Talk:Ancient Macedonians

Why the sudden interest?

Although I am certainly not as well read or familiar with the academic side of the topic, I cannot help but wonder... Why all of a sudden a number of scholars and people have decided to rewrite history? Given that no major discoveries have been made in the recent past, or ground-breaking new techniques applied and data unearthed to subsequently evolve into definite results in contrast to what we have known for the last couple thousand years or so, many are poised to cast doubts, introduce controversies and so on. The story of ancient Macedonians, their culture, religion and language, their way of life and in essence, their existence is quite well documented and until recently, almost everyone agreed that it was Hellenic. Suddenly, there are claims from academics and others that they have found the exact opposite, and we should consider them. I ask, what changed? Scarce new data, just a different point of view. Well, history is not something that changes along with one's perspective. History is about the past, not the present. Historical facts do not evolve, like modern science does. Perspective changes with the times and politics, the past doesn't. Especially controversial is the fact that articles about Macedonia attract such a large number of revisionists, which is certainly not irrelevant.

I think that consensus is one thing, but bargaining is another. I saw above the attempt to negotiate the changes in the article. I fear it is not the first nor the last time it happens. Is this the level of information we want Wikipedia to offer? The product of haggling? And the next time a revisionist scholar writes a book? How about the time after that? Next time someone else will object as to what ancient Macedonians were and felt, and the article will change once again... This is a game... None of us lived back then and to try and interpret thousand year old evidence with regard to what they felt and how others collectively viewed them is at least absurd. A scholar may or may not support a view because of many reasons, however to reinvent history is by no means a scholarly act. We should not go down this slippery road. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.67.141.70 (talk) 00:50, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The interest about ancient Macedonians is due to political reasons. I really hate when Politicians are trying to mess with history. Nationalist parties (see VMRO-DPMNE for example) are seeking to have a political gain (mostly) and the nationalism is proven to be a pretty popular way to gain votes and support from the masses. I really hate the politicians who are doing all this mess for personal gains... "Leave history to the historians!" could be my message to them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.143.155 (talk) 00:52, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The Talk Pages are not a Forum for the discussion of the subject, but are to be used to discuss how Reliable Sources can help improve the article.HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:47, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

This article appears to be a copy of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), which also contains the word ancient or refers to their "empire". Cosprings (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Recent edit-warring

Recent reverts have centred around this edit:

The ancient Macedonians probably had some [[Illyrians|Illyrian]] roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics.<ref>http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+al0014)</ref>

First, this does not belong at WP:LEAD per WP:UNDUE because it is a minor and uncertain point about the Ancient Macedonians. There is a whole section about "Modern discourse" concerning the origins of the Ancient Macedonians. Second, the source phrasing is vague, uses WP:WEASELWORDs such as "probably" and "some" and is unattributed to a reliable and scholarly publication. Third it speaks in Wikipedia's voice as if that were a universally accepted fact, which it isn't. Fourth, it is a word by word copyvio from the source. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 20:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I think that the source is more than reliable, first many quotes that have been found here on wikipedia are a copy paste,the important thing is the reference from where it is taken, maybe if u want u can rearange the order of the words. Second, it was taken by the site "Library of Congress Country Studies", which of course occupies about studies about different countries,and has been used as a refernce before here on wiki, why i originaly found it,from the page History of Albania, so i believe it is reliable.As u can see it contains a large material about different fields, so it has been used on other articles and if u remove it, then should be flagged and also we have to find the other pages where the site has been used and remove the site as reference, but i would have to engage in war edit with other users then.the thing is we cant pretend that references are or are not reliable only by ONE'S way of judgement.The "scholary publication" that u mentioned and needed is in the site "Source: Based on information from R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History, New York, 1970, 95; Herman Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History, 1, New York, 1974, 90, 94; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15, New York, 1975, 1092." Third, th words "probably" and "some" have been used often on wikipedia because there are articles who actually are not an "exact science" article.It is not wikipedias duty to always find out the truth, an actual example would be the Origins of Albanians, still scholars havent agrred on a factual origin, so here on wiki often have been used the words about their origns "probably","maybe","this is uncertain". I hope i explained myself.i suppose the text should be back on.—RcLd-91 (talk) 21:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I feel the arguments are still weak to warrant an addition in the lead. As I see the lead does not mention the possible roots/origins, so it would be also wp:undue weight apart from wp:lead. I suggest to make the appropriate additions in the correspondent section first and then try to add all possible theories about the origins (if possible).Alexikoua (talk) 21:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @RcLd-91: Please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. What happens in other articles does not matter. What you want to add to this article makes no sense, it is a copyvio and it is not a quote, but a word for word copy from the source. It also does not belong in the lead. Your copyvio says: "The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics." Why "but"? What is the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes"? Why the use of "but" to join the two sentences together? What do "some Illyrian roots" have to do with "their ruling classes"? Also their ruling classes were Greek, they did not "adopt Greek cultural characteristics", because they were Greek. So this is misleading as well. The whole sentence does not make any sense either gramatically or historically. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 21:43, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry now, but before u said " "Modern discourse" concerning the origins of the Ancient Macedonians", and Alexikoua mentioned "all possible theories about the origins" so i dont think it is now the case to definetly affirme that "they were Greek". i said if u want u can rearrange the words of the text, the importan is the source.u are asking me WHY? but we cant know for sure why they addopted greek culture (maybe the greeks were a stronger and more civilized group) or anything else for sure, maybe they were mixed because of living in continuos contact, with illyrians or maybe even thracians. this is why i think the text should be added for a more neutral point of view and to give a better idea to the reader. I found the section where it talked about the "possible roots/origins",as it was asked from me by alexikoua, so i believe im going to add it there, in beetwen two theories.hope i explained myself.–—RcLd-91 (talk) 21:59, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Please answer my question: I repeat: Your copyvio says: "The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics." Why "but"? What is the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes"? Why the use of "but" to join the two sentences together? What do "some Illyrian roots" have to do with "their ruling classes"? Also their ruling classes were Greek, they did not "adopt Greek cultural characteristics", because they were Greek. So this is misleading as well. The whole sentence does not make any sense either gramatically or historically. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 22:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

First off, i didnt say they had illyrian,greeks or anything else of roots, the word "probably" and "some" lets the people know that maybe or partially or even not at all they were related to the illyrians,that depends by ones judgement, but i think that before the conclusion the theory should be added, just for a better point of view. Second, its not me but the source that says it,when i tried before to remove sth that i thought it shouldnt be here the words given to me were:"restored referenced tex" just like that,without saying anything else, i suppose because its not easy to remove the refernced parts...So i dont see why the case should be different here.the connection between "some Illyrian roots" of the Macedonians and "their ruling classes" is the same conection that a group of people might not be always leaded by their ethnicity, for example,the greeks during the ottoman empire when the ruling classes were turkish.Or maybe they wanted to follow a more civilized lead and system that the one the illyrians had, i said before this is not an "exact science" article. About a previous arguments here, i found the word "possibly" in a section on this page "...possibly having originated from the same (proto-Greek) population...", so the argument of vaseal words isnt a strong one, we know that these type of words are used on different articles on wiki. Since u insist im going to change the gramatical or historical meaning of the word so that it makes sense and also not be the same copy/paste that u stated. i suppose the referenced text should be back on.—RcLd-91 (talk) 22:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)