Talk:Information Age/Archive 1

Capitalization in the article

Information Age is a proper noun, same as all the other ages listed on Wikipedia, from Jurrasic, Industrial Revolution, and Golden Age. All of which are capitalized in context on Wikipedia. This is very consistant throughout Wikipedia. Since a fellow editor reverted my attempt to start the correction of this within this article, I'm bringing this to the discussion board for futher discussion. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 17:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC) Topic covered in recent Rename discussion below. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 21:01, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Draft edit

greetings all,

Could I suggest minor edits to the opening sentence, making it perhaps less technically definitive but giving a broader, more historical perspective.

The draft edit looks like this:

"Information Age is a term made popular during the 1980's, still sometimes used to describe the present era. The name alludes to the global shift in focus away from production of physical goods, as in the industrial age, and towards manipulation of information." I am abysmally unaware of the formatting procedures but I do have a citation - I believe it is called? - to support the opening statement, at

[1]

This link also contains reference to the first known mention of the term information age, dating back to 1976.

Some nerve, I know, but I do not support having competing notions like digital age and wireless age so high in the article, or that the global shift was entirely economic, given the impact from information age technologies enabling unequalled citizen participation in politics and all other manner of civic endeavour.

Let me know whatchas think.

jason

avaiki (talk) 00:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Add my two cents to the long talk page here of users questioning this page. The section that troubles me the most, though, is at the very end: what is the point of the "Formal Schooling" sub-heading? Michaeloz (talk) 06:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I was just looking at that part my self and wonder the same thing, if no one can come up with a good reason to keep it, I'll try to come back in a week and remove it Otonabee (talk) 01:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Information Age Definition?

The definition for information age at this page is incorrect. The BEginning of the INformation age is very vague. There are many other times it could have started. This article defines the digital/wireless age. The information could have started at any of the following ocassions in history: 1. When Language was developed to effictively communicate information 2. When the Romans build a vast road system throughout europe linking the entire continent. This enabled postal service for faster communication of information across regions which were formerly isolated 3. When the printing press was invented - books were produced on an unimaginable scale, allowing the average commoner access to information on a wide variety of topics previously unknown Kashyap3 17:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it began around the late 1970s or maybe around after the internet was created around 1993

Notwithstanding the definition, the two terms are both in use and they are not really synonymous. In my opinion, the focus of the information age is information processinng (earlier), information management (more recently) and, (thanks to the digital age) information overload. The digital age really refers more to global electronic connectivity. Pur another way, information age is about content and the digital age is about the media.````

---

I find this article very problematic. Despite the many references, the article seems to consist largely of opinion and speculative and/or original research.

Many folks seem to think we're still in the Information Age. AFAIK, "Knowledge Economy" is not widely understood to be an era.

The article is incredibly long and unfocused.

There is a laundry list of points, concepts, and events assembled that attempts to define the topic by perhaps tracing its outline.

The question & answer rhetoric ends up being many little articles of often questionable relevance. Example: "How does ICT transform international politics?"... Neither the question nor the answer clearly help define the Information Age. There is a connection, but it is not extracted from the anecdotes.

But all that is just the tip of the iceberg. It does not resemble an encyclopedia entry. How about this: Stay on topic, respect your audience, and don't fall in love with your own footage. That's as positive and constructive as I can be, but there's really not much to work with here. What's the procedure to build consensus that this article should be replaced entirely? - Metaxis 23:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

From what I've seen people use Information Age/Digital Age to define the period from the late 70s (or early 80s) to the present day, sure information was around for thousands of years, but it doesn't mean the same thing.

