Talk:Descent from antiquity

Bulgarian link

Ripsimia is specified as the daughter of Ashot II in the Medieval Lands database, http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BULGARIA.htm#_Toc137439348. However, no authority is given for this parentage. Is it just a plausible guess? DonStone01 (talk) 03:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ripsimia's parentage is not given by Fine in The Early Medieval Balkans (1983/1991), which Medieval Lands cites for most of its data on the Cometopuli dynasty. It is not given by Mladjov (Fine's student) in the several charts that include Ripsimia in his 2003 article "Reconsidering Agatha, Wife of Eadward the Exile." Ditto for Mladjov's chart "The Descent of H.M. Simeon II from the Medieval Rulers of Bulgaria" at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~imladjov/SIMEONII.doc. Toumanoff in Les dynasties de la Caucasie chrétiennne (1990) doesn't give any children for Ashot II. So far as I know, Settipani has not suggested this Ripsimia-AshotII connection, and Adontz says that Ripsimia is an Armenian, not that she is an Armenian princess. DonStone01 (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whose descent

This article doesn't specify whose descent we are talking about. Obviously most of these antique figures will have some living descendents, but I assume we're here talking specifically about them having living descendents among the European, or more specifically British, aristocratic families. It would be good for the article to state this clearly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.245.172.250 (talk) 05:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't say whose descent we are talking about because it isn't talking about any specific modern person or group of people. Why do you assume that it is? The article makes clear that it has a European bias because that is where most of the work has been done, but it also talks about Muslim, Indian, Chinese and Japanese descents. --69.241.124.150 22:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC) (Chris Bennett from another PC)[reply]

Hilde, spurious ancestress of legendary Ivarr Vidfami

copied following:

(Jared Linn Olar wrote) Subject: Re: gateway descents from Kings of Vandals, via Kings of Burgundy, via Volsungs of Allemania, Cambresis, & Denmark Date: 18 Jun 2004 10:05:37 -0700 References:

david hughes wrote: > gateway descents from Kings of Vandals, via Kings of Burgundy, via > Volsungs of Allemania, Cambresis, & Denmark > ------------------------------------------------------------- > 10. Hilderic, Vandal-King 523-530 deposed, d533 > issue: > a. Gormund, Byzantine Governor of North Africa 534-543, father of > Hilde, wife of Valdar "The Dane" > b. Hilde, wife of Frode VII, King of Denmark

"Gormund" is mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain" as a king of Germans in Africa who led an invasion of Ireland and Britain during the reign of a Briton king named Careticus (Ceretic) in the latter half of the 500s A.D. Careticus supposedly was successful in beating back with terrible invasion, though historical records don't mention anything of it. I believe Geoffrey got the story of Gormund from someone -- I don't think it was original with Geofrrey, but I don't know where he might have heard it. In any event, I'm aware of no reason to believe Gormund ever existed, let alone that he was a son of Hilderic, King of the Vandals.

As for Hilde, daughter of Hilderic, I've seen that spurious filiation several times. It's based on a medieval Icelandic legendary pedigree of Ivar Vidfadmi, a legendary conquering king of Scania, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Northumbria who, again, may not have existed. The pedigree first appears, I believe, in certain manuscripts of the Hervarar Saga ok Heithreks Konungs. Ivar was supposedly descended from a princess named Hild, daughter of Heidrik (Heithrekr) Ulfham, King of Reidgothaland, traditionally identified as Jutland and/or Mecklenburg. However, I've not yet found any early texts that identify Hild's husband as Frode -- Hervarar Saga says she married a Danish king named Valdar, but other Old Icelandic sources show Valdar as an apparent descendant, not husband, of Hild.

Since the area of Heidrik's kingdom was associated with both the German Vandals and the Slavic Wends, and since some later writers came up with a false theory that the Vandals and the Wends were the same people, someone came up with the idea that Heidrik Ulfham was a legendary memory of the historical Vandal king Hilderic, and thus invented a descent from the Vandal kings through the legendary kings of Denmark and Sweden. However, there is simply no proof that Heidrik Ulfham was Hilderic -- the names might seem similar, but just as the Frankish royal name Hilderic is found in Old Icelandic texts as Hjalprekr, so we should expect a Vandal king named Hilderic to be mentioned in Old Icelandic texts as Hjaldrekr, or something like that, not Heithrekr. Again, the legends of Heidrik Ulfham never associate him with Africa, only with Northern Europe -- yet it was well known throughout Europe, even Scandinavia, that the Vandals had migrated to North Africa. One would expect some trace of that in the legends of Heidrek Ulfham if it were true that he was based on the historical Hilderic the Vandal.

