Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mesoamerica

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Nahuatl at WP:GAR

Nahuatl is listed at WP:GAR, and may lose its GA status. --Ling.Nut 04:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, LingNut, will look to see what can be done to rescue the situation. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What is "greenstone"?

I continually run up against the description of many Mesoamerican artifacts as being made from "greenstone" (the most recent being in the new San Andres (Mesoamerican site) article). Do any of the distinguished editors here know exactly what "greenstone" is? I once thought it meant "jade", probably the nephrite version. Could it be another term for greenschist? Or chlorastrolite?? Any insight would be appreciated, Madman 02:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK it's the common generic term for green-hued minerals and stones in general that were valued and used to fashion artefacts from, and would be inclusive of jade, serpentine, etc. Probably it's commonly used in context to refer to materials other than jade (ie, if it's jade, it will most likely be called that specifically, though it's still a 'greenstone'). The Glossary in Hendon and Joyce's Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice yields: "greenstone: Term used to label the green stones, including jade and serpentine, preferred for ornaments and ritual tools by Mesoamerican people. Emphasizes selection for color which appears more typical than selection for mineral type." Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Wahoo. Thank you very much. Another mystery solved. It would be nice to put together a stubbish article. Thanks again, Madman 11:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Are Mesoamerican cultures "prehistoric"??

Twice in the past week, I've seen Mesoamerican cultures, e.g. Olmec, Maya, and others, desccribed as "prehistoric" here in Wikipedia. I guess I just don't see these cultures in that way. The Prehistoric article is not much help (being rather poorly structured and poorly written in my opinion). Any opinions out there? Madman 16:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

One might make an arguement for the Olmec and perhaps some of the other early civilizations, but certainly the Classic Maya and the post-Classic empires have no shortage of preserved history. -- Infrogmation 18:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. IMO, the label 'prehistoric' is so ill-defined and inconsistently applied, that it has no real informative value. Even when used in the sense of "pre (recorded) history", it doesn't make much sense in Mesoamerican contexts. I would suggest replacing "prehistoric" with particular reference to the very well-established periodisations of Mesoamerican chronology. This would be a far more apt description of any Mesoamerican culture, and have the virtues of consistency and specificity.--cjllw ʘ TALK 00:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Milestone - 1000 articles!

Hi all.

We've just now reached the completely arbitrary but nonetheless pleasing milestone of one thousand articles tagged as being in-scope for WP:MESO - that's quite a lot to be getting on with!

A handful are disambig pages and the like, so it may be a little premature, but I think it's a substantial achievement given only some 16 months of live operation as a WikiProject. It's probably all the more noteworthy since most of us are frequently busy in Real Life and often pursuing other contributary interests somewhere else on wikipedia. Consequently there's usually only a few editors at any one time chipping away at the coalface.

Even so, it's thanks to your interest and efforts that we've seen a measurable improvement in coverage and content in many Mesoamerican subtopics. However frequently or infrequently one contributes, or whether formally or informally associated with WP:MESO, everyone's efforts are appreciated and are producing tangible results.

That said, there's clearly a substantial and ongoing task ahead to drive up the overall quality of the existing articles. Creating new articles for previously unaddressed topics is great and should continue, but it would be extremely worthwhile to also work towards getting at least the top- and high-priority articles up to a reasonable and consistent standard. I'm sure we've all seen articles on key Meso topics that have some deficiencies in certain respects. Just looking at the current auto-generated rating table, there are more than 60 top- and high-importance articles languishing at start- and stub-class, and a fair few of the B-ratings are at the lower end of the range. On the upside, there's a few articles out there which are within striking distance of being polished to FA (certainly GA) status, so hopefully we can add a few more of those to the inventory in the not-too-distant future.

I'd suggest, to pull out the top few articles of clear importance and divert some efforts into at least going through to remove inaccuracies, identify questionable or arguable statements, and beefing up their coverage. Ideally, all our toplevel overview articles should at least not misinform, even if their prose and completeness leaves room for improvement. Would be totally open also to any ideas or suggestions for improved collaborative measures and efficiencies.