In my the ages should be like this: Industrial Age (1700s-1900)>Machine Age(1900-1950)>Space (or Atomic) Age (1950-1980)>Information Age (1980-Present), as it makes the most sense, and is usually how people refer to the ages, each of these ages are named after things that technologically and socially dominate that era (ie Machines existed before 1900, but it wasn't until the early 20th century that they started to be a major factor to the average person)

-WikiAnonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.226.56.215 (talk) 21:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe there to be sources that establish this as a notable topic, but I do not have access to such right now. With that said, I agree this article is OR and POV right now. I've never seen the IA described in this way before. It is our present era, but what defines our current era as such is not yet fully defined. There are still people that refer to the Industrial Age as "Industrial Revolution", even though the revolution portion of that age was only a couple of decades. So, yeah, I agree this article needs to find some core references that better define this topic. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 22:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Better Name

Shouldn't it be called the Digital Age/revolution, it makes more sense, rapid computerization of many things?

No, there are no references to a "Digital Revolution" as an actual period. Use of "revolution" in reference to the Industrial Age is also falling out of favor right now. I've seen Digital Age more commonly, but often as a subset of the more encompassing Information Age term. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 22:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Information Age/ Space Age should be merged and renamed the Technological Revolution

Roughly parallel in its cultural consequences to the Industrial Revolution 200 years earlier, the Technological Revolution has sprung from the accomplishments of the Space Age and The Information Age which were in turn engendered by the military and scientific advancements brought about by WWII and the Korean Conflict. The sheer number of individual, social and political ramifications resulting from these two revolutions qualify as "paradigm shifts" for general humanity (to borrow a term from Kuhn). Being as we are currently in the middle of the Technological Revolution, it is difficult to clearly delineate the correspondences, but the earmarks of this "shift" are unmistakable to the cognizant observer.

Not really. Technological revolution is a driver of either age, but does not fully reflect the meaning of either one.````

I disagree, the Space age and the Information Age are vastly different in their technologies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.94.70 (talk) 16:17, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree. These are not terms that apply to general world periods, but rather encompass specific series of events. The terms where coined because people thought these events would end up being more significant that they actually were. I don't see these terms used much anymore except in particular subjects; usually in tales about the Russian/USA space race. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 22:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge

Sure, sounds like a good idea, Digital Age is Information Age. Note also the existence of Digital Revolution.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Excelent idea. There appears to be some problems however as the current definition of information age relies on it having some relation to the phrase knowledge economy. If you read the knowledge economy then I think too much weight is being given to Peter Drukers book. This book written in 1969 (about five years before the microprocessor) used this phrase first.... maybe? However it is difficult to believe that the information age ended when the knowledge ecomy began, or that this book foresaw the developments of the last 30 years when most would agree the info age/knowledge economy happened/started.Victuallers 12:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The digital age is a lot more certain. Early pioneers being Zuse and Turing's 1930's papers on Turing machines.Victuallers 12:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC) The digital age is not likely to end in the foreseeable future although knowledge is now maybe more important than data. Victuallers 12:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Digital Age sounds better and is more certain in time frame and trends. Information Age is too vague, given that "information" could refer to telegraphs,telephones,the internet etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.89.26 (talk) 23:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Digital Age is a coined term that is a mere subset of what is considered the Information Age. Digital Age is a kin to Space Age in how it is being used. Information Age is the period that follows the Industrial Age and deals with the general change and subsequent new realities of the new paradigm. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 22:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Too many questions?

Is there a reason every other heading must come in the form of a question? --cesarb 22:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This article is too long, also, and goes rather off-topic. Wikipedia is not a place for FAQs. --Gray Porpoise 21:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Predicting

Is it just me, or does this article do more to do with predicting based on assumptions, some of which are rather specious, than actually telling readers about the Information Age? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.147.34.124 (talk) 07:18, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

YES it reads like propaganda for computers. it is full of assertions, assumptions and predictions about what will be, rather than what is. It specifically states in the article that it is a primer in a series. Someone copied it from a textbook or flyer that has an extremely unbalanced view of the subject.

RE: Predicting

Since the Information age isn't yet over, and therefore not completely history, it would be hard to provide facts. Vaanic 09:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up

The article needs a lot of work. Aside from copy-editing (partly for syntax, etc., partly for style), MoS punctuation, capitalisation, etc., the headers as questions needs to be remedied, the referenced overhauled, and some of the quotations substantially shortened (at the moment thay're in danger of breaching copyright restrictions on legitimate quotation). --Mel Etitis (Talk) 20:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this article reads like a school textbook under a propagandizing and totalitarian government. It's like you're reading the big print off of a corporation's website. No "See Also"'s, no external links and no references at the bottom of the page. The whole bottom 3/4's of it tells more about undetermined futures than a definitive present or past. This begs for a rewrite.

