User talk:Apaugasma

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A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	For your recent edits to Ibn Wahshiyya. Thank you for bringing a scholarly perspective based on recent research to the article! Cerebellum (talk) 11:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Apaugasma, you seem to know what you're talking about! I'm working on Ibn Wahshiyya's Nabataean Agriculture right now, so if you ever have a moment to spare would you mind reading through it and letting me know what you think? I know the prose is rough, I need to clean it up, but I’m more worried about any errors of fact or interpretation. Until I saw your edit summary I didn’t know that Nasr was a fringe author, I’ll remove my citation to him but there are probably other mistakes lurking! --Cerebellum (talk) 11:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Dear Cerebellum, thank you very much! Thank you also for motivating me to put a bit of extra effort into this; it most certainly works! I've been busy all day writing a series of comments and suggestions on your wonderful article, which I've posted on its talk page. Thanks again, Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 21:48, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Questions

Can I ask whether you know much about the origins and development of the Greek four-stage colour-coded alchemical process ending with iosis (rubedo, rubefaction) via xanthosis, etc.? It was this connection, with the end product being purple and purple being the highest colour, indicating the (spiritual) purity of the rarefied material and somehow conceiving of purple as equal or greater than gold, or rubefaction as the final purifying stage in the production of "gold", that I am especially interested in. Reference was made to some Leiden papyri in Liz James's Light and Colour in Byzantine Art and some papers cited therein, but I'd like to know more about colour in the beginnings of alchemy and the first millennium of alchemy in the Greek East. Most work seems to favour the Arabic or Latin traditions of later centuries. GPinkerton (talk) 17:53, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Also, it'd really help editing if you were to use the Template:Cite book and other such templates. If you use the WP:VisualEditor you can use the automatic citation formatting tool: one only needs to copy-and-paste in a DOI, URL, or an ISBN and it will do most or all of the work for you. Many thanks for your efforts thus far! GPinkerton (talk) 18:03, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Dear GPinkerton, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know much about Greco-Egyptian and Byzantine alchemy (a gap I intend to fill, though there are many!).

What I do know is that one of the four original books of pseudo-Democritus was called On Purple (now part of the Physika kai mystika, but also separately preserved in a Syriac version; see Martelli, Matteo 2013. The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus. Sources of Alchemy and Chemistry, 1 = Ambix, 60, Supplement 1. Maney Publishing, p. 19). Like the other three books of pseudo-Democritus, it contained information on the production of dyes: this one on how to dye wool purple, the other three on how to 'dye' precious stones and on how to 'dye' metals gold and silver (these 'dyes' were probably rather chemical reagents, a terminology still found in Arabic and Latin alchemy). More specifically, On purple contained recipes for how to dye wool purple by using two natural substances (bryon thallasion and lakcha, see Martelli 2013, p. 11), which could be used as a substitute for the expensive Tyrian purple (also known as murex, the colour of emperors; Martelli 2013, p. 17). Similar recipes to dye fabrics purple are also contained in the Leiden and Stockholm papyri (Martelli 2013, p. 6).

Starting from this, we may perhaps hypothesize that, given the nature of purple as a status symbol comparable to how we regard gold today, the Byzantine alchemists commenting on pseudo-Democritus were especially proud of their capability to artificially create purple? Perhaps they associated purple 'dye' (probably involving a 'spirit' or highly volatile substance?) with the capacity to perfect nature, somewhat like later alchemists did with the 'elixir' or 'stone' that could perfect metals in order to create gold? Much further research is certainly needed, but this is as far as I get, on this evening, with my very limited knowledge. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 00:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thrice-thanks! that's a magnificently more-than-adequate answer! I am very grateful! It is of note that many of the patristic authors refer to dyeing with purple as the basis of various metaphors for both positive and negative (but always indelible) characteristics, doubtless referring to Eclogue 4 (if I remember right) of Vergil and the pun on dyeing/baptism (βάπτω). One of the pseudepigrapha mentions a purple light emanation during the Harrowing of Hell. I'm working on this for my own research on coloured stones in the art of the relevant period. While I know the authors were often concerned with the σμαράγδας (perhaps represented in architecture with verde antico) but do you know of any mentions of porphyry (small p) in the esoterica of any language? GPinkerton (talk) 01:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

@GPinkerton: Well, there's of course the Dēmokritou peri porphyras kai chrysou poiēseōs that is now part of Physika kai mystika as mentioned above. But since pseudo-Democritus' Physika kai mystika is the earliest known alchemical text and was regarded by all later Greek alchemists as the single most authoritative source, I suspect that you will find much of interest throughout the Greek alchemical literature. It strikes me as strange that someone would be researching coloured stones in the Byzantine period without consulting the alchemists, for whom the colouring of stones was one of their main businesses? Since you seem to read Greek fluently, I strongly suggest you just go through the actual texts, which are generally quite short, and even taken all together fit in one volume of c. 460 pages (vol. II of Berthelot, Marcellin and Ruelle, C. E. 1888. Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs. Vols. I-III. Paris: Steinheil, undoubtedly available online; vol. III has French translations of all texts). Note, though, that Berthelot and Ruelle's edition is very poor, so where available it is better to consult critical editions (mainly Martelli 2013 as cited above for pseudo-Democritus and the Les Alchimistes grecs series published by Les Belles Lettres). For secondary reading, I suggest Nicolaïdis, Efthymios (ed.) 2018. Greek Alchemy from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity. Turnhout: Brepols (a collection of essays, mainly by top tier experts); Magdalino, Paul and Mavroudi, Maria (eds.) 2006. The Occult Sciences in Byzantium. Geneva: La Pomme d'or (an older collection of essays), and perhaps (if you read Italian) Martelli, Matteo 2019. L’alchimista antico: Dall'Egitto greco-romano a Bisanzio. Milano: Editrice Bibliografica.

I strongly suspect that the fascination for purple was a typically Roman/Byzantine phenomenon, but of course it may have left some traces in the early Arabic literature. If I ever come across anything, I'll be sure to contact you! You may also want to contact Matteo Martelli, who is the world's foremost expert in technical Greek alchemy. In the meanwhile, I'd be very interested in some references for the Patristic allusions to purple dying (that the 'dye' would penetrate the whole of the substance and thus would be indelible was one of the ways in which alchemists differentiated 'their' dying from 'regular' dying), as well as to the pun on dying/baptism? Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 16:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Apaugasma, Thanks so much for this! I was just reading the Martelli paper and made a note to contact him or his team. I am keen to know what the authorities had to say on stones, but particularly building stones, marbles, and particularly porphyry. There is a fascinating late reference to a tradition involving the casting of porphyry columns in vats (obviously stemming from a confusion with the purple dye which shares the rock's name) cited in a footnote to Fabio Barry's "Walking on Water" on marble's historical conception of having been made from liquid by various means. Somewhere there is also reference in an Arabic source to certain porphyry columns in a mosque in Cairo which had been allegedly manufactured by a djinn (who had been forced to abandon them for one reason or another), and somewhere else there is mention of porphyry spolia in the Great Mosque of Damascus having come from the throne of Solomon (no less). Ibn Jubayr (according to the translation I read) saw porphyry (and green marble) in the very Ka'aba. Unfortunately my Greek is nowhere near good enough to read alchemy without the aid of a translation, though I will want to see the originals.

βάπτω (I dip, dye, give colour to) is the root and stem of βαπτίζω (I baptize). Because purple dye was the only really colour-fast garment dye in antiquity, it had a special symbolic value and never washed out (and neither did its fishy smell). Fetishizing purple dye was widespread in the ancient east long before the Romans; the Hebrew Bible frequently refers to purple, and early exegetes treated of these usages, and it may even have been tekhelet, possibly made from the same or similar snails by another method. (One of the most fundamental things is that "purple" (and colours in general) need not necessarily be the colour purple, though the most desirable seems to have been the blood/rust/wine colour usually represented.) I will give specifics soon. GPinkerton (talk) 16:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for copying this from my unpublished research's footnotes; it may be inaccurate and I don't recall exactly what is being said in most of them, though I can find out if necessary. It should be said that these ideas are mine and not (yet) reviewed. There are many more, but these footnotes represent the state of some of my work 2 years ago ... GPinkerton (talk) 17:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Citations

For dyeing and baptism see: John Chrysostom, Ad illuminandos catechesis I. (NPNF1:IX:159-160.) (PG:LXIX:223.) where baptism is described as "αϊματ βαφεΐσαν Δεσποτικῷ" ("dyed in the Master's blood") On colourfastness of purple/the indelibility of its moral properties on the wearer: Jerome, Epistula CVII, V. (NPNF2:VI:191.) (CSEL:55:295) Jerome, Apologia ad Rufinum, I:30. (NPNF2:IV:498.) (PG:XXIII:422B.) Cyprian of Carthage, De habitu virginum, XIV. (ANF:IV:434.) (PL:IV:452Bff.) Tertullian, De cultu feminarum, I:8, II:10. (ANF:IV:17, 23) (PL:I:1327B, 1312B-1313A.); cf. Pliny, Naturalis historia, VIII:74. (LCL352:138-139.) On Virgil, Ecloga IV, 42-45. (LCL63:50-5.), describing eschatological self-dyeing purple sheep: Lactantius, Institutiones divinae, VII:24. (CSEL:19:658-663); Eusebius, Oration of Constantine, XX. (Heikel, 1902, 183); On purple dye/colour and morality in general, with positive and negative (but always superlative) attitudes to the stuff: Tertullian, De testimentio animæ, II. (ANF:III:176.) (PL:I:621-623.) De pallio, IV. (ANF:IV:10 ) (PL:II:1045A.) De idololatria, XVII-XVIII. (ANF:III:72.) (PL:I:686B-690A.) De corona, I. (PL:II:77A.); Cyprian of Carthage, De opere et eleemosynis, XXVI. (PL:IV:622B.); Epistola VIII. (PL:IV:249C.) Jerome, Epistola LVIII. (NPNF2:VI:122.) (PL:XXII:584.) Theodoret, Epistola XLIII. (NPNF2:III:264.) (PG:LXXXIII:1220D.) Athanasius, Fragmenta in Matthæum, XVIII. (NPNF2:IV:lxxix.) (PG:XXVII:1380D.) Prudentius, Peristephanon, X:910. (LCL398:288.) and X:143-144. (LCL398:238-239.) In the biblical tradition: Jeremiah X:9. Numbers IV:4. Song of Songs III:9-10; cf. Theodoret, Explanatio in Canticum canticorum, II:3. (PG:LXXXI:125A.) Luke XVI Gospel of James, XI-XII; Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, VIII, IX. (ANF:VIII:363, 372-373.) 1 Peter II:9 – "γένος εκλεκτόν βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα" and "θαυμαστὸν φῶς." On the temple curtain and its dyes: Josephus, De bello Judaico, V:5:4. (LCL203:66-67.) Gospel of Nicodemus, I:2. (ANF:VIII:448.) Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V:6. (ANF:II:452.) (PG:IX:56C-57A.) Philo of Alexandria, De congressu quarendae, XX. (LCL261:516-519.) Ambrose, De fide, II:12. (NPNF2:X:225.) (PL:XVI:562A.)

@GPinkerton: Thanks a ton for these! I'm sure they will be of some use to me. Sincerely, Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 17:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Rosetta Barnstar
	For deciphering Wikipedia's alchemical morass in various language traditions; a magnum opus! GPinkerton (talk) 14:31, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, dear GPinkerton, I feel very honoured! Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 15:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Sinemorets

Hi! Wandered here from the ANI on Yaakov and was intrigued by your explanation of your username. Wondered if, based on your knowledge of greek, you might be able to decipher the last sentence of the lede at Sinemorets to clarify what the Greek name was? Trying to find some better history on this place as the current name is fairly new and thought having the correct Greek transliteration might help. Thanks either way. StarM 00:50, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

@Star Mississippi: I only have a very superficial command of ancient Greek, and you might get a much better answer from someone who is a native speaker of Modern Greek (which is quite different). Here's a list of people who have volunteered for translating from Greek. However, I will do my best to provide you with an answer using my make-shift skills.

