Talk:Person of the Year

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I think the Ayatollah date would be confused because after all, the "Man of the Year" for 1979 would have been named in 1980, if I'm right about when they do those things. So if you say "named AK MotY in", it should probably be 1980, but if you say "named AK as MotY for", it should be 1980. -- John Owens 08:05 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

The Person/Man of the year is chosen in December of the respective year.

TIMES has also PERSONS OF THE DECADE. Gorbatchev was one of them. Should'nt that be mentionned in the article as well? Ysengrim

Contents 1 2006 2 2004 3 Person of the year 4 Americentrism 5 Mention about Foley? 6 Only Time Magazine? 7 US Presidents 8 Only one of the last 10 Persons of the Year has been a non-American, that being Hungarian Andy Grove in 1997 9 "Born abroad" 10 Persons of the year 11 Person of the Century 12 Template for Person of the Year 13 Gerald Ford 14 Ted Turner 15 Bush 16 2006: You 17 Keeping Poty.jpg at the Top 18 Why "citation needed" 19 Who decides on the Person of the Year? 20 Einstein is objectively a mistake, theory of relativity did not change modern life any, quantum mechanics did (computers, TV, nanotech, biotech). 21 Thumbnails of covers 22 Multi-person entries 23 "Since then, Time has generally shied away from choosing extremists." 24 "The Two George Bushes" 25 Lifetime of the Earth. 26 You 27 Removed from main page

[edit] 2006

YOU!

That was a real dumb one. TIME has gone down hill a lot.

-G

[edit] 2004

TIME missed the boat, as usual. they should have named the Boston Red Sox the men of the year. Kingturtle 16:02, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How so? The victory of the Boston Red Sox didn't really affect anyone outside of the Baseball/Sporting/New England community. At most, the Red Sox's ALCS (and World Series) victory should be placed in the, "Greatest Sporting Events of the Year" part of TIME's "Greatest" end-of-year magazine series.

[edit] Person of the year

I think it is off topic, the article has be renamed

Person of the year(Time Magazine)

There may be other uses of the "title" that sounds to me like a real-socialist title "worker of the year ..."

[edit] Americentrism

I made a little statistical research into the list of Time's Persons of the Year. A breakdown by nationality/ethnicity shows that more than a half of them were Americans. If you don't count multiple, collective and non-human POTY's, you get:

35 Americans (US-born), including only one African American;
 4 Chinese;
 4 Germans;
 3 Arabs (Saudi, Egyptian and Palestinian);
 2 British persons;
 2 Frenchmen;
 2 Iranians;
 2 Poles;
 1 Afrikaner (White South African);
 1 Xhosa (Black South African);
 1 Ethiopian;
 1 Filipino;
 1 Georgian;
 1 Hungarian;
 1 Indian;
 1 Italian;
 1 Jew (Israeli);
 1 Russian;
 1 Ukrainian.

Out of the seven collective POTY's, six are American, the only exception being the Hungarian Freedom Fighter. If someone finds this info interesting enough to be included in the article, please do it. – Kpalion (talk) 01:19, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why you wouldn't include multiples. If your point is that they have too many Americans, than the fact that they are reusing Americans is especially notable. --Arctic Gnome 05:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the "citation needed" from the part that says most of the recipients have been American. Kpalion's numbers are a good start, and adding in the past few years of recipients brings the total to 44 Americans (including 6 abstracts and 3 Americans born overseas) and 31 non-Americans (including 1 abstract), with three non-humans/abstracts (Computer, Earth, You) left over. It's pretty clear that there are more Americans than non-Americans, and there are more Americans by far than any other nationality. I'm not saying this is right or wrong - Time is an American magazine, after all - but I don't think it's necessary to claim "citation needed" when the numbers speak for themselves. -Etoile 01:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You didn't do "statistical research" you counted. If you want to do real statistical reasearch, apply some non-linear dynamics to fading models and soft decision making for CDMA systems. Also, it's not profound that it's by far a majority of Americans, since it is an American periodical. The average American doesn't know the difference between Belarus and Ukraine. What do you expect?

