User talk:Maunus

Dear Maunus, I will respond to your request about my Wikipedia page shortly (and please forgive me if I have responded to you in the wrong place or in the wrong manner). Best, Steve. Stevenpinker (talk) 13:55, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Concerning your comment

Hello. As I agree with your comment here [1], I reply here. Yes, we should focus on the argument at hand. Still, it is rather tedious when one user repeats the same questions over and over again when they have already been answered. Not that anyone has to agree with the answer, but then I'd expect the user to at least explain why and move forward and not just keep repeating. And when the same users goes to look at your edit history to stalk you to begin editing articles they never edited before but that you frequently edit just for the pleasure of opposing you, and repeat the same behavior there as well, then it get's a bit annoying. Of course we should always try to put negative feelings like that behind us.Jeppiz (talk) 18:00, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

It can be tedious, definitely when one feels that another user is going in circles. But I know as well as anyone that acting on that frustration is just likely to increase the problem. When I realize I am getting too frustrated to focus on the arguments, I tend to go on a wikibreak - although sometimes not before I have caused more problems by airing my frustration in unconstructive ways.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

You are perfectly right, of course. Which is why I've brought the issue to ANI and stayed out of any edit war on any of the articles, which is no doubt what the user hoped to drag me into. I later find out that this same behavior is repeated by the same user at articles I'm not involved in as well. Yes, we should step away when frustrated. But this particular user seems to frustrate a lot of people and to cherish the drama. I don't doubt the user has made valuable contributions, but I'd dare say their net contribution given how much disruption he causes and on how many articles he claims ownership and edit wars against anyone opposing his version. It's not helpful.Jeppiz (talk) 18:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned in the discussion I have never experienced Peter in that way myself, on the contrary I have always found him to be reasonable and helpful and amenable to argument. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:20, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

That is good. I have never seen that, but my experience is limited to his edit warring at Sweden and Melee and his stalking me to List of languages by native speakers to start opposing me there after I "dared" to edit against him on Sweden. If he is more responsible on other articles, all the better. I trust your more extensive experience, and I hope to see that helpful behavior as well someday.Jeppiz (talk) 18:29, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I think laying down the stick at ANI might be a good way to signal good faith, which might speed up Peter's ability to be reasonable with you. Sometimes when we are in "fight or flight" mode, other editors become enemies. Putting down the stick is a good way to get back to normal editing mode for everyone.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:37, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, today alone Peter has reverted you, has reverted me and has reverted a third user at Sweden, all the time insisting that his is the consensus version even though he is alone in saying so, and we are all wrong. That is not indicative of the behavior you ascribe him, I'm afraid.Jeppiz (talk) 19:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

?

The 1523 date was removed unilaterally by a single user without any discussion.[2] No one else has disagreed with it, including Jeppiz.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:34, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

That is clearly wrong. Everyone disagrees that its meaningful to consider 1523 the date of establishment or independence of Sweden. It is simplyone of those dates like accession to EU where something politically significant happened to Sweden. It is clearly incorrect to consider it the establishment or foundation of Sweden as a country. By the same token, Sweden would be "established" again if it ever leaves EU. Why donøt you chill out a little on those Swedish/Melee articles? You seem to be in a very tense gear, I know what that feels like, and it is not comfortable. Help me work on some language history instead! Peder Syv, Stød, Peder Laale, Danish dialects etc.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:39, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I think you're underestimating the importance of the conflicting perspectives here: is there an unbroken line between the first appearance of medieval kingdoms and their modern "ancestors"? Most historians tend to avoid making any definitive claims about this, so I prefer not having dates at all. If anything, most tend to focus on the transition from medieval kingdoms based on personal loyalties and feudal bonds to bureaucratic fiscal-military states. It's not all that problematic to put the start date of the modern centralized, nation state to 1523. I see no problem discussing whether it's valid or not, but it's definitely not comparable to joining the EU.