The name Γαλαζάκι (Galazáki) appears to be compounded of the words γαλάζιο (galázio) ("azure", "sky blue", noun) or γαλάζιος (galázios) ("sky blue", adjective) and the diminutive suffix -άκι (-áki), rendering something like "Little Azure" or "Little Blue". It appears to be a common name for the flowers Veronica persica (birdeye speedwell) and Centaurea cyanus (cornflower) in modern Greek (according to this and this blog respectively, of course not exactly RS, but likely enough since both are small blue flowers). My best guess is that the village's name refers to the azure color of the sea, though there's no way to be certain (the Spanish wiki translates the Bulgarian name as "lugar en el mar azul", "place in the blue sea", but again not a RS).

Hope this helps, Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 02:51, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Even if not RSes, they're a helpful starting point toward further sourcing. StarM 13:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Just wanted to say thanks

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to make Wikipedia better. You're the type of person that makes this site better. Thank you, friend! Much appreciate your help with the article. Rusdo (talk) 04:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@Rusdo: No problem! You'll probably also like what I did to Gospel of Mark. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 04:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I do like it and I think it makes for a better article. I don't understand this knee-jerk reaction by some people against nuance and qualifications. That's what scholarship is all about. Pretending like there's a consensus in scholarship when there really isn't helpful. Rusdo (talk) 00:10, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the discussion

It would probably be a good idea for you to take a break from my talk page because you seem to have run out of ammo. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 21:31, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

@Viriditas: yes, you're absolutely right. Thank you very much for your understanding. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 21:43, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello Apaugasma, Viriditas (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing! Viriditas (talk) 22:04, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Hieroglyphs, decipherment of

Attempted translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs by pseudo-Ibn Wahshiyyah

Hi Apaugasma! First off, thanks for the warm welcome and for the balanced edits :-). One request, though: I think "[...] was able to identify the phonetic value of a few Egyptian hieroglyphs" gives the wrong impression. This suggests that Ibn Washiyya was following the correct method like an early Young / Champollion, as per Dr. El Daly's claims. I would be very excited if that were true, but looking e.g. at the picture shown with the article (from Dr. El Daly's presentation), it clearly is not:

Going through the list from the upper left, 𓊰 is not a uniconsonantal sign at all, certainly not "aleph", 𓏌𓏤 is /nw/ + determinative stroke, not "y", 𓏏 𓏥 is /t/ + plural strokes and not "q", 𓉻 is ayn+aleph (the word "great"), not "g", the next character 𓏌 is /nw/ again, now interpreted as "b", 𓊹𓊹 "two gods" (nTr.wy?) is certainly not "k" and so forth ... I could go on for the rest of the chart: it is not just that the phonetic values are misidentified but that word signs are interpreted as phonetics and the author clearly did not even understand which signs belong together. This impression is confirmed by a quick glance through the translation of the work linked to in the article: whole groups of glyphs are given allegorical translations "if a man was poisoned they would write it with XYZ glyphs" with no basis in the actual text displayed. So, if any glyphs were identified correctly I would ascribe that to mere chance (sadly, again - if the work had been done 1,000 years ago, I would be extremely excited).

I think the reason why this never gets called out is because the number of reporters that can read Hieroglyphs and Arabic is vanishingly small if not zero. I would give Ibn Washiyya credit for trying and for his assumption that signs could be read phonetically (rather than just allegorically / as ideographs) - in itself an important step. But "correctly identified some signs" gives the wrong impression IMHO, especially since this has been hyped so much in the media and there has been no critical reporting whatsoever (outside of specialist circles). Can we find a better way to phrase this? I struggled, that's why I took the identification part out completely in the lead section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MikuChan39 (talk • contribs) 12:35, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi MikuChan39! Thank you for posting here. However, since what you wrote could be of some benefit to future editors of the article, I moved it to the article's talk page and replied to you there. If you want to notify other editors that you wrote something on a talk page you can do so by using templates such as {{u|Apaugasma}} or {{ping|Apaugasma}}. Last but not least, don't forget to sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~) at the end. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:23, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

June 2021

Please stop your disruptive editing.

• If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant noticeboards.
• If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

If you continue to disrupt Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing. Reverting the deletion of material added by a blocked sock is...well, it's about the worst explanation one can give. Drmies (talk) 01:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Apaugasma, acting as the ḥujja of the Ismaili Imam, explaining the bāṭin (hidden) meaning of his ẓāhir (manifest) editing patterns

@Drmies: These edits were originally added by a number of editors who have recently been blocked for promotional editing (see the recent thread at ANI). However, as I discussed with Notfrompedro (the user who carried out the mass-reverts), quite a few of these edits were actually quite helpful from an encyclopedic point of view. I've been going through them very carefully, only reinstating those that do contribute valuable content and are compliant with content policy (mostly NPOV, which a lot of the edits also failed). I've had some discussions about some of these reinstatements (see, e.g., here and here), but it's not always easy to decide which edits are good and which are not, so that is to be expected. In any case, I believe that we should preserve good content, even if it was added by blocked editors. Would you please reconsider the action you took here? Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:32, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Apaugasma, that ANI thread alone is as clear as mud as a rationale for restoring this content, but I'll take your word for it. I would, however, change that edit summary a bit--go ahead and restore what you believe to be right. Sorry to make you go through that, but none of this was just very transparent. Drmies (talk) 01:47, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I reverted myself for a couple of edits, but reading through the "Days of Creation" article, I can't help but wonder why that is worth inserting all over the place. I can't find a single review of it, and only a few mentions--here someone points to it cause they published in it, and this tells me it's basically a proceedings collection from a conference in Tajikistan. So that it is valuable content verified by a valuable source, I am not convinced. Drmies (talk) 02:02, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Drmies: I can see how this must be confusing. What about the following for an edit summary: "this content was originally added by a blocked editor and reverted for that reason, but I am restoring it because it complies with content policy and improves the encyclopedia; please discuss at the talk page if you disagree"? I usually try to be as clear as possible in edit summaries, but I clearly goofed up on this one.

Could you be more specific which edit you're discussing? The blocked editors indeed tended to add the same content to a number of related articles, but on the whole they did add a lot of different content of varying degrees of quality. I think each one of them is open for discussion, but I need to know which one you mean, and which source it is using. Shafique Virani, though by no means a top scholar in the field, generally is a reliable source (see, e.g., his contributions to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the standard reference work for Islamic studies [1]). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 02:24, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Drmies: the source you're referring to is probably Virani, Shafique N. 2005. "The Days of Creation in the Thought of Nasir Khusraw" in: Nasir Khusraw: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Edited by Sarfaroz Niyozov and Ramazan Nazariev. Khujand, Tajikistan: Noshir Publishing House, pp. 74-83 ([2]). Its worth may perhaps be gauged from the fact that it was republished online by the Institute of Ismaili Studies (here), the prime research institute for everyone dealing with Ismailism. This is as reliable as it gets (the IIS has a problem of being funded by Ismaili organizations, but it is extremely well-respected in the field), though that does not necessarily mean that any individual edits by the blocked editors based on it are appropriate. Perhaps it is better to discuss these edits at the talk pages of the articles concerned. In the mean time, will you self-revert, or shall I revert your edits? Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:24, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

That edit summary is fine. Yes, go ahead and undo--if you can restore the previous version so I don't get a ping every time that would be great. Ha, you got a ton of them yesterday of course. But yes, that (above, "Days of Creation") was the one that troubled me, thanks, but I'll accept your analysis and trust your expertise. Drmies (talk) 13:39, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

The Arabic Hermes

You appear to be an extremely knowledgeable person to me. Will come to visit you from time to time to discuss few things or to get some book recommendations on the history of philosophy, religion and science if you don't mind. I have started reading Kevin Van Bladel's "The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science." Interesting study. But the book I suppose suffers from some Hellenocentric biases. I don't know. That is just an opinion. I haven't even finished the book yet. Have you come across this term before? I mean, Hellenocentrism? I suppose you have. The article is not an well developed one. Need more references to enrich that entry. Anyways, Bladels' book is great. Learning many things from it. Wanted to let you know that I came to know of this book from one of your comments in a talk page. And yes, pardon my English, I am not a native speaker. Best wishes for you. Mosesheron (talk) 17:58, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@Mosesheron: Thank you for the compliments! You're always welcome here to ask for references; I would be glad to help if I can.

As for Hellenocentrism, I had not yet come across the term itself, but judging from the article it can refer to several different concepts which do sound familiar:

Understood as 'Ancient Greek exceptionalism' (i.e., the idea that the cultural accomplishments of the ancient Greeks happened in complete isolation from the surrounding cultures and that they represent some kind of 'miracle'), it's of course a well-known position in the older historiography of philosophy and science which slowly but surely is getting exposed as the ahistorical nonsense it really is. The main problem with it, as I see it, is that it entirely ignores the fundamental role played by textual transmission: what we do and do not know about the cultural accomplishments of people who lived more than 2000 years ago is entirely determined by the people who lived in the two intervening millennia: its their interests, their preservation efforts, their politics, and their military successes and failures which have resulted in the survival of some texts and the perishing of others. Basically, most of what we know about the ancient Greeks is due to the efforts of Byzantine copyists, their intellectual (Eastern Christian) predilections, and the fact that Constantinople remained unconquered until the 15th century. If Alexander had never conquered the cities of ancient Egypt and Persia, and if the Muslims wouldn't have done the same a thousand years later, we might have had access today to a rich Coptic and Persian literature similar to what we now have in Greek. There is no doubt in my mind that if that would have been the case, the whole idea of the 'Greek miracle' would have been an obvious absurdity that no one would even ever had thought of.

Alexander the Great, the power-hungry student of Aristotle who started it all. Also became the subject of a medieval Romance, and appeared in some pseudo-Aristotelian treatises such as the Secret of Secrets and the Treasure of Alexander. The latter claims that Aristotle received his wisdom from Hermes Trismegistus, conveying the belief that philosophy and science originated neither in Greece nor in Persia, but in the divine grace of God.

However, there also appears to be a secondary meaning of the term 'Hellenocentric' –one that the article strongly focuses on– which seems more closely related to identity politics, and which in my view wrongly blames modern (Western) historians for the vagaries of textual transmission as outlined above. That ancient Greek thought uniquely influenced all later civilizations west of India is not the result of some kind of Eurocentric bias, but merely a historical fact (and one largely due to the conquests of Alexander, which set into motion a process of Hellenization that had already reached levels of near-universality in early Byzantine Egypt and Sassanian Persia). That history books mainly focus on ancient Greek thought is partly due to this unique influence, and partly due to the fact that we have actual ancient Greek texts dating from that period to actually base our history books on. The simple reality is that we do not have an extant Coptic or Persian literature even remotely similar to what we have in Greek. Ancient Egyptian and Persian thought is all but entirely lost, and though what is left has not nearly been studied well enough, most of the pithy survivals were already under thorough Hellenistic influence, and just aren't of the quality and depth of what we have in Greek (and later, in Arabic). Again, this is entirely due to textual transmission, not to any inherent inferiority of Egyptian or Persian thought. But it still is the reality we have to deal with today, and the idea that modern (Western) historians are somehow trying to cover up or deliberately ignoring the evidence is itself a dangerous and damaging delusion.

As such, I do not believe that van Bladel is writing from a 'Hellenocentric' point of view: he is deliberately investigating Middle Persian, Syriac and Arabic texts in order to recover some of the rich intellectual traditions of the late antique and medieval Middle-East. The fact that most of these traditions go back on Greek and Hellenistic thought is not of van Bladel's choosing. Neither is the fact that the Sassanids were already engaging in an early form of identity politics by claiming that Alexander 'stole' all supposed Greek knowledge from the Persians, a theme that would reappear in many different guises in medieval Arabic literature. What exactly the ancient Greeks from the 6th century BCE owed to the Persians has been the subject of some speculation among 20th-century historians, but what Khosrow I claimed about this 1200 years later in the 6th century CE is simply of no historiographical value. Again, the actual facts about this are long lost, and it is wrong to blame modern historians for this.