I would have thought if would have been a little more biased. But still, this is pretty bad.

-G

[edit] Mention about Foley?

Does anyone think that we should add the case of Mick Foley to the controversies chapter?

Uh, what?

Man that is funny, how about MATT Foley while you're at it. I really hope you meant Mark Foley.

[edit] Only Time Magazine?

Is Time Magazine the only organisation that names people of the year? It seems surprising that it would be.

Ben Arnold 02:09, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] US Presidents

It is now Time policy to always name a US President after he is elected (or in some cases, re-elected) to office in recognition of that accomplishment in itself. Is this a stated policy or just what seems to actually happen? Note that George H.W. Bush was elected president in 1988 but wasn't selected Time's Person of the Year until 1990. --Metropolitan90 07:53, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Only one of the last 10 Persons of the Year has been a non-American, that being Hungarian Andy Grove in 1997

I deleted the sentence "Only one of the last 10 Persons of the Year has been a non-American, that being Hungarian Andy Grove in 1997." Grove became an American citizen in 1962, which maked him as American as anybody else. Dvid Ho was born abroad. The odds are that at lease some of the collective "American soldiers" were as well.

[edit] "Born abroad"

I deleted the sentence "Only one of the last 10 Persons of the Year has been a non-American, that being Hungarian Andy Grove in 1997." Grove became an American citizen in 1962, which makes him as American as anybody else. David Ho was also born abroad. The odds are that at least some of the "American soldiers" were as well.

[edit] Persons of the year

We should change the name, or create a 2nd article called "times people of the year" because their were 3 people chosen for person of the year.

And what happens when the next five or ten POTY is only one person and not a group? Leave it the way it is.--Kross | Talk 16:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The singular form "Person of the Year" would be preferable anyway according to Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Prefer singular nouns. --Metropolitan90 08:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Person of the Century

The Wikipedia article states, "The December 31, 1999 issue of TIME named Albert Einstein the Person of the Century. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi were chosen as runners-up." If I recall correctly, the runners-up were Ghandi and Henry Ford, not FDR. However, I do not have the issue of the magazine to confirm this.'

This entire paragraph is totally incorrect. Henry Ford was NEVER a runner up and Franklin D. Roosevelt was. Check http://www.time.com/time/time100/poc/magazine/albert_einstein5a.html .

[edit] Template for Person of the Year

I have created a template for person of the year, but I don't time to distribute it to the different pages of the different people. I am asking for help here. Is it possible to have some robot do it for us? The template is located at: Template:Time Person of the Year. P-unit 23:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I would assume that at least one other organisation in the world names a 'Person of the Year', so this should probably be renamed "Time Person of the Year" (not sure how you would punctuate it). Certainly outside of the US the 'person of the year' would not necessarily be associated with TIME. DJ Clayworth 01:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gerald Ford

The article stated that every elected US President has been named PotY except Gerald Ford, but I can only assume that the reason for the elected disclaimer was meant to disqualify Ford, who is the only unelected President.

I removed the word elected to eliminate the redundancy. --Cmdroverbite 20:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ted Turner

If any of you have noticed, Ted Turner's picture in the box of covers is blank. It needs to be uploaded but i'm not a registered member, so I can't upload photos. Someone needs to do it for me. Thanks.

Uhh, Hugo Chavez is still just speculation at the point. time.com makes no mention of this so far.

[edit] Bush

Bush person of the year are the fucking kidding. That idiot stared a war and those jerks at Time gave him this award. Just like his administration their a bunch of fucking idiot at Time.--Kingforaday1620 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Its not an award. Its given to the person who has most affected the year's news. Codu talk contribs email 14:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you should look at the list of people who made it in the past, and how many "bad guys" are on there. Stalin, Hitler, Khomeini, Khrushchev, and Xiaoping. Many have stated taht Usama Bin Laden should have been the POTY in 2001, but Time didn't have the "balls" to put him on the cover. Similarly, I have seen arguments taht Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should probably have beat out "You" given all that they have received in the press this year. - Don Bradshaw

[edit] 2006: You

Time has named their "person of the year", and this year it is "you". You as in, contributors to websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, and MySpace. Talk about your cop-out of the year. Cutter20 01:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Everyone has an opinion on who it should be, and those people are very scattershot -- Nobody can say for certain that one person has had a definite, obvious role in shaping the entire scale of events for the year. The mere fact that we can discuss our opinions - especially over this medium - is a more than healthy reason for why 'You' is the choice. The choice is made healthier when one considers the numbers, popularity, and impact that such media have had over the Year 2006. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.177.44.145 (talk • contribs).