I'll have a look at Danish dialects, though.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:01, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Nothing to have a look at yet! We need to create it from scratch. I agree that all foundation claims are problematic because what was founded is fundamentally different from what exists today - but in this case historians and common folk pretty much seem to agree that there is some kind of ethnic and political continuity from the Svear and untill today. Just as you I think it is a problematic narrative, that overstates continuity and ethnic roots, but those kinds of narratives are insanely popular worldwide for some reason.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 21:06, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, well common folk suck and are clearly wrong. :-p

I fiddled around with Danish language#Dialects a bit. But I really don't know anything about that except all the Scanian brouhaha. If you lead the way, I'll surely follow.

Have you considered writing anything about Henrik Harpestræng? I'm thinking about uploading his "Liber Herbarum" to Commons.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:41, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Currently I mostly stick to early Danish philologists, in preparation for a total rewrite of History of Danish and then of Danish language.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 21:45, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Never did get hooked on biographies myself. I'll keep the Danish articles watchlisted, then. Maybe I'll actually be inspired to bring Swedish language up to snuff. I mean, God forbid that the language of honor and heroes be upstaged by a bunch of coughing word-turners!

Peter ^Isotalo 22:02, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Tula/Toltec misunderstanding

I wasn't trying to school you in anything, but somebody made me dig up a page number for the name of Ives' ship, the Explorer, because although the cite was from his report, the following page number didn't explicitly state the ship's name. That's all I meant about Ferdon's theory, that the cite that followed did not mention Tula, so the topic sentence was not supported by the refs that followed. All I was trying to do was avoid adding anything that was not supported by the refs. I understand what you meant, but it seemed like WP:V issue, since it wasn't in the cited source. Will you please consider finishing your review? RO^(talk) 21:25, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I am finished with the review. Don't worry about the Toltecs.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 21:56, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

But I've added lots of stuff since you last looked, and it would be so great to get your opinion on the cultural aspect in particular, because I think I've done an acceptable job of improving the article based on your previous PR comments about that. I promise I won't argue about anything, even when I know you are wrong, which is like never anyway. Did you like the background section ([3])? RO^(talk) 23:48, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Irataba FAC

I've taken the liberty of adding your name here. Hope you're up for some scrutiny! RO^(talk) 16:31, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. The article is definitely ready, but as a co-nominator I cant support it of course.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:49, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but it's even better to have you as a co-nom anyway! RO^(talk) 17:56, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't feel I can review this as an FAC either. My own personal view is that a person with substantial edits - even if not a co-nom - shouldn't do the FAC review. And I did so much on the previous one, also. I don't have fresh eyes and someone who DOES have fresh eyes is a better reviewer. That said, I'm basically supportive and I think it can pass this time around, so long as RO stays cool-headed when the critics hit. I'm willing to assist at the FAC with some of the requests if they fall within something I'm comfortable doing. Maunus, you definitely do deserve to be a co-nom on this and RO did right to add you! Montanabw^(talk) 18:57, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Peder Syv DYK review

Can you take a look at my comments/suggestions at the DYK raview page?
While reading the article for the review, I copy-edited the page a bit and added a couple of {{clarify}} tags where I was not sure of the intended meaning. Also, I wasn't sure if Hellested would have one or more parish priests, and therefore whether "the parish priest" or "a parish priest" is the correct usage. Please review my changes to make sure that I didn't introduce any content errors. Fun read! Abecedare (talk) 01:33, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Champollion article

Dear Maunus, I appreciate all the work you've done on Jean-François Champollion article. It's a good article, and I enjoyed reading it. But at the same time, I think some of the paragraphs are a bit long. In general, when a new subject is broached, new paragraph is in order. That's all I did, I spaced out some of these paragraphs for clarity of reading.