With all this said, there is also the (different) phenomenon of Eurocentrism, which is a very real and much more insidious problem in Western historiography. Actually, the very idea that the ancient Greeks were somehow 'European' lies at the core of it, though there's of course also the neglect of anything not perceived to be 'European'. In fact, 'Europe' is a cultural construct dating from the 18th century, and the ancient Greeks really had nothing to with it: their world was part of the larger eastern Mediterranean, and they were looking to the inhabitants of Egypt and Mesopotamia as cultural 'relatives', not to the ancient Celts living in what is now Western Europe. Greek philosophy and science spread over Egypt, the Levant, and Persia about 1500 years before it finally reached Western-Europe (during the so-called Renaissance of the 12th century). Like ancient Greek culture itself, the history of Greek influence is a non-European one at least until the late Middle Ages. However, (Eurocentric) books on history of science or philosophy generally skip from ancient Greece to the Renaissance or the Early Modern period, leaving a huge gap that actually constitutes the greatest part of the story. In this context, Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps is a wonderful initiative. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:44, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

It was really enlightening. However, do you believe that modern historians have genuinely attempted, or are still attempting, to reconstruct the cultural context in which ancient Greece flourished, with all of its knowledge of philosophy, theology, and so on? Was it that difficult, given the fact that they have “successfully reconstructed" many aspects of history that were almost unknown to us? I'm sure you've considered the time period between the so-called first philosopher of ancient Greece, Thales, and the "all-knowing" Aristotle, in whose figure we see the culmination of nearly all ancient knowledge? How could they achieve so many things within such a short period of time? What are the real sources of pre-Socratic philosophy, theology, and so on? Did it all begin with them? If the answer is no, then, who were their real inspirations? People like Martin Bernal et al might well be wrong in their theses, but what really have the mainstream historians taught us about this aspect of intellectual history? I've been looking for a few works on the history of ancient philosophy, theology, sciences, and other subjects that explore the origins and sources of pre-Socratic philosophy in depth, but to my surprise, I have found none. Now that maybe because I am not an expert in the filed or a student of the history of philosophy and sciences like you. But again why are they so scarce if they really exist, if such works exist at all? Most books or journal papers I read start with the pre-Socratics, with an introduction that largely rejects rather than recognizes the contributions or contacts with other civilizations in a very smart way. They frequently spare a few lines to demonstrate how primitive and mythological other civilizations were, while claiming that the Greeks were unique and original in such and such ways. I made a comment on the Talk Page of the pre-Socratic philosophy about its sources and origin few months ago, which two devoted editors took very seriously. What do we come know about its origin and history from that page now? The straightforward answer is nothing. I am not of course undermining their efforts. Perhaps they did their best. Or perhaps they thought such little description was sufficient for it. Would you kindly recommend me some works that discuss the origins and sources of pre-Socratic philosophy in depth? Lastly, I thank you for your comment. It offers some ideas that our academics frequently fail to express. Best wishes. Mosesheron (talk) 17:13, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Hermann A. Diels (1848–1922). His collection of Presocratic fragments, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, is still used by scholars today. Also coined the term doxography, and reconstructed several ancient Greek doxographies in his Doxographi Graeci.

@Mosesheron: it's all about textual transmission, really. To understand this, first you need to understand what our knowledge of ancient philosophy is actually based on.

Did you know that we do not have even one work from a Presocratic philosopher? All of our knowledge about Presocratic philosophy is based on what we can glean from Plato and Aristotle (who have already been shown by Cherniss 1935 to be rather unreliable when it comes to the Presocratics), and from the fragments that can be found in late (and very unreliable) doxographical collections such as those compiled by Arius Didymus (fl. 1st century BCE), Aetius (fl. c. 100 CE) and Diogenes Laërtius (fl. 3d century CE), as well as in the works of some Church Fathers and other later thinkers (Cicero, Galen, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle such as Simplicius, etc.). The most extensive of those later sources are the doxographical collections, but they're also the least reliable: to know how unreliable they really are, it suffices to look at what they say about Aristotle and Plato (whose actual works we do have), which often doesn't even remotely resemble the ideas found in Plato's and Aristotle's extant works. So the whole venture of reconstructing Presocratic philosophy is based on puzzling with mostly unreliable late fragments, and much, much speculation. But at least we do have the Greek works just mentioned to glean the fragments from, which is entirely due to medieval Byzantine copyists and geopolitical vagaries as explained above. On the non-Greek (Egyptian, Levantine, Mesopotamian, Persian) contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle, we have absolutely no textual evidence (apart from some travel tales and myths retold by Plato himself, who in this case constitutes an even less reliable witness).

But there are also important differences between the Presocratics themselves. Of Empedocles (c. 500 – c. 430 CE, not so long before Plato, c. 428 – c. 348 BCE), we have been able to reconstruct two almost complete poems. Of Thales (c. 625 – c. 550 BCE), on the other hand, we have not even one authentic fragment, and only some sparse and very questionable testimonies from Aristotle (i.e., we know almost nothing about him). So what are we going to say to someone who comes asking not about Thales himself, but about Thales' sources? There is a broad consensus today that in all probability, it did not start with Thales, and that he learned what he knew (whatever that was) from Mesopotamian and perhaps also from Egyptian itinerant teachers. But here we have entered the field of complete and utter speculation. There are no sources. This is an important point to grasp, because it both answers all your questions and leaves you entirely puzzled. More precisely, it leaves you as puzzled as scholars are, and I assure you that if there was anything that scholars could do to arrive at a better understanding, however slight, they would do it in a heartbeat.

From the Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 17th century BCE), one of the oldest extant medical texts, written in ancient Egyptian.

But the puzzle is unsolvable, because almost all of its pieces are lost. There are some Babylonian clay tablets which contain practical instructions related to sciences like astronomy and medicine, some Egyptian papyri dealing with medicine and mathematics, etc. These are very similar in content to extant ancient Greek papyri such as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, i.e., mainly practical in nature and generally very far removed from the highly sophisticated texts dealing with philosophy and science, which also in the ancient world were very rare and constituted a very small minority of the written material (actually, they were more akin to jealously guarded treasure). This kind of text, which undoubtedly also existed in many other languages than Greek, did not easily end up somewhere buried under the sand, but needed to be diligently copied every few centuries or so to survive, which means that its survival depended on the existence of a scribal class who had the knowledge and the means to read, understand, translate, and copy material. This class of people often perished along with the empire that supported it, although there often was also some form of continuity (most notably in Christian monasteries, or in special cases such as when the descendants of Sassanian administrative functionaries were restored to power by the early Abbasids, most famously the Barmakids). For example, we know that there was an extensive philosophical literature in Middle Persian which was developed under the Sassanids (note, however, that this literature was already thoroughly Hellenistic), but which is almost entirely lost today (some traces of it may be found in the scanty Zoroastrian literature that does survive, such as in the Bundahishn; some works also survive in Arabic translation, such as part of the Arabic Hermetica). When it comes to ancient (before c. 300 BCE) non-Greek philosophical literature though, this was all swept away by the Macedonian, Roman, and Parthian conquests, and there's just nothing left for us but speculation.

Now scholars generally don't write books based on nothing but speculation (OK, Martin Bernal did, but there's a reason why we call his work pseudo-historic around here), so that's why you're not finding such. I don't know any real good reference for pre-Greek science (i.e., Babylonian and ancient Egyptian science), but I highly recommend checking the first chapter of Lindberg, David C. (2008). The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 (2d ed.). University of Chicago Press., which probably refers to some good sources on this in the bibliography (actually, the whole book is worth reading in itself, as it is the standard introduction to the history of science west of India). For Presocratic philosophy, there's Cherniss, Harold F. (1935). Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy. New York: Octagon Books., which is of course outdated in many ways, but remains the go-to classic when it comes to source criticism with regard to the Presocratics. For Presocratic philosophy itself, there are the well-known standard introductory works by scholars such as W. K. C. Guthrie and Jonathan Barnes (especially Guthrie is still very often cited), but I suspect you will find a much more up-to-date historiographical approach (as well as some interesting references) in Laks, André; Most, Glenn W. (2018). The Concept of Presocratic Philosophy: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Princeton University Press. There's much more where that came from, so please feel free to ask.

I too wish you all the best, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:11, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

I cannot thank you enough. Of course, I will come back to you for more references. But for now I think I will have to meditate upon your comment and look into the sources you have mentioned in order to fully comprehend what you have said. Best regards. Mosesheron (talk) 15:04, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you Apaugasma for informing the mistake in my draft article. I moved the page title of the article 'Paracelsus' to Philips Paracelsus. It will be more informative are easy to search. Regards, Hrishikesh Namboothiri V VNHRISHIKESH (talk) 06:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks

I appreciate you spending time on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hitchens's razor, my AN/I concern, and my talk page a while back when you helped me to understand policy better. You seem very professional and kind, and I appreciate that you have pointed out my mistakes in a professional and kind way. MarshallKe (talk) 13:13, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@MarshallKe: thank you for coming here and leaving me this very kind message. I appreciate it very much! Sincerely, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Another thank-you

I have long appreciated your good edits on a number of articles, so: thank you! You are careful and knowledgeable, you respect good scholarship, and you tactfully revert inappropriate edits. If you make changes to Pseudo-Democritus, please read Martelli first. I think his monograph on the subject concludes about as much as is reasonable to conclude from the available sources, and successfully dates this writer's work to ca. 60 AD. I know Martelli, and can vouch for his conscientious professional scholarship. Ajrocke (talk) 17:54, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello Ajrocke, thanks for the compliments! I am indeed entirely basing my current rewrite of pseudo-Democritus on Martelli 2013. There is no doubt that he is the most important current expert on the topic, and the quality of his scholarship really speaks for itself. The article will still just be a stub, but I hope you'll like it! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:05, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Excellent re-write and expansion of the article pseudo-Democritus! Thanks for doing this.Ajrocke (talk) 16:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much!

Hi, Apaugasma! Thank you very much for your kindness for how to contribute to Wikipedia. It was the first edit of Wikipedia for me, and I seem to have made a mistake, editing it. If you made a correction for my edit, I thank you so much! I have some things to do now, and would like to read about Pneuma (Stoic) and Stoic Physics later. I will not discuss it on the talk pages. Take care!Ruby2021 (talk) 16:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Shem HaMephorash

Whatever happened to your additions to this article? Will they see the light of day? Skyerise (talk) 18:29, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello Skyerise! I've been working on it off and on, but I have been too busy with other things to finish it yet. You can look at what I already have in my sandbox. It currently more or less breaks off towards the end of the 'Name/Word as angelomorphic divine hypostasis' section, where a paragraph on Jesus as carrier of the divine Name in early Christianity still needs to be completed. After that, the section on the taboo needs to be rewritten to fit in the current structure of the draft, the section on the term Shem ha-Mephorash itself needs to be expanded a bit, and I still have to write the whole part about the late antique and early medieval development of 12-lettered, 42-lettered, and 72-lettered Names (for which sources are scarce).

I'm not directly planning to write anything about the later history of the term (from high medieval Kabbalah and angel magic, through Renaissance Christian Kabbalah and goetia, to 20th-century Hermetic Kabbalah and occultism), since I'll have more than enough work with the early history. I'm not sure when exactly I'll have time to do all this, but it's probably safe to assume that it may still take a while. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:44, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Different capitalization at RfD

Hi Apaugasma, I wanted to reach out here since I just closed the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 September 28#Shurafa committee. I also deleted the uppercase variant that you identified. I see this as an acceptable deletion per WP:NOTBURO. When closing RfDs, I try to consider whether the heart of the discussion is really a specific redirect or a more general idea. In this case, I saw the core question as "Should this phrase redirect to this page?" The answer was no, so requiring a separate discussion for the variant would be overly bureaucratic. In the future, you can list such variants in the same discussion. I expect editors would not object to that even if you don't spot the variants immediately.