Very interesting, perhaps someone would like to hash out a userbox for it :) --WikiSlasher 09:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Ask and ye shall receive! {{User Time PotY}} Caerwine Caer’s whines 05:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Also see {{User person of the year}}. --Goyston 04:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

And Template talk:User person of the year. I attempted to make one with a simplified cover. Jason McHuff 04:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

We win! --Arctic Gnome 20:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

WTF I was just watching PTI and they metioned the kornheiser joke. I think it should be reverted. Roastytoast 22:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Per the "if you don't have something nice to say..." thing they taught us in Kindergarten, I will refrain from speaking my feelings on this cop-out (oops, too late!). Patstuart^talk|edits 00:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keeping Poty.jpg at the Top

I strongly believe Poty.jpg should remain at the top to counter recentism. That image, as a collage of several covers, is far more representative of the Person of the Year as a whole (the topic of the article) than the lone image of TIME's most recent cover (with "You"). Other opinions? -- tariqabjotu 04:05, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. POTY.jpg should be at the top, not just the 2006 selection. Cutter20 04:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The Person of the Year extends through the past 80 years; the article is about the Person of the Year in all that time, and the top image would need to be either general (collage), or if that were not available, representative or majorly famous (picking odd ones like "You" are not representative). Arguably, the most recent one is the least helpful to readers: more people have seen and remember the recent one, it is nothing new. —Centrx→talk • 09:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. Adding the 2006 itself might not be hurtful were the image so unrepresentative of the award. Poty.jpg provides a much better historical context for the article. —ShadowHalo 05:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, per ShadowHalo. - Chardish 04:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why "citation needed"

Why is a citation needed for the following statement: "A breakdown by nationality also shows that more than a half of the people who have ever been selected for the title have been Americans"? The list of selectees is right on the page; it is simply a matter of counting them. Almost all of the people have Wikipedia pages of their own from which to determine nationality. (The four that don't were part of the 1975 grouping "American Women," so their nationality is obvious.) And the abstractions (the computer, Earth, "You") should be counted as just that. — Michael J 16:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who decides on the Person of the Year?

Does anyone know who decides who the "Person of the Year" will be? The freddinator 19:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The managing editor of Time makes the final decision, although it is a collaborative effort from several of Time's editors and staff members. -- tariqabjotu 19:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Einstein is objectively a mistake, theory of relativity did not change modern life any, quantum mechanics did (computers, TV, nanotech, biotech).

Person of the century for Einstein is a bad choice. Relativity has absolutely no influence on human life or way of thinking. All modern technology is powered by quantum mechanics, the competing theory, which Einsteain opposed fiercely. Transistors, chips and computers run on quantum mechanics. Advanced biotechnology and nanotech is also strongly QM-based. Mankind has no grasp yet of things large enough to make the effects of relativity felt in human life. Therefore Schrodinger is the obvious man of the century, because quantum mechanics (electronics) is what changed life in 20th century the most.

The fact that scientifically untrained TIME magazine employees made such an errerous decision should be clearly laid out in the wikipedia article. 195.70.48.242 13:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Er, Adolf Hitler? Vladimir Lenin? The whole thing is ridiculously subjective. There's no way to say anything is "objectively" right or wrong in such a listing. john k 14:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, and don't get me started with 2006's man of the year. A 13 year old kid compulsively masturbating at porn while pirating music while he is being stalked by a 50 year old pedophile through MySpace. 209.124.114.58

WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?! Oh I get it lol --WikiSlasher 03:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

you guys dont know what your talking about so no that wont be put into the article if i have any thing to say about itLeapster 19:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thumbnails of covers

