EC2D:99E8:6A14 (talk) 21:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I was taught both in grade school, in the same class, on the same day. That is to say, indentured servitude is widely regarded as a form of slavery. 142.115.142.4 (talk) 01:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

The fact that it's "controversial" and "widely criticized for inaccuracy" should be in the first sentence.

It's been said before on the talk page that most of this thing's notability is its controversy and criticism. The lede starts with what it is, fine, but without the note that it's widely criticized gives the impression that it is more respectable than it is. This is especially an issue on mobile, since the critical portion of the lede is several finger rolls down and past the infobox.

The first sentence starts: The 1619 Project is a long-form journalism endeavor. I recommend it say The 1619 Project is a controversial and widely criticized long-form journalism endeavor. Or similar, I'm not attached to that exact wording. It should be in the first sentence, though. 142.115.142.4 (talk) 01:26, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

That tilts the article in a nonneutral way. The second paragraph explains the context, and that is plenty early in the article. MrOllie (talk) 01:32, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

In what way is that not neutral? I have several reasons I've made the edit.

1. It's true. Similar heavily sourced wording is in the body.
2. It is a major reason the project has notability in the first place. Maybe the primary reason.
3. Other articles on controversial things usually start that way.

Your feel of "plenty early" and "POV" can't just stand alone. You need reasons. At least, you need to address my reasons. 142.115.142.4 (talk) 02:12, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

And does your edit summary really just say "no"??? 142.115.142.4 (talk) 02:15, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

BTW, the WP:FRINGESUBJECTS section of your link specifically addresses historical revisionism (a phrase explicitly used in the article and by critics) and urges that we pull no punches so as to keep WP:DUEWEIGHT. The fringe or pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how experts in the relevant field have reacted to such views should be prominently included. This helps us to describe differing views fairly. This applies to all types of fringe subject, for instance, forms of historical revisionism that are considered by more reliable sources to either lack evidence or actively ignore evidence. 142.115.142.4 (talk) 03:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Its relevance couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s a major, unprecedented, Pulitzer-winning long-form journalism project with the weight of the US newspaper of record behind it, could it? Clear WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT POV-pushing from the IP. MrOllie is correct. إيان (talk) 03:38, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

WP:AGF. Do you mean to refer to notability? It was infamous first. Then, crazily, it "won" some recognitions. How it's "unprecedented" I don't know... Anyway, that's an address to only one of my three reasons. 142.115.142.4 (talk) 04:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

crazily your bias is showing. MrOllie (talk) 11:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

You should probably address the policy and reasoning of my comments instead. Calling other editors biased like this is considered uncivil. (I am the same editor as IP 142.115.142.4 posted above). 66.207.202.66 (talk) 12:49, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

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