One caveat is for situations where capitalization variants redirect to different places. This is not necessarily wrong, but that sort of situation comes up at RfD periodically, usually with an eye to bringing the redirects into sync. So if Shurafa Committee had redirected to a different page, I would not have taken action, leaving it instead to a separate discussion. Hope this explanation is helpful. --BDD (talk) 15:47, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi BDD, thank you very much for your thorough explanation! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:31, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Pings

Hey Apaugasma,

I have been impressed by your survey of scholarly works on Islam-related articles. I have already pinged you on some discussions over the past month and want to continue to do so. Is it ok if I do? I don't consider this canvassing as I consider you a fairly neutral editor (and in fact you've opposed my proposal in this discussion). I ping you because you provide insight from usually a different angle than how I see things.VR _talk 04:37, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Vice regent! I've been worried before that this may at some point cross the line to canvassing, so I'd definitely recommend to be careful with it. But then I'd say you're surely experienced enough around here to know what is okay and what is not. Yes, you can always ping me when you'd like to hear my opinion, and I'm very honored that you value it so highly. From my side, though, I'm hoping I'll be able to resist answering the pings, since I've been trying to get busy with off-wiki things for some time now, which has not at all been working for me. If all is good, I will be off talk pages at least for a few months now. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:23, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

A friend once told me a joke. There's a guy in the office, a total workaholic, always comes in earlier than anyone, leaves late, works studiously. Then one day the workaholic waltzes in late, only does occasional work, and mostly socializes by the water cooler. When this repeats for several days, someone asks him "what's going on?" The workaholic responds "I'm on vacation!"

My advice would be to just take a clean break. I've been trying to take a wiki-vacation but keep finding myself back. Maybe I should take my own advice... But I definitely hope you come back after your vacation (as I've seen some people leave and never return).VR _talk 14:18, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thanks for your input. When one is ranting into the void, this is the response one is hoping for, but doesn't really expect. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Hey Gråbergs Gråa Sång! Thank you for you magnanimity, and for the golden beer! It's very refreshing indeed. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

If you haven't come across this before, you may enjoy it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:09, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

If you feel like having an opinion, or just watch some passionate debate: Talk:Bible#Proposed_leadtext. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:57, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Levantine Arabic

Hi Apaugasma, I fondly remember our discussion on the Omar / Umar topic and was wondering if you have an interest in another question of modern Arabic. There is currently a peer review ongoing at Levantine Arabic, and I have raised a number of challenges around the relationship between Levantine and MSA / CA, and the history of its development. I remember from the previous discussion how much more knowledgeable you are than I am in these topics. If of interest, the discussion is at Wikipedia:Peer review/Levantine Arabic/archive2. Onceinawhile (talk) 01:29, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Onceinawhile, thanks for coming here! Unfortunately, I'm rather ignorant about historical linguistics, or perhaps I should say about linguistics generally. This being the case, I wouldn't be able to contribute anything valuable to that discussion. However, you do seem to know a thing or two about this topic, so you're probably doing fine! Merry Christmas & happy holidays! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:57, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you too. Hope to collaborate more with you next year. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:30, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't believe we've been introduced...

The Magician, illustrating the concept that as above, so below.

...but I've seen your name around plenty, and given the current unpleasantries I've finally decided to click on your very interesting-looking signature. Some fun topic area overlaps :) Admirable work on As above, so below -- with some expansion and tweaking (sandwich the images less, maybe a less indiscriminate list at the end) I could envision it making GA, and there'd be a Quarter Million Award in it if that's anything that interests you? (I was working on The Magician (Tarot card) when much newer, with quixotic aspirations to bring the whole Major Arcana to GT/FT, but not for now.) Vaticidalprophet 20:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Vaticidalprophet! Thanks for coming here, and thanks for the compliments! I've seen your name around a lot too (I'm a big lurker around here ), and I've often appreciated your insightful comments, as well as your enthusiasm for content work. I fear that the As above, so below article looks better than it really is: the topic being rather close to the subject of my original research, I was able to make an OK article out of it, but the sourcing is actually very thin. It's almost all passing mentions, and there's really not much material on it out there. I guess I'm just very happy to have a reliable article on a topic like that.

I'm not really interested in GA/FA stuff, to be honest. I'm mainly here to fight the enormous spread of misinformation represented by Wikipedia, which often means that I'll go through an article replacing and updating the most offensive stuff. Only when I have a lot of time and encounter an article that is disastrous from beginning to end (cf., e.g., [3]), I will rewrite it from scratch. But once everything in it is directly based on impeccably reliable sources, I'm generally happy to leave it at that and move on. There are so many other bad articles out there!

Then again, I do plan to further expand some of the articles I've already rewritten, and I will probably nominate one for GA at some point. Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz might actually already be there, I don't know. I can imagine myself doing a lot of that in the future, but I guess that right now my priorities lie elsewhere (mainly off-wiki, that is). If you stay around here, we'll probably have plenty of opportunity to collaborate! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz quite likely is already there although I have to query the huge image in the last section -- I understand wanting to get the architectural detail, but it squishes the text quite a lot. I get what you mean about AASB and thinner-than-expected sourcing; it's frustratingly the case for some of my internet-culture articles. That said, you'd be surprised how niche a topic can be and still be able to pass those processes. There are FAs not much longer -- they're very niche topics, but they're as thorough discussions of it as there's possible to write.

The interesting thing about GA is it's not actually, in the end, a very high bar. It fits pretty well with your stated goal, even. I find it's something that looks scary from the outside but winds up being surprisingly easy when you're there; there's a reason the term often applied, not unkindly, to the GAN process is "lightweight". (Hence the comment at the top of User:Vaticidalprophet/GANs, referring to comments by Ritchie333 possibly, IIRC, by way of Eric Corbett? he'd know and Carrite respectively.) One benefit of the process is it lets you take an article through DYK, which can (for exactly the reasons the GSoW is a fan -- it's a powerful tool) be really useful to the combatting-misinformation goal. If an article was in poor shape for years, bringing attention to an improved version on the main page is a powerful way to influence things in the opposite direction. Food for thought. Vaticidalprophet 22:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Sorry for all the crap you've been through lately. Kittens are always adorable; editors, less so. Levivich 17:17, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

If you ever happen to be looking for something new to work on, Bible could use some attention from editors knowledgeable about ancient texts. Last year, I rewrote the Bible#Development and Bible#Textual history sections (what they looked like before) to try and bring some top RS and provide some kind of "overview". Those two sections could use a going-over by someone who knows more about this than I do. The rest of the article also needs work... some decisions need to be made about what level of detail should be in this top-level parent article, and what details should be pushed down into sub-articles, and then that needs to be applied uniformly across the article. If at any point that sounds like something you'd like to work on, please do :-) And if you'd like some help, feel free to hit me up. Cheers, Levivich 17:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Levivich! Thanks for the support, it's much appreciated!

I'm afraid that my knowledge of Biblical studies is rather thin. I'm planning to get more familiar with Hellenistic Judaism and early Christian ideas at some point in the future, but my main interests will probably always rather stay on the philosophical side. Some articles that I could see myself working on, apart from those already listed at my user page, are (in chronological order) Pythagoreanism, Alcmaeon of Croton, Philolaus, Dogmatic school, Stoic physics, Aristobulus of Alexandria, Philo, Zosimos of Panopolis, Job of Edessa, Ghulat, Abu Bakr al-Razi, Turba Philosophorum. But you know how it goes, probably I'll end up working on entirely different articles anyways. I'm also quite busy in real life, so new content creation will probably be getting on much slower than last year. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz

The article Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Ealdgyth -- Ealdgyth (talk) 15:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	For finding many PaullyMatthews socks. You must happen to take interest in the area the socks edit in since I have not seen any myself since my own report. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 01:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Blaze Wolf, it's much appreciated! I actually just find them by going through their contribs and adding the pages they edit to my watchlist. My own editing interests lie elsewhere, though I will sometimes try to improve a page plagued by socks (e.g., I first came to Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz while chasing another sockmaster). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:42, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Ah ok. I usually just leave socks like this alone since they edit so many articles for me to be able to find them. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 01:43, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I would make a joke about you being one of the socks since you always seem to find their socks, however that probably wouldn't be taken very well so I'm not going to make the joke. Once again, good job with the work you are doing. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:54, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Positivism

I like your essay, and I think it says something that needed to be said. jp×g 23:47, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm really glad you liked my essay. I'm kind of weary of affirming my role as one of the ever-fighting antipoles in the Heraclitean harmony of opposites that Wikipedia is apparently supposed to be, and I am planning to refuse service in this regard and to retreat to less contested places. But for this particular rebuttal I was willing to bend back once more on one side of the bow/lyre to ensure its proper tension/attunement. I just hope some others will be pulling the string to that side too, for example by citing the essay in discussions. Ye who read this, consider it an invitation. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:59, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Rollback tips

Hey, thanks for your comments at the Rollback thread at WP:ANI. I'd like to take advantage of your knowledge in this area and see if you can help me with setting up using custom edit summaries with Twinkle. Indeed, there are many things I'd like to customize with Twinkle (rather than learn a new tool) but am not quite sure how to do, but let's go with the edit summaries first.

Let me first tell you what my interface looks like now. Looking at the edit history of a page, I see [rollback (AGF)] || [rollback] || [vandalism] at the top right. The line below that says "Latest revision...", and the line below that is "(undo)". How do I use Twinkle to use custom edit summaries?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:54, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bbb23! I'm afraid I can't help you with this. I myself use a separate text file (often indicated by the .txt filename extension) which I keep open while patrolling and from which I manually copy-paste (select text, crtl-C then ctrl-V) the most appropriate edit summary into the box. Twinkle should bring up such a box when you click [rollback (AGF)] or [rollback] (if not, make sure that in Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences "Prompt for reason for normal rollbacks" is checked). As I mentioned, the advantage of this particular method is that I can use the same list for manual reverts, undo button reverts, or whatever other tool. I personally like to keep things basic like that.

But the user script (User:Enterprisey/CustomSummaryPresets) mentioned by PorkchopGMX should allow to set up a custom list which automatically appears from the normal edit summary box, a method which should be quicker and easier than mine. However, I'm not sure whether the script also brings up the list of custom edit summaries in the box brought up by Twinkle. I would expect not, but I'm actually rather ignorant about user scripts, so pinging Enterprisey for help. If not, asking at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle to implement a custom edit summary option into Twinkle would probably be your best option. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:01, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Understood, but could you do me a favor and e-mail me your text file? --Bbb23 (talk) 19:32, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

E-mail sent. I hope it'll be at least of some help. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:26, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks! --Bbb23 (talk) 20:57, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi. This can sort of be accomplished with the undo feature plus CustomSummaryPresets, but Twinkle rollback shows a simple box that doesn't use CustomSummaryPresets. Failing that, asking at that talk page sounds good. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:21, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I installed the script, but how do I add the edit summaries I wish to choose from when I'm on an Undo screen? I think it explains it on your page, but I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not sure if I follow it, at least not well enough to try doing it. :-( Perhaps you can add the edit summary "unsourced" to my common.js and then I can see how it's done? --Bbb23 (talk) 18:22, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@Bbb23: To specify custom edit summaries, copy and paste these lines at the bottom of your common.js. Then replace "Your custom edit summary", with whatever you want, making sure to retain the quotes and comma. If you want to add more edit summaries, just copy and paste the last line over and over again and modify. —GMX^{(on the go!)} 17:46, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@PorkchopGMX: I did that and added some "test" summaries, and it worked great. Thanks! I assume you mean to copy the edit summary lines for more choices, leaving the "last line" with the closing bracket and semi-colon alone.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:20, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@Bbb23: Yep, do that as well. —GMX^{(on the go!)} 18:57, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks again; if I have questions, I'll come to you. :-) @Apaugasma, thanks a lot for allowing me to use your Talk page to work through this.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:26, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

It very much was my pleasure! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:29, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, the instructions suck. I'm working on a form to conveniently edit the summaries, but it's taking a little longer than I'd like. Expect an update soon. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:23, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Epistemology and Stuff

Hey, I skimmed your discussion with Hob and friends from January. I'm surprised the whole Qi, falsifiability, and epistemology discussion is still going on. Though I suppose these kinds of discussions have been going on for a few thousand years, with no sign of slowing down. In a way I feel somewhat responsible for the mess, because I was, or at least I recall that I was, the first person to make edits questioning the original "does not exist" statement in the Shiatsu article, in July of 2021. Just wanted to say that you are not insane, your reasoning is not insane, and your thoughts are not in opposition to Wikipedia's principles. I don't need to tell you that a lot of people here are just philosophically closed-minded fundamentalists. You've carried that discussion much farther than I ever could, and your patience with others is immense. I've never given a barnstar before, but here goes.