At your service,

Jared L. Olar

Jared has given an extremely clear accont of why this socalled "Danish route" is not eligible for mention here, unless you wish to start a section on "widely repeated but delusional descents". Didn't the words "spurious filiation" ring any kind of a bell?? --Chris Bennett 02:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliography

"Much of the published work on this topic is as fantastical as any medieval genealogy and is to be avoided, or used with great caution."

This is unencyclopedic and blatantly POV (in self-contradiction regarding my recent edit summary). An encyclopedia article should simply report that relevant, yet dubious, works are unreliable for serious scholarship, rather than admonish readers from referring to them and dismiss them as "fantastical". My version, "Much of the published work on this topic is widely regarded as no more reliable than medieval genealogical records," unlike the above one, is something one might actually read in an encyclopedia. --Jugbo 20:31, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted to the original version pending resolution of this issue. Please leave it alone until we conclude this discussion.

The main problem with your edit is not the wording, it's your proposal to reposition it. In essence, the original notice is a consumer alert. It was made specifically with respect to Stuart's work, and was deliberately intended to distinguish it from the other works in the bibliography as a book to be avoided. By moving the statement to the beginning you have lumped the entire bibliography under the notice. This is flatly wrong, the cited works are not at all equivalent in their scholarship.

Let me explain why the notice is where it is. This field is very popular with amateur researchers seeking to push their ancestry back as far as it will go. Many of them take anything they read at face value if it appears to allow them to add another generation or 50 to their database. In the amateur genealogical community, Stuart's book is by far the most widely known and used source claiming to provide DFA-type descents. That makes it not only relevant to the article but also very difficult to leave out of the bibliography. But it is also an exceptionally bad piece of pseudo-scholarship. If you took a moment to compare it to, say, Settipani's Nos ancetres de l'antiquite, or Wagner's essay, which are the two items cited that are closest in comparable scope, you would see immediately that that statement is not POV, it's an objective assessment of academic quality.

Normally, bibliographic references are implicit recommendations that the cited sources have material allowing you to learn more about the article in question. In the case of Stuart's book, the only ethical recommendation is to avoid this work like the plague. There is no way to do that except by making an explicit statement to that effect.

As to editorial philosophy, there is a difference between an informed assessment and POV. The first is giving guidance, the second is promoting a particular view point. Because many genealogical researchers come to this topic through an interest in their own family trees rather than historical standards of research, and because the field is full of bad literature, it's entirely appropriate that the bibliography in this article should be explicit in giving guidance.

As to wording, I wouldn't have any problem with something like: "Much of the published work on this topic is no more reliable than medieval genealogies, and should be used cautiously. A well-known example is:" (Not "medieval genealogical records" as you suggest. Those are wills, charters etc -- source documents which, if they are contemporary, are about as reliable as you can get.) While, in the spirit of guidance, I would prefer "Useful material" in introducing the discussion lists, I also don't have a problem with "Additional material" if it really matters to you.

Hope that clarifies the objectives. --Chris Bennett 22:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't understand that the notice regarded only Stuart's book. It struck me as biased and unencyclopedic, so judging by it's quality I assumed it was carelessly injected by a petulant hardass, and attempted to improve the section by re-wording it and moving it to the top. My primary problem was the stuffy tone of the warning, and so I tried to make it more encyclopedic.

"As to wording, I wouldn't have any problem with something like: "Much of the published work on this topic is no more reliable than medieval genealogies, and should be used cautiously. A well-known example is:"

Good, then. That's much better. --Jugbo 20:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

Some anonymous user has repeatedly added an "unreferenced" tag to this article despite the fact that it contains nearly 20 sources in the References section. When he first did this I reverted and pointed out that the article was in fact referenced. When he did it again, I assumed that it was because he was unaware that citations do not have to be inline, so I reverted this, pointing out that WP:CIT does not require citations to be inline:

Any style or system is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as articles are internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one

and

Articles can be supported with references in two ways: the provision of general references ("References") – books or other sources that support a significant amount of the material in the article – and inline citations ("Notes").

Clearly, this article has an established style of providing general references, and there are plenty of them, and they support a significant amount of the material in the article.