But I don't insist that I'm right. Lots of these things are a matter of opinion, of course. All the best. Y-barton (talk) 02:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but can see that in practice we disagree on what is a new topic. I never use as short paragraphs as the ones you apparently like, with only one or two sentences, and I also dont generally see such short paragraphs in most high quality articles. In my view it makes for choppy disconnected prose and makes the article less coherent and makes it harder for the reader to read the article fluently and maintain overview on the progression. The way I generally craft paragraphs is by having a topic sentence first, and then a progression of sentences that shed new light on the topic in different ways. For example the paragraph you broke up was entirely about the presentation of the letter to Dacier. Each sentence referred back to that same topic. I do appreciate your copy edits to the article very much, but would appreciate if you would not break the paragraphs apart unless they really include completely different topics. If you are in doubt about specific cases maybe you can suggest it on the talk page and we can discuss how to proceed? ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:17, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The article by the way is currntly listed for GA review. And another problem with breaking up paragraphs is that GA reviewers tend to require a citation for each paragraph, and when you break apart a paragraph it is not clear that information in one paragraph is supported by the citation in the next. So by breaking up the paragraph you create work for me when the reviewer asks requests citations for the new paragraphs, or potentially you put the article at risk of failing the review because of the presence of paragaraphs that appear to be unsupported by citations.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:24, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Maunus. I appreciate your concerns in light of this new info you've given. As I say, often it's a matter of opinion. I just like to say honestly that when I first read this article, I felt there's not enough highlighting of important issues. That's why I added some additional headings. So I just contributed the best way I knew. But I'd better stay away from this article for a while. Best wishes. Y-barton (talk) 05:30, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I thought your introduction of subheadings was fine, and definitely those sections were very long, and your headers do serve to highlight important aspects. Please do keep working on the article, and improving it. Whenever we disagree on style I am sure we can figure out amiably and collaboratively how best to move forward. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

use of ones legs

Thank you for that remark. - I once said that those who dislike a certain accessibility feature (with seven letters which I am not supposed to mention) as aesthetically not pleasing, probably also disagree with access ramps for buildings. I like Beethoven ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:00, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Peder Syv

Harrias ^talk 14:02, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

AAT - Westenhöfer edit

Hi Maunus,
Just wanted to say thanks for the Westenhöfer edit before my account gets deleted again. I noticed that you had checked the Westenhöfer-National Socialist association comment, and probably couldn't find any evidence to support it (I couldn't either after searching). I have to say, I was quite surprised by this, because I had started to assume that all changes from an AAT supporter would automatically be assumed to be wrong, but you must have checked this, so I'm very glad to see some thorough checking, to get facts right. I think saying Westenhöfer was a Nazi probably would be working against the anti-AAT community anyway, because, as we all know from Godwin's Law, the first person to call their opponent Hitler, loses.
For the sake of fairness, regarding the issue of him being anti-Darwin, I think there is a citation for that on the actual Westenhöfer page, so it does seem like it could be true. I'm not sure why, because AAT relies on adaptations over time, and hence Darwinian thinking. Unfortunate, but I think I'd have to look at the issue some more to fully understand his thinking.
Just out of interest what made you decide to look into the Westenhöfer issue? Was it because it was the subject I got most angry about on Neil's page? Or did you check through my other six changes which were all reverted under the Attenborough-gate saga? (still not sure why this is such a sticking point that it was singled out, rather than any of my other six changes, but never mind). Aquapess (talk) 18:02, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I didn't actually look into it, it just seemed entirely irrelevant to the issue, and simply an attempt to discredit him by association. Even if he was a Nazi or worse that fact would be irrelevant in relation to the validity of his theory. Many European biologists were anti-Darwinians in that period, preferring instead different vitalist theories.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:23, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Jean-François Champollion GAN

For some reason the bot seems to have failed to add the usual message to the nominator's page, so I'm adding this note to tell you I have left some comments at Talk:Jean-François Champollion/GA1. Best, Tim riley talk 10:30, 23 May 2015 (UTC)