		The Socratic Barnstar
		For excellent epistemological argumentation. MarshallKe (talk) 00:44, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Wow, the Socratic Barnstar –I'm not sure whether I deserve such a great honor! In any case, the ideal Socrates as depicted by Plato was much more successful in his questionings, for the simple reason that his interlocutors never failed to reply in a perfectly rational way. I've often envied Socrates on that score . However, what I was dealing with here did indeed remind me more of some discussions I've had –or have tried to have– with religious bigots: the whole approach of proof by assertion interspersed with ad hominems, serving a discourse which assumes the identity of highly personal beliefs with 'reality' or 'truth', is exactly the same. But then it's also my fault that I didn't sooner disengage from such unconstructive pursuits. That 'insane' comment really hurt. Anyway, thanks a lot for the support, it's much appreciated! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:41, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Amir al Momineen

You seem like you understand this better than I do, so I was hoping you could help me understand something. If the title exclusively refers to a leader of all Muslims, then why do the Taliban use it? My understanding is the scholarly consensus is the Taliban is an Afghan nationalist movement whose ambitions don't extend beyond Afghanistan. Are they using it improperly? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 06:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi Tartan357! The Taliban are of course also Islamists, and their use of the title Amir al-Mu'minin falls within what the article describes as the usage by local warlords. I initially chose the short description Title given to the supreme leader of the Islamic community because that it is by far its most significant use historically (the article needs a bit of expansion on this front), but it's indeed true that already from the 9th century on the title was adopted by more local Islamic leaders (though still the supreme leader within a certain kingdom or region), and certainly today (as also carried, e.g., by the King of Morocco) is no longer equivalent to a claim to the caliphate. I adjusted the short description to Title designating the supreme leader of an Islamic community, which should allow for these more localized usages. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:10, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing this up. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:28, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

What is your issue with mentioning alcohol on al-Razi's page?

The guy literally coined the word "alcohol" for christs sake. 5.151.22.143 (talk) 12:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on reliable, secondary sources. No such source exists for the claim that al-Razi discovered alcohol (for a somewhat thorough discussion of the unreliability of the many non-secondary sources which unduly repeat the claim without evidence, see here), let alone for that he should have coined the term. What's my issue? Just to make sure that Wikipedia presents to its readers reliable information, and avoids contributing to the spread of misinformation.

For reliably sourced information on this subject, see Alcohol (chemistry)#Etymology and Alcohol (chemistry)#History. I will summarize it here for you:

The word 'alcohol' originally referred not to ethanol, but to the eye cosmetic kohl (from the Arabic, الكحل, al-kuḥl), which consisted either of lead(II) sulfide (produced from galena) or –in the early modern context wherein the Latin term 'alcohol' was coined– antimony trisulfide (produced from stibnite). Antimony-based kohl was produced through sublimation, and somewhere in the 16th century the word 'alcohol' started to be used more generally for any 'raised' substance produced through sublimation or distillation (another word used at the time for this was 'spirit'). The exclusive use of the word 'alcohol' for the substance produced through the distillation of wine dates only from the 18th century.

The author of one of the works attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan (c. 850–950) experimented with the boiling of wine, but does not mention its distillation, giving a good indication that the cooling methods needed for distilling alcohol were not yet developed at that time. The distillation of wine is attested in a work attributed to al-Kindi (c. 801–873, but this could well have been written by a later author who falsely attributed it to al-Kindi) and in a work by al-Zahrawi (936–1013, a likely period for the first successful attempts at distilling alcohol in my view), but not in the works of al-Razi (c. 865–925), who was a contemporary of the anonymous Jabirian author. The first known recipes for alcohol as such (called aqua ardens or 'burning water' at the time) date from 12th-century Latin works, though further research is likely to find earlier instances in as of yet uninvestigated works written in Arabic. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

East Asian Religions

The edit https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1055322112 made the sentence nonsense since it referred to the Korean and Japanese folk religion "both" as being shamanist as someone threw in Vietnamese folk religion inbetween, so a edit was required. As i'm not knowledgable about Vietnamese folk religion and as to whether it is actually shamanic, but do have some about Korean shamanism so the edit was directed at that. FingonFindekáno (talk) 15:42, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi FingonFindekáno! I only reverted your edit here because it added some stuff (about Mu and the character by which it is represented) without citing appropriate sources for that. Please remember to always cite a source when you're adding new information. It's not enough that you yourself know you're right: because Wikipedia is written by anonymous editors, our readers can only trust the information they are reading when they are able to independently verify it through external sources.

But you're of course right about the term "both" having been wrong ever since the November 2021 edit you mention. What about this? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:17, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, i'd want to refer to the Wiki page on Muism but that would be as good as tilting at Windmills i guess. It'd be nice if someone could doublecheck on whether Vietnamese folk religion is actually Shamanistic, as i've only found references to minorities within Vietnam having that practice, but not the Vietnamese ethnic religion itself. FingonFindekáno (talk) 19:09, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

@FingonFindekáno: yes, your intuition is right there: see Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a reliable source. You're also right that someone should check whether it is correct to group Vietnamese folk religion with Shamanistic religions (maybe it's better to say they "combine Shamanistic elements and indigenous ancestral worship with various influences from Chinese religions"?). We are currently not citing any source for that in East Asian religions, which in fact also constitutes a verifiability problem. I'm really a bit out of my depths with regard to this topic, so please feel free to remove it, or to add a {{citation needed}} tag as appropriate. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:24, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

How to add image for Wikipedia page

Please how I add 2409:4073:2E9C:4E6A:0:0:7A8B:CB00 (talk) 21:04, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello 2409:4073:2E9C:4E6A:0:0:7A8B:CB00,

Please have a look at Help:Pictures.

However, please also read Wikipedia:Image use policy. In particular, it is important to not violate any copyrights (see Wikipedia:Copyrights) while using images: see Wikipedia:Non-free content.

Please also do not, under any circumstance, copy-paste text from an external website which holds copyrights on this text, as you did on Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam University. Everything you write on Wikipedia needs to be 100% in your own words.

Thanks for taking this into consideration, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:30, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Editor you welcomed

See [4] - I just reverted some copyvio that didn't even back the edit, and I'm not happy with their edit at Basmala as I made clear on their talk page but haven't reverted again. I don't know if you have any interest in this though. Doug Weller talk 13:49, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Doug! I welcomed them after seeing this constructive edit correcting an Arabic transliteration. I generally welcome every editor who does not seem either bad-intentioned or incompetent, if need be with an appropriate 'warning welcome' template like {{Welcomeunsourced}} etc.

Maybe I should be less supportive without clearer proof of competence though. For some reason my library closed off access to Encyclopaedia of Islam (see here and here) today, but I do suspect that this editor may be acting on personal 'insights' rather than on common knowledge as recorded in RS. I myself have quite had it with cleaning up after other editors adding garbage all the time. We're all janitors with mops here, not just the admins. It's bad for my temper, and my partner suffers from it. I'm going to try better to honor my wiki-break from this point on. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:58, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I have every sympathy. I’ll deal if needed. Thanks for your help. I try to welcome and sometimes I regret it, but not usually luckily. Doug Weller talk 19:54, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Notice the IPs involved? I can't deal as I'm involved, but I'll see what I can do. Doug Weller talk 12:02, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Doug, I'm still patching up some leftover threads of content work I was doing or promised to do, so while I'm still here I can't seem to avoid to do some non-admin mopping too; not on wikibreak just yet.

Do you mean these [5] vs [6]; [7] [8] vs [9] [10]; [11] vs [12] [13]; [14] vs [15]? That's one you welcomed! If so, I would just report them to WP:AN3 if they continue edit warring. It's probably wise to also ask for a block of the ::/40 range in that case (it's the range showing up for the relevant IPs in the ip-range-calc tool). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:41, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

You are much better at these IP ranges than I am. But I think that might have too much collateral damage. I've told them they have to stop .[16] If they don't, they will definitely be blocked. That's a pretty done deal. Doug Weller talk 13:13, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Lane's Lexicon

Lane's Lexicon is an incredible 19th-century grab-bag assembled from diverse and miscellaneous sources, but it might not be entirely suitable for the purpose you're attempting to use it for... AnonMoos (talk) 04:28, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Sure, you're right of course. Like I mentioned, I wasn't able to access Encyclopaedia of Islam then. Now I've checked the entries in EI2 and EI3 (and added them to our articles too), and they don't mention the purported distinction between basmala and tasmiyya either.

I don't think my researcher's instinct to take a look at Lane first was too bad though, seeing that William A. Graham in his EI3 article also refers to him. In my experience, fine distinctions like this would something typical for Lane to write three columns about in his dictionary, which in large part follows the taste for etymology of its medieval sources. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:45, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Af dabarre

I know that I haven't provided a reliable source but I am Dabarre and the statement is wrong that is why I wanted to correct. Rey abdallinho (talk) 17:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rey abdallinho: I understand, but because of the anonymous nature of this project, we just cannot rely on the personal knowledge of Wikipedia editors. As you may imagine, there are a lot of people out there who would like to write all kinds of things here, but the only way for us to decide whether we can trust the uploaded information is to verify whether it has been published by reliable sources. There is often a large gap between knowing things, and knowing which reliable sources back these things up. If you're not familiar with working with sources, it may be better to learn these skills elsewhere and to come back here when you are familiar with the academic literature on Af Dabarre and other subjects in which you're interested. Sincerely, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:08, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Thomasines

The situation with these is difficult as there is no scholarly concensus if they were proto-Gnostic or not, that is why I added a question mark. ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 12:15, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I understand, but it's rather often the case that the status of certain groups as Gnostic or not is disputed, and it would be untenable to go and add question marks to all of them in navigation sidebars. In this case, it seems readers will quickly learn when clicking on Thomasines that though they have been associated with proto-Gnosticism, this has also been disputed. If it's actually stronger than that and a large majority of scholars reject this association, it should be removed both from the lead of the article and from the navigation sidebar. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:35, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Al-Farabi

al-Farabi, feeling sorry for the bad state his Wikipedia article is in

Hi. Could you take a look at Al-Farabi? Biography section needs review because it may have some issues according to Talk:Al-Farabi#Bias in Origin Theory. In my opinion, both "Persian origin theory" and "Turkic origin theory" should be summarized and merged into one section. Regards. --Mann Mann (talk) 03:01, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi Mann Mann, I agree that it is a complete mess, and that it should be rewritten in one section summarizing the different scholarly views and what they are based on. However, this sounds much simpler than it really is: to do this well, one would need to review the whole literature about al-Farabi's biography, which would take at least a week or two, maybe more. Articles like this are really just waiting for someone to pass by who is really interested in them. That's what drives Wikipedia, or at least any quality content on Wikipedia. It seems likely that I will take an interest in al-Farabi at some point, but not now. May I ask what made you think of me as the right editor for the job? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 07:53, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, I myself patrolled similar articles before and they were in my watchlist; e.g. Avicenna, Al-Biruni, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, and some others. I have seen your username and activity/contributions on this topic/area. In my book, you are a veteran user who is familiar with this topic. So I think you can improve this specific article. The current revision is some kind of messy and it just causes typical edit wars like "Yes! He was ABC." and "No! He was XYZ." stuff. The article really needs some dedicated editor(s) to watch and improve it. That's the reason why I came to your talk page and asked for it. --Mann Mann (talk) 14:54, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for patrolling then! It's true that patrolling is much easier with well-sourced and well-written articles, but I'm afraid that it will stay like this for some time still. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:15, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Start rewriting/improving it whenever you have time. I barely patrol and review such articles since 2021. Just visiting them a few times per year (to see their state). Cheers! --Mann Mann (talk) 15:51, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Could you take a look?

