text:
Oil platform

An oil platform (also called an oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, etc.) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform linked by bridge to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include one or more subsea wells or manifold centres for multiple wells.

Offshore drilling presents environmental challenges, both from the produced hydrocarbons and the materials used during the drilling operation. Controversies include the ongoing US offshore drilling debate.

There are many different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place. These include bottom-founded drilling rigs (jackup barges and swamp barges), combined drilling and production facilities, either bottom-founded or floating platforms, and deepwater mobile offshore drilling units (MODU), including semi-submersibles and drillships. These are capable of operating in water depths up to 3000 m. In shallower waters, the mobile units are anchored to the seabed. However, in deeper water (more than 1500 m), the semisubmersibles or drillships are maintained at the required drilling location using dynamic positioning.

History
Around 1891, the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on piles in the fresh waters of the Grand Lake St. Marys (a.k.a. Mercer County Reservoir) in Ohio. The wide but shallow reservoir was built from 1837 to 1845 to provide water to the Miami and Erie Canal.

Around 1896, the first submerged oil wells in salt water were drilled in the portion of the Summerland field extending under the Santa Barbara Channel in California. The wells were drilled from piers extending from land out into the channel.

Other notable early submerged drilling activities occurred on the Canadian side of Lake Erie since 1913 and Caddo Lake in Louisiana in the 1910s. Shortly thereafter, wells were drilled in tidal zones along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. The Goose Creek field near Baytown, Texas, is one such example. In the 1920s, drilling was done from concrete platforms in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.

The oldest offshore well recorded in Infield's offshore database is the Bibi Eibat well which came on stream in 1923 in Azerbaijan. Landfill was used to raise shallow portions of the Caspian Sea.

In the early 1930s, the Texas Company developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling in the brackish coastal areas of the gulf.

In 1937, Pure Oil Company (now Chevron Corporation) and its partner Superior Oil Company (now part of ExxonMobil Corporation) used a fixed platform to develop a field in 14 ft of water, one mile (1.6 km) offshore of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.

In 1938, Humble Oil built a mile-long wooden trestle with railway tracks into the sea at McFadden Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, placing a derrick at its end – this was later destroyed by a hurricane.

In 1945, concern for American control of its offshore oil reserves caused President Harry Truman to issue an Executive Order unilaterally extending American territory to the edge of its continental shelf, an act that effectively ended the 3-mile limit "freedom of the seas" regime.

In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum (now ExxonMobil) drilled at a site 18 mi off the coast, erecting a platform in 18 ft of water off St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

In early 1947, Superior Oil erected a drilling/production platform in 20 ft of water some 18 miles off Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. But it was Kerr-McGee Oil Industries (now part of Occidental Petroleum), as operator for partners Phillips Petroleum (ConocoPhillips) and Stanolind Oil & Gas (BP), that completed its historic Ship Shoal Block 32 well in October 1947, months before Superior actually drilled a discovery from their Vermilion platform farther offshore. In any case, that made Kerr-McGee's well the first oil discovery drilled out of sight of land.

The British Maunsell Forts constructed during World War II are considered the direct predecessors of modern offshore platforms. Having been pre-constructed in a very short time, they were then floated to their location and placed on the shallow bottom of the Thames and the Mersey estuary.

In 1954, the first jackup oil rig was ordered by Zapata Oil. It was designed by R. G. LeTourneau and featured three electro-mechanically operated lattice-type legs. Built on the shores of the Mississippi River by the LeTourneau Company, it was launched in December 1955, and christened "Scorpion". The Scorpion was put into operation in May 1956 off Port Aransas, Texas. It was lost in 1969.

When offshore drilling moved into deeper waters of up to 30 m, fixed platform rigs were built, until demands for drilling equipment was needed in the 30 m to 120 m depth of the Gulf of Mexico, the first jack-up rigs began appearing from specialized offshore drilling contractors such as forerunners of ENSCO International.

The first semi-submersible resulted from an unexpected observation in 1961. Blue Water Drilling Company owned and operated the four-column submersible Blue Water Rig No.1 in the Gulf of Mexico for Shell Oil Company. As the pontoons were not sufficiently buoyant to support the weight of the rig and its consumables, it was towed between locations at a draught midway between the top of the pontoons and the underside of the deck. It was noticed that the motions at this draught were very small, and Blue Water Drilling and Shell jointly decided to try operating the rig in its floating mode. The concept of an anchored, stable floating deep-sea platform had been designed and tested back in the 1920s by Edward Robert Armstrong for the purpose of operating aircraft with an invention known as the "seadrome". The first purpose-built drilling semi-submersible Ocean Driller was launched in 1963. Since then, many semi-submersibles have been purpose-designed for the drilling industry mobile offshore fleet.

The first offshore drillship was the CUSS 1 developed for the Mohole project to drill into the Earth's crust.

As of June, 2010, there were over 620 mobile offshore drilling rigs (Jackups, semisubs, drillships, barges) available for service in the competitive rig fleet.

One of the world's deepest hubs is currently the Perdido in the Gulf of Mexico, floating in 2,438 meters of water. It is operated by Shell plc and was built at a cost of $3 billion. The deepest operational platform is the Petrobras America Cascade FPSO in the Walker Ridge 249 field in 2,600 meters of water.

Main offshore basins
Notable offshore basins include:
 * the North Sea
 * the Gulf of Mexico (offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida)
 * California (in the Los Angeles Basin and Santa Barbara Channel, part of the Ventura Basin)
 * the Caspian Sea (notably some major fields offshore Azerbaijan)
 * the Campos and Santos Basins off the coasts of Brazil
 * Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (Atlantic Canada)
 * several fields off West Africa, south of Nigeria, and central Africa, west of Angola
 * offshore fields in South East Asia and Sakhalin, Russia
 * major offshore oil fields are located in the Persian Gulf such as Safaniya, Manifa and Marjan which belong to Saudi Arabia and are developed by Saudi Aramco.
 * fields in India (Mumbai High, K G Basin-East Coast Of India, Tapti Field, Gujarat, India)
 * the Baltic Sea oil and gas fields
 * the Taranaki Basin in New Zealand
 * the Kara Sea north of Siberia
 * the Arctic Ocean off the coasts of Alaska and Canada's Northwest Territories
 * the offshore fields in the Adriatic Sea