Anyways, congrats to all once again, it's been enjoyable as well as instructive collaborating here, look forward to continuing on in that vein. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Rah rah, sis boom bah! Go, team go! Thanks for (cheer)leading this effort, CJLL.

For what it's worth, I agree that some of the more important topics need to be (re)addressed. I've been working away at Mesoamerican ballgame, which has accumulated a lot of, er, unwonderful things over its life. Next up on my mental list is Toltec, which Michael E. Smith cited as "heavily biased" over a year ago now (although anyone is welcome to jump on it before I do!).

Thanks again, CJLL and everyone else. It's been great working with you. Madman 10:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Mesoamerican reconstructionism

About Mesoamerican reconstructionism article, I posted this on the talk page. I'm a Aztec recon myself, but I do not think that this subject is notiable. At least not yet. So I was wondering on 2nd opinions and so forth, wether the article should be deleted. We do have many lack of primary sources. I mean I belong to Aztec recon groups and so forth, but there isn't any book or established "religion" with it, unlike w/ Kemetic s or Asatru.

Xuchilbara (talk) 19:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that it's non-notable, then nominate it for deletion. I looked at the article and you are correct that it has no references. I'd support deletion, but it seems that there is a large body of editors who will keep nearly anything. My 2 pence, Madman (talk) 20:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd support any deletion nomination. While there has been some reinventing and recycling of Mesoamerican cultures' belief systems by modern-day adherents, I don't really think there's any evidence of some concerted pan-Mesoamerican "reconstructionism" (only isolated borrowings and incorporations here and there). The term itself seems an obscure neologism, can't find any other source that uses it. I don't see much potential for this being backed by citable sources, and the article itself doesn't really provide any information (is also incorrect in places, for eg where it describes the Aztec as being 'outside of' the Mesoamerican sphere). Maybe tidbits could be added to other articles on 'pagan', New Age and other contemporary spiritual movements, but that would be about all- not a sufficiently and validly defined concept to warrant its own article. --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Mesoamerican chronology

As I'm sure all but the newest editors know, phase names (e.g. "Middle Postclassic") are typically linked back to Mesoamerican chronology. My concern was that Mesoamerican chronology did not supply an immediate indication of the timeframe of, say, the Middle Preclassic until quite a bit down into the article, and even then one had to work at it.

Therefore, to supply folks redirected from, say, "Middle Preclassic" to Mesoamerican chronology, I took the chronological table at Mesoamerica and pasted into the Mesoamerican chronology article right after the lead paragraph. That way, if Sally Average-Reader is redirected, she has a quick reference of the dates (etc) for the "Middle Preclassic".

I oppose placing identical information in two articles, but we definitely needed a quick reference at Mesoamerican chronology, so I made an exception to my rule. I think this table is more appropriately placed at Mesoamerican chronology. Would be happy to discuss. Madman 20:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Ha! I saw today that that table is also used in Mesoamerican architecture, which is a very nice (if incomplete) article. Maybe we should make it into a template, CJLL?? Madman 02:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, the table in Mesoamerican architecture is not quite the same since it includes some architecture-related links on the right.  : ) Madman 03:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey thanks Madders ol' buddy— good call, and looks fine. Ultimately, it would be great to have separate articles on each of the chrono periods, tied together from an overview article. I still think it would be beneficial to also have parallel series of separate "History of..." and "Chronology of..." themed articles. The former would document Mesoam. period(s)/culture(s) in the standard narrative and analytical format, while the latter would be formatted more as a 'true' ordered chronology, a reference-list of events, inscriptions etc by chrono sequence. One day....maybe a New Year's resolution... ;-)

And yes, an infobox template summarising Mesoamerican chrono periods would be a capital idea, as a sort of 'cheat-sheet' that could be pinned to relevant articles that use the terminology, handy for folks not well-versed in the usage. What do you think, an unobtrusive box somewhere to the side, or one that runs along the bottom? Maybe, and eventually, both could be developed- say a collapsable one positioned at the bottom, with links to various history– and chronological–type articles (once they exist), and one at the side just listing the period names and their corresponding date ranges..? Saludos, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, these period names and durations were very puzzling to me when I first began working within Mesoamerica -- in fact, I still need a reference at times.