[17] [18]--RegentsPark (comment) 13:27, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

 Done I also sent you an e-mail. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:45, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll keep a look out from now on as well. --RegentsPark (comment) 20:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Van Pemboewan district

Hello, I'm Fazoffic. Will you correct the Van Pemboewan Translation?▪ ^꧋ꦩꦣꦪ Fazoffic ( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ) 10:42, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello Fazoffic! I neither have the interest nor the time to work on this, but you are right to seek the help of other editors. A better place to do this is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indonesia, where you will find other editors who know Indonesian. You may also put up a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:27, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I'm giving you this kitten for your nice works in reverting bad-moves done by stupid-idiot-sockpuppets...

─ The Aafī ^(talk) 06:03, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Sources

Hello, I'm Fazoffic. I want to Help Article Rashidun Caliphate by adding this and this Reference. Where do you think this reference should be added? ~Thank you ▪ ^꧋ꦩꦣꦪ Fazoffic ( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ) 06:57, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Hi Fazoffic, these sources should not be used on Wikipedia at all, because they are not reliable. The problem with the first one is that is self-published (websites and blogs may be semi-reliable if their author is a recognized expert who has published peer-reviewed work with academic publishing houses, but this does not seem to be case here, and it is always preferable to use the properly published peer-reviewed work itself). The problem with the second one is that its author Mahmud Shakir is a popular writer rather than a recognized expert whose work is cited by other scholars, and that its publisher, al-Maktab al-Islami, is not reliable: it does not have a reputation for fact-checking and editorial oversight.

Please do not use sources like this on Wikipedia. My best advice for you is to get familiar with proper academic literature. An easy way to do this is by starting out with reading only books published by anything that has "University Press" in its name (Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Cornell University Press, etc, etc.). Of course there are many other reliable publishers, but if you just start out with reading reliable sources like this and then pay close attention to whom they are citing, you will get familiar with the names of other reliable publishers and of the recognized experts in the field. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:51, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

@Apaugasma: I see Arwiki uses references like this in their articles (especially the Rashidun Caliphate) and that article has become a featured article. I don't know why they are do that. Maybe They More belived Arabic Sources than Other Sources? ^꧋ꦩꦣꦪ Fazoffic ( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ) 13:31, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Arwiki has very different standards from enwiki. Part of the problem for them is indeed that most of their contributors will not master languages like English, French, German or Italian, in which most the high-quality sources on Islamic history are written. It's not a matter of trust, but a matter of access. The best Arab scholars, as well as scholars of Turkish, Iranian, Pakistani and other Muslim backgrounds, do themselves write in English, French, German or Italian. This is because only those who can read sources in these languages will become true experts in the first place, and most of those who read these languages also choose to write in them. There is even a marked tendency the last 20 years for scholars whose native language is French, German or Italian to write in English: writing in English will ensure the largest possible audience (I too am not a native speaker of English, yet I choose to write here rather than in my native language because it will be helpful to more people). For these reasons, the content on the English Wikipedia is of a much higher quality: editors here generally do have access to the very best sources, and are therefore also expected to use them. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:53, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

		The Islamic Barnstar
		As I suspected, you are indeed extraordinary. And I think you deserve it

^꧋ꦩꦣꦪ Fazoffic ( ʖ╎ᓵᔑ∷ᔑ) 03:16, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Hello, Apaugasma,

Just a head's up, CSD G5 does not apply to an article if other editors have made contributions to the article. To be a valid CSD G5, the block evading editor has to be the primary or sole contributor to the page. If CSD G5 does not apply, you can always try WP:PROD or bring it to WP:AFD. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Liz, are you aware that Special:Contributions/119.63.138.0/24 and Special:Contributions/119.73.112.0/24 are also sockpupppets of SheryOfficial (see here)? Their modus operandi was precisely to use accounts for moving or creating pages and then to edit them as anon (if you ctrl-f "119." in my 500 most recent contributions you will find many more instances of this, as I've been reverting them). Surely edits like these [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] do not count as substantial contributions? In particular, though they do sometimes make high-quality contributions, I do not trust any edits by this sockmaster which haven't been verified in the sources by other editors, so as long as articles created by them are only edited for stuff like wikilinks or categories but not for sourced content, I think they should be deleted. AfD won't solve this because the problem is not notability. I will try WP:PROD if all else fails but perhaps you just didn't notice that the IPs were also socks? Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:06, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Aqsa

Hi Apaugasma, thanks for your interest in the Aqsa topic. I suspect there will be another RM proposal soon, so I thought it would be worth addressing your comment on PTOPIC. If you look at the outbound clicks from Al Aqsa Mosque since the move was made,[24] you will see that the PTOPIC is very clearly Temple Mount, by a factor of more than 2x. This is almost certainly because the "third holiest site in Islam" is of wider interest than the prayer hall building within it.

There is a discussion at Talk:Qibli Mosque#Traffic stats, where we would appreciate your views. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I wonder whether the amount of outbound clicks would still be the same if the al-Aqsa Mosque DAB page would actually follow MOS:DABPIPE and display a link to Temple Mount rather than displaying "Al-Aqsa Mosque (complex)" while actually linking to Temple Mount. Yes, the "third holiest site in Islam" (the entire al-Aqsa Mosque complex) may be a more popular subject than the single mosque building of that name, but the "third holiest site in Islam" is the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, not the Temple Mount, which –in so far as it refers to the Second Temple buried under it– is a Jewish name, and which really refers to the entire hill rather than only to the plaza at its top.

Sure, we should tell readers that the al-Aqsa Mosque complex is located on the Temple Mount, and that they should go look at the Temple Mount article if they want to know more about this. The most enduring solution would probably be to create a well-written article called al-Aqsa Mosque complex. But it's a very bad idea to directly steer people looking for al-Aqsa Mosque related information to Temple Mount without explanation, and rename the article on the al-Aqsa Mosque proper to the obscure Qibli Mosque. How and when are readers in such a situation going to discover the difference between the al-Aqsa Mosque and the wider complex around it? How are people even going to find the article on the al-Aqsa Mosque proper?

The long and the short of it is that when dealing with ambiguous names, Wikipedia should disambiguate and explain, not confuse readers by renaming articles away from their common names and by offering readers piped links which lead to something else than they display.

Look, I appreciate that you put a lot of time in this, which is a real pity since it created such a mess. But one thing that I'm not going to do is to waste an equal amount of time in trying to clean up the mess. I feel I already spent too much time on it. I'm just hoping that other editors will see sense, in which case I'll be happy to !vote for going back to a sensible name-disambiguation structure. If not– tant pis, it will probably sort itself out in time and with the improvement of the articles themselves. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Apaugasma, thanks for this. I think we agree on most things.

A lot of progress has been made over the last couple of months on this very important topic:

• Sourcing of the highest quality has been found and added, allowing for clear differentiation between the complex and the southern building. This has allowed for improvements to the articles, and allowed for better discussion between editors.
• Hundreds of links throughout the encyclopedia were previously confused as to whether they meant the compound or southern building, as many editors were previously unable to differentiate. You gave a couple in your comment at the talk page, and even more went the other direction (see e.g. [25][26]) Many of these have now been fixed, and they continue to be fixed.
• We now have clear evidence as to PTOPIC for the "Al Aqsa Mosque" base name. Your point above re MOS:DABPIPE can be discussed at the talk thread I mentioned - it could be formatted as per Spirit? Can you amend the page as you see fit, so we can see the results over the next few days?

As to whether we have a separate article for the Aqsa complex vs Temple Mount, that is a tricky question. I am in two minds, as there would be a lot of overlap. The same is true of the Cave of the Patriarchs article. I think we should resolve the Aqsa Mosque disambiguation first, and then open this question. I believe Selfstudier agrees with you, by the way.

Onceinawhile (talk) 15:08, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The traffic statistics here show more hits for "Al-Aqsa_Mosque_(Temple_Mount)". But that does not mean that readers are wanting the Temple Mount when they search for "Al-Aqsa Mosque". It is much more likely they want Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Using parens like that is a common method for disambiguation, not for giving alternative names. Zero^talk 15:43, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Zero0000 that redirect is ONLY used in this one disambiguation page. It was created solely for the purpose of this experiment. See full explanation here. So zero users are clicking on "Al-Aqsa_Mosque_(Temple_Mount)". They are only clicking on whatever we pipe them to. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:45, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I am glad you raised this, as I now see that Apaugasma didn't realize this either. I have just added the piping back in to the disambiguation page.[27] Our readers don't see this, which is of course the point here. Onceinawhile (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: It is a fair idea to use traffic stats to gauge what readers want when they look for "Al-Aqsa Mosque", but neither version does it. The previous version fails for the reason I stated (which you didn't understand, I think). The current version doesn't work either: they are given the choice of clicking on "Temple Mount" (which they heard of), or "Qibli Mosque" explained also as al-Jāmiʿ al-Aqṣā which are two names they never heard of (and those diacritics will help put them off). People don't sit and think about it before clicking; they just glance at it and click. I believe a large number of those who want the building will click on "Temple Mount". Zero^talk 02:23, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

@Zero0000: please could you create a version which you think would give the clearest and fairest results? We can add it after Apaugasma's version at Talk:Qibli Mosque#Current status and phases of the disambiguation traffic assessment. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:06, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Sources presented by Onceinawhile showing usage of "al-Aqsa Mosque" as by itself referring to the compound