Types
Larger lake- and sea-based offshore platforms and drilling rig for oil.
 * 1) & 2) Conventional fixed platforms (deepest: Shell's Bullwinkle in 1991 at 412 m/1,353 ft GOM)
 * 3) Compliant tower (deepest: ChevronTexaco's Petronius in 1998 at 534 m /1,754 ft GOM)
 * 4) & 5) Vertically moored tension leg and mini-tension leg platform (deepest: ConocoPhillips's Magnolia in 2004 1,425 m/4,674 ft GOM)
 * 6) Spar (deepest: Shell's Perdido in 2010, 2,450 m/8,000 ft GOM)
 * 7) & 8) Semi-submersibles (deepest: Shell's NaKika in 2003, 1920 m/6,300 ft GOM)
 * 9) Floating production, storage, and offloading facility (deepest: 2005, 1,345 m/4,429 ft Brazil)
 * 10) Sub-sea completion and tie-back to host facility (deepest: Shell's Coulomb tie to NaKika 2004, 2,307 m/ 7,570 ft)

 * (Numbered from left to right; all records from 2005 data)

Fixed platforms

These platforms are built on concrete or steel legs, or both, anchored directly onto the seabed, supporting the deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew quarters. Such platforms are, by virtue of their immobility, designed for very long term use (for instance the Hibernia platform). Various types of structure are used: steel jacket, concrete caisson, floating steel, and even floating concrete. Steel jackets are structural sections made of tubular steel members, and are usually piled into the seabed. To see more details regarding Design, construction and installation of such platforms refer to: and.

Concrete caisson structures, pioneered by the Condeep concept, often have in-built oil storage in tanks below the sea surface and these tanks were often used as a flotation capability, allowing them to be built close to shore (Norwegian fjords and Scottish firths are popular because they are sheltered and deep enough) and then floated to their final position where they are sunk to the seabed. Fixed platforms are economically feasible for installation in water depths up to about 520 m.

Compliant towers
These platforms consist of slender, flexible towers and a pile foundation supporting a conventional deck for drilling and production operations. Compliant towers are designed to sustain significant lateral deflections and forces, and are typically used in water depths ranging from 370 to 910 m.

Semi-submersible platform
These platforms have hulls (columns and pontoons) of sufficient buoyancy to cause the structure to float, but of weight sufficient to keep the structure upright. Semi-submersible platforms can be moved from place to place and can be ballasted up or down by altering the amount of flooding in buoyancy tanks. They are generally anchored by combinations of chain, wire rope or polyester rope, or both, during drilling and/or production operations, though they can also be kept in place by the use of dynamic positioning. Semi-submersibles can be used in water depths from 60 to 6000 m.

Jack-up drilling rigs
Jack-up Mobile Drilling Units (or jack-ups), as the name suggests, are rigs that can be jacked up above the sea using legs that can be lowered, much like jacks. These MODUs (Mobile Offshore Drilling Units) are typically used in water depths up to 120 m, although some designs can go to 170 m depth. They are designed to move from place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying their legs to the ocean bottom using a rack and pinion gear system on each leg.

Drillships
A drillship is a maritime vessel that has been fitted with drilling apparatus. It is most often used for exploratory drilling of new oil or gas wells in deep water but can also be used for scientific drilling. Early versions were built on a modified tanker hull, but purpose-built designs are used today. Most drillships are outfitted with a dynamic positioning system to maintain position over the well. They can drill in water depths up to 3700 m.

Floating production systems
The main types of floating production systems are FPSO (floating production, storage, and offloading system). FPSOs consist of large monohull structures, generally (but not always) shipshaped, equipped with processing facilities. These platforms are moored to a location for extended periods, and do not actually drill for oil or gas. Some variants of these applications, called FSO (floating storage and offloading system) or FSU (floating storage unit), are used exclusively for storage purposes, and host very little process equipment. This is one of the best sources for having floating production.

The world's first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility is in production. See the section on particularly large examples below.

Tension-leg platform
TLPs are floating platforms tethered to the seabed in a manner that eliminates most vertical movement of the structure. TLPs are used in water depths up to about 2,000 m. The "conventional" TLP is a 4-column design that looks similar to a semisubmersible. Proprietary versions include the Seastar and MOSES mini TLPs; they are relatively low cost, used in water depths between 180 and 1300 m. Mini TLPs can also be used as utility, satellite or early production platforms for larger deepwater discoveries.

Gravity-based structure
A GBS can either be steel or concrete and is usually anchored directly onto the seabed. Steel GBS are predominantly used when there is no or limited availability of crane barges to install a conventional fixed offshore platform, for example in the Caspian Sea. There are several steel GBS's in the world today (e.g. offshore Turkmenistan Waters (Caspian Sea) and offshore New Zealand). Steel GBS do not usually provide hydrocarbon storage capability. It is mainly installed by pulling it off the yard, by either wet-tow or/and dry-tow, and self-installing by controlled ballasting of the compartments with sea water. To position the GBS during installation, the GBS may be connected to either a transportation barge or any other barge (provided it is large enough to support the GBS) using strand jacks. The jacks shall be released gradually whilst the GBS is ballasted to ensure that the GBS does not sway too much from target location.

Spar platforms
Spars are moored to the seabed like TLPs, but whereas a TLP has vertical tension tethers, a spar has more conventional mooring lines. Spars have to-date been designed in three configurations: the "conventional" one-piece cylindrical hull; the "truss spar", in which the midsection is composed of truss elements connecting the upper buoyant hull (called a hard tank) with the bottom soft tank containing permanent ballast; and the "cell spar", which is built from multiple vertical cylinders. The spar has more inherent stability than a TLP since it has a large counterweight at the bottom and does not depend on the mooring to hold it upright. It also has the ability, by adjusting the mooring line tensions (using chain-jacks attached to the mooring lines), to move horizontally and to position itself over wells at some distance from the main platform location. The first production spar was Kerr-McGee's Neptune, anchored in 590 m in the Gulf of Mexico; however, spars (such as Brent Spar) were previously used as FSOs.

Eni's Devil's Tower located in 1710 m of water in the Gulf of Mexico, was the world's deepest spar until 2010. The world's deepest platform as of 2011 was the Perdido spar in the Gulf of Mexico, floating in 2,438 metres of water. It is operated by Royal Dutch Shell and was built at a cost of $3 billion.