So, I would be interested in a horizontal infobox, particularly a collapsible one. A vertical one would work too. Could I ask if you could set that up, CJLL?? I don't presently have the skills (although I could learn if you're tied up). Madman 02:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, will see if I can't knock something together in the next coupla days.--cjllw ʘ TALK 05:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

New glyph (archaeology) article & Featured Picture nomination

Folks:

In an attempt to make some of our jargon more understandable to the average reader, I finally created: glyph (archaeology). The regular glyph article focuses on typography, which may indeed be the more typical usage but wasn't shedding any light on what a Maya/Olmec/Zapotec/etc glyph might be or "mean". An alternative would be to link "glyph" in our articles to hieroglyph. Thoughts anyone?? Any insight, particularly by our more linguistic editors (e.g. Maunus, Ling Nut, etc) would be appreciated.

Also, the scars from my last go-round having healed sufficiently, I decided to again nominate a map of mine for Featured Picture. Comments can be made at the nomination page.

Thanks, Madman 18:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey Madman, I've always liked that map, good luck with the FPC nomination!

Re mesoamerican glyphs, yes it could well be useful to have an article devoted to this scope, although naturally enough 'glyph' is not restricted to the mesoamerican context. I dunno what the best way to go about this would be; a redirect to hieroglyph (or petroglyph for that matter) seems unsatisfactory. Would need to think a little more on what distinctions would be useful.--cjllw ʘ TALK 01:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks like that map has passed its Featured Picture nomination- kudos, and well done!--cjllw ʘ TALK 03:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

AZTLAN mailing list mention

G'day all,

as some will no doubt have seen, wikipedia and the WP:MESO project specifically have been mentioned on a recent discussion thread on the AZTLAN mailing list (post archives should be up on the FAMSI site). Mostly positive comments. This may (hopefully!) generate some further Mesoamerican edits, so pls be mindful and on the lookout for opportunities to assist and make welcome any newcomers and/or ip's making edits, particularly if there's someone 'feeling their way' with the formatting and other conventions (such as WP:V). Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Renaming the Moctezumas

I would like to reopen the discussion on the orthography of the two Moctezumas. Fact is that from a nahuatl viewpoint both Montezuma and Moctezuma are corrupted spellings that does not reflect the actual nahuatl name very faithfully. Neither of the spelling variant are used in specialist publications about Nahua/Aztec topics. The prefferred spelling in scholarly articles is Motecuhzoma if using Richard J. Andrews Lockhart/Karttunens orthography which is becoming the most accepted in aztec studies. Another transliteration that is accpetable is Moteuczoma or Moteczoma but these is not as commonly used. This is because unlike the two other forms moctezuma and montezuma it reflects his actual name in Nahuatl. It is composed of the three parts "mo" the reflexvive pronoun , "tecuh/teuc" "lord" and "zōma" "frown" - the other forms introduce spurious letters like "n" or turn "tecu" into "cte" for no good reason. The notion that Moctezuma is a good compromise between the English popular version Montezuma and the more correct Motecuhzoma is flawed - how can one mistaken spelling be a compromise between a correct and another mistaken one?·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

In the Andrews orthography it would be Motēuczōma, actually. Andrews hates the cuh spelling (in his view, a "misspelling"), saying that "Its continued use is a measure of ignorance" (Introduction to Classical Nahuatl, Revised Edition, p. 599) and "The acceptance of cuh in a modern text is a clear indication that its writer does not know Nahuatl phonology and morphology" (p. 656). On the other hand, James Lockhart says that "The cuh variant is the most logical" (Nahuatl as Written, p. 106). So whatever. (In the orthography usually used in Lockhart's publications it would be Moteucçoma, with a cedilla.)

