Talk:Old Smyrna

Needs expansion

There is so much more to be said. I laud the archaeological approach but it needs to be integrated with the ancient sources, which can be found in ToposText. There are some fine points missing, such as the fact that Smyrna was razed by Alyattes and remained villages for 400 years until Alexander decided to restore it. Botteville (talk) 09:49, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Inappropriate citation

For example, Izmir in the Library of Congress Country Studies (Turkey) Archived 2009-08-26 at the Wayback Machine, by the US State Department Archived 2008-12-19 at the Wayback Machine, by the UN in legal treaty texts Archived 2011-05-19 at the Wayback Machine, by the British Foreign Office Archived 2009-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, in Encarta Archived 2009-06-07 at the Wayback Machine (first listing is Izmir, secondary is İzmir), in Webster's Archived 2009-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, by the BBC Archived 2009-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, by the London Times Archived 2010-06-06 at the Wayback Machine, by CNN Archived 2011-05-20 at the Wayback Machine, by CBC Archived 2008-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, by NPR Archived 2018-05-21 at the Wayback Machine, by the Washington Post Archived 2017-12-10 at the Wayback Machine. The Turkish spelling İzmir is also seen in English texts, for example, in the Encyclopædia Britannica Archived 2010-10-18 at the Wayback Machine.

This citation urges to find out one or two simple facts about the name change by seeking the help of the wayback machine to download every single book in the CIA' country series to find Turkey and then open this huge volume in the most tedious way to get something that does not even come on line except after a 15 minute wait and hours later search out instances of Izmir only to find the name change isn't there, and then to go through this with several other wayback machine voluminous lookups including the whole encyclopedia Britannica just to get instances of the name change being reported. I object. I put this mighty reference over here out of the way in case anyone has the time to look anything up in it. Meanwhile I will try to extract a few facts about the name change from it. Gee whilakers. The Greeks attempted a take-over of all Turkey. They lost. They were then thrown out of Turkey in a bloody battle at Smyrna. Get used it. Messing up Wikipedia is a childish act like stamping your pretty foot. All that was a century ago now. Give us a break.Botteville (talk) 12:46, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

PS I can't use this. A citation calls for a work, such as journal or book, with a page number or heading title. These are just invitations to search one or more journals or books for any relevant material. I'll see what I can find now. Note: taking these sources off the wayback is no help at all. If there were no specific references to begin with there won't be any in the wayback either. I guess this is partly why I am taking this on now. Can't just forget it. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 14:48, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I got a probably deserved accusation concerning my use of the term ridiculous with regard to the citation above. It was misinterpreted as my calling the research ridiculous. I should have known better than to use such a term. Of course I do not think anyone's research is ridiculous. If I thought that then I would have to say I was one of the most ridiculous researchers on WP for the work I often do on it. What I meant is, the reference is so badly formatted that to ask the user to do the amount of work you have to do to decipher it is ridiculous. References require page numbers or other guidelines to the information referenced. Just to throw out several books or series of books or series of articles and say, in effect to the user, the information is in there, go ahead, dig it out, is a ridiculous demand to make. What you had to do to find the information, of course, that is not ridiculous, but others must be able to find it as well. On that one anyway, as the complainant pointed out, the the name Izmir is not ancient, but is modern. So, it belogs back under Izmir. However, I cannot put back such an inappropriate reference. I think it would not be inapproriate to suggest to the author of the reference to learn to do a better reference. Also I think the wayback machine is an unnecessary complication. Those material are still available without going to wayback. The time you have to spend waiting for wayback to drag up and check all those publications also is ridiculous, even if it was necessary, which it isn't.Botteville (talk) 12:27, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Recent ref check

All right. Thanks for your view. My main goal was to get all the ancient stuff together, which you perceived. The question is what to do with it once it is together. Thanks for your suggestions as to where NOT to go. And, thanks for using the proper tag notation for it. I take it we want to be minimalist and present a balanced view as much as possible. I see you've accepted my outline. Cool. I was beginning to wonder where you were. Now, at this point the material has been moved over but it had its referencing and disorganized presentation problems before it got moved. So, it did need the tags. I haven't really got started on it yet. There are still unfinished parts of the localization and chronology. My inclination at this point is to go on developing it on line. I would only change my mind and dump the finished thing in if I got undue interference. I wouldn't regard your legitimate views expressed in the proper way as that. But, don't expect it all to be fixed all at once. It takes a long time to do this. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 10:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)