The first truss spars were Kerr-McGee's Boomvang and Nansen. The first (and, as of 2010, only) cell spar is Kerr-McGee's Red Hawk.

Normally unmanned installations (NUI)
These installations, sometimes called toadstools, are small platforms, consisting of little more than a well bay, helipad and emergency shelter. They are designed to be operated remotely under normal conditions, only to be visited occasionally for routine maintenance or well work.

Conductor support systems
These installations, also known as satellite platforms, are small unmanned platforms consisting of little more than a well bay and a small process plant. They are designed to operate in conjunction with a static production platform which is connected to the platform by flow lines or by umbilical cable, or both.

Particularly large examples

The Petronius Platform is a compliant tower in the Gulf of Mexico modeled after the Hess Baldpate platform, which stands 2100 ft above the ocean floor. It is one of the world's tallest structures.

The Hibernia platform in Canada is the world's heaviest offshore platform, located on the Jeanne D'Arc Basin, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland. This gravity base structure (GBS), which sits on the ocean floor, is 111 m high and has storage capacity for 1.3 Moilbbl of crude oil in its 85 m high caisson. The platform acts as a small concrete island with serrated outer edges designed to withstand the impact of an iceberg. The GBS contains production storage tanks and the remainder of the void space is filled with ballast with the entire structure weighing in at 1.2 million tons.

Royal Dutch Shell has developed the first Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility, which is situated approximately 200 km off the coast of Western Australia. It is the largest floating offshore facility. It is approximately 488m long and 74m wide with displacement of around 600,000t when fully ballasted.

Maintenance and supply
A typical oil production platform is self-sufficient in energy and water needs, housing electrical generation, water desalinators and all of the equipment necessary to process oil and gas such that it can be either delivered directly onshore by pipeline or to a floating platform or tanker loading facility, or both. Elements in the oil/gas production process include wellhead, production manifold, production separator, glycol process to dry gas, gas compressors, water injection pumps, oil/gas export metering and main oil line pumps.

Larger platforms are assisted by smaller ESVs (emergency support vessels) like the British Iolair that are summoned when something has gone wrong, e.g. when a search and rescue operation is required. During normal operations, PSVs (platform supply vessels) keep the platforms provisioned and supplied, and AHTS vessels can also supply them, as well as tow them to location and serve as standby rescue and firefighting vessels.

Essential personnel
Not all of the following personnel are present on every platform. On smaller platforms, one worker can perform a number of different jobs. The following also are not names officially recognized in the industry:

 * OIM (offshore installation manager) who is the ultimate authority during his/her shift and makes the essential decisions regarding the operation of the platform;
 * operations team leader (OTL);
 * Offshore Methods Engineer (OME) who defines the installation methodology of the platform;
 * Offshore Operations Engineer (OOE) who is the senior technical authority on the platform;
 * PSTL or operations coordinator for managing crew changes;
 * Dynamic positioning operator, navigation, ship or vessel maneuvering (MODU), station keeping, fire and gas systems operations in the event of incident;
 * Automation systems specialist, to configure, maintain and troubleshoot the process control systems (PCS), process safety systems, emergency support systems and vessel management systems;
 * Second mate to meet manning requirements of flag state, operates fast rescue craft, cargo operations, fire team leader;
 * Third mate to meet manning requirements of flag state, operate fast rescue craft, cargo operations, fire team leader;
 * Ballast control operator to operate fire and gas systems;
 * Crane operators to operate the cranes for lifting cargo around the platform and between boats;
 * scaffolders to rig up scaffolding for when it is required for workers to work at height;
 * Coxswains to maintain the lifeboats and manning them if necessary;
 * Control room operators, especially FPSO or production platforms;
 * Catering crew, including people tasked with performing essential functions such as cooking, laundry and cleaning the accommodation;
 * Production techs to run the production plant;
 * Helicopter pilot(s) living on some platforms that have a helicopter based offshore and transporting workers to other platforms or to shore on crew changes;
 * Maintenance technicians (instrument, electrical or mechanical).
 * Fully qualified medic.
 * Radio operator to operate all radio communications.
 * Store Keeper, keeping the inventory well supplied
 * Technician to record the fluid levels in tanks

Incidental personnel
Drill crew will be on board if the installation is performing drilling operations. A drill crew will normally comprise: Well services crew will be on board for well work. The crew will normally comprise:
 * Toolpusher
 * Driller
 * Roughnecks
 * Roustabouts
 * Company man
 * Mud engineer
 * Motorman See: Glossary of oilfield jargon
 * Derrickhand
 * Geologist
 * Welders and Welder Helpers
 * Well services supervisor
 * Wireline or coiled tubing operators
 * Pump operator
 * Pump hanger and ranger

Risks
The nature of their operation—extraction of volatile substances sometimes under extreme pressure in a hostile environment—means risk; accidents and tragedies occur regularly. The U.S. Minerals Management Service reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2010. On July 6, 1988, 167 people died when Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha offshore production platform, on the Piper field in the UK sector of the North Sea, exploded after a gas leak. The resulting investigation conducted by Lord Cullen and publicized in the first Cullen Report was highly critical of a number of areas, including, but not limited to, management within the company, the design of the structure, and the Permit to Work System. The report was commissioned in 1988, and was delivered in November 1990. The accident greatly accelerated the practice of providing living accommodations on separate platforms, away from those used for extraction.

The offshore can be in itself a hazardous environment. In March 1980, the 'flotel' (floating hotel) platform Alexander L. Kielland capsized in a storm in the North Sea with the loss of 123 lives.

In 2001, Petrobras 36 in Brazil exploded and sank five days later, killing 11 people.

Given the number of grievances and conspiracy theories that involve the oil business, and the importance of gas/oil platforms to the economy, platforms in the United States are believed to be potential terrorist targets. Agencies and military units responsible for maritime counter-terrorism in the US (Coast Guard, Navy SEALs, Marine Recon) often train for platform raids.

On April 21, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon platform, 52 miles off-shore of Venice, Louisiana, (property of Transocean and leased to BP) exploded, killing 11 people, and sank two days later. The resulting undersea gusher, conservatively estimated to exceed 20 e6USgal as of early June 2010, became the worst oil spill in US history, eclipsing the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Ecological effects
In British waters, the cost of removing all platform rig structures entirely was estimated in 2013 at £30 billion.