And why, exactly, are all the references smudging about the interior of the article anyways? --GeekOfDeath (talk) 05:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This whole article is awful. It's a giant wall of text with large quotes (as noted above). I came to this article after following through reading Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Early Modern Era, etc. and was expecting this article to be somewhat along the same lines. Understandably it would be different because it is about the times that we currently live in, but the treatment of the topic is just horrible. First off, it's way too long and tries to cover too many topics. (maybe given that Computer Age and Internet Age redirect here). Many of the topics covered already have their own pages that this could point to (Main Article: links). I think this page should be important and focus on the revolution in communication abilities of the average citizen due to computer networks and the internet. Anybody can now publish their ideas and creative works essentially for free. One could argue when the Information Age starts, it could at the earliest go as far back as WWII computing, or it could start as late as the debut of the personal computer? However, any important points the article tries to make are simply lost. It's such a mess I'm not sure even where to start though. --Johnm4 (talk) 02:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Notes for expanding History section

Just too busy just at the moment to take on expanding this so I will leave some notes just for now: The present information age may be easier to define by showing that each information age happens in spurts. Driven first by risk money earned from an expanding economy and then driving that economic growth; but born nearly always, by a need to defend sovereign territory. Telegraph took off so quickly because Semaphore showed the economic viability and the promise of profits. Before that, there were periods going way back when rulers set up networks of ' pigeon keepers' to stay in touch with all parts of their empires. Good fast communications were essential to all levels of the ruling classes, even if it was only so, they could be sure of not being home when the lynch mob arrived at their gates (Queen Elizabeth II has still an 'official' Pigeon Keeper). Little is said about King Harold of England setting up an army of horse mounted messengers (the King's emissaries) plus a network of safe places to stable the horses and stay overnight, without this infrastructure put in place the Doomsday book could not have been compiled. This was the start of another spurt and the birth of a sort of civil service. The posting on village boards of official notices and Town_crier's all brought change, so whilst they may have not been called information ages they were very important developments and they brought about change. Mention of them will help to put the 'latest information' age into context. The earliest recorded was perhaps in the rein of Akhenaten. Without a huge and orderly body of scribes and runners and horse mounted messengers he would have not have gotten his troops to where they where needed on time; nor could he have kept home rule in an ever expanding homeland. This went hand in hand with the growth of Egypt into a huge and prosperous empire. One might say that the evidence of this ancient 'information age' is carved in stone... and so on and so on. Maybe in a few month I can get back to this and do some editing with references. Another thought that has just come to me is that: reference could be made to the Kondratiev_wave. For instance: the military need of the 1914-18 war developed radio; the surplus skilled labour of the 1930's made radio affordable to most people. The modern computer, then internet development, was military driven, it then drove the economy etc., etc., etc. These things are all interlinked. This article could also be used to compliment the Communication article.--Aspro 08:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

This article took a substantial turn for the worse on June 27, 2006

The period we are currently in is generally considered to be the information age. This fact was reflected in this article from its creation on September 12, 2002 through June 27, 2006. From the June 26, 2006 version:

"Information Age is a name given to a period after the industrial age. Information Age is a term applied to the period where movement of information became faster than physical movement, more narrowly applying to the 1980s onward. One could argue, though, that it actually began during the latter half of the 19th Century with the invention of the telephone and Telegraphy. It is often used in conjunction with the term post-industrial society."

The industrial age lasted for a century or two. It represented a very major change in the means of production from the periods before it. During the industrial age there were many significant inventions that changed society, like the electric light bulb and the automobile, but they did not cause the economy to enter a new economic age. It remained the industrial age because industrialization still drove the means of production. The term "information age" is used to suggest that a very substantial shift has occurred in the means of production. Now much production takes the form of manipulating information, rather than physical goods. This new type of production relies heavily on knowledge workers.