In any case, we should go with what's correct in English, not what's correct in Nahuatl, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). I'm in favor of keeping them at the Moctezuma spelling. --Ptcamn (talk) 10:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the naming conventions too - but according to those it should be Montezuma. I'm pretty sure that the reason moctezuma has nmore google hits than montezuma is because we use it here. I personally prefer the Launey spelling which to my surprise is the same as Andrews - I apparently have confused Karttunen/Lockharts cuh spelling with Andrews. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 10:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd greatly prefer Moctezuma over Montezuma. It's my impression (without doing a survey) that modern history works avoid 'Montezuma', and so if that's the case then I think we should follow suit. I would be happy to entertain a third alternative with a greater fidelity to nahuatl, if one could be found that is also seen in works of a historical orientation, and not purely linguistic. Question is, which of those alternatives mentioned above have a currency in general history scholarship, and to what extent? Perhaps we could do a poll among a cross-section of modern historical treatments and see what is making headway...? --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Survey:

*Gillespie (1989) Motecuhzoma
*M.E. Smith (1996) Motecuhzoma
*Hassig (1988) Moteuczomah
*Restall (2003) Moctezuma

Feel free to add ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

New article bot

I finally got around to subscribing WP:MESO to the service provided by User:AlexNewArtBot. This is an automated bot with a (usually) daily run, that trawls through all the newly created articles on the lookout for those which, based on a criteria ruleset supplied by a WikiProject, may be about (or at least contain content about) some topic within that project's scope. The bot spits out a daily log of all those found which met at least one of the specified criteria (for WP Mesoamerica, that daily log may be reached via the shortcut WP:MESO/NEWLOG), calculating a 'score' for each reflecting the keywords matched according to the weighting given each entry in the ruleset. Any found which pass the predefined threshhold -that is, are most likely to be in-scope new articles- are also accumulated on a separate SearchResult page (for WP Meso that result page is at WP:MESO/NEWHITS).

So, by monitoring these pages we should be able to spot with relative ease any new articles concerning or involving Mesoamerican topics, that someone may happen to create, whether they're a project participant or not. We can then check to see if the scope's appropriate, tag those suitable with the project banner, sanity-check for accuracy or redundancy, etc etc. We should also start seeing those which may not be centrally concerned with a Mesoamerican subject, but include some sort of related info, which can also be double-checked to see they are not misrepresenting the material too badly. There'll also be a few 'false positives' ie have nothing really to do with a Mesoamerican topic, which by tweaking the ruleset we can keep to a minimum.

The procedure's not perfect, depends on the ruleset and its scoring rationale to a large degree, also I'm not sure it quite picks up every new article created since it last ran. Also I don't think it will pick up if a redirect is turned into a self-sufficient article, for example.

It's been running for WP:MESO a couple of days now, and has picked up a couple of good matches. The ruleset for Mesoamerica is at WP:MESO/NEWRULE, I listed and ranked a few of the most common keywords which you might expect to find on a Mesoamerican article, if anyone can think of other keywords that could be used then pls go ahead and add them. The rules use regex syntax for matching, and the points scale I've selected generally reflects the principle that the more unique and central a keyword is to Mesoamerican subjects, the easier it is to make the threshhold, while those that could be in a Mesoamerican article but also in a number of other subject areas (eg country names like 'Mexico') are worth fewer points and would need a few more other terms to be present in order to cross the threshhold. Happy to explain it, also the bot's user page provides some helpful instructions on constructing matching rules. --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Mesoamerican Calendars

I've begun the expansion of the previous stub article Mesoamerican calendars which is top importance and was in a dreadful state. I've basically laid out a structure for what should be included in the article and filled out some of the sections piecemeal with sections from other articles. It does still need a lot of work if its state is to reflect the top importance of the topic. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

• NASA predicts that the Sun will reverse its own magnetic poles during 2012 as result of reaching the end of the current 11-year sunspot cycle, this is partly to do with Strappy being gay.

Someone should remove the comment after the 11-year sunspot cycle 150.192.250.109 (talk) 19:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)