Talk:Strauss–Howe generational theory

Wiki Education assignment: LLIB 1115 - Intro to Information Research

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2022 and 6 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ParrTiff (article contribs).

Deletion Request

This page appears to be entirely aimed at promoting research by Strauss & Howe, presumably to promote both their heavily cited books on this "topic", and their heavily mentioned Lifecourse Associates publishing/speaking/consulting company. This theory does not appear to be sufficiently independently notable outside of work by Strauss & Howe to justify a page. Adsbhiasi331 (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE - A quick google search shows there is coverage of the topic. E.g., [1], [2] EvergreenFir (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Disagree with deletion. However the plain fact that what this article describes is useless pseudoscience written by and for MBA marketeers who haven't seriously thought about history since high school ought to be mentioned in the header instead of being buried down in the criticism section. Andro124 (talk) 02:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I do think the theory is significant enough to exclude it from deletion on that basis. However I think it needs close to a complete rewrite and I question how much of the current text is worth saving. In some ways I think starting from a blank slate would take less work and produce a better result.

For example early in the article the following is stated:

"However, Strauss and Howe later suggested that there are no exact generational boundaries — the speed of their development cannot be predicted. The authors also compared the cycles with the seasons, which may come sooner or later, which turned out to be right. 16"

First, what does this even mean? It is unambiguous what 'which' refers to. Is it that cycles are like seasons, that seasons come sooner or later, that there are no exact generational boundaries?(note a boundary that can occur at variable frequency does not necessarily mean it is not a smooth transition as opposed to a sharp shift)

Second, the citation given refers to an entire book and does not give a page number. This leads the reader to having to accept the statement on it's face or to read the entire book searching for this passage. How is one expect to edit these sorts of passages? It's these sorts of issues (and there are many) that make me question the value of any of the existing text.

I recall this article being less bad years ago. Relative to its length, this is probably the worst wikipedia article I've read and I think that will continue to be the case without some more significant action that trimming around the edges. 66.30.140.148 (talk) 12:48, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Over-capitalization

If this article survives, it need a good case scrubbing. There's no reason to cap a bunch of common nouns just because one author does. I fixed some, but there's a lot more to fix. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Length of the article

I understand that this is an unusually successful student project; the article rivals in length the Wikipedia article about Christianity (and makes about as much sense). But people need to know about Christianity because of all the things it's affected over the years. The dual originators M's Strauss and Howe cannot have had such a significant effect (as the techings of Jesus Nazareth have) since it is less than one generation since the advent of their revelations. Is there a way to choose the optimal length for a Wikipedia article? Createangelos (talk) 23:07, 29 July 2024 (UTC)