On June 27, 2006, the introduction to this article was completely rewritten, and changed for the worse. The current authors seem to have no sense of history. There was no economic or technological change in 1992 or 2002 that can compare to many of the changes that occurred during the industrial age. And sorry, the rise of Google is not more significant than the rise of Edison General Electric Company or Ford Motor.

It is important to understand that "industrial age" and "information age" refer to the means of production during certain time periods. The fact that the current authors have divided recent decades into multiple "ages" strongly suggests that they suffer from recency bias. --JHP 12:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I see some references to the term "Digital Age" on this comment page. "Digital Age" and "Information Age" are not synonyms. "Information age" refers to the means of production. "Digital age" refers to the fact that consumers now own lots of digital gadgets. These two "ages" overlap, but they refer to different things. The information age is directly comparable to the industrial age, because it deals with the structure of the economy. It deals with more and more workers manipulating information as their primary job. It goes beyond just computer technology to any type of information. Cable news or financial analysis, for example. This information work (knowledge work) requires more workers to have a college education.

The term "Digital Age" is more comparable to terms like "Nuclear Age" and "Space Age". It deals with a time period when something is prominent in society, but it does not deal with the basic structure of the economy. Different ages can overlap. An archaeologist may see the world as having certain ages. A geologist may see different ones. An historian may yet see even different ages. None of them are wrong, they are just viewing time periods from different perspectives. The difference between the information age and the digital age is similar. --JHP 13:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

JHP, I agree with you for the most part, and would favor a move back in the original direction. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 22:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Terrible Article

What a train wreck of an article... I read Wikipedia damn near all day long and this is by far the most horrendous article I've ever seen. I would try to fix but I wouldn't even know where to start. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.13.85.115 (talk) 20:23, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a terrible article. Totally unprofessional and very un-wiki. It pretty much needs to be deleted entirely. Someone else do it before I have to.

I agree. I rarely support deleting an article, but this one should probably be deleted or reverted to an early version. I'm talking about a revert that goes back years, not days. --JHP 03:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The Intangible Economy did not start in 2002. My book in French (l'utile et le futile - l'économie de l'immatériel) was published in 1994 and I have published a number of papers in English in such publications as the Economist, International Statistical review and Worldlink (Davos publication) between 1996 and 1996). Take a look at the relevant section of my web site (http://www.gefma.com/Intangible.htm), which provides sources, definition and analysis. Intangible economy is not a Technocapitalism and deserves its own entry

Charles GoldfingerCGoldfinger 13:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)e

Fixed?

I simplified this article to its bare minimum, I sugest any people willing to edit this article look at the other articles of technological ages —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.94.70 (talk) 16:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems a bot and then another user undid your changes. The cut seems draconian but the article is so bad I support your actions. I suggest making a username so the edits don't look like vandalism. As an aside, "ICT" isn't a term/acronym in common usage at least in the US. --Johnm4 (talk) 21:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Also make sure you create a useful summary for such a major edit or else it looks like vandalism --Johnm4 (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the reason that I reverted you, certainly and I think the bot was the same. Large amounts a page being removed by an unregged user with no edit summary given just looks like vandalism. Even if you don't wish to register, if you make a similar cut of text in the page, please give an edit summary along the lines of "Removing text to cut down article as per discussion on talk page" as then you won't get reverted as a vandal. Regards Astral (talk) 21:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

In an effort to start things off a bit, I went through and removed all of the (very long) "Box Quotes". The quotes were not tied into the text and did not fit in with Wikipedia's style. I also removed a small amount of text that was a list of predictions. I didn't touch the text yet which I still believe can use major culling, but at least this gets some of the clutter out of the way if somebody wanted to edit the text or wipe it out and replace with something else. --Johnm4 (talk) 04:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's consider reverting the article back about a year to start. To "01:00, 25 November 2006 Piotrus". Most of the bulk of the article was added by one user "Sjjupadhyay" during December 2006 and Jan 2007. Without these additions the article would be in a good position to be expanded again. I'll wait a few days to see if somebody has a better suggestion. --Johnm4 (talk) 05:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Same IP at the top: I tried to rewrite the topic again, and added an edit summary, but a bot reverted it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.150.94.70 (talk) 20:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a decent place to start this article over. Most of the stuff you cut out was originally pasted into the article from the Wikibook Information Age which is linked towards the bottom of the article. Hopefully it won't get reverted again. (edit: oops forgot to sign) --Johnm4 (talk) 02:26, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

World Wide Web?