Aquatic organisms invariably attach themselves to the undersea portions of oil platforms, turning them into artificial reefs. In the Gulf of Mexico and offshore California, the waters around oil platforms are popular destinations for sports and commercial fishermen, because of the greater numbers of fish near the platforms. The United States and Brunei have active Rigs-to-Reefs programs, in which former oil platforms are left in the sea, either in place or towed to new locations, as permanent artificial reefs. In the US Gulf of Mexico, as of September 2012, 420 former oil platforms, about 10 percent of decommissioned platforms, have been converted to permanent reefs.

On the US Pacific coast, marine biologist Milton Love has proposed that oil platforms off California be retained as artificial reefs, instead of being dismantled (at great cost), because he has found them to be havens for many of the species of fish which are otherwise declining in the region, in the course of 11 years of research. Love is funded mainly by government agencies, but also in small part by the California Artificial Reef Enhancement Program. Divers have been used to assess the fish populations surrounding the platforms.

Effects on the environment
Offshore oil production involves environmental risks, most notably oil spills from oil tankers or pipelines transporting oil from the platform to onshore facilities, and from leaks and accidents on the platform. Produced water is also generated, which is water brought to the surface along with the oil and gas; it is usually highly saline and may include dissolved or unseparated hydrocarbons.

Offshore rigs are shut down during hurricanes. In the Gulf of Mexico hurricanes are increasing because of the increasing number of oil platforms that heat surrounding air with methane, it is estimated that U.S. Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas facilities emit approximately 500000 tons of methane each year, corresponding to a loss of produced gas of 2.9 percent. The increasing number of oil rigs also increase movement of oil tankers which also increases levels which directly warm water in the zone, warm waters are a key factor for hurricanes to form.

To reduce the amount of carbon emissions otherwise released into the atmosphere, methane pyrolysis of natural gas pumped up by oil platforms is a possible alternative to flaring for consideration. Methane pyrolysis produces non-polluting hydrogen in high volume from this natural gas at low cost. This process operates at around 1000 °C and removes carbon in a solid form from the methane, producing hydrogen. The carbon can then be pumped underground and is not released into the atmosphere. It is being evaluated in such research laboratories as Karlsruhe Liquid-metal Laboratory (KALLA). and the chemical engineering team at University of California – Santa Barbara

Repurposing
If not decommissioned, old platforms can be repurposed to pump into rocks below the seabed. Others have been converted to launch rockets into space, and more are being redesigned for use with heavy-lift launch vehicles.

Challenges
Offshore oil and gas production is more challenging than land-based installations due to the remote and harsher environment. Much of the innovation in the offshore petroleum sector concerns overcoming these challenges, including the need to provide very large production facilities. Production and drilling facilities may be very large and a large investment, such as the Troll A platform standing on a depth of 300 meters.

Another type of offshore platform may float with a mooring system to maintain it on location. While a floating system may be lower cost in deeper waters than a fixed platform, the dynamic nature of the platforms introduces many challenges for the drilling and production facilities.

The ocean can add several thousand meters or more to the fluid column. The addition increases the equivalent circulating density and downhole pressures in drilling wells, as well as the energy needed to lift produced fluids for separation on the platform.

The trend today is to conduct more of the production operations subsea, by separating water from oil and re-injecting it rather than pumping it up to a platform, or by flowing to onshore, with no installations visible above the sea. Subsea installations help to exploit resources at progressively deeper waters—locations that had been inaccessible—and overcome challenges posed by sea ice such as in the Barents Sea. One such challenge in shallower environments is seabed gouging by drifting ice features (means of protecting offshore installations against ice action includes burial in the seabed).

Offshore manned facilities also present logistics and human resources challenges. An offshore oil platform is a small community in itself with cafeteria, sleeping quarters, management and other support functions. In the North Sea, staff members are transported by helicopter for a two-week shift. They usually receive higher salaries than onshore workers do. Supplies and waste are transported by ship, and the supply deliveries need to be carefully planned because storage space on the platform is limited. Today, much effort goes into relocating as many of the personnel as possible onshore, where management and technical experts are in touch with the platform by video conferencing. An onshore job is also more attractive for the aging workforce in the petroleum industry, at least in the western world. These efforts among others are contained in the established term integrated operations. The increased use of subsea facilities helps achieve the objective of keeping more workers onshore. Subsea facilities are also easier to expand, with new separators or different modules for different oil types, and are not limited by the fixed floor space of an above-water installation.

Deepest platforms
The world's deepest oil platform is the floating Perdido, which is a spar platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of 2450 m.

Non-floating compliant towers and fixed platforms, by water depth:

 * Petronius Platform, 535 m
 * Baldpate Platform, 502 m
 * Troll A Platform, 472 m
 * Bullwinkle Platform, 413 m
 * Pompano Platform, 393 m
 * Benguela-Belize Lobito-Tomboco Platform, 390 m
 * Gullfaks C Platform, 380 m
 * Tombua Landana Platform, 366 m
 * Harmony Platform, 366 m

title: Oil platform


text:
Portal:Current events/January 2003

January 2003 was the first month of that common year. The month, which began on a Wednesday, ended on a Friday after 31 days.

Portal:Current events
This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from January 2003.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Portal:Current events/January 2003


text:
Bohr (disambiguation)

Bohr most often refers to:
 * Niels Bohr (1885–1962), Danish atomic physicist, Nobel Prize in physics 1922

Bohr may also refer to:

People

 * Aage Bohr (1922–2009), Danish nuclear physicist, Nobel Prize in physics 1975, son of Niels Bohr
 * Christian Bohr (1855–1911), Danish physician and physiologist, father of Harald and of Niels Bohr
 * Harald Bohr (1887–1951), Danish Olympic silver medalist football player and mathematician; brother of Niels Bohr
 * Margrethe Bohr (1890–1984), wife, editor, and transcriber for Danish physicist Niels Bohr

Astronomy

 * 3948 Bohr, an asteroid named after Niels Bohr
 * Bohr (crater), a lunar crater
 * Vallis Bohr, a lunar valley

Places

 * Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
 * Bohr, Bushehr, a village in Bushehr Province, Iran
 * Bohr-e Bagh, a village in Bushehr Province, Iran
 * Bohr-e Hajj Nowshad, a village in Bushehr Province, Iran

Science

 * Bohr effect, a property of hemoglobin discovered by Christian Bohr
 * Bohr magneton, a unit of magnetic moment proposed by Niels Bohr
 * Bohr model, an atomic theory due to Niels Bohr
 * Bohr radius, a radius of atomic orbit in Bohr model
 * Bohrium, a chemical element number 107 named after Niels Bohr

Other uses

 * Bohr bug, a type of software bug
 * Bohr compactification, a mathematical concept due to Harald Bohr

title: Bohr (disambiguation)


text:
Talk:Social construction

Definition
The article defines social construction as

 * A social construction, social construct or social concept is an institutionalised entity or artifact in a social system 'invented' or 'constructed' by participants in a particular culture or society that exists solely because people agree to behave as if it exists, or agree to follow certain conventional rules.

