Talk:Nineteen Eighty-Four

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Nineteen Eighty-Four article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11: 4 months

Nineteen Eighty-Four was a Language and literature good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 1, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
November 13, 2013	Good article nominee	Not listed
October 8, 2020	Good article nominee	Not listed
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on June 8, 2004, June 8, 2005, June 8, 2006, June 8, 2008, June 8, 2009, June 8, 2011, and June 8, 2015.
Current status: Former good article nominee

Novels: Sci-fi Top‑importance

	Novels portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.NovelsWikipedia:WikiProject NovelsTemplate:WikiProject Novelsnovel
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Science fiction task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Science Fiction Top‑importance

	Speculative fiction portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science Fiction, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science fiction on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Science FictionWikipedia:WikiProject Science FictionTemplate:WikiProject Science Fictionscience fiction
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Freedom of speech Mid‑importance

	Freedom of speech portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Freedom of speech, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Freedom of speech on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Freedom of speechWikipedia:WikiProject Freedom of speechTemplate:WikiProject Freedom of speechFreedom of speech
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Socialism Mid‑importance

	Socialism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Mass surveillance High‑importance

	Nineteen Eighty-Four is within the scope of WikiProject Mass surveillance, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of mass surveillance and mass surveillance-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, or contribute to the discussion.Mass surveillanceWikipedia:WikiProject Mass surveillanceTemplate:WikiProject Mass surveillanceMass surveillance
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

England Top‑importance

	England portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers.

This article contains broken links to one or more target anchors:

[[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)#Response to Big Brother today|Big Brother]] The anchor (#Response to Big Brother today) has been deleted by other users before.

The anchors may have been removed, renamed, or are no longer valid. Please fix them by following the link above, checking the page history of the target pages, or updating the links.

Remove this template after the problem is fixed | Report an error

Themes

I think section "Themes" must go back. Why has it been deleted?

2.138.55.128 (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 16 May 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: withdrawn per SNOW Mast303 (talk) 15:07, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nineteen Eighty-Four → 1984 (book) – Almost always referred to as 1984; very rarely spelled out. Mast303 (talk) 23:36, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: It shouldn’t be named just the numerical version. It was written on the cover. Also, could you provide a source to where you found this information at? 🐝 B33 net 🐝 03:36, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I fully agree with the above. Bduke (talk) 03:55, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - the book is called "Nineteen Eighty-Four". "1984" is an also-known-as, but we would need to see sources and evidence that this is the more popular common name over the original published title. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: As per the original book cover, and my Penguin version. Proposer has not replied to the request for a reliable source to support their claim of "Almost always referred to as 1984; very rarely spelled out" - Arjayay (talk) 09:58, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per the rationale of all above. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 11:51, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

AI-generated text

Hello. Just to let everyone know, this article has unfortunately been riddled with AI-generated text and possibly AI-translated foreign-language text by User:Wh67890, who has since been blocked indefinitely. If anyone would like to revert or search for any of this that would be most welcome. Keeper of Albion (talk) 22:06, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where do you see that User:Wh67790's edits were AI-generated? They may well have been but I can't find a discussion of this. Dan Bloch (talk) 00:36, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See here and here. Inspecting their edit history and user and talk pages makes it clear they were not proficient in English, which their indefinite block notice notes. Large portions of the added text in those edits are clearly AI-generated and possibly AI-translated. I don’t know whether any of it is plagiarised.

Note how the sections "Contemporary Critical Perspectives", "Newspeak and Doublethink" and "Contemporary Reassessments and Philosophical Frameworks" (excessive capitalisation also showing the editor was not familiar with MOS) either waffle without conveying anything meaningful or are obvious and already covered within the article. These fluent paragraphs were not produced unaided by somebody who has been blocked for their lack of proficiency in English.