On his next pass our driveby shooter noted that WP:CIT requires inline citations for featured articles, and proceeded to pepper the article with "fact" tags on every sentence, even including the definitional sentences at the start of the article.

Now, when I pointed out WP:CIT, I also told this person that if he wanted inline citations he should stop whining and start adding them. I meant it. If someone wants to beef this article up to be a featured article, more power to them. I also have no objection if they want to change the established style of the article, though I don't think it's necessary myself. But I do expect them to do the work. It's damn rude to demand a change to the format of an article which conforms to WP guidelines just because you don't like the current format, when you clearly have no intention of contributing anything yourself.

So, to the driveby tagger, if you want to improve this article stop whining and get to work. The referencing is certainly not perfect, you could tag sections which do need references added, or, better, start adding them. If you really want to change the style to inline citations, start adding inline citations. I suggest you proceed by reviewing the material that is available online and linking it to the statements that you think need to be cited inline. Who knows, you might even get interested in the topic.

But if you're just going to vandalise the article, you're wasting everybody's time, including your own.

--Chris Bennett (talk) 15:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

Per Wikipedia Policies:

INLINE CITATIONS ("Notes"), are MANDATED by the featured article criteria and (to a lesser extent) the good article criteria.

Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors IN THE TEXT.

INLINE CITATIONS are references WITHIN THE TEXT that provide source information for specific statements. They are appropriate for supporting statements of fact and are needed for statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged.

All citation techniques REQUIRE detailed full citations to be provided for each source used. Footnotes are usually placed at the end of a sentence or paragraph. If a particular claim in an article lacks citation and is doubtful, consider placing ^{[citation needed]} after the sentence or removing it.

Passages open to interpretation should be precisely cited or avoided. Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves. Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented. No original research (NOR) is one of three content policies. The others are neutral point of view (NPOV) and verifiability (V). Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in articles. Information in an article must be verifiable in the references cited.

The purpose of citing your sources is:

   * To ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor.
   * To show that your edit is not original research and to reduce editorial disputes.
   * To avoid claims of plagiarism and copying.
   * To help users find additional information on the topic.
   * To ensure that material about living persons complies with biography policy.
   * To improve the credibility of Wikipedia.

As to Chris Bennett who remarked "driveby shooter", "driveby tagger", "whining", "vandalise the article"; more Wikipedia Policy - Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Chris Bennett is "damn rude". Also, he is trying to keep a bad article while I am trying to improve this article according to standards! Don't attack others because you were to lazy to properly reference this article.

DON'T ALTER EXISTING TALK

In case you hadn't noticed, this is not a featured article. Noone has expressed any interest in making it one. If you wish to do so, by all means bring it up to that standaard. But don;t demand that someone else do it for you.

As they are. Random example:

The possibility of establishing a DFA as a result of serious genealogical research was raised in a pair of influential essays, by the Albany Herald, Dr. Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, and the late Garter King of Arms, Sir Anthony Wagner.

And the references include:

I. Moncreiffe of that Ilk & D. Pottinger, Blood Royal, (Nelson, London, 1956).

A. R. Wagner, Bridges to Antiquity in Pedigree and Progress: Essays in the Genealogical Interpretation of History (Phillimore, London, 1975)

I know what they are. You haven't cited any statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged. please do so, but when you do so, give your groubds for challenging the statement.

I agree the references are not perfect. But they are a very far cry from justified the tags you are adding to this article.

And if you have REASON to doubt a statement in the artucle, go ahead, AND PRODUCE YOUR REASON .

The key statements in WP:CIT are the ones I quoted. INLINE CITATIONS ARE NOT REQUIRED AND A REFERENCE LIST IS A PERFECTLY ADEQUATE TECHNIQUE.

No, I'm not trying to keep a bad article. But I have no patience for an anonymous idiot who slaps tags on the article which are completely unjustified on their face, and who makes no attempt at producing a justification. Even now you are just spewing selected passdages of WP:CIT without showing that iit relates to this articlew.

AS far as I am concerned I don;t have the time or the interest to devote my life to WP. I do have an interest in this topic, and I put together some basic facts about it, TOGETHER WITH A PERFECTLY GOOD REFERENCE LIST. If someone wbabts to take it further I'm all for that. But to claim the article has no citations or referebces is simply untrue, and its unproductive.

If you want to improve this article, work through it -- show what needs to be improved and start working on improvements.

If you can;t make a positive contribution, don;t make any.--Chris Bennett (talk) 00:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, here is my bottom line on this.