This is wrong, as:

 * (i) They don't necessarily 'agree'. They might be socialised into it and never have any choice - or conceive there could be any other way. They unconsciously accept it and experience it as their 'reality'. See for example Bourdieu's notion of habitus.
 * (ii) it is not always easy to point at a single artefact as a social construction - the whole social system is socially constructed and deeply intertwined in a complex manner
 * (iii) it is not always 'invented' (in the sense of deliberately and volitionally constructed) by particpants - this can happen, but more often it doesn't. The construction is more often tacit and subtle and evolves with the interaction of many people rather than the clear actions of one person. It may or may not be an intended outcome of the actions. See for example Bhaskar's work (he argued that society is always transformed, never created) or Berger & Luckmann's account of social construction
 * (iv) the page is about social construction, not social construction*s*. Why is the definition focused on social construction*s* rather than social construction?

The definition needs an overhaul - athe least, we need a valid definition, not one with as many fallacies and holes in it as this one. I might have a look at it in a week or two, if it has not been fixed by then.

---
 * (i),(iii): How about "any entity or artifact in a society, that exists purely because the participants in the society behave as if it exists or follow certain conventional rules." -Pgan002 04:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
 * (ii): Can you give examples, and an alternative definition? -Pgan002 04:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
 * (iv): The phrase "social construction" has two related meanings: (1) any entity that is socially constructed; and (2) the process of creating such entities. I think the first meaning is more basic, and should be used as the definition at the start of the article.  The second meaning can also be discussed afterwards, of course. -Pgan002 04:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Why are "invented" and "constructed" in quotation marks in the definition? -Pgan002 04:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the difference between "invented" and "constructed"? -Pgan002 04:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Links policy?
I noticed that someone added Wikipedia internal links (the double square bracket ones) for the TMSA and other items, that did not go anywhere (i.e., went to an empty page with only the link title, saying there was no page - please make one).

I would have thought it would be better to leave it unlinked, unless one was going to actually at least add a stub of some sort into the link destination page. For example, a sentence "The Transformational Model of Social Activity" is a critical realist model relating volitional activity of social agents to the development and articulation of social structure - which in turn shapes the articulation of human agency in social systems." By contrast, linking to an empty page seems to me to be either pointless or lazy. If you want to make a link for something, put something in it! :)

What are others'thoughts on this? What is Wikipedia policy?

LMackinnon 05:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Perspectives
Obviously, I have written the initial version of this article heavily under the influence of Ian Hacking. This is because he is the first author I found offering a somewhat coherent explanation of what calling something "social construction" means. Hacking should not get the last word, however; other perspectives need to get incorporated somehow.

Which ones? Well, browsing the web, I found references to Kenneth J. Gergen's An Invitation to Social Construction and Social Construction in Context. These might be helpful? (I don't know much about them, beyond the name.)

I also found Nancy Nelson Spivey's The Constructivist Metaphor: Reading, Writing, and the Making of Meaning. It looks filled with too much postmodern jargon about "texts" and so on for me to understand. But maybe not.

I also found Andre Kukla's Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science. Looks like an interesting consideration of the philosophical positions behind the "science wars". I'm not sure what is meant by the difference between social construction and social constructivism. I do know the book opens with a response and revision of Hacking's characterization of "social construction"; Kukla is looking for a definition, and points out some flaws in Hacking. (The first few pages can be seen for free on amazon.com.)

Hacking mentions the work of Sergio Sismondo. The following, among other things, argues that "social construction" (or is it "social constructionist") is not one concept but four, and give an analysis of the four. The argument is somewhat specific to the "Social Studies of Science".

 * Sismondo, Sergio. 1993. Some social constructions. Social Studies of Science 23:515-553.

Sismondo also has a longer book, which, I think, has the same content, but exanded. Hacking says it looks for some kind of reconciliation between extreme constructivist positions and totally naive views of science:

 * Sismondo, Sergio. 1996. Science without Myth: On Constructions, Reality and Social Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press.

There are probably other perspectives. --Ryguasu

Issues with Hacking
Hacking's book is very important (although I wish this article ad more about Berger and Luckman), but since the article is about social construction, and not about Hacking per se, I cut this:
 * If the conflict between this vision of "social construction" and Hacking's is not clear, consider Hacking's claim that
 * You do not find books on the social construction of banks, the fiscal system, cheques, money, dollar bills, bills of lading, contracts, tort, the Federal Reserve, or the British monarchy. (Hacking 1999, p. 12)

I cut it because Hacking here is wrong -- although Simmel and Marx do not use the term "social construction," their books The Philosophy of Money and Capital[ are most definitely about the "social construction" of money. Corrigan and Sayers work is about the social construction of the British monarchy. So Hacking's claim here is just wrong. If this were an article on Hacking, I'd say, keep the mistake and analyze why he makes this mistake and what it means. But since this is an article on social construction, it is better to keep the focus on that, and correct claims about it. Slrubenstein

 * This is a sensible cut. Hacking's analysis, of course, was based only on books and articles with "construction" in the title, so it is natural that he didn't include this. I wonder to what extent this decision of his has negatively affected his analysis. In any case, some of this should probably be moved to a separate article about the Hacking book in particular. I've yet to learn enough about others' ideas, though, to make this article more general. --Ryguasu 06:12 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)

Scientists
Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure that most physical scientists *would* disagree with the statement in the paragraph on strong social construction. For example, many scientists aren't bothered at all that religious people who claim that the world is 6000 years. The attitude is that they have their version of truth and that's perfectly fine. What does bother scientists is when creationists say that it is scientifically demonstrable that the world is 6000 years old. This then becomes a problem not because Creationists are claiming that the world is 6000 years old, but they are claiming that using the rules of science, it can be shown the the world is 6000 years old.