I deleted "Contemporary Critical Perspectives" in its entirety because I spotted immediately that it was irrelevant AI drivel with an activist Palestine-related photograph and caption. The other sections are still there. Keeper of Albion (talk) 09:52, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I blew it up. It's not fair to expect other editors to have to deal with this. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 10:30, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These two articles also seems to be written by AI, because @Wh67890 made those article. If he was culprit in all those writings and citations mentioned above then probably he is also the reason why these articles exists–as AI written. Looking at his editing history and "talk page" as well as his "user page" it seems he was married to chatGPT, and used it as his companion in all those advocacy. Although I will wait but if no action taken, I would have to delete them with my own hand. [Singular matrix] and Conductivity cell 2409:40E3:2010:C3AF:752F:38CD:3D6E:3CF1 (talk) 10:03, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reversion

@SchroCat, you should not have reverted to your own version without discussion on the talk page. @Eddie891, who boldly blew up the page after a user inserted paragraphs of AI-generated text (which you can read about above), thanked me for my edit reintroducing Oxford spelling. The novel uses Oxford spelling and I see no reason why the article shouldn’t. Others are free to give their opinions. Keeper of Albion (talk) 16:36, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For a start, it's you who should not have reverted. See WP:BRD for guidelines on not just reverting back to your preferred version but using the talk page. Your revert also reverted a lot of other edits: you need to be much more careful with reverting. This article has had a 'Use British English' since at least January 2023, and it's staggeringly poor form to change language variant without at least a discussion first (ArbCom have had multiple hearings in the past about editors changing the language variant or edit warring over it). As I said in my edit summary, it's not possible to have two language tags in place, rather obviously, and a discussion is the better way to get consensus before making such a contentious change. Do you have any sources that state the original printing was in Oxford English, by the way? (It doesn’t make any difference: there’s no requirement, or even any logic, in insisting that the article has to follow the same variant as the original work). - SchroCat (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first-edition text is available entirely free online and at select libraries because the British copyright expired in 2021.

Your new edit was bold and was reverted, but you apparently saw it fit to edit war without going to the talk page.

Here is the last edit ever made to the article before the spelling was changed en masse and an ENGVAR tag was placed on it without discussion here. Oxford spelling predominates in the former, and still had a presence less than twenty days ago. I introduced Oxford spelling and my edit stood for seventeen days without bothering twelve other editors. Articles relating to Tolkien and his works use Oxford spelling as he did, and I see no reason why this article shouldn’t be moved to it. Keeper of Albion (talk) 17:44, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I asked for a source, not for your wp:OR

You made a bold edit in adding the tag (the "B" of BRD); I reverted it (the "R" of BRD); you then reverted (the "E" of edit-warring you indulged in, some distance away from BRD). I'm sorry you can't see the rather obvious series of events here.

I'm delighted you've saved me the job of searching back to find the first application of the tag: June 2011 was fourteen years ago, so there's a good edit consensus that rather trumps your addition of the tag only four days ago. - SchroCat (talk) 18:06, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let’s keep it as it is for now, then. Other editors are welcome to give their opinions.

You should drop the passive-aggressiveness. Keeper of Albion (talk) 18:34, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You should learn not to edit war and then try and blame the other person for it. - SchroCat (talk) 18:44, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not going to involve myself further, but my ‘thanks’ was more of an apology that your edit got caught up in my mass roll back of the AI-slop than an endorsement either way of the content. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 18:22, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing it. I wasn’t sure whether it was worth my reverting others’ edits. Keeper of Albion (talk) 18:26, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care which English variant the article uses, but I do care about following process. SchroCat was right that editors can't just change the EngVar without discussion (per MOS:RETAIN). But now that we're discussing it, I do find the fact that Special:Diff/432298576 unilaterally changed the article from Oxford to non-Oxford (in 2011) a reasonable argument for changing it back now. Dan Bloch (talk) 19:14, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After fourteen years? I would fully support it if it was within a few months, or even up to a year, but after fourteen years, I think the edit consensus is so strong that it would need a new consensus. - SchroCat (talk) 19:55, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. Dan Bloch (talk) 01:00, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Time Frame

Early in the article it says that the time frame in which the novel takes place is unclear; I mean the title of the book is 1984. 2605:6DC0:E000:1BCB:2805:627F:F42A:FBAC (talk) 11:11, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You clearly have not read the book, or even the first sentence of the Plot section of this article. Yue🌙 19:59, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That’s rude 109.144.220.3 (talk) 11:23, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]