I think this article would look much better if it had a thumbnail image for every cover in the table. That would be cool. 70.187.32.169 00:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but, tell us where can we find all the covers. Wikifan21century 02:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

You mean besides the link at the bottom of the article? :) [1] --Rob Kennedy 02:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. It might look cool as a standalone collage — sort of an Andy Warhol effect — but you’re talking about 80 images. That’s a lot. And what value does it add to the article? I think it’s better to present a representaive sample, which we already have. --Rob Kennedy 02:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking small thumbs, about 48 pixels square. As for value to the article... Well, images convey a lot more information than just text, I think that the images convey to an extent the context of the choice. Reading through the list without any context makes it just that, a list of names. 70.187.32.169 06:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Only 48 pixels? I don’t see how something that small would convey much information about the person or people chosen. Furthermore, most of the covers are fairly basic portraits. How much context can those provide? I think the most important piece of context to explain the significance of the choice is the year. --Rob Kennedy 19:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right 48 would be too small. How about this? Image:TIME_Person_of_the_Year_2006.jpg Have you looked at all the covers? Most are not basic portraits. There is usually something significant either in the expression of the portrait or something relevant in the background. It also helps to define what was contemporary with the choice. 70.187.32.169 01:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multi-person entries

I’ve made a distinction when there are multiple people named as Person of the Year. Sometimes, it’s multiple specific people, such as the Apollo 8 astronauts, or the Peacemakers. In those cases, I list all the names in the Name column. Other times, the winner is a general group, and some people are chosen to represent that group, such as American women, or U.S. scientists. In those cases, all American women were chosen as Persons of the Year, but a handful of examplars were featured so that the reporters didn’t have to interview half the country. Those people who represent the group are listed in the Notes column.

In the case of the 2005 winners, it’s not all good Samaritans who were honored. It’s just Bono, Bill Gates, and Melinda Gates, and Time chose to give them the title of Good Samaritans to refer to them collectively. As far as I know, they never had that title together before. Similarly for the Peacemakers in 1993.

The only case I’m unsure about is the Wistleblowers in 2002. I don’t remember whether it was all whistleblowers, or whether it was just those three people who were deemed the biggest newsmakers of the year. --Rob Kennedy 18:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't read your post here. I thought it looked odd that some names and titles were in the notes column for group entries and some weren't. Also, I removed the parentheses as the info is already divided by table cells. I am not sure whether birth/death dates even belong in the table; it seems that the occupation (i.e. president, Apollo 8 astronaut) that resulted in them being picked is also/more notable. Lastly, the complete articles about the choices are here. Jason McHuff 20:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Since then, Time has generally shied away from choosing extremists."

I would say that a more accurate to say that since Khomeini, TIME has shied away from choosing anti-American figures. Saying that the more recent POTY choices haven't been extremists is a subjective (ie POV) claim. Redxiv 16:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "The Two George Bushes"

The table notes "The Two George Bushes" for 1990. Could someone please elaborate on that? I find it confusing. Is it a reference to HW and W? Or HW being Veep and Pres? Or something else? samwaltz 01:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I followed the link at the bottom of the article, the one that goes to the Person of the Year stories. On that page, you can see the 1990 entry for Bush. The subtitle reads, “President acted decisively abroad; waffles at home.” There’s also a link to the article if you want to read the details. --Rob Kennedy 06:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Note to self: Must read external link section, too. D'oh! samwaltz 12:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lifetime of the Earth.

I noticed that the lifetime of earth is listed at 4004 BC – 2012

O RLY? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.134.146.52 (talk) 05:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] You

I don't know what kind of joker thinks putting "do not alter this link" next to [[Special:Mypage|You]] is going to work. Removed! --AdamM 13:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from main page

"In 1998, Wrestler Mick Foley was actually leading the count, before he was removed as a candidate for Man of the Year."

If it is verifiable - and my search engine of choice is out just now - please accept my apologies and put it back! This was contributed by an anonymous IP that has had an extreme amount of vandalism. Lou 05:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)