 * But that is just the point. When religious people claim that this planet is only 6000 years old, that in itself is a claim about physical reality, it is a scientific claim. Scientists don't care when people making this claim keep to themselves, but as soon as people making this claim atempt to convince others that it is true, and atemnpt to present this view as factual, then scientists get very worried, and strive to debunk this claim. RK

Many of the scientists I know are deeply religious and they manage to be good scientists by compartmentalizing "scientific truth" with other forms of truth, and it's not necessarily the case that all scientists think that science is the prefered route to truth in all cases (some do, but not all). So its not clear that scientists generally oppose strong social construction. User:Roadrunner

 * Could you clarify what you mean by "other forms of truth". Other forms of truth about what?  Scientists do think that science is the only road to discovering the truth about the physical, natural world. There are no other ways (i.e. mysticism, literary deconstructionism, etc, revelations from Egyptian or Asian gods, etc.) that tell us anything about the natural, physical world. In contrast, strong social constructionists claim that all ways of learning about the natural, physical world (such as the ones I just listed) are equally relevant, and equally true. And this is what all scientists reject. Remmeber, scientists themselves do not claim that science can provide us with all answers about all questions; it is limited to providing questions about the natural, physical world. RK 14:52 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think, RK, you are too quick to speak on behalf of "all scientists". I'm sure you could define scientist in some way that excludes everyone who finds some validity in postmodern critiques, but this would not necessarily be a NPOV way of going about things. Aside from the points Roadrunner was trying to make, I think that anyone who accepts that "social scientists" are indeed "scientists" is going to end up seeing a certain amount of overlap between scientists and "social constructionists". --Ryguasu 22:03 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * Let me be clear: When I talk about scientists, I mean people who do science. Physicists, Chemists, Biologists, Geologists, Biochemists, Biophysicists, Astronomers, Forensic engineers, etc. I am clearly not talking about what you call "social scientists".  And I am not speaking for scientists; they speak for themselves, and they do so quite clearly.  You seem uncomfortable with the fact that the great majority of them reject hard social constructionism as nonsense. RK 22:51 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Let me be clear: I have no trouble with "the great majority" your physical scientists rejecting hard social constructionism. The main thing that bothers me is that you appear to assume that the words "science" and "scientist" are not in the least bit problematic, which may make some of your writing less than NPOV. Since people do not agree on matters such as whether or not "social scientists" are "really scientists", we need to be careful and be explicit, in the articles, about exactly which scientists we're talking about. Statements such as "Scientists and historians generally do not attempt to refute the idea that most (or all) of the world is a social construction" are needlessly ambiguous. --Ryguasu 23:46 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Also, and I ask more out of curiosity than malice, could you tell me how you have come to your conclusions about what most physical scientists think? Do you "just know"? Are there interviews and surveys involved? Have you looked at a study of science curriculums? Perhaps you know lots of scientists? Or perhaps you can't conceive of someone living the paradox of seeing the world through both lenses at once? Although I imagine most physical scientists aren't too keen on social constructionism, it occurs to me I don't really have much evidence that could convince anyone. --Ryguasu 23:46 26 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Weak social constructionism
RK, can you clarify, here or in the article, what "weak social constructionism" is about -- in general, not just in the consideration of hard science? I certainly don't think Pinker should remain the centerpiece of that section. The main point of mentioning him, in my vision, is to show how some people who aren't part of the postmodernist movement in any sense use the term. The question is: what do the people who definitely are part of the postmodernist movement yet don't qualify as "hard" social constructionists say? If we can't answer that question, then I think the split into "hard" and "soft" is not as useful as the organization I gave the article previously. --Ryguasu 00:12 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

POV
The article seems horrible POV (in recurse of the reality standards of science). In my opinion, the reality standards of social science should be included into the argumentation. There should be references to social constructivism (or constructionsm), i.e. to Berger/Luckmann, sociology of knowledge et al., and there should be references to radical constructivsm (or constructionsm). In my opinion, the list of things that could be called social constructed in the beginning of the article is ridicioulos -- the reason why gender, quarks, nationalism (including Zulu nationalism) all can be seen as social constructs is because they are -- human beings doing something -- created as social artefacts in the same way. But this article should be about the general rules how human beings create something socially (Socially constructed reality (Berger/Luckmann) could be a good starting point for this debate, phenomenology another one), and these rules shouldn't be ridiculed or pictured only from the very specific view of reality-believers like "hard" scientist. -- till we *) 14:26 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Intro request
I ran across this page, and was thoroughly confused what this topic was really about. Would it be possible to put some sort of (obviously rough) definition at the top, to at least get the gist across?

 * I shall attempt. Pjrich 00:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Gergen
Personally, I have found Kenneth Gergen's work to be very informative and often very very dense. It is often oriented towards psychology/sociology due to his own background as a social psychologist. His book "Realities and Relationships" is probably the most complete version of his thoery. Some of his papers are also availble online at his website. Gergen

I would also suggest John Shotter who has similar ideas, but with his own twist and has often criticized Gergen as developing a theory that is too academic and not practical enough to actually bring about the changes he is promoting.

Also a very good, but definitely not laymen book, is "Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature" by Richard Rorty. Wow, is that a great book, but very challenging.

Finally, to get an idea of how these theories have begun to be implemented in the "real world" I would suggest looking into the works of David Cooperrider on Appreciative Inquiry. You can google for that and find lots of great information. It talks about the social construction of corporate realities and how Appreciative Inquiry leads to the development of a new corporate culture, not through problem solving, but through the building of an entirely new culture.