1) You thoughtlessly slapped an unreferenced tag on this article. That is a general comdemnation of the level of sourcing in the article. It was entirely unjustified, because, while the article is not perfectly referenced, it is amply referenced, and substantial portions of it are fully supported by the references given.

2) It is clear that what you want to see is inline citations. That's fine, but it doesn't remotely justify putting the unreferenced tag on this article. As I have demonstrated, WP:CIT recognizes and allows the referencing style used, and exhorts editors to stick with the established rerefencing style of an article. It only requires inline citations in some circumstances, none of you have demonstrated to apply.

3) In defence of your action you have made the ludicrous argument that it was justified because featured articles require inline citations. You have also quoted great swathes of text on how inline quotations are used. None of this has any relevance, unless and until you demonstrate that it does. Yet you have made no effort to demonstrate anything about the content of this article which shows any necessity for adopting inline citations, let alone that the article justifies the tag(s) you have put on it. In fact you have not shown any knowledge of or interest in anything that this article says.

4) Had you bothered to search out those points of the article that are not supported by the references, and added a tag to those individual items, that would have been a somewhat positive contribution. It would also have demonstrated that you have some understanding of what this article is about, which ought to be the minimum requirement for editing it.

You object to my using strong language to describe your actions. Yes, I wasn't diplomatic. Sorry, but you earned it, by behaving badly from the beginning. As I said, I have a low tolerance of certain types of idiocy, and vandalism is the lowest form. Knee-jerk tagging is more sophisticated than most vandalism, but it's still vandalism, because it defaces the article with unwarranted accusations. It doesn't help that you are an anonymous IP user. In my WP experience, the great majority of such users are that way because they do not wish accept any responsibility for their action. You certainly aren't demonstrating that you are an exception. If I had my way, WP would only allow such users to edit articles in exceptional circumstances such as avoiding political censorship.

When you start acting constructively I will be only too happy to recognize it. But if you carry on as you have been, I will have to start getting admins involved, at least to protect this article against IP users. But be aware that they also have the ability to block your IP address. --Chris Bennett (talk) 19:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with bennett?

Per Wikipedia Policy -

   * Be polite
   * Assume good faith
   * No personal attacks
   * Be welcoming

bennett is failing at all above since the start.

I have acted to improve this article for Wikipedia. This page does in fact need citations and better sourcing. This is NOT vandalism. Also, there is nothing wrong with using an IP address. Stop threatening users, bennett. Bring in admins; they may need to spank your wrong behavior and help make a better article despite you. 88.84.137.165 (talk) 05:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First off, I am responding after your talk in deference to your rather unorthodox opinion that inline response is alteration of talk. However, in order to establish context for my response, I am going to reproduce your text in italics to introduce each response.

If you want to see true alteration of talk, look at the effects of your taking my inline commentary and clumping it together, which I have left alone. No doubt you would claim that you have changed nothing because the words are the same. In fact, by taking it out of the inline context, it now no longer makes any sense.

Now, as to your first comments here:

Per Wikipedia Policy -

   * Be polite
   * Assume good faith
   * No personal attacks
   * Be welcoming

bennett is failing at all above since the start.

In fact, I was perfectly polite when I reverted your initial tag, even though it already raised a question of how well you understood what you were doing. I assumed, per policy, that you were acting in good faith, and had simply not read through to the end of the article. I responded with suggestion that you read the article through to the end, where you would see that in fact the article is amply sourced.

Your response to that suggestion proved that you were not acting in good faith. Instead of attempting to justify your tag, you made it clear that you had an axe to grind about inserting inline citations. This response clearly showed that my initial suspicions were justified -- and that the assumption of good faith was baseless.

I agree that the phrase "anonymous idiot" was a personal attack and I do apologise for that. However, the phrases you have explicitly objected to, like "stop whining" and "driveby shooter", are not personal attacks. They are criticisms of your actions, colourfully expressed perhaps, but still impersonal. If you are unable to distinguish between an attack on your person and a criticism of your actions, I'm sorry, but that is not something I need to apologize for.

These descriptions were and still are accurate. I note that you have yet to make any case for your tags, and that your only response has been to up the ante: peppering the article with more of them, an action that fully qualifies as vandalism. This only reinforces my belief that you don't actually have a case to make, you just don't like being crossed.

Moving on to your next comments:

I have acted to improve this article for Wikipedia. This page does in fact need citations and better sourcing.