The creation of the World Wide Web can be described as 1989, 1990 or 1991, depending on whether you mean the invention of the idea, the actual programming of hypertext, or putting the Web online. Either date is fine, but when one part of the article describes the Web's origin as 1989 and another as "1990-1991," something is wrong. I've changed the reference to 1989, so it now says 1991.

I also decided to clean up the introduction to this page because all the questions and personal opinions did not read like a Wikipedia article at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.39.5 (talk) 20:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You're right, the articles on World Wide Web and Tim Berners-Lee both give 1989 as the date. I'm not sure why those questions and personal opinions showed up again but I took them out again. Most of this talk page is about the article in its former form which was a copy/paste job from a WikiBook about Information Age. The most recent discussion of the page is at the bottom "Fixed?". Maybe this talk page should be archived so that the outdated discussions don't get in the way of improving the article in its current form. --Johnm4 (talk) 03:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

1946 to 1969

There is nothing listed between 1946 and 1969. There probably should be several things that could be listed there. Bubba73 (talk), 18:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

New picture

I've changed the current picture used in this article to the one used on the Internet page. Please revert if neccessary. YeshuaDavid (talk) 16:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I've also heavily rewritten and clarrified the intro. The rest of the article still needs heavy work. YeshuaDavid (talk) 17:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge of forks

Grumble. Digital revolution redirects here; so should Digital Revolution. Or, at least, they should redirect to the same place. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Starting Date

The period is generally said to have begun within 10 years of 1990.

This is a completely misleading date. A more appropriate date would be in the 40's and 50's with the work of Turing, Shannon, and Hamming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.194.41.3 (talk) 16:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

My view: Stone Age, Metal Ages, Paper Age & Yes, from Shannon: Digital Age - SZERVÁC Attila --- founder of Avist movement — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.131.23.31 (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Innovations of the Information Age

There is a mention of "3D TV", with no date, a relatively new and not mainstream technology, yet no mention of arguably more important technologies like VoIP? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.78.20.203 (talk) 11:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Rewriting the article - the impact of information technology in the 21st century.

I have started by including sections on the impact of the information age on the workforce and the impact of the information age on language and culture. 69.19.14.34 Gahuntly (talk) 16:38, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, This section is starting to sound like an essay. I'll try to rework it more along the lines of a Wikipedia article. it in place.Gahuntly (talk) 13:32, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

{{Requested move/dated|Information age}}

Information Age → Information age — Normalize case; the sources don't suggest that it's a proper name.--Dicklyon (talk) 03:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Information age vs. Digital revolution

I believe the Information Age is referring to most of the post WWII world in which higher education became more available and knowledge becomes more valuable than manufacturing skills. Then, the Digital Revolution is just one part of the Information Age as a whole (an "age" lasts hundreds of years and we have been in Info Age for a while). It is a very distinct part of the last 100 years and deserves a full length article, with an intro in the Information Age page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.246.237.254 (talk) 23:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support per nom.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Industrial Age, Machine Age, Atomic Age, and Space Age are all proper nouns; Information Age is no different. Powers ^T 13:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

We can fix those, too, per WP:CAPS. In all cases [2], the lower-case form is more common in books. Dicklyon (talk) 17:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I can't argue with the evidence, though the logic is baffling given the parallels with terms like Bronze Age, which are clearly proper nouns. Powers ^T 19:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Trying to impose logic on reality doesn't always work. I think that Bronze Age and such were "named" a long time back, and the names were accepted, so they appear capitalized in print more than 90% of the time. Information age, on the other hand, is very mixed, mostly only capitalized when in titles, but sometimes capitalized by people who like to reify concepts that care a lot about (that happens too much with WP editors, which is why I push back). These neo-phrases haven't really been accepted as proper. How's that for logic? Dicklyon (talk) 00:15, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