Merge
I'd like to propose that this article be merged to Social constructionism. Social construction seems to be more about social constructionism than social constructions per se. Also, social constructionism would greatly benefit from some of the material here. -Seth Mahoney 07:44, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

 * I tend to agree, social construction is more about social constructionism than social constructions themselves. But it seems that there should be a social construction article really on social constructions.... Velho 16:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure there's enough to warrant an article, really. Maybe a section in social constructionism would be more appropriate.  -Seth Mahoney 18:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Merging is a bad idea. It's like merging Empire into Imperialism, or Race into Racism, or Gene into Genetics. The need for an explanation of the concept of a social construct transcends any -ism, no matter what the history of the idea may have been. Peak 19:32, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

 * I actually agree with you, in principle. However, as discussed above, the content of social construction is currently about social constructionism and not social constructions or social constructs.  If you are willing to develop content that is specifically about social constructs and not just a rehash of social constructionism, then by all means do it!  Of all the articles merged into social constructionism today, this one I am the least sure should remain just a redirect.  However, its status as a full article depends on good and useful content, which it currently does not have.
 * As far as there being insufficient discussion, the consensus has largely been in favor of a merge (there is more discussion on Talk:Social constructionism). I'd say at this point the most fruitful avenue of discussion is in terms of what the content of each article should be.  I've already thrown out ideas of what this one should not be (which happens to be exactly what it is now).  You seem to agree, at least to a point.  Since you want to retain social construction as an article, what would you like to see here?  -Seth Mahoney 19:56, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge social constructionism to social construction?
If there's going to be a merge, I'd rather not see it go this way, but from social construction to social constructionism. -Seth Mahoney 02:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, as far as someone does do it. The content of the articles is almost the same!Velho 02:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Edits by Sethmahoney
I think this was a very good edit, but at the same time some relevant information might have been lost. I noticed that some of the examples of obvious social constructions were deleted. I guess there is no reason for that and I'll put them back. We should check whether there are some other losses. Velho 04:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course I'm ready to delete some of the examples if somebody reasonably thinks that they're not obvious. Velho 04:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

 * The only reason I didn't add all of them is because the list is long, and I didn't want this page to become a list of lists. Hopefully there will be a way, as more edits are made, to add them back as content rather than just as items in a list.  -Seth Mahoney 05:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I had put them back (in the introduction) so that somebody who doesn't know anything about SCs could come here and have a good grasp of their pervasiveness in everyday life. Velho 09:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Another thing: I suppose the first sentence ("...an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society which exists solely because people agree to behave as if it exists, or agree to follow certain conventional rules...") is a bit inaccurate:
 * SCs are artifacts but it is quite debatable that all or most of them are "inventions". Is a language an invention? Aren't inventions intentional and conscious? Isn't there a more or less exact moment when an invention is invented?
 * Right, hence the or. Some, like games, clearly are inventions.  -Seth Mahoney 19:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

 * People often do not "agree" to behave as if SCs exist, nor to follow certain rules. Languages are not the product of agreements, and we can certainly say the same about governments, titles, money, etc. Searle uses "believe" where the article says "agree". Even if that is not everybody's view, I suppose it would be better.
 * Agreement can be implicit or explicit. To take the example of a game again, agreement is explicit.  Gender performance, on the other hand, rarely involves conscious, explicit agreement, though it may, or may involve explicitely not agreeing to the rules.  I follow what you're saying here, and while I think the agreement part should stay, I would be fine with a revision of the wording to make the point more specific.  -Seth Mahoney 19:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

 * The relation between SCs and conventions is difficult to state. Aren't they the same? And the very nature of conventions is much debated. I would prefer that the introduction to SCs kept "conventions" out. Velho 09:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say they're the same. Social constructions rely on convention, certainly, though often they seem to be more than that.  The reason convention is brought into that particular sentence is to make a distinction between conventional rules - those which adhere because we agree to them - and non-conventional rules - those which adhere because, say, some powerful person or group has imposed them on us by force (though there is, of course, some blurring between the two categories).  Regardless, while I appreciate your taking the time to discuss your proposed changes here, you are, of course, free to edit the article any way you wish.  -Seth Mahoney 19:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Actually, one more criticism of that sentence that should probably be added is that it is LONG! I'm really bad about that sort of thing, so if someone wants to break it up a little, by all means do it!  -Seth Mahoney 19:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Heh! I altered the first sentence anyway (before I saw this discussion). Hope it reads ok with you guys. I made a few other changes as well - I added an account of what B&L actually said, and reorganised the ordering for clarity (there was no reason for games and gender to come before definition of the term). Also I reorganised the introduction paragraph for clarirty. HTH LMackinnon 03:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Nicely done! I don't know if these were your changes or not, but I felt the bold + italics was a bit much, so I went ahead and unbolded them.  -Seth Mahoney 03:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Social construct examples
Is law a social construct? (What about natural law?) Neutralitytalk 19:31, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Law as "lex" is certainly a social construct. It is debatable that law as "ius" or law as an interpretive concept (or as "integrity") is (just) a social construct. If there is such a thing as natural law, it has the same status as morality. Velho 19:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Law as in the legal system, political and legal institutions and laws on the books are certianly socially constructed IMO. LMackinnon 03:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

If you want a classic example of a social construct look no further than 'God 'Lejon (talk) 13:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Gender edits
I cleaned up some POV issues, removing a semi-rant about gender and replacing it with a more academic bit. I also added a bit about the John/Joan case there, as when I was reading it, I kept thinking about that. I hope that's okay. I'll be adding this page to my watch list, as I hope to clean it up a bit more in time to come.Minidoxigirli 06:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

 * I've changed things a bit (1) to comply more closely to the actual history of the John/Joan case. One of the things Money was criticized for was the coercive methods he used during this child's early years to try to make the constructed gender identity stick. (2) to try to get at what it seems to me is often the crucial fact about social constructs that are the most socially potent -- that they have a basis in reality, but lots of stuff is constructed on that basis that comes from somewhere else, e.g., it is obvious that the average of 1000 Chinese people is going to look different from the average of 1000 "white" people. There are genetic reasons for the differences as there are genetic reasons for the similarities. But lots of claptrap gets added that are stereotypes that may derive from all sorts of strange places. The "squinty eyes" provide a "reason" to say that the Chinese are sneaky, but nobody ever made a real measure of sneakiness and correlated it with a real measure of the squintiness of eyes. It's just a "likely story." P0M 17:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Small Font?
Why the smaller font on this page? --142.204.31.41 19:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Debate section
Why is the debate section empty but with a stub notice? some one fill it in. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.27.231.250 (talk) 22:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

ADHD only medical example
Surely there are more examples of theories of social constructions in medicine than just ADHD. I don't personally subscribe to these views, but I have more than once heard autism and PMS described as social constructions. If this information were to be included, we could rename the section to not be ADHD specific. RobertJWalker | Talk 15:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Questioning The Redirect from this page.
Why should the term0 "social construct" not isntead redirect to Social constructivism? FatalSubjectivities (talk) 07:02, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Social construction


text:
Talk:Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor

Old talk
Some old talk not related to this article has been moved to Talk:Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor. I've put this comment above the "name" heading because it relates to some text from 2003. Graham 87 14:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Name
What was his "actual" name, i.e. what would he call himself: Heinrich, or something else? It's quite common for our articles at least to mention the "native" name of people who have anglicised names. Nyttend (talk) 00:54, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * German version of Henry is Heinrich; but it is common to transfer monarchs name into other languages version of the name (not only in english)134.3.76.108 (talk) 12:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I'm also curious why we change his name. I mean, should the article on Akira Kurosawa be changes to "Albert kerouac" because it sounds more "Anglican"?