So you say. I disagree, and I think that the nearly 20 references given, all of which are clearly related to various sections of the article, are, prima facie, more than adequate grounds for disagreement. You haven't tried to show that that is wrong.

If you want to pursue this, what you need to do is to justify your claim.

Let me be clear: Justification is not about whether there is a reference for this or that statement -- it's about your characterization of the article, as a whole, being inadequately sourced and needing inline citation. Demonstrate, with concrete analysis of the article:

1) On sourcing: Show, with concrete analysis, that a significant plurality of the statements in the article are not supported by the cited sources. Not just a few statements -- I agree that some people have added material that they should have added references for. To justify the tag you need to show that large parts of the article are unsourced.

2) On inline citation: Show, with concrete analysis, that a significant plurality of the statements in the article require inline citations. Arguments like "featured articles require them" are obviously irrelevant and specious -- unless you personally plan to submit this as a featured article.

What bugs me is that you have yet to produce a single concrete criticism of the article. You just make sweeping and unsubstantiated statements like "This page does in fact need citations and better sourcing."

This is NOT vandalism.

It is, when it is clearly contradicted by the reference list in the article. It is, when you tag every single sentence in the article. It is, when you pile on as many tags as you can find at the head of the article. And it is when you make no attempt whatsoever to substantiate any of these claims.

Also, there is nothing wrong with using an IP address. Stop threatening users, bennett. Bring in admins; they may need to spank your wrong behavior and help make a better article despite you.

It's called carrot and stick. The stick is to bring in admins, and I don't propose to do that unless and until it is really clear that there is no alternative. I'm not there yet, I'm still trying to work with you, though I have yet to see any reason to believe that that is possible.

The carrot is that you can resolve this by being constructive. If you really believe what you say, then you should be able to demonstrate with evidence how the contents of the article justify your tag. Or, better, since I genuinely think you are over the line, you could adjust your criticism to something that we can agree is justifiable, like identifying, on a reasoned and reasonable basis, individual statements that are unrelated to the sources given, or where you can show, with evidence, that there really is controversy requiring an inline citation -- so that we can then agree on individual statements where tagging may be appropriate.

I'm reverting your article-wide tags again. WP Procedure at this point is to try to resolve the dispute on the talk page -- and to leave the article alone until agreement is reached. The ball is in your court.

--Chris Bennett (talk) 18:06, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right to Edit including adding Tags

We have a person who continues an edit-war by reverting positive page changes. He started the reversions despite the fact that Wikipedia Policy is:

"Fix or point out problems" "Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit." "Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles." "Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone and no individual controls any specific article; therefore, any writing you contribute can be mercilessly edited and redistributed at will by the community."

The proper procedure is to "leave the article alone" with my appropriate contributions. I or others do not have to justify edits to any user; nor, do I have to submit evidence for my edits to anyone.

Unfortunatly, this user has a prior history of attacking others by name-calling (little caesar, troll, etc.), threatening blocks, and such. Perhaps he will learn how to behave and leave the article alone so we can move on with improved citations. 88.84.137.165 (talk) 21:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the sake of argument, let's postulate that I am an arsehole and you are a saint.

That is not a justification for tagging the article as unreferenced.

For the fifth time, please discuss why you think the contents of the article justify your tags.

WP is not a free-for-all. You cannot just edit articles on a whim and expect that edit to be unchallenged. You are supposed to be able to justify edits based on their correctness, neutrality and relevance when they are challenged. For example, I have provided exactly this type of justification when reverting your edits. Here they are again:

* the article has a long reference list,
* the referenced items are clearly related to significant portions of the article 
* this is a citation style which is explicitly endorsed by WP:CIT.

Those are concrete reasons, based on the actual content of the article, and they fully justify returning the article to its previous state.

By contrast, you continue to try to impose your tags while completely ignoring or obfuscating these points, and without making any attempt to justify your own edits. I should be pleased by this?

There is nothing positive about your edits. In all their forms, they have been completely over the top, in that they are inaccurately and unfairly reflective of the actual state of the pre-existing content.

I have, repeatedly, shown you a path to making edits on this point that are fair and balanced: tag the individual statements that justify them, with an explanation as to why in each case.

You might consider the possibility, however distasteful you may find it, that I actually know what I am talking about.