"I think it should be shown that in external reliable sources "al-Aqsa Mosque", without 'complex' or 'compound' or similar added to it, in a significant amount of cases refers to the larger site or to the Quranic concept rather than to the Qibli Mosque." Thanks for this comment - if OK with you I will address it here so as not to overwhelm other pages. How may would you like? I will try to illustrate below: Onceinawhile (talk) 10:11, 1 August 2022 (UTC) Sharon's visit: There are many dozens like the below. Remember, Sharon did not visit the Jami'a / Qibli, and the outrage related to the compound. Murinson, A. (2009). Turkey's Entente with Israel and Azerbaijan: State Identity and Security in the Middle East and Caucasus. Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-135-18244-1. decided to pay a provocative visit to Al Aqsa Mosque, the holiest of the holy places in Jerusalem, as a deliberate show of force, accompanied by thousands of policemen—the straw that broke the camel's back Sabido, R.S. (2019). The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the British Press. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-1-137-52646-5. However, the second uprising has also been explained in terms of Ariel Sharon's visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This Mosque is one of the holiest sites in Islam and Sharon's visit angered Muslims, who demonstrated against ... Davis, C.S. (2011). The Middle East For Dummies. --For dummies. Wiley. ISBN 978-1-118-05393-5. New Likud leader Ariel Sharon visited al Aqsa mosque (the Temple Mount for Jewish devotees), the most revered Muslim site in East Jerusalem Karakatsanis, N.M.; Swarts, J. (2013). Political and Military Sociology: An Annual Review. Political and Military Sociology. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4128-5098-8. The Second Intifada was precipitated by the visit of then-Israeli Prime Ministerial candidate Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits atop the site of the Temple Mount, an area considered to be holy by both Jews and Muslims Third holiest / first qibla: There are many dozens like the below. Remember, the third holiest and first qibla statements correctly refer to the compound. Reiter, Y. (2017). Contested Holy Places in Israel–Palestine: Sharing and Conflict Resolution. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-351-99885-7. and lamentations because Jews were prevented (both halakhically and because of the political situation) from entering the Temple Mount—the site that became the third holiest place in Islam: the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Al-Haram al-Sharif. Abdelal, R.; al, A.; Herrera, Y.M.; Johnston, A.I.; McDermott, R. (2009). Measuring Identity: A Guide for Social Scientists. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51818-5. After all, Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is the third holiest site in Islam. Watson, B.C.S. (2006). The West at War. G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-1612-8. ... the al - Aqsa Mosque , the destination of the Prophet's Night Journey , Islam's third holiest shrine . Maʻoz, M.; Nusseibeh, S. (2000). Jerusalem: Points Beyond Friction, and Beyond. Brill Book Archive Part 1, ISBN: 9789004472495. Springer Netherlands. ISBN 978-90-411-8843-4. The spiritual importance of Beit al-Maqdis ( Jerusalem ) and Masjid al - Aqsa ( the Aqsa Mosque ) derives from the fact that for sixteen months the mosque was the first qibla ( direction of prayer ) for Muslims Museum With No Frontiers (2007). Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. Museum With No Frontiers. ISBN 978-9953-36-957-0. Al - Aqsa : An adjective meaning ' the furthesť , it refers to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem , revered by Muslims as the first qibla ( direction of prayer ) and the principle holy site where the Prophet's ascent to Heaven Political brand: Khatib, L.; Matar, D.; Alshaer, A. (2014). The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-938440-2. Hizbullah's posters feature frequent references to Palestine, especially the al-Aqsa mosque, the image of which often forms the background for martyr posters commemorating the group's suicide ...symbolism as the third holiest mosque in Islam. Ross, J.I. (2015). Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-46109-8. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, also known as the al-Aqsa Martyrs Battalion, Martyrs of al-Aqsa, and Brigades of Shahid Arafat ... called the al-Aqsa Intifada in reference to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest shrine of Islam, ... Seiple, C.; Hoover, D.; Otis, P. (2013). The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security. Online access with subscription: Proquest Ebook Central. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-66744-9. ... the "Al Aqsa Intifada," in reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam. Anheier, H.K.; Toepler, S. (2009). International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer New York. ISBN 978-0-387-93996-4. Second, al-Aqsa mosque has a sacred significance to the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims since it is the first Qibla and the third among the three holiest mosques, hence the sanctity of place relates the mosque to Jerusalem and to...

I replied at Talk:Qibli Mosque#Traffic stats. As I said above, I really don't want to spend much time on this. Renaming these articles seems to be mainly a political point, which is something I resist, as I think it would be much better if first the relevant articles would be improved (and al-Masjid al-Aqsa created!) from a non-political, scholarly point of view. But since I don't have the time to improve the articles, I certainly don't have time to quibble over their naming. al-Aqsa Mosque (building), al-Aqsa Mosque (congregational mosque) or simply al-Aqsa Mosque will all be fine, just get rid of the Qibli Mosque name. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:50, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I can't speak for others, but this discussion should have no political dimension. The reason for my interest is explained here. It is also due to my discomfort with the longstanding confusion around this terminology. Search google images for Al Aqsa Mosque, it shows mostly pictures of the Dome of the Rock. Al Aqsa has become prevalent as a brand, and there is huge confusion as to what the brand relates to. The number of people who think the Jami'a was the first qibla is disturbing, as the building didn't even exist at that time. Within our project, I have been striving to clean up 400 links to [[Al Aqsa Mosque]], more than half of which turned out to be bad links. The confusion was almost endless.

Yes the Aqsa brand is frequently used politically, but we must be able to look through that and focus on helping our readers understand.

Thanks for your detailed comment on the Qibli page - I have responded in detail there.

Onceinawhile (talk) 13:42, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems crystal clear to me that the person you talked to at the al-Aqsa compound who thought you were crazy for believing that the al-Aqsa Mosque referred to the actual mosque there of that name, was not at all reacting in this way from a scholarly or antiquarian indignation, but from a purely political point of view. You shouldn't take people with such clear political motivations so seriously if you want to be an encyclopedist. People are ignorant. Yes, you likely were ignorant too, but that doesn't mean that random people you meet talking about politically loaded subjects are a reliable source to quench your ignorance. If they're indignant about something, they're most probably not reliable. In any case, that's why we insist on independent, disinterested, reliable sources, which should not just be sought after the fact, but which should be your first stop if you ever want to know about something. Yes, there is much confusion about this topic, but by diving in it from a one-sided angle and without much background knowledge, chances are that you are going to make the confusion worse. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I mean, I know, that's kinda the story of Wikipedia. But we still ought to try to be careful. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:46, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

SPI comment

Hi Apaugasma,

I appreciate you taking the time to comment on the SPI I opened but I have to say I think that the diffs I found, in particular the first one [28], show that your basic assumption about what MarhsallKe would and would not !vote for is untenable. If you would like to remove that comment –– in the interest of keeping an already long report from becoming even more complex for patrolling admins to work through –– feel free to do so along with my response. Otherwise I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. Best regards, Generalrelative (talk) 03:16, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Generalrelative, I've answered at the SPI. I'm sorry to make the report longer –I know that's undesirable at SPI– but I'm really quite sure of what I'm saying. What I would like to stress here at my talk is that, while I believe you're barking up the wrong tree at the SPI, I full agree that BQ's behavior is obnoxious, and should be dealt with in some way if it persists. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:02, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Understood, and thanks for the thoughtful response. Happy to agree to disagree on this. Generalrelative (talk) 13:27, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

User:Ἀπαύγασμα

Hi Apaugasma! Can you verify that this is an alternative account that you created? I want to make sure; sock accounts, LTAs, and trolls will often try to impersonate other editors in order to carry out more damage. If you did not create this account, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can handle it immediately. :-) Thanks - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:35, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Oshwah! Thanks for being so vigilant. Yes, I did create that account. Following the guidance at WP:ALTACCN, I tagged its user page and redirected its talk page to mine. Is there anything else I should do? In particular, do you believe the Greek letter version is recognizable enough for an alt? Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:43, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Apaugasma - Oh no, you did nothing wrong at all! :-) I patrol the recent changes list and the account creation log very closely, and when I see a new account pop up and with a user page saying "I'm an alternate account of this other account that's spelled very closely to mine", it naturally draws me to look into it and make sure. The things that would cause me to know for certain that it's legit would be to see an edit made from the parent account confirming this, or the fact that the alternate account was created by the parent account. Since I saw neither, I wanted to reach out to you and ask. :-) What I'll do for you is add a dummy edit to your user page to state that I've confirmed its legitimacy. If you have any questions or need anything, please let me know and I'll be happy to lend a hand! Happy Friday! :-D ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:52, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: The dummy edit is here. :-) - Cheers ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:57, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Core Content

It would be so exciting to see it work, so please, please make that WikiProject a reality :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:46, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi CactiStaccingCrane! Well, I'm supposed to be on a wikibreak, but instead I find myself writing a whole new article with corresponding template, looking to rewrite another article, and proposing a new way to technically distinguish core content with an associated start-up WikiProject.

Clearly something is wrong. I find that most guidance pages on wikipediholism around here 'aren't meant to be taken seriously', but I do think I'm in serious trouble. I do dream of Wikipedia, wake up with thoughts about Wikipedia, edit Wikipedia before even taking breakfast, forget to eat, the whole shebang.

So what I'm going to do is to finish these articles I've been working on (mostly offline, but I'll upload when ready), and then just really get a break. Hopefully other editors will step in at the WikiProject, and if not, it can always be revived in the future. My personal priorities at the moment just lie elsewhere, as I'm sure you'll understand. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Ouch, wikipediholism is potent stuff. Hopefully things will be all well in the end. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:23, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Al-Mufaddal ibn Umar al-Ju'fi

Hi Apaugasma. You've used the reference {{harvnb|1994–2011}} is this meant to be {{harvnb|Daftary|1994–2011}}? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:50, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi ActivelyDisinterested! Yes, it is. I only saw it after I hit the 'publish' button and meant to fix it later today or tomorrow. I still have got a lot of work with that page; I'm concurrently also producing a rewrite of the main article, Ghulat, so things are getting along a little slower than expected. Should still be finished within a few days though. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:00, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

No worries. I've cleared all the "A-" no target errors, so this just popped up in the error list. All fixed now. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 11:10, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Arsi Zone

Dear Apaugasma, you have reverted my edit to the Arsi Zone article. As I referenced in making my edit, the source of my material was the Ethiopian government website for Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia. I quoted this in making my alteration. You cannot have a more reliable source than the official government statistical service! This gives the official estimates of population as at July 2022 by Region, Zone and Woreda - for every part of Ethiopia. Rif Winfield (talk) 07:01, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Rif Winfield! Yes, I believe you, but the problem with that edit was that it did not provide enough information about the source to show that it is verifiable. Where have these estimates been published? It only says "Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (web), 2022". This would at the very least need an URL (where on the web?). You see, without such an URL or printed publication anyone could claim that 'according to government agency X, so-and-so'. You may use the {{cite web}} template to cite the website where the information can be found. Your edit is preserved here, so if you edit that revision and add the {{cite web}} template with the URL, everything will be fine. Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:46, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

The url is https://www.statsethiopia.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Population-Size-by-Sex-Zone-and-Wereda-July-2022.pdf, so I thought that it would be clearer to quote "Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (web)", but I am happy to instead enter the whole url. The problem is that the current article, and indeed all article on Ethiopia quoting population, are repeating 2007 figures. Since that earlier day populations have virtually doubled in many areas, so the 2007 figures are very misleading. From www.statsethiopia.gov.et we can update figures (area in km², and male/female populations, plus density) for EVERY zone and woreda throughout Ethiopia, which I propose that we do systematically.Rif Winfield (talk) 04:47, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I have applied the {{cite web}} templates. We really need the exact name of the website and the exact title of the report, which I also added.

In the future, please discuss issues related to articles on the article talk pages (in this case, Talk:Arsi Zone). In this way, all editors can see what we're discussing, and participate in the discussion if they want to. I'm not sure, for example, whether everyone would agree to using the projected estimates for 2022 rather than the full 2007 census. I'm not very interested in this issue, but other editors may be. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

New sock?

Hello Apaugasma, been some time since we last had contact, hope you're doing well. This user (who has given me sockpuppetry vibes ever since he edited) just restored [29] the move of a veteran socker [30], whom you seem to know quite well. I was thinking about filling an SPI, but would you prefer to do it yourself? I only have this one diff to show, perhaps you can think of more similar ones? If not, then I'll go ahead and make the SPI. Bests. EDIT: Found one more example [31] [32] HistoryofIran (talk) 16:48, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi HistoryofIran! I hope you're doing well too. Praxidicae had already opened an SPI when you posted this. I've tagged you there, you may want to watch that page. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:14, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Walid ibn Utba - my bad!

In response to your query in an edit summary - yes, that was indeed a mistake, sorry! I was checking an IP edit, then got distracted and didn't notice there were later revisions. PohranicniStraze (talk) 19:56, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

No worries. I already assumed as much. Thanks for letting me know! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:59, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Also, the "enemy of" wording rather than "opposed to" is fine, whichever you prefer. The version I was looking at when I mistakenly edited an old version said "Walid was against the Muhammad and Islam". Feel free to revert the rest of the way back to your revision if you want. PohranicniStraze (talk) 20:02, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I changed that to "an enemy of Muhammad and Islam", but I think your suggestion "opposed to" is actually better (a bit less pigeon-holing; I wasn't really putting a lot of effort in this). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:19, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this barnstar in recognition of your repeated, courteous but firm work in maintaining the standards of Wikipedia. This is appreciated. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:26, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Wow, thanks a lot! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:47, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Request for inputs

Greetings @Apaugasma

From your one of passing comment else where (in a discussion not directly related to following) I thought it would be interesting to have your inputs in following if the topic interests you.

Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Statement of purpose as part of NPOV policy of avoiding honorifics

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 08:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bookku, I largely agree with the feedback you've already gotten there. It reads a bit like a 'solution looking for a problem'. We already have guidelines around some kinds of honorifics, and it seems that nothing more is really needed, especially not something as weighty as a statement of purpose. Please do not forget that our fifth pillar is that Wikipedia has no firm rules. There are only very few things here which are centrally decided, and a largely stylistic issue such as honorifics really shouldn't be one of them. On the contrary, guidelines about stylistic issues should allow maximum flexibility for local consensus to deviate from them.

For example, I regularly ignore MOS:MUHAMMAD, because following it to the letter would run contrary to common usage in reliable sources. It's also not rarely the case that a literal interpretation of the MOS would obscure substantial issues about which the Wikipedia editors who wrote up the MOS were ignorant (one example being that a Companion in many cases was not at all a 'companion' in the normal sense of that word, which should be explained and marked out by capitalization).

I'm in my right to do this (as far as it has local consensus) precisely because WP:NOTBURO (did you read that blurb?) is policy. WP:IAR is one step further and often not advisable, but not taking the rules too literally and not trying to regulate everything with firm and fixed rules really is foundational to the whole Wikipedia project. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 13:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

putting academic views over the community own views

Considering an academic opinion over the views and opinions of the believers of the Ismaili religion is a form of bias. Also new works have show connections between the Umm-al-Kitab and Ismailism, check Intellectual Interactions in the Islamic World, The Ismaili Thread for more. 201.92.244.22 (talk) 19:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that source, it's a really valuable contribution to Ismaili studies! I wasn't aware of it yet, but I have now incorporated it into the article. Do note, however, that this source too says that it is commonly thought today that the doctrines exposed in the Kitāb al-Haft, the Umm al-kitāb and related texts have nothing to do with Ismailism. This clearly is the status quo, and on Wikipedia we always tend to give more weight to long-established views than to cutting-edge insights. In any case, the new source argues for an influence of ghulāt ideas on later (mainly Tayyibi) Isma'ilism, which seems probable enough.

As for bias, the simple fact is that Wikipedia follows academic views. If some would like to call that being 'biased' to academia (see also WP:ABIAS), then so be it. It's not different from a physician being 'biased' to medical sources or a priest being 'biased' to religious sources: writing an encyclopedia is an academic endeavor. But in the end it really doesn't make sense to say we are biased. Summarizing what academic sources say is simply what it means to write an encyclopedia, and being what one is supposed to be is not being biased (see WP:NOTBIASED). I would expect Isma'ilis to understand this though, given the fact that the Agha Khan himself sponsors such excellent academic institutions as the Institute of Isma'ili Studies (which, not coincidentally, published the source with which you delighted me). Again, thanks for the source, and happy days! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

It's my duty.

You don't have to bother thanking me. it's just a normal duty to correct things wherever. Shan.venance (talk) 23:25, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I understand. I just thought yours was a helpful first edit and thought I'd thank you for it, that's all. If you ever have any questions about Wikipedia, please feel free to ask them here or at the Teahouse. Happy editing! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:02, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

New spin-off article

Hi, fellow editor! I'm going "door to door" to bring this proposal to editors' attention. Please consider posting your view. Thanks! Albertatiran (talk) 07:40, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

server

Do you have an academic or personal email for correspondence? This would be much appreciated. 2A02:C7E:5027:5B00:950F:2483:8B58:75D (talk) 20:59, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Hello London IP! If you register an account and log in, you can email me by visiting my user or talk page and clicking 'Email this user' in the 'Tools' section of the left sidebar. This way, a Wikipedia user can receive email without disclosing their personal email on the internet (remember that every edit made to Wikipedia creates a new webpage that will remain visible on the internet as long as Wikipedia's servers will keep running). If you contact me in this way, your own email address will be visible to me. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:53, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi again; this is to let you know that I've received your email well. I'm not interested to participate, but if you ever publish something, please do let me know (by wiki-email or on my talk page). Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Al-Shatibi

Hi @Apaugasma, Someone created this article which I had draftify given several reasons but I feel this is worth an article if worked upon. This came into my attention when I helped on Fateh Muhammad Panipati and got that appeared on DYK. If you feel free, please help on this one! ─ The Aafī (talk) 05:55, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for whatever you contributed here. I should be having access to some offline sources and will update the article accordingly. I was confused with the name and used what I thought was best. Thanks for the move. Please consider having autopatrolled flag at the least. Regards, ─ The Aafī (talk) 17:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi The Aafi! I updated the article, adding the Encyclopaedia of Islam entry. This would also be a good source to start from to expand the article a little if you wish to. I also moved the old article at al-Shatibi to Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi, and converted the former into a disambiguation page. This created a ton of links to al-Shatibi that will now need disambiguation, so I'll still have some work with that.

In the future, if you think a subject is notable but you do not immediately have sources available, it's worth having a look here. An entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam is not only incontrovertible proof of notability, it's also the best source to establish basic facts (correct name, dates, etc.) for a stub article. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:44, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

This is helpful. It would be glad if we get this ready for DYK anytime soon. I'm occupied with DCW's Bhopal Photo Event currently and thus not able to give much time here but I am happy with your assistance. Please do have a look at DCW as well: a recognized user group affiliate of Wikimedia, that focuses majorly on the South Asian Deobandi Islamic scholarship at a global level. Regards, ─ The Aafī (talk) 17:50, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Autopatrolled granted

Hi Apaugasma, I just wanted to let you know that I have added the autopatrolled user right to your account. This means that pages you create will automatically be marked as 'reviewed', and no longer appear in the new pages feed. Autopatrolled is assigned to prolific creators of articles, where those articles do not require further review, and may have been requested on your behalf by someone else. It doesn't affect how you edit; it is used only to manage the workload of new page patrollers.

Since the articles you create will no longer be systematically reviewed by other editors, it is important that you maintain the high standard you have achieved so far in all your future creations. Please also try to remember to add relevant WikiProject templates, stub tags, categories, and incoming links to them, if you aren't already in the habit; user scripts such as Rater and StubSorter can help with this. As you have already shown that you have a strong grasp of Wikipedia's core content policies, you might also consider volunteering to become a new page patroller yourself, helping to uphold the project's standards and encourage other good faith article writers.

Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 02:25, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	Thanks for your welcome message with the useful resources and the warm cookies. Pouria.T (talk) 05:32, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Makonnen Wolde Mikael

Hello i reverted you at Makonnen Wolde Mikael, i know you reverted a sock, but i'm reverting the edits of another disruptive user Zaikadu YonasJH (talk) 05:58, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi YonasJH! Sure thing, please do revert back any bad edit I reinstate as part of reversing block evasion. I often don't have the time to look at the actual contents, so it's great when other editors do!

I'd also like to ask you take a look at this edit. It's reinstating an edit made multiple times by Gabi838r socks ([33] [34] [35] [36]), but maybe that's just because the Gabi838r socks were correct on the content and Zaikaidu was wrong? Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:10, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

@Apaugasma: Thank you for understanding. I frankly don't know much about the sources at Taytu Betul, there doesn't seem to have been much discussion in contrast to Yekuno Amlak and Makonnen Wolde Mikael's. I'm wary of Zaikadu edits, however i don't have the time or resources to verify all the sources or edits this user makes, so i'm not going on a revert spree per WP:GF. I also don't know if the sock (Gabi838r) contributed anything significantly to Taytu Betul, sock appears to revert to earlier versions edited by other users, but because he's socking it's being reverted to Zaikaidu's version, similar to what just happend on Makonnen Wolde Mikael article, at least that's my observation. YonasJH (talk) 20:44, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

There's actually a pattern where the Gabi838r socks have been directly undoing Zaikaidu's edits, on several pages. This may just be because they have conflicting and opposite points of view though, I'm not sure. Anyhow, it would be good if someone knowledgeable and interested in the content would look into it. Failing that, it's already great that you revert the stuff that you know is wrong. In the future, please don't hesitate to undo any of my reverts of block evasion, as long as you clearly explain in the edit summary (as you did) why the sock edit should be reinstated. Thanks again, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:01, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I can see why my edits on Ras makonnen are deleted. I have looked at other sources as well. On the other hand, I do not know why my edits on Taytu Betul are deleted Zaikaidu (talk) 20:30, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

@Zaikaidu: from the edit summaries of the editors reverting you (e.g., [37]) their concern appears to be that the information you added to Taytu Betul is not present in the source given. However, you should directly discuss this with these editors at Talk:Taytu Betul. Please open a new section there and discuss your edits rather than repeatedly reinstating them, a practice called edit warring which is not allowed here. Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:48, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

It is funny, because I cited this source, and now my edits are being deleted Zaikaidu (talk) 20:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you!

....for fixing my botched ANI edit conflict tidy, I was trying to work out why it was showing I'd removed more than the amount of duplicated bytes that had been accidentally added! Mike1901 (talk) 21:09, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Απαυγασμα της δοχης

Hi, nice to have met you recently at MOS:ARABIC.

Today I saw this, thought of you, and learned a word!
https://dailydoseofgreek.com/scripture-passage/hebrews-1-3a/
– Fayenatic London 07:57, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Ha, that's great! If you're interested, I've also pointed out the only two earlier usages (as found on TLG) of this Koine word at my user page, and offered an analysis of its meaning. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:09, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I noticed! I read your WP:NOTBIASED essay as well – very interesting. – Fayenatic London 18:52, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

A problem with language

Hi Apaugasma. I'm in agreement with you about the use of mental health terms in discussions on Wikipedia, but I don't think there's much that can be done at this time. Unfortunately such terms as simply common parlance at the moment, and we'll have to wait for a societal change before anything happens. I'm mean the greater society, rather than Wikipedia culture, and it does appear to being slowly happening. Until then it's a case of having to assume other editors are only talking idiomatically, and without malice. I hope you don't let it get to you, change is happening we just have to wait. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:03, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi ActivelyDisinterested! Yes, change is happening, always too slow, but faster than I could honestly imagine even twenty years ago. I can't wait to see what it will be like in another twenty years. I always say to my partner that when we will be really old and just about to die, a new progressive revolution similar to what happened in the 1960s will break out. If we can survive 21st-century ecological breakdown, things will be looking very good in the future. Embracing neurodiversity will be a part of that, but also the end of technophobia and the concomitant resistance against science and the scientific worldview. If all is good, we won't need to have discussions like we're having right now.

But then we're living today, and Wikipedia does now have a problem at the intersection of perceptions of other editors' views about (pseudo)science and perceptions of other editors' mental states and capabilities. Jimbo's 'lunatic charlatans' comment has done much to encourage this in a bad way. I'm fairly sure Jimbo never meant it as the excuse to be uncivil and to cast aspersions many editors are now using it for, but here we are. It is driving good editors away, I'm sure of it –it very nearly drove me away. Ironically, being cast as an irrational, illogical pro-fringe lunatic has effectively eaten away at my sanity, though I must say that Wikipedia in general tends to do this (and thus in the final analysis that's on me, for being a Wikipediholic). Perhaps Wikipedia will always unavoidably resemble Twitter, Facebook et al. to some extent, being a place where text-only content discussions just need to happen, and where for complex reasons uncivil behavior will sometimes simply be tolerated. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Hilf al Fudhul

Thank you for the corrections and demands that you provided for this page. I tried to answer all your questions, and clarify what was requested. I do sincerly appreciate the way you contributed. RigOLuche (talk) 16:58, 22 November 2022 (UTC)