Talk:List of state leaders in 1957

What is the purpose of this page? Will there be one for every year in history? Are you planning on adding more people and countries? RickK 01:42, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

what does incumbents mean?

Office-holders.

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Do we really want an article containing every officholder in every country for every position for every year in history, or are we planning on just having this one page? And why 1957 in particular? RickK 01:44, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This article was just an idea I had and I picked a random date for it. I think they might eventually be quite useful.
I think this sort of information is quite relevant to how we link to year articles. For instance someone reading about the Great Smog of 1952 would quite likely be interested to see who was British PM in that year, more so than what was published that year, for instance.
This is just the sort of obscure, but useful, information that wikipedia will want to gather as it heads for the million article mark, information that would be hard to find anywhere else.
It can usefully illustrate trends, for instance the 1980's cabal of conservatives leaders such as Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl, Mulroney etc., who were all in office at the same time.
Lists like US Senators in 1957 can certainly be regarded to be as important, or even more important, than such things as hit songs or the winner of that year's horse races. - SimonP 02:48, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

Given the experimental nature, perhaps this should be off in your sandbox until it's a bit more fully developed... Daniel Quinlan 07:01, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea in general, but I would just merge the content with the year pages, just like births and deaths are. After all it's not like the yearpages are unmanageable monsters yet, plenty of room there. If they balloon into huge mammoths, then split them. US Senators of 57 should go to their own page, but heads of state of the world into the year-page proper. -- Cimon Avaro

I also think it's a great idea but is simple plain-text a good support? I mean, there were a debate wheter battles should be listed by War, year, location... Looks like a database was be better. --Ann O'nyme 14:13, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think that putting the data in the year articles is a great idea and would make the year articles even better. --Dante Alighieri 08:25, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Above from VfD. Simon - what do you think of the idea of merging this with 1957? Martin 18:53, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Umm, hello? Is there anybody there? I already did it.

I already merged the info in this page to the 1957 yearpage. (I did remove the speculative links, which can be restored if you think them necessary). -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick

Ahh right - I looked at this page, but not at 1957... cheers. Martin

Formatting?

I like this page; its a good prototype. However, we should try to coordinate the formats, as we have different ones for this page, the 2003 page, and the 1816 page (those are the 3 complete (or mostly complete) ones to date). The 2003 page has the entires organized in different geographical groups, which isnt absolutely necessary, but can be helpful especially for earler years with more unfamiliar entries (the German states spread across the 1816 article, for example, should be grouped together). However, that page also has a separate group for non-heads of state, which i think should be incorporated in to the others (the whole reason, I thought, for changing "heads of state" to "incumbents"). This page does that well. The other thing I would suggest is turn the titles into links, where possible. It could be helpful if in the UK entry "Prime Minister" linked to the article for British Prime Ministrers. This would be especially helpful for more confusing entries, like the USSR; many people would want to know what the difference is between the First Secretary and the two chairmen. Links to those titles would help. Theres a separate discussion page at Talk:Incumbents by year. Thats my 2 cents. -R. fiend

I agree with most of your thoughts. I was basically trying to follow the 2003 model, but without the regionalizing or the international organizations. I do agree about the German states - perhaps they should go as subsets of [[Germanic Confederation]] - [[Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor|Franz I of Austria]], President of the Germanic Confederation ([[1815]]-[[1835]]). I agree that links are good - I just wasn't sure which links had articles, or where the articles would be, so I was just trying to finish the whole business. john 04:12, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)