--Chris Bennett (talk) 01:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Warned on policy violations

Refer to User talk:Chris Bennett Users do not have to justify edits to Chris Bennett Users do not have to submit evidence to Chris Bennett User:Chris Bennett violates policy on removing tags. 88.84.137.165 (talk) 06:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let me see if I get this straight:

You are entitled to make whatever edits you like and I cannot ask you to justify them, no matter how much at variance they appear to be with the facts.

I, on the other hand, am not allowed to make edits that revert yours, even though I have provided more than ample justification for doing so, justification you have not attempted to rebut.

If I warn you that your continued insistence on insertng junk tags into this article may eventually lead to admin action, that is "threatening", even though I make it clear I am not taking any such action at this time, and even if I also, repeatedly, suggest other ways to resolve this dispute.

On the other hand, your direct threats to block me, made without making any attempt to find any other solution except blind obedience to your will, are, presumably, reasonable and justified.

Forgve me if I see something wrong with this picture.

I'm undoing your tags again, since I, unlike you, am perfectly happy to explain to anyone who cares to listen why they should be reverted: they are factually wrong, and they deface the article.

I suggest you take a three day time out, go for a walk on the beach, play with your dog or whatever you have to do to calm down, look at this rationally, and see if you can actually come up with a reasoned justification for your edit -- and whether you still care. If you still want to pursue it at that time, then maybe we can discuss it reasonably.

--Chris Bennett (talk) 16:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been semi-protected due to edit-warring by various IP editors. Though I agree that repeatedly adding the tags was disruptive, I note that one of them - the one about the article lacking inline citations - was accurate; this article doesn't actually offer inline citations. Not a major deal, certainly, but there is a valid concern there. UltraExactZZ ^Claims~ Evidence 18:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, but you beat me to posting (see my note below). Personally I think they're always good idea to prevent these type of challenges, but then again the impression I had from the tags was 'throw it against the wall and see what sticks'. Best, EyeSerene^talk 18:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article protected

I have protected this article for one week. I strongly urge all editors concerned to discuss changes here on the talk page before edit-warring over tags and the like - skirting around the three-revert rule and making disruptive edits will result in blocks. I would also recommend the IP editor(s) read our policies on original research, verifiability, and neutrality before they tag or remove content. While the article is lacking in inline citations, Wikipedia does not require these where references are given at the end of the article (although some processes, such as Good article review and Featured article review do). EyeSerene^talk 18:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Crappy Article Protected from Any Improvement by Chris Bennett

Campaign to drive away productive contributors': act in spite of policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Civility,Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, engage in sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry, etc. on a low level that might not exhaust the general community's patience, but that operates toward an end of exhausting the patience of productive rules-abiding editors on certain articles.

I am driven away. No one else was contributing anything. Now this weak article will never be noticed for improvement. Good job of keeping Wikipedia articles in low regard, Chris Bennett!

Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not considered vandalism.

Unless the anal-retentive Chris Bennett freaks out on the trivial adding of a single, justified tag! He'll revert everyone away forever!

If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider tagging a sentence by adding the ^{[citation needed]} template, a section with
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (Learn how and when to remove this message)
, or the article with

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Descent from antiquity" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (Learn how and when to remove this message)
or

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Descent from antiquity" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (Learn how and when to remove this message)
.

Do not follow Wikipedia policy; instead, revert that recommended added tag from the onset! It's Chris Bennett, damn it, he's got kangaroos loose in the top paddock!

The claim is not that the article is uncited, but that it could be improved by using Wikipedia's tags to associate references with their respective sections of text.

Odd, Chris "wanker" Bennett and certain admins haven't read the policies WP:V, WP:OR, etc.?

I think inline citations are very important, otherwise it cannot be said on which source every sentence or paragraph is based on. If one is not publishing original research, why shouldn't one be able to make inline citations throughout the text? In my view the template is good (and I use it a lot) because it does promote using inline citations (many of the times I used this template the main article author added inline citation as a result).

Should've listen to WikiTruth! Sorry for even visiting wikipedia...

(Chris Bennett will mark this all up) --

Jesus Christ, GROW UP!!!

All I asked you to do was to JUSTIFY your damn tags.

I warned you you were going about things the wrong way and I tried to tell you what the right way was: explain and justify, and be constructive in your edits. That's not driving you away, that's trying to get you to act as a responsible editor. You chose to push the envelope on this by persistently refusing to do any of it.

It should tell you something about your methods that without any intervention from me the admins you asked to block me came to the same conclusion I did.

--Chris Bennett (talk) 23:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]