A valiant effort? Powers ^T 13:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

So are you withdrawing your opposition? In any case, I'm converting to a multi-move request, below, so you'll have a chance to weigh in again. Dicklyon (talk) 06:37, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Deactivated so as to allow the request below to become active.--Kotniski (talk) 08:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Major sections missing

There are no "criticism" or "future" sections, i.e. no predictions on when the so-called information age might end, negative impacts on society, or indeed, any substantive discussion of impacts other than a list of technologies. These might be suggestions for future editors to focus their energies on. If Andrew Keen is to be believed - and I do - the future is not universally rosy.68.144.172.8 (talk) 04:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Requested multiple move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. There is a slight consensus for this to stay in it's current location. Dpmuk (talk) 13:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Information Age → Information age — Sources (Google n-gram viewer) shows that the majority of uses of these terms in books are lower case. There is no evidence that they should be considered proper names. See section above. This converts that move request to a multi-move request, based on the discussion and evidence there. There are some complications, like Industrial age being a redirect to Industrialisation, that we'll have to sort out. Relisting. Was not showing at WP:RM for a long time and it looks like this needs more discussion. Dpmuk (talk) 11:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC) Dicklyon (talk) 06:36, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

• Industrial Age → Industrial age
• Machine Age → Machine age
• Atomic Age → Atomic age
• Space Age → Space age

I think I'm still opposed. For aesthetic reasons and for consistency with previous ages of mankind, I think we ought to go against the source evidence mentioned in the above section and treat these as proper nouns. There is no harm done to the basic principles of WP:TITLE (recognizability, consistency, precision, naturalness, and conciseness), so I think this is a valid application of WP:IAR. Powers ^T 14:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment – there is a huge tendency for people to want to capitalize, or make proper, things that they think are important. The guidelines ask us not to do that, because it obscures the difference between proper names and other important things. I don't see any reason to ignore these rules at this time. Given what the rules are, let's just go with them. Dicklyon (talk) 06:02, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose all. I think the Ngram results are misleading, as many Google Books results use (Library of Congress?) capitalization – for example Class Politics in the Information Age became Class politics in the information age. MOS on article titles says titles should be capitalized when used that way in a sentence, and so I don't think nom has established otherwise. In addition, Machine age and Information age are actually ambiguous. (Machine Age and Information Age naturally indicate that we're providing encyclopedic coverage of the Information Age and the Machine Age – not of information or machines as they become older. Atomic age sounds like it could be related to Radiometric dating. Etc.) --Pnm (talk) 11:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Proper names in titles are not downcased when the titles are used in text; so are you saying that most of the majority of uses of these terms in lower case are simply errors? It sounds like you haven't actually looked at sources, and are just making up ways that the statistics might be biased; there's no doubt that the statistics I quoted are simplistic and incomplete, but supplement them with more info, not guesswork, please. Dicklyon (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The bot didn't list this discussion at Wikipedia:Requested_moves like it said above that it would, probably because it had already listed the single-move discussion above. So we're not getting much attention here. May need to start over? Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I've deactivated the template in the previous discussion - let's see if the bot gets it now.--Kotniski (talk) 08:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's listed now; thanks. Let's see if we get some input now. Dicklyon (talk) 04:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Just to confirm that the bot can only cope with one listing per page (which makes sense as what would happen if the two discussion reached different conclusions). Anyway, relisted this as it wasn't listed for so long. Dpmuk (talk) 11:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

• Mild oppose: These terms seem to be used as proper nouns with some regularity. –CWenger (talk) 19:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

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.

Internet

"the Internet cannot be totally destroyed in one event"

Come one guys. You underestimate events. How about Earth impacting with another planet? 80.247.179.118 (talk) 11:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)