 * Historic. Done mainly in Europe where they aren't sensitive to this sort of thing. English call Roma "Rome", Oestereich "Austria", Firenz, "Florence", etc. The English have done it for centuries and the Europeans don't really care. The English would care if forced to change to the local idiom. Student7 (talk) 00:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * This answer is misleading - and could be considered a racial slur against the English. Your examples are correct but the phenonomen is not limited to English versions of foreign names. Most (if not all) European languages do the same. Some examples:
 * French: Londres (London), Munich (München), Copenhague (København)
 * German: Lüttich (Liège), Rom (Roma), Pressburg (Bratislava)
 * Italian: Parigi (Paris), Monaco (München), Stoccolma (Stockholm) VertGalant (talk) 10:40, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

 * Heinrich is different than Henry. Why, for example, are articles about people named "Wilhelm" not changed to "William"? Inconsistency sounds like inaccuracy...Presidentbalut (talk) 21:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I miscounted when I said I had one left of the 21 talk pages you spammed with essentially the exact same thing. Back to work I guess. Indrian (talk) 23:24, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I think we're confusing two issues here. It certainly makes sense to have his page named "Henry V", but a quick entry that he signed his name "Hinrichus" (or whatever he used) would be a big step towards making this page more encyclopedic. Its also irrelelvent that nowadays Henry is translated as Heinrich. The question was what name would he would have used then, not now. 155.213.224.59 (talk) 13:53, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

 * Monarchs use regnal names which can be but don't have to be their actual names. Regnal names get translated into the various languages. This is still being done. The current queen of the UK is stylized Elizabeth II which happens to be her actual name. In German she is "Elisabeth II.", in Polish "Elżbieta II" etc. Her father's regnal name was "George VI" while his actual name was "Albert Frederick Arthur George". A more obvious case would be the pope who always changes his regnal name upon entering the office... If anything the Latin spelling would be the correct one since it's the one used in all official documents, So "Heinricus" in the case of Henry V.--MacX85 (talk) 11:58, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Born 8 November or 11 August?
There are ghits for both dates. 8/11 vs 11/8. We had 11 August until this unsourced edit of 26 June 2008. Britannica explicitly denies he was born on 8 November (1081), preferring 11 August (1086). --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   04:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Have reviewed and confirmed the 11 August 1086 date from a reputable source. Oatley2112 (talk) 05:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Image of Henry V's death
The section Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor contained an image (File:The_death_of_the_Emperor_Henry_V.jpg) which does not seem to depict the death of Henry V, so I removed it. -- Crowsnest (talk) 14:14, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Translation
Hi! As most of you might have noticed, i am taking care of the translation as requested on top of the article. The content will, of course, replace some of the existing text. I am going to keep and intergrate as much as possible, though. Please let me know, if you have ideas. I thnk that the German language article is a bit too exhaustive at times. I suggest i translate it all and later we reduce it towards the essential info. All the best Wikirictor  17:30, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You are doing an amazing job. I am looking forward to reading the full article once you are done. Surtsicna (talk) 21:06, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Ahnentafel
I removed the fifth generation from the ahnentafel because it is incomplete, excessive (it takes quite a lot of imagination to think of a reason to mention William IV of Aquitaine in this article) and uncertain. It is by no means clear that the father of Bertha of Milan was Otbert II. Similarly, it is not certain that Otto I of Savoy's mother was from Lenzbourg. This article is not the right place to delve into such matters anyway. Surtsicna (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor


text:
Irish farm subdivision

The Popery Act (Penal Law) of 1704 required land owned by Roman Catholics to be divided equally between all a landholder's sons, both legitimate and illegitimate, on his death. This had formerly been normal under the law of gavelkind, a law abolished by the Dublin administration in 1604. Known as sub-division, this inheritance practice continued by tradition until the middle of the 19th century.

The growth of population inevitably caused subdivision. Population grew from a level of about 500,000 in 1000 AD to about 2 million by 1700, and 5 million by 1800. On the eve of the Great Famine the population of Ireland had risen to 8 million, most people living on ever-smaller farms and depending on the potato as a staple diet.

By the 1840s, many farms had become so small that the only food source that could be grown in sufficient quantity to feed a family was potatoes. This was to have disastrous effects when, in the period 1847-50 a series of potato blight struck, making much of the potatoes grown inedible. This period came to be known as the Great Famine and led to the deaths of a million people.

From the 1870s the practice arose of passing a holding to one child only, which with the benefits of the Irish Land Acts, meant that the survivors prospered.

A secondary effect of the prohibition of sub-division was that other children, who would previously have inherited part of the family farm tenancy or married into a similar small farm, were forced to seek employment elsewhere. Many emigrated. Many entered religious life, as Roman Catholic priests, nuns or monks, such options becoming available due to a re-organisation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland under Cardinal Cullen from the 1850s. This influx of young people into religious life, thanks to the disappearance of sub-division, in part, explains the massive growth in clerical numbers in Ireland in the period.

Irish landholdings underwent further massive change in the period between the 1880s and the 1930s when a series of Land Acts by the Irish Land Commission and Congested Districts Board for Ireland broke up the previous large estates from which tenant farmers rented property and who were empowered by British and (later) Irish government grants and loans to buy their farms instead of renting them.

 * Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870: this had little if any practical effect.
 * Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881: Gave tenants real security ("the Three Fs": Fair Rent, Fixity of Tenure and Free Sale). It was too little, too late: by this time the Irish were demanding full proprietorship.
 * Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903: offered generous inducement to landlords to sell their estates to the Land Commission, which would then collect land annuities instead of rents.

title: